Did They Really Think We Wouldn’t Fight to Keep the Internet Free?

May 17, 2010 05:59


Robert McChesney explaining their push for net neutrality: “At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies. We are not at that point yet. But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control.” And McChesney’s broader agenda? His ultimate endgame? Again, his own words: “In the end, there is no real answer but to remove brick by brick the capitalist system itself, rebuilding the entire society on socialist principles.”

By Phil Kerpen – FOXNews.com

The Obama administration and its friends at the Federal Communications Commission thought they could impose sweeping new Internet regulations without anybody other than far-left, Netroots activists like the fringe group Free Press noticing. They failed.

Americans for Prosperity and many free-market allies have blown the whistle and are now educating the vast majority of Americans — who are happy with the unregulated Internet as it is — about the threat posed by regulation.

AFP’s mission is to maximize economic freedom, make government smaller and less intrusive, and make America more prosperous. Free Press’s mission? Let’s start with its founder, Robert McChesney explaining their push for net neutrality:

“At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies. We are not at that point yet. But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control.”

And McChesney’s broader agenda? His ultimate endgame? Again, his own words:

“In the end, there is no real answer but to remove brick by brick the capitalist system itself, rebuilding the entire society on socialist principles.”

Yet Free Press claims that their support for sweeping new federal regulation of the Internet is about encouraging investment and free market competition. Somehow, it rings hollow when Free Press puts out a statement saying:

“The Federal Communications Commission is simply pursuing a path that will ensure that the free market works for the American public, something that prior FCCs failed to do.”

So the Internet hasn’t been working for the American public? Really?

How can making the free market “work” mean having sweeping public-utility style regulation, a return to the “golden days” of dial-up Internet or even the old national Ma Bell monopoly? How can competition policy be such a serious error, when, in the words of Free Press ally Public Knowledge’s Communications Director Art Brodsky, the Internet “has been the greatest creator of wealth we have ever seen”?

FULL STORY



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