I’ve made it very clear what I think of FCC Director Ajit Pai.
[such a two-faced crony, can’t stand this lying ass]
Pai is former lawyer for Verizon and current
guy who assures us that we don’t need net neutrality and that
greedy ISP lobbies aren’t salivating like cartoon wolves
at the idea that they can gouge us and throttle us if we just
trust them to do the right thing. He makes me long for the
days when the only thing we ever heard about the FCC was them
fining people for saying “fuck” on TV. Was that bleeped? Don’t!
We’re on Facebook. Ajit Pai thinks we’re stupid enough to
believe the things he says about net neutrality are true. Ajit
Pai thinks we’re stupid enough to believe that since he is
current FCC director, that he isn’t in the pocket of his
former employers, and that he won’t go back for a cushy
private sector job with the industry executives he helped
make richer. He thinks we’re stupid enough to be willingly
slow-laned, and have the content we see controlled by the likes
of Comcast, or Verizon, or anyone else in the telecom
oligarchy. He also thinks we’re stupid enough to laugh at his
so-called comedy “Well, when I get out of jail for treason- as
Matthew Mcconaughey said, I may be older, but they’ll be the
same age”, but...there’s no way. How? No way that was ever going
to land. How divorced from reality…? The point is, he
thinks he, and Trump, and Betsy DeVos, and the other current
class of private sector profiteers can get away with
shorting out the American people for personal gain. He thinks the
American people are so divided and so willing to fall in line
with this side or that side, or that we’ll find the language of
net neutrality and communications so frustratingly
boring, that we’ll just let go of a fast and fair and
affordable internet, and put up with whatever slowly and
certainly worsening ISP climate there is until it’s completely
unrecognizable from what we have today. We’ll all be that cartoon
dog in the growing fire saying “this is fine.” This isn’t fine!
This isn’t normal! And speaking of fire...d, Ajit Pai, it’s time
for you to go. There’s an upcoming senate vote on whether
Ajit Pai gets another term as FCC chair. It’s happening
Monday. Republicans are expected to approve him, Giving Pai 5
more years to destroy the internet as we know it. And they
hold the majority. So it’ll probably happen-- but not
without a fight, and not without a debate pointing out why he’s
wrong. Senate Democrats are starting a campaign to stop the
confirmation, and finally fire Pai, with Sen. Maria Cantwell
taking the lead. In her argument, she largely points to
Pai’s dream of destroying consumer protections, and also,
damningly, how he’s working against the public interest.
Free Press Dot Net has a petition and an easy-to-use tool
to help you tell your senator you want Ajit Pai fired, and
that a vote for Pai is a vote to destroy the internet. And that
we, voters that have no love for cable companies, like the
internet. The link’s below, and you should absolutely click it.
Ajit Pai isn’t a difficult-to-read individual.
His record speaks for itself. But I’ll remind you anyway.
Pai's primary objectives are to kill net neutrality, loosen
regulations and generally let his old bosses have their way
with the American people. Gross. Since assuming the FCC chair
position, Pai has stopped 9 small ISPs that provided
broadband services for low-income areas as part of the
the “Lifeline” program. He stopped schools and libraries
from being able to avoid expensive, incumbent service
providers, eliminated competition requirements in the
Charter-Time Warner merger (which killed efforts to give
consumers more than one viable internet choice). And even
though it’s his damn job to ensure Americans have access to
high quality broadband, he is poised to reclassify what
broadband actually is, leading to much slower speeds for almost
everyone. Not only will that leave us with lousy broadband
service,but large incumbent ISPs would have zero incentive to
improve, essentially leaving our speeds in stasis, while the rest
of the world’s improves. Did you notice a pattern? Pai has a
history of : 1. undermining small ISPs chances of success,
ensuring monopolies in some parts of the country; 2.
buttressing profits for large, expensive incumbent ISPs - an
industry he used to work in, by the way; and 3. sticking
Americans with slow, expensive coverage with no hope of
improvement. Senator Cantwell was right. He is absolutely
abandoning his duty to the public interest. He only works
for private interest, believe me. Which leads me to the other
shitty thing he’s helping to force on us. Sinclair
Broadcasting, a news network currently working toward
monopolizing the local TV news market across the entire
country, is a Trump favorite for a reason. They have must-run
pieces they force local news stations to air. Besides
production values worse than that dancing pumpkin video, they
feature horribly racist grandpa content like this. “And mayors
in 22 french towns are ignoring a high court's ruling that says
banning burq-inis is illegal. More than 30 towns initially
outlawed the swimwear mostly worn by Muslim women. From the
terrorism alert desk, I’m Michelle Marsh.” “What the
fuck?! That is not about terrorism! It’s just about
muslims!. And the stations they control HAVE TO run it. All
current 173 Sinclair-owned stations. Some markets cleverly
put them at a dead time slot, but Sinclair broadcasting is
absolutely controlling what local news airs, and making them
air some genuinely horrifying content. Shouldn’t at least
local news be agnostic about party rhetoric? And if Pai has
his way, Sinclair will buy Tribune Broadcasting, giving
them access to 72% of TV-owning households in the country.
Imagine this on 72% of all TVs “They’re unhappy with the timing
of the comments, or the fact that the president correctly
acknowledged that there is hate and violence coming from the
left as well.” There is not good side to what Pai is offering us.
If he succeeds, we’ll spend years trying to dig out of a
terrible broadband situation, instead of improving, like the
rest of the world. He’ll try to convince you he’s a smiley,
goofy nerd. And maybe he is. But he’s also a corporatist, a
profiteer, and is absolutely working against the people he’s
supposed to be serving. He makes a mockery of government -
granted, he’s not the only one, but we’ve got to take every
opportunity to dissent from the corporatization and
privatization of the internet and from those who would allow a
hyper-partisan corporation monopolize the local news media
in every city and town in America. Right now, the best way
you can fight back is to click the link below, and tell your
senator to fire Ajit Pai. I’m Kim Horcher, I wrote this.
Catch me on twitter @kimscorcher, facebook
@kimhorcherofficial instagram @kimhorcher