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jimbo2150
join:2004-05-10
Youngstown, OH
| Define Politician
The American Heritage Dictionary defines a politician as follows:
•
•One who is actively involved in politics, especially party politics.
•One who holds or seeks a political office.
•One who seeks personal or partisan gain, often by scheming and maneuvering: "Mothers may still want their favorite sons to grow up to be President, but . . . they do not want them to become politicians in the process" (John F. Kennedy).
•One who is skilled or experienced in the science or administration of government.
http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/politician
Now lets step back and take a look at this...
A politiician, by #1, is simply someone looking for a job in politics.
By #2, a politician is someone who seeks nothing more than more (wealth, status, etc.) for themselves. Note also the most appropriate quote that was given by J.F.K..
Finally, by #3, a politician is someone who "knows" how the governments works. Unfortunately, by #2, this would only be used for personal gain.
So I have to ask you all... if the definition of a politician sounds nothing like the definition of a "leader" (link)...
Then why do we have politicians running for leadership positions?!?!
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- "Techie" Jim | |
Kamus
@com.mx
| Anyone who doesn't see how this will affect the internet should really do some research on the matter.
The fact is that these steps the telcos want to take are for nothing less than make the internet crippled, a lot.. pretty much the same way it used to be for them: "we have cable, you pay, we give you TV, you have few choices" same applies for telephone companies.
People can't afford not to realize, that the internet remaning as open as it is, is FAR from socialism, in fact it encourages TRUE capitalism.
With an open internet we experience a true open market, and it's supposed to get better witht he huge technology advancements, who are the telcos trying to fool making people think that further advancement in speed on the internet is not possible unless they get a premium from their partners?
the technology for faster internet has been available for years, anyone who doubts this can go to china, korea or Japan among other countries to confirm that current technology makes it possible for 100 mbit download speed, not to mention comparable upload speed.
Why is this a huge deal?
because the internet is the one tool, that is giving people power, power that used to be limited to companies such as network news such as CNN, fox, etc. power that used to be limited to people such as huge record companies or movie companies.
with the internet people are able to rival and surpass CNN, record companies, movie companies, cable companies and telephone companies among others.
Just think about the potential for a second.. who the hell needs 3 points of view on the news of the WHOLE WORLD when you can have millions of points of view instead in the form of blogs?
who needs to buy cable from a handful of companies when the internet would allow for hundreds, scractch that, thousands of providers?
who is going to need a telephone when you can get programs like skype evrywhere?
Hell, if anything the air waves that companies like the TV networks use should be RE-USED for wireless internet, afterall, what's stoping NBC or FOX from broadcasting their crappy programing on the internet just like their competition will? all we would need is an IP TV box built in instead of an analog or heck, HDTV turner with evry TV. now THAT'd be true competition.
So while it's not bad that the internet is run by the private sector when it comes to offering the actual pipes to customers, i don't see a reason why there shouldn't be an internet in the airwaves available for evryone.
there's still people out there that don't realize this potential TV is in the airwaves for evryone, so why is something that is FAR more important in the long run than crappy TV networks not there?
The answer is simple, protection to current monopolies, and this new "idea" the telcos have come up with is nothing more than a move to avoid being destroyed by the internet. Afterall, if the internet continued to grow like it's growing right now, they would be destroyed, or at least wouldn't be monopolies anymore... but what the hell do 300 million americans care if they are destroyet by the competition? the people afected by that would be far less than the people that will benefit from an open internet, and when i say far less, i mean it. Pretty much evryone would benefit from more competition, except the monopolies.
If you guys aren't "paranoid" about this issue yet, well you should be.
I live in Mexico, and as some as you may know for the last 5 years we've had a different goverment for the first time in like 65 years before that. well for the last 5 years some senators from this new goverment (and a few of the old) had been fighting for a new law for the radio wave space, to prevent concentration from happening (read, monopolies) however, senators wouldn't even consider the law to be put up for debate... that is until now.. which is very convinient since we're very close to presidential elections here, and all of a sudden a new law regarding this came out of nowhere that not only consolidates the monopoly TV companies have, but it makes it FAR worse.
This law only beneficts the duopoly in television from Televisa and TV azteca, and of course includes Telmex, which is a huge monopoly for telecomunications, owned by "Carlos Slim" who right now is the third richest man in the world... that's right, the third richest man in the world is in Mexico, a country where 40% of it's citizents live in EXTREME poverty.
What this new law does, is it pretty much guarantees that this two TV companies end up with 92% of the air waves for themselves, and would allow them to offer internet service via those airwaves with out the need from aproval from the SCT (which is kind of comparable to the FEC). and of course would allow telmex to offer TV service.
So as you can see, in Mexico the battle has allready been lost, they have pretty much managed to privatize TV completley and they are taking the internet along with them, so as you can see, here in Mexico the inetnet won't even be up for debate, because they pretty much now own it.
They did this by taking advantage of the up and coming elections, the TV companies of course promised positive exposure to the parties that agreed to pass the law, not surprisingly the law passed with out much fuss, a lot of senators where against it, but they have been banned from TV, you can only read what they have to say in some news papers... and in.. you guessed it, the internet.
So can you see how the internet is a much more powerful tool than TV could ever be?
Taking away network neutrality from the internet would be killing it, it would be like going back to the same monopolies we've had forever, and it would leave a country in a disadvantage that would have tremendous economic impacts in a very negative way.
just ask yourself this question... who owns culture? the people? or corporations? | |
TechieZero
Tools Are Using Me
Premium
join:2002-01-25
Wesley Chapel, FL
| Did anyone here get this guys point?
I guess some people think that supporting and expanding the net must cost nothing, as everyone here who works to do just that work for FREE.
Its too bad that these people who may work for free don't get a free car, a free house, and free vacations too. | |
Kamus
@com.mx
| "I guess some people think that supporting and expanding the net must cost nothing, as everyone here who works to do just that work for FREE."
i don't know what world you live in, but i live in a world where technology is capable of much more than what current telcos offer, for the same price, again. all you need to do is go to japan, Korea or china and confirm this for yourself. and first of all, OPEN internet is a completely different thing than "FREE" internet. there is no such thing as a free internet, every internet user pays for access, and it's not cheap either. you are kidding yourself if you think that because 20 years ago people had to pay a lot for telephone service it has to be the same way now.
Are you completely ignoring the technology advancements? seems so to me.
And to make matters worse, in the early 1990's. the Telcos promised to build a fiber optic network all the way to the house, by 2006 the promised 45mb down and 10 mb down as the norm via fiber optic (which, surprise surprise, is still a far cry from what other countries now offer).
so it was a promise right? they don't have to keep it.. ahh, but you see, the promise wasn't for free, they got HUGE tax breaks to build this network, and they were allowed to charge a broadband fee to the public too. but instead of building this network the telcos invested this money in other stuff such as long distance, and because of lack of government intervention the US is now far behind in the broadband race, by the way, those tax breaks and broadband fees where supposed to be huge, we're talking billions of dollars here. | |
TechieZero
Tools Are Using Me
Premium
join:2002-01-25
Wesley Chapel, FL
|  The internet is and always will be open. Its all a matter of building and connecting to the existing infrastructure. This costs money, so of course the people doing are asking for breaks as they are trying to make money and do it cheaply. Regardless of the tech being used, it all costs money. New bleeding edge tech even costs more money up front as we all know. | |
jimbo2150
join:2004-05-10
Youngstown, OH
| I think what Kramus is trying to say is not much to do with money as much as the greed of companies that is controling the market. Typically, customers control the market.
For example: If company A starts "misbehaving", the customers could simply run to one of many other companies (B, C, D, E, etc.) for the same thing. This would "punish" company A by decreased profits and less customers and less trust in the company. They would then have to do something to regain customers & trust (better products, advertising, etc.).
With the larger companies in monopolies they typically forgo this market that is run "by the people". In this way the only way to keep them in line, make sure they bring new and innovative products to the market, etc. is by government intervention. Unfortunately in Mexico and now the US this is not happening, and these monopolies are like children running free without parents; free to do whatever they want, learning to con people (legally?), etc.
I would have to say "don't kid yourself". Even with all these reports from these same companies claiming that competition is plentiful is clearly a lie. Although in some areas (like areas where deployments like Verizon's Fios are), there is little to no competition going on in a majority of the US. Typically people either have one or two companies to choose from. Typically both are not competing with one another either. Speeds and prices are getting to far apart, internet "packages" are getting too dissimilar at this point.
I'm sure you're going to slam me for this, but I believe we NEED government intervention at this point or these companies will continue to get worse before they get better. This current "next gen" deployments... probably wont meet quota by 2010 even.
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- "Techie" Jim | |
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