I don't know what to do with all my anger.

The Netroots Nation conference drew more than 2,000 liberal/progressive bloggers and activists to Austin in July. Many of the participants brought laptop computers as well as iPhones, Blackberries and other devices to the sessions so they could “liveblog,” surf the Web, send email or otherwise multitask during lulls in the action (or even during speeches).

All I had was a reporter’s notebook, a pen and a backpack with a few samples of our tabloid newspaper.

When I introduced myself to some of these netizens, as they style themselves, I felt like a representative of an archaic profession. Bloggers do great work providing a sounding board for progressive politicians and organizations and truth-squadding neocon scalawags. But I came away with the stubborn conviction that there is still a role for dead trees in journalism.

Since the fourth grade, I have been close friends with a proudly self-identified Republican. He was raised in a politically conservative family, and his father was actively involved in the national Republican Party during the Reagan-G.H.W. Bush years. I, on the other hand, was raised by a liberal couple who still have their anti-nuke protest shirts dating from before I was born. Needless to say, we never agreed on much politically growing up, even before we really knew what we were arguing about. We both had very solid, loving families, and thus grew up with very positive but very contrasting worldviews.

I work for one of this country's largest employers.  Huffington Post was banned this week, ostensibly for its daily boobs and ass show.  Will DKOS be next?

--2 & 1/2 weeks

--11 plank categories

--137 participants

--More than 150 154 collaboratively developed draft planks

--550 ratings

The result?

One Unified Netroots Platform

Or it will be, with your help!

We are down to the closing hours to refine the planks of this netroots defined platform; plus two additional days to rate up or down the planks WE have collaboratively authored.  

You can still participate and make sure your voice is heard. But to make sure the best and most representative planks appear in our platform we need your help in the next 3 days, because we want to get this into the hands of the DNC and the Obama campaign in time for them to integrate your ideas into their planning.

To learn more about how, when and where you can still participate see the email after the flip from the Netroots Platform Committee:

We are the Netroots. We are powerful. We can lead the charge, and lead the change. Yes, we can!
You know that slogan everybody is chanting? "Yes, we can"?  Say it louder! That's "Yes, WE can!"  Or maybe even louder: "YES. WE. CAN"

That's the Obama I decided to support. Someone who wants transparency. Someone who wants all of us to actively participate in changing the direction of this country. So I was delighted to find, at my first Netroots Nation conference, that there was a group organizing an online "meeting" to allow all of us to have input into the Democratic Party Platform.

We, representing the netroots, have been invited to collectively use the tools of the net to define the direction of the Obama campaign, the Democratic Party, and ultimately the direction of our nation. Cool. (or Cooool, or Kewl - whatever)

We are down to the closing hours to refine the planks of this Netroots defined platform; and a few additional hours to rate up or down the various planks (we DO know about rating up or down around here, don't we???)

Flop over the flip to see an e-mail I got this evening from a lead member of the Netroots Platform Committee.

After enduring almost eight long years of Bush’s failed policies in everything from economics to the environment to civil liberties to education, we’ve all had plenty of time to think about what we would do differently if we were in charge.

Well we finally have a chance to put our heads together and write our own progressive platform. There’s a lot of issues and ideas out there – so we’re tapping the community’s wisdom to express our collective ideals.  Check it out and speak your mind!

http://netrootsplatform.org

If you’re thinking that you just don’t have time to write a political platform during your lunch break, don’t worry – you can still get involved! If you have a couple of minutes, you can look at what’s out there and rate the planks that best represent your point of view.  If you have ideas but don’t want to start from scratch, you can edit and remix what others have written to make them even better.  If you’ve already thought about your ideal policies, you can submit a new plank.  This is a democratic system that’s completely people-powered, so if the community agrees with you, your language will be used in the final platform.

    Like King Pyrrhus who won the battles but lost the war we might refrain from indulging a similiar attribution and reconsider the F.C.C. ruling before so eagerly crowning Chairman Martin, our digital tribune, with the laurels of his pyrric victory.  
   

The FCC's ruling against Comcast could actually be a Trojan horse, giving Comcast and other internet providers a way to get around net neutrality.

Instead of throttling Bittorrent, providers like Comcast will get the green light for implementing monthly data caps. This sounds all well and "net neutral" in theory, until you realize that data caps specifically cripple video.

This means that users will think twice before watching a political video, and they'll think twice before downloading a TV show from iTunes or renting a movie from a Netflix online service.

For the first time ever, the FCC has handed down a pro-Net Neutrality ruling.

Federal regulators voted 3-2 on Friday to declare that Comcast's throttling of BitTorrent traffic last year was unlawful, marking the first time that any U.S. broadband provider has ever been found to violate Net neutrality rules.

The Federal Communications Commission handed Comcast a cease-and-desist order and required the company to disclose to subscribers in the future how it plans to manage traffic. Comcast had said that its measures to slow BitTorrent transfers, which it voluntarily ended in March, were necessary to prevent its network from being overrun.

"We need to protect consumers' access, said FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, a Republican. "While Comcast has said it would stop the arbitrary blocking, consumers deserve to know that the commitment is backed up by legal enforcement."

Republican FCC chair Martin has been subject to a lot of backlash since he indicated a few weeks ago that he was likely to join the two Democratic members of the five-person board in ruling against Comcast. That includes a nasty warning from everyone's favorite orange-hued villain, John Boehner:

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- A day before the Federal Communications Commission is set to formally reprimand cable giant Comcast Corp. (CMCSA, CMCSK) for slowing certain Internet connections, the top House Republican says the action reflects "poor policy judgment" that will "hijack the evolution of the Internet."

In a letter sent Thursday to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, House Majority Leader [sic] John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the FCC is improperly inserting itself into a self- governing entity. "Congress has intentionally refrained from imposing the heavy hand of government, which is precisely why we have seen such rapid growth in the Internet," the letter said.

Right, just like Congress intentionally refrained from imposing the heavy hand of government in sanctioning illegal spying on Americans. Boehner and his fellow Republicans aren't acting from some deep civil libertarian let-the-Internet-run-free position. They're trying to protect their favorite constituency, the telcos and big ISPs.

Major kudos need to be paid to Free Press, which did all the research and filed this suit. Free Press didn't exist just a couple years ago, and this victory for them is a huge testament to the importance of building progressive infrastructure. In their words,

"The FCC's bipartisan decision to punish Comcast is a major victory. Defying every ounce of conventional wisdom in Washington, everyday people have taken on a major corporation and won an historic precedent for an open Internet.

"Comcast's history of deception and continued blocking show contempt for the online consumer protections established by the FCC. We commend Chairman Martin and Commissioners Copps and Adelstein for standing up for Internet users and working across party lines to protect free speech and the free market.

"Today's order makes it clear that there is nothing reasonable about restricting access to online content or technologies. Moving forward, this bellwether case will send a strong signal to cable and phone companies that such violations will not be tolerated.

"But the fight is far from over. A duopoly market -- where phone and cable companies control nearly 99 percent of high-speed connections -- will not discipline itself. We look forward to working with the FCC and Congress to ensure proactive measures keep the Internet open and free of discrimination, and accessible to all Americans."

Kudos too are due to Commissioners Martin, Adelstein, and Copps for standing up against really strong corporate and political pressure and doing the right thing. You can send your thanks to Kevin.Martin@fcc.gov, Jonathan.Adelstein@fcc.gov, and Michael.Copps@fcc.gov.

For reasons that have long since been divested of cultural sentimentality or youthful nostalgia I survey our disinfected political discourse, listening for music "that comes from a far better land." Waiting thus, almost conceding to a current norm which equates survey to apathy I justly fear that in this presidential season we may never cast off the chains forged in the fires of hatred and division forty years ago.  Worse yet I sense that as the self indulgent heirs to greater beings we have assumed their hard won mantle of activism without the requisite sacrifice and discomfort.  

Above the fold, two surreal videos. Below, a quick mention of some of the past week's pieces on ePluribus Media that you may not have seen and will probably find very interesting.  Opening volley: Surreal Videos -- "The Googling" Part 1 and Part III:

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After the flip, a brief preview of some of the great pieces currently on ePluribus Media.

Please consider voting for this story on Digg.

For the last few months, we at OpenLeft have been posting Democratic Senate challenger positions on net neutrality.  Since we started posting, we've been getting in statements and positions, from blogs like Cotton Mouth and the Political Base, from the candidates themselves, and from readers who took the time to ask and send in statements.  I'm happy to report that every single Democratic challenger with more than $500k in cash on hand has announced their support for net neutrality.  This is a milestone for the fight for internet freedom.  I included statements reacting to this news from Senator Byron Dorgan, Speaker Pelosi, FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, Google public policy director Alan Davidson, and Columbia Law Professor Tim Wu.

It's quite sad how little attention this is getting outside the corners of the internet where tech-savvy people gather, but perhaps the media thinks those are the only people who would understand it.  The overriding theme, the sound bite, the message, it's loud and clear and it can't be argued against:

Internet Service Provider X shuts down access to deep dark portion of the Internet where only pedophiles hang out.  Your children are safer now!

You have carte blanche to do whatever you want in this country if you can somehow, in some vague way - with connections basic enough so Joe-casual-news-reader can understand - tie it into protecting the children.  If the appearance of the children being protected looks good enough, it doesn't matter what reality actually is.

Besides, a good portion of people out there probably have no idea what Usenet is.

Hey folks. Nancy Pelosi will be taking questions at Netroots Nation Saturday. Oddly, nobody had submitted a question yet about Net Neutrality, so I just did. Would be kinda embarrassing if we forgot to ask her about this at a netroots convention. Can you vote here and give it a thumbs up?

Here's the question:

The Bush FCC slated Net Neutrality for elimination. Barack Obama pledged in an MTV/MySpace presidential forum to make the re-instatement of Net Neutrality a priority for his first year in office. Will you make that same commitment and pledge to pass Net Neutrality legislation through the House in 2009?

Here's Obama asking a similar question, submitted by a MoveOn member, on MTV:

Please vote here today!

cross posted at The Ohm Project (Yes, we're back up thanks to you and Computer Tyme webhosting!)

Yesterday's hearings before Rep. Ed Markey's (D-MA) House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet reminded those concerned about Internet privacy and free speech that there are a number of clear and present dangers coming from  several different sources, both private and public.

At one point, the CEO of NebuAd, a company that wants to get to know you better through "deep packet inspection" of your Internet traffic, objected to one of Chairman Markey's questions, claiming that it was the equivalent of "Have you stopped beating your wife recently?"

Markey countered:

No, no, no, it's 'Have you stopped beating the consumer?' is the question.

The head of the Federal Communications Commission reported late Thursday that he was recommending harsh punishments for Comcast as a result of the company's violation of net neutrality practices.  The unfair blockage of Internet access caused a flood of criticism to come at Comcast, one of the largest Internet service providers in the country, and this site was one of the main sources of that criticism, which almost certainly caused this decision.

More below the fold.

Just got this from a press release issued by Rep. John Culberson's (R-TX) office. The press release focuses on a proposed new rule:

"that would prohibit Americans from viewing content published by Members of Congress on websites that are not "approved" by the Committee on House Administration, the panel that creates rules governing the internal operations of the U.S. House."

Whoah.....
Normally I would dismiss this as asshattery, but given what they are going to do to the 4th amendment today, I am no longer so sanguine about the House protecting our constitutional rights.  So I figured it was worth checking into.  Here is what I found: