Progressive Wednesday

This Wednesday: Demanding Net Neutrality

Problem:

Right now, we have a free and open Internet. Sure, it can cost you a pretty penny to access the Web, but it’s an open sourced environment in many, many ways, and no one website is inherently faster than another. Sure some load faster because of the demands of Flash, or HTML5, or videos, but that’s about it.

However, there’s a major push being made by the country’s biggest and ugliest cable and telephone companies – Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, AT & T – you know, the ones that we have to fork it over to in order to find our favorite recipes, poems, news, social networking sites, chat, email…. (Wait… you’re on the Internet right now, so I can probably stop listing everything that’s on the Internet. That is, unless, you’re my 89-year-old grandmother—who makes a mean meatloaf—and I’ve finally convinced you to hop on the WWW with promises of my verbal acumen. Hi, Nonna! )  Anyway, they want to be “gatekeepers,” deciding which sites go fast, slow, or not at all. Read that last clause again: not at all. That’s the kind of control they literally want to have. Why? To stifle competition. To sell speedier connections to the highest bidders. To control content.  The result? An end to the most significant information revolution that has ever happened.

Anyway, Net Neutrality is the issue this week. What is it, exactly? Net Neutrality essentially means that WWW service providers cannot discriminate between different kinds of content and applications online. In other words, all websites and Internet tech all will continue to exist on a level playing field.

Net Neutrality drives technological innovation, free speech, economic growth, and a democratic sharing of information. Net Neutrality prevents service providers from interfering with our Internet experiences.  In the words of The Free Press Action Fund, “With Net Neutrality, the network’s only job is to move data — not to choose which data to privilege with higher quality service.”

Where do we come in? We need to fight back against the aforementioned behemoths that are spending hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying the FCC and Congress. And because there are many more of us than there are of them, and because we hold the power of our votes, and because tens of thousands of small and large businesses want Net Neutrality, too, we have a real chance to retain a freedom we’ve come to expect. And that’s a key thing about America: we can’t ever assume we’ll retain a freedom just because it exists now.

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Make Progress:

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Sign:

This doesn’t get much easier people.

Click the logo to the right. Sign your name to a petition put together by the aforementioned Free Press Action Fund. Join over 1.9 million Americans who are openly speaking to Congress, insisting that they act according to the freedoms we deserve.

Net Neutrality is the most important First Amendment issue facing this country.

It follows that staying silent on Net Neutrality is a demonstration that you don’t care about the freedom that you’d be choosing not to exercise. Wait. That sentence is a little confusing. Just sign the sucker, okay? You’ll thank us in ten years.

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Donate:

Five bucks. Half of a trip to see a lousy movie starring Ashton Kutcher (I realize this is redundant). A super-sized sack of crap from a fast-food “restaurant.” Hell, you can re-wear some socks and underwear and go another week without doing laundry.

The point is that you might not think that five bucks is much, but when enough people care enough to give five bucks, you’d be amazed at how quickly it adds up. Let’s go back to the movies for a second: a trip to a flick will set you back about ten bucks; just think of the insane totals that movies rake in every weekend. Those small amounts of money, collected together, make the news every single Monday!

Worried the Free Press Action Fund won’t use your money wisely? Worry not, my progressive grasshopper. 87 cents of every dollar donated supports their core campaign and movement building work to make the U.S. media system more democratic, diverse, and accountable.

Just click this sentence to help keep your voice in the ears of those who control what happens next.

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Watch:

Okay, so this video is a little dated (but barely), and yes, sure, it’s even a little goofy (I mean, there are cartoon alien spacecraft zapping the Internet with lasers), but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t explain what I’ve tried to explain in ways that cannot be misunderstood. So if you’re at all confused, please, please, please watch this video. (If nothing else, my favorite REM song off my favorite REM album makes a guest appearance.)

Net Neutrality is about power and who will have it: us or them. And yes, this is an either-or situation.

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Share:

Right now, as the Internet exists, consumers –you and me—have the control. We choose content, applications, and services available anywhere, regardless of who we use to log on. If we lose Net Neutrality, we’ll be faced with an Internet that lacks the freedoms we’ve come to expect, and it will look much more like cable TV. Websites, content, applications will be like channels, and we’ll be forced to pay to choose what we want to see (if we can see what we want at all, that is).

Right now, the Internet is a place of freedom, and it bucks the tradition of previous forms of media in that any site (including Progressive Wednesday) has the possibility of having the popularity, scope, and reach of a TV station. We value freedom of expression so much that it appears at the beginning of our list of rights. Rights we lacked and we can lack again. This isn’t a scare tactic on our part. This is the reality we face from big businesses right now, today, and tomorrow, until they give up or get their ugly way.

So this action is the simplest of all. See that “Share” button on the left-hand side of this post? It’s about an inch and change below this sentence. Click it and share this Wednesday with your friends. You can send it along on your social network of choice through that button or you can even email it.

The choices we make now, the actions we chose to take, will determine if Net Neutrality continues to exist or if decisions about content are decided in boardrooms. I think you know which one is more progressive.

iPhone = Capitalism as it should be

In case your television went out last week and your newspaper deliverer has been sick and unable to do his job, Apple released their iPhone yesterday. This cell phone/web browser/personal desktop assistant/calendar/email machine/camera/mp3 player/satellite navigation system/video conference caller/instant messenger/pizza cooker (I'm not 100% certain about that last one) had people lined up outside Apple Store doors for hours before it officially went on sale on iDay.

These people are affectionately called the iCult. While I am a big fan of Apple products as well as their business practices, I don't consider myself a member of this group. I was not in this line and will probably not own an iPhone for a couple of years; I simply don't need it.

But I have always and will always use an apple computer and support them over just about any other corporation. To me, they represent what capitalism should be.

I believe capitalism has two purposes: to create an opportunity for personal financial betterment, and to drive innovation through competition, to move society forward. Unfortunately the free market has rendered each of these nearly obsolete. It has allowed the few to absolutely control the financial wellbeing of the many, and rather than a push toward new innovation, companies in this country have reverted to making products cheaper instead of better.

Apple is one of the few exceptions to the second rule. Instead of putting an electronic terd in a box and selling it for 15% less, they aren't afraid to offer a high-quality, innovative product at a reasonable price. They push the technological envelope and are one of the last to represent capitalism as it should be.

If you want to see what will become industry standard tomorrow, just take a look at what Apple introduced yesterday. If all corporations took the approach that Apple takes, the United States might not lag so far behind the rest of the developed world in every field other than national defense.

Speaking from pretty vast experience, their products almost always work as advertised. I'm not the only one who thinks so either. I leave you today with two quotes about Apple from none other than Microsoft CEO, Bill Gates:

-The next generation of interesting software will be done on the Macintosh, not the PC.

-To create a new standard, it takes something that’s not just a little bit different; it takes something that’s really new and really captures people’s imagination – ” and the Macintosh, of all the machines I’ve ever seen, is the only one that meets that standard.

Photo c/o this lucky iPhone owner

I’m not lovin’ it: Stop

Stop eating fast food, plain and simple. Okay, plain, but maybe not so simple. We have become a society on the move (at least in our cars) and sometimes a quick meal at KFC is the only thing we seem to have time for. Plus, we've grown to like the food, maybe even love it. It's fast, convenient, tasty, cheap, and deadly. To prove my point, the ever useful numbered list:

1. Chicken served at McDonald’s, Burger King, Chick-fil-A, Outback, Applebee’s, Chili’s and TGI Friday’s was found by the Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine to contain PhIPm, a carcinogenic compound. In other words, it causes cancer and they didn't tell us.
2. To quote Eric Schlosser, author of Fast-Food Nation: “Fast food has become the operating system of today's retail economy, wiping out small businesses, obliterating regional differences, and spreading identical stores throughout the country like a self-replicating code.– To quote me: “It's like Wal-Mart that makes you fat.–
3. In the “duh– category, eating fast food regularly greatly increases your chance of becoming obese and developing diabetes. Even, or especially, in children.
4. The 142 billion dollars we spend annually on fast food exceeds the amount we spend on higher education. That would help explain more than just our weight problem.
5. According to the Worldwatch Institute, 12 percent of the national healthcare budget goes toward treating ailments caused by obesity.
6. Animal rights groups have won many lawsuits against every major fast food chain. Conditions have since gotten better, but are still a long ways from good.
7. The production of food by major fast food chains contributes exponentially to soil depletion, water and air pollution, the loss of family farms and rural communities, and even global warming.
8. Every fast food hamburger you eat contains meat from hundreds of cattle. Each burger potentially contains diseases from all of those animals.
9. Because fast food is so highly processed, much of its flavor is destroyed, so the tastes of most fast food are manufactured at a series of special chemical plants in New Jersey.
10. Major fast food companies are frequently involved in civil rights lawsuits for the treatment of workers at their supplier's farms, from Florida to China.

Sun Devils listen to their better (and sustainable) angels.

More and more we're seeing colleges and universities step up to the progressive plate offering up degrees that will help companies and governments in terms of sustainability. A new program at Arizona State University blends together study in “environment, economics, and social challenges.–

According to a piece in April 2007 issue of Fast Company, this new graduate degree will help teach students “how to make best use of limited natural resources while providing for continued growth.– This is particularly an issue in the Grand Canyon State, where the population has grown by 25% since 1990 (the same has happened in New Mexico), and in Nevada where the population has more than doubled in the same time.

These graduate students (and future Jeopardy contestants) will learn “to identify and provide solutions– ¦[regarding] rapid urban growth, sustainable energy and material use, and water management.– The latter being a serious concern in arid areas such as the Southwest (casually calling it “just a dry heat– is like calling Charles Manson “a bad dude– ).

Researchers are looking for ways to tackle heat islands, develop inventive fuels, and create new construction materials. Big business is taking note and several, even companies such as Wal-Mart and Starbucks, are lending a hand to the ASU program. According to the School of Sustainability itself, the program addresses all of the following:

• Adaptive Solutions to an Urbanizing World
• Sustainable Energy, Materials, and Technology
• Water Quality and Scarcity
• Social and Economic Transformations
• Biodiversity and Habitat Transformations
• Governance and Policy

Much like the new movement toward organic farming programs we wrote about earlier, this is another example of the ways economics, ethics, and education come together to help out communities and capitalism

There is money to be made to help deal with shortages of water, land, petroleum, and other necessary resources, and to do so we need people entering the work force with a 21st century kind of awareness of the American landscape, a landscape that's changing faster than a cow's cud into milk.

(Feel free to chew on that last metaphor for a while, along with this ugly pun. My apologies. I couldn't help myself.)

Let the banana boycott begin, baby!

Let’s say you or I gave 1.7 million bucks to, I don’t know, say a major terrorist organization or two in Columbia. I’m taking any and all bets that we’d find ourselves getting the waterboard treatment in Guantanamo. And likely we wouldn’t be heard from again any time soon.

Now let’s say you’re a major corporation cultivating and selling bananas, and you dole out dinero to known terrorist groups. In our Patriot Act times, you’d think your company would get more than a tiny slap-on-the-wrist fine. But according to the Associated Press, the not-so news-ilicious news goes like this:

Banana company Chiquita Brands International said Wednesday it has agreed to a $25 million fine after admitting it paid a Colombian terrorist group for protection in a volatile farming region.

In court documents filed Wednesday, federal prosecutors said several unnamed high-ranking corporate officers at the Cincinnati-based company paid about $1.7 million between 1997 and 2004 to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known as AUC for its Spanish initials.

So, what’s the United Self-Defense Forces of Columbia all about? Massacres of Colombians. Cocaine exportation. As you might suspect, I write with a sigh of resignation, there’s more:

The company also made similar payments to the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, according to prosecutors.

And what’s the deal with FARC? Well, let’s see:

FARC is Colombia's largest and best-equipped rebel group, with around 12,000-18,000 members — it is also one of the world's richest and most powerful guerrilla armies. FARC is responsible for most of the ransom kidnappings in Colombia.

And where does FARC get the cha-ching necessary for, you know, amping up the terror? Half from hocking drugs, and the rest from kidnappings, extortion, ransom, and, of course, now from the only sorta, kinda good folks at Chiquita bananas.

So, since it’s pretty unlikely that we’re going to convince the feds to put some of the head honchos at Chiquita in the slammer, we’re going to have to do what we can: boycott these bananas. Boycott, baby. In the United States, the way we choose to spend our hard-earned cash is our most powerful voice.

Chiquita doesn’t sell the only bananas in the U.S. (Dole and Del Monte are two others), and more and more there are options to snag fair trade fruit. Besides, as it turns out, an apple a day keeps the terrorists away.

Helping kids say (and eat) “Cheese!”

As I flipped through the March 2007 issue of Fast Company while sipping a cup o’ joe, I was taken a back after reading a piece on dental services for kids. Not just because of what I learned, but, you know, you don’t expect to read about teeth in a business magazine. But there is was, and here it is:

More than 20% of U.S. kids under the age of 19 — that’s 17 million — never see a dentist. Most qualify for free or very low-cost dental care. They just can’t find a dentist who accepts Medicaid or state insurance.

Thankfully, there are two fast-growing companies ready to handle this problem: 50 Small Smiles and Kool Smiles. (I really want to believe that the latter got its name from Kool & the Gang.) Each company specializes “in dentistry only for kids who qualify for government insurance.” And the plan seems to be working.

According to the Roanoke Times, the Small Smiles in that city had 2,100 patients booked before it even opened its doors. Small Smiles has locations in 46 cities (and hopes to “serve 2 million kids a year by 2012″), and Kool Smiles has 31 sites up and running. The Kool Smiles sites are designed with children in mind, offering waiting rooms filled with toys and play area.

Both companies provide low-income children quality health care and treatment, as well as an education about better dental hygiene. This is important for long-term health. According to the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, “severe periodontal disease…has been correlated with heart disease, stroke, less manageable diabetes, and respiratory diseases such as pneumonia, bronchitis and emphysema.”

You might think that because these businesses cater to poor kids that the quality of dentists would necessarily be lower. Not so. Some dentists are closing their private practices to sign up.

These business models teach us a powerful lesson — capitalism and progressivism aren’t mutually exclusive, in fact, they’re increasingly inclusive.

Photo click by this dude who digs grins.