The Glenn Beck Report

I’ve seen a lot of wakko stuff coming from the First Spokesbaby of the Mormon Waahbernacle. But this has got to be the lamest bad attempt at spin I’ve ever heard, even from Glenn Beck, which is saying a lot.

We need a bit of history on “net neutrality”. In a nutshell, what that means is when you request a packet of information or send a packet of information over the internet, it has an equal chance to pass through the system as every other packet sent or received. There are no preferences given to “paying customers” of the system because we ALL pay for it through our ISP charges, webhosting fees, and whatever other incidental costs to us as taxpayer/citizens.

The right wing business lobby has been licking their chops trying to change this “my packets are equal to your packets” system into a “pay for access” system where those who have money to spend (like corporations, for example) can pay off the internet services to give THEIR packets or packets of their choice PRIORITY over your packets. What this would result in is a multi-tiered system where popups, ads, and other commercial and business web traffic will go at high speed, your personal traffic will be down in the dumpster.

That’s the 10,000 foot overview. Into the discussion wades Glenn Beck, armed with an agenda but no real information, and RWNJ think-tank Americans for Prosperity toady Phil Kerpen, who is obviously no expert on anything except blowing smoke up the colon of America. Watch the clip:

OMG. Did I just hear Glenn say at 1:13 that net neutrality is analogous to “I don’t remember anybody saying in the 1930s that everybody had a right to radio and we gave away free radios through the government, and I don’t remember anybody saying in the 1950s that everybody had the right to free television but that’s where we’re headed now.” Oh, Glenn, you are such a FAIL. Your analogy is a total failure. It’s not even close to what net neutrality is about. First off, your straw man argument is phony because it’s based on the falsehood that there is a proposal to give away free televisions. Where did you hear that one, Glenn? LOL it must have been the voices that got through your tinfoil hat.

Further, your analogy FAILS because your dumbass attempt to confuse the medium with the hardware crumbles under the weight of its own stupidity. Broadcast media is one-way communications that is paid for by commercials or taxpayer funds. Internet traffic is two-way communication that allows people to send and receive content from their own hardware through the public internet system. What you’re proposing to do is to make it a PRIVATE system where members of the general public will have to pay $$ to private companies if they want to have equal access to the system. In other words, you are doing what you ALWAYS do, which is tout the AMERICAN CASTE SYSTEM.

What you ramble into at 2:50 is paranoid anti-government ranting (well, ALL of your ranting is paranoid and most of it is anti-government so this is stating the obvious) about how the FCC wants to take over television so it’s “all like the BBC”. FAIL. There is NOBODY in the FCC who has ever thought that, Glenn. You are a moron for saying it and your moron righty astroturfer Phil Kerpen is an asshat for agreeing with you. Laughable!

Glenn says you have to wait until tomorrow to find out whose behind the “conspiracy” to take over the internet. I don’t make you wait, you can see it all in the video and widget below. No waiting required.

Just in case you have any doubts about net neutrality, and why it’s really the only way to go, please watch the following video. It will take about 5 minutes.

Also, you might enjoy this widget, which interactively allows you to see the groups who are actively trying to make you pay extra for your bandwidth. You know the commercial where the brown-haired woman gets pissed off about a few cents tax on soda and then leaves the trunk open? If the people in this widget get their way, you’ll WISH it was just a few cents. Enjoy.