August 10, 2008
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Politics on my Mind
Maybe blogging about this will allow me to get it off my mind. For a couple of years I have been occasionally pausing in my usually serene daily activities to scowl and grind my teeth over Ted Stevens’s ignorance and/or indifference.
In 2006 and 2007, the Snowe-Dorgan Internet Freedom Preservation Act (S.215) was “considered” in the Senate. The first time, “Senate leaders did not allow it to come to a vote.” [1] One of those leaders was undoubtedly Ted Stevens.
The 2006 elections brought new people into the picture, and the bill was reintroduced. What happened to it? I don’t know. I don’t keep up with politics. I can’t keep up with politics. As much as I enjoy keeping up with news on the local NPR station, KSKA, sometimes I turn my radio off for weeks or months just because the political bullshit raises my blood pressure and lowers my serenity.
One such occurrence of BS was on a statewide call-in show featuring Ted Stevens as guest. A woman from a bush village called in to ask him what his position was on net neutrality. He hummed for a moment, then said he didn’t know much about the internet and would have an aide look into it. She didn’t let it drop, but gave him a concise rundown of the issue and the bill, after which he said, “It won’t get my vote,” and told the show’s host to take the next caller.
It stands to reason that old Ted wouldn’t support net neutrality. The gatekeepers and their pet users who would be squeezed by it are probably among his campaign contributors, and perhaps, knowing the sorts of personal perks the man “allegedly” received from Bill Allen and VECO, they could be more to him than just political supporters. Never mind that they are not among the constituency that elected him.
In 2008, “Reps. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Chip Pickering (R-Miss.)… launched
the latest salvo in the struggle to keep the Internet free from
gatekeepers with the introduction of the “Internet Freedom Preservation
Act of 2008” (HR 5353).” [2]. It failed in the House Energy and Commerce Committee.What do you think? Is this, or should it be, the people’s net? Will the fat cat gatekeepers keep winning? Will Alaskan voters re-elect Ted Stevens? My idealist/cynical answers to the above are yes/maybe/probably.
BTW, I turned the radio off again a few days ago. Somebody let me know if anything important happens, okay?
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Comments (10)
“One of those leaders was undoubtedly Ted Stevens.”
He lost his leadership standing long ago I believe he stepped down as committee chairman in 2006 right after his famous “series of tubes” comment. Since then we need a new whipping boy to blame for the lack of any laws on net neutrality, Nancy Pelosi for one. If she wants net neutrality it will happen. She does not want it.
Ted Stevens is likely gone, this last scandal should finish him off. Net neutrality is not going to happen, the present congressional leaders do not want it. No matter what they say about it, if they wanted it, we would have seen it already happen.
Long ago you taged me. I was real busy then, I did not see it. Sorry. And I never thought you were an idiot, really I was just very busy.
@trunthepaige - You’re busy, and I’m absent minded. I don’t recall when or why I “taged” you, whatever that is.
Ted was still chairman in 2006, the time to which I referred in that paragraph you quoted.
@SuSu - yes he was and he did not step down from all leadership positions until this year. But due to elections he lost the chairmanship in 06. Like i said (with some mistakes) he is just another senator and not the reason that net nutrality is being blocked. But if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wanted it, we would have it. And that is were the problem is. Ted Stevens is an ex problem.
@trunthepaige - I hope you’re right about the current non-existence of the Ted problem. I have thought so many times before that he was history, but my fellow Alaskans have always proven me wrong. We won’t know until November whether he’s gone or not. As long as he’s in the Senate, he’s a problem.
@SuSu - Well it looks like he may be going to jail this time. And I have been reading were your state’s Republican party is working very hard on him to not run again. They may support someone else if he does. To the national republican party he is a dead man. He just doesn’t know it yet
@trunthepaige - Wouldn’t that be lovely if he did go to jail? Even if he is convicted, I’d bet the judge would hesitate to give him jail time. We shall see. I’m trying, for the sake of my own emotional balance, not to feel all the outrage and despair elicited by the electorate’s continued insistence on putting assholes into office, then keeping them there when they allow some of the profits from their graft to trickle down to the voters. If Ted’s son Ben Stevens (a state legislator here) isn’t indicted and convicted in the VECO business, I’ll just have more annoyance and indignation to try to transcend.
@SuSu -
One of our congressman asked for and receive a very large amount of money to defend himself against the “bogus charge” of wire taping. He was convicted and given joke of a sentence. After which he admitted he did it and was proud he did it. He then kept the remainder of his defence fund, and won his next congressional race by over 70% of the vote.
In Seattle you get between 70% and 80% of the vote no matter what you do. So long as you are a democrat. I am guessing that Alaskans vote for republicans no matter what.
@trunthepaige - You guessed right. An astounding number of Alaskans are transplanted ex-military people who discovered that Alaska wasn’t the frozen wasteland they had thought it was, and moved here after they got out. Stevens also has a lot of personal pull with Native villagers because he came from the bush and has pulled a lot of Federal funds in there during his reign. His lawyers want a change of venue for his trial. If that happens, a conviction might not happen.
Democrats or Republicans, neither one is the “problem”. Is the problem politicians, the corrupting influence of power, or the apathy and ignorance of voters? All of the above, I guess.
Your Alaskan teddy bear doesn’t sound very cuddly, but I’d hug him anyway.
I really try to avoid politics as much as possible but like a dog drawn to its own vomit, I keep on coming back to it! Heh.
Honestly, I don’t know how these politicians can handle the stress of remembering whose ass they are supposed to be kissing on any given day. It’s bad enough to just listen to it on the radio, but living it would be next to impossible (for me). I guess that’s why they say some people are born bull-shitters, I mean politicians.