FCC Votes to End Net Neutrality

This has been a long, long year politically. The bad news just never stops coming.

But then again, when you vote for a clown like Donald Trump, you have to expect that he's going to bring the circus to town, right?

And so he has. I remember one Trump supporter suggesting that Donald Trump would get things done once he was in office, if elected.

Well, he was elected, and you cannot accuse the colossal prick of not getting things done. 

The only problem? Everything that he is doing is making the country, and even he world, worse, and most of it is being universally condemned by the rest of the world. 

You might think that with all of the time that Trump spends on the golf course, he would not have had much time for anything else, and that the damage that he has done to the nation would have been limited as a result.

No such luck.

This has been a year where we have seen President Trump gut the Affordable Care Act (ACA), making it easier for the healthcare industry and big pharma to charge still more money, and rake in bigger profits from people's pain. What's more, since he could not get a Republican dominated Congress to repeal and replace Obamacare, he decided to use his Executive Power authorities to do it, despite he and other Republicans blasting President Obama for using too many Executive Actions. A majority of Americans supported the ACA, but that did not stop Trump.

But that's not all! No, not even close. He also decided to announce his intention to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Accord, making this country stand alone as the only nation to reject action on climate change on the grounds that we do not fully believe in it, or do not believe that we can or should do anything about it. The entire world, and a vast majority of Americans, opposed him doing it, but what does that matter, since this really is not a democracy? Just to illustrate further the extent to which he does not believe in science, Trump also briefly looked directly into the solar eclipse. What a stupid, arrogant man he is.

He is cut funding for Meals on Wheels, claiming to do so out of compassion. He attacked middle income Americans by making it more difficult for them to afford homes, by tying to get rid of overtime pay, and by forcing waiters and waitresses to give up their tips. Then, of course, there is his tax scam, which would benefit the rich, and basically hurt the poor and middle class down the road. Polls show that a majority of Americans are opposed to these things, but as we are finding out, that rally does not matter.

Now yesterday, still another victory for Trump and his corporate friends. By the slimmest of margins in a five person vote, the FCC ruled to end net neutrality. 

What does that mean? It means that ISP's will get to control your internet more, and force you to pay them more money for so doing.

Democracy, right?

Here was a very good summary that I came across in an article by Patrick Lucas Austin (see link below):

Today, the Federal Communications Commission, in a 3-2 vote spearheaded by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioners Michael O’Rielly and Brendan Carr, repealed the Obama-era legislation deeming broadband internet a Title II utility. In short, the FCC has voted to relinquish the ability to regulate ISPs, giving companies like Comcast and Verizon the ability to throttle your internet speed, charge even more money for access to websites, and restrict access to streaming services until you fork up some extra dough.

Yes, they gave up their right to oversee the internet industry, in the spirit of increasing "freedom" of big, rich corporations to fleece Americans even more. This measure passed, despite an overwhelming majority of Americans being opposed to it, because that is how things work in this country nowadays.

American liberty and democracy is bleeding out by a thousand small cuts every day. But these wounds are starting to grow bigger, and the injuries more blatant, with the administration that we now have in place. 

It almost feels like we have no democracy left worth saving, sometimes. And with the mindset that far too many people in this country have, we can apparently look to be the laughing stock of world for many more years, even decades, to come. 

Now That Net Neutrality’s Dead, Here Are The ISPs You Can Choose by  Patrick Lucas Austin, December 14, 2017:

https://lifehacker.com/now-that-net-neutrality-s-dead-here-are-the-isps-you-c-1821292661