The depraved soul of Comcast, and the actions of heroic girls

If you haven't heard enough about Comcast to disgust you yet, check out the stunt Comcast pulled regarding a non-profit summer film camp for girls. Comcast displayed raw vindictiveness when one of the girls showed disrespect by criticizing FCC Commissioner Meredith Baker Attwell for taking a high-paying job lobbying for Comcast only four months after approving the Comcast-NBC merger. The details of the story are shocking, and these girls have become my heroes. Here's the account from a letter I received from Free Press today:

When Seattle’s Reel Grrls – an award-winning program that teaches teenage girls to make their own media – criticized Comcast on Twitter for its outrageous hiring of FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker, Comcast came after them. A Comcast VP immediately fired off an email saying the company was cutting off $18,000 in funding it had pledged for a summer camp teaching filmmaking, editing and screenwriting. Without those funds, the Reel Grrls camp won’t happen. We need to stand up to Comcast’s censors – and show these young media justice activists we’ve got their backs. Can you give $25 to Reel Grrls to keep their summer camp going without Comcast’s cash? Reel Grrls didn’t back down or delete their tweet. They didn’t let Comcast silence them. Instead, they called their allies and alerted the media. And once the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Associated Press got hold of the story, Comcast suddenly changed its tune. It claimed the threats were "unauthorized" and said it wouldn’t yank the funds. But Reel Grrls are sticking to their principles. They’re telling Comcast to keep its money if it’s going to try to censor what they say.

Here's yet another account of this story that includes the Tweet that started the troubles. After reading these accounts tonight, I was so moved that sent the girls $100 to help them carry on with their education. If you're interested in helping out, click here. This story illustrates the vast power the big telecoms have and the fact that they are all-too-willing to abuse that power. This is an illustration of what the telecoms have in mind for all of us with regard to net neutrality.

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North Carolina caves to telecom attack on community broadband

Free Press issued this press release today:

WASHINGTON – North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue today refused to veto a bill that will hinder towns’ and municipalities’ ability to build their own broadband networks, ignoring of thousands of phone calls and emails from her constituents and others around the country concerned about communities being stranded on the wrong side of the digital divide. The bill, pushed through the statehouse by Time Warner Cable and CenturyLink, stifles local efforts to bring faster, affordable broadband to areas of the state under served by the incumbent phone and cable companies. Free Press President and CEO Craig Aaron made the following statement: “In refusing to veto the bill, Governor Perdue sided with powerful phone and cable companies and against efforts by local communities to build their own crucial communications infrastructure. Rather than stand up for her constituents, she ignored their voices and thousands of others from across the nation who had urged her to stand up for real broadband competition and choice. “The big cable companies view these municipal upstarts as major threats and are willing to shower local legislatures with campaign contributions to block their way. North Carolina is just the latest example of what phone and cable incumbents are hoping to do across the nation. Though they’re unwilling to invest in their networks or extend them to communities that need them, they won’t allow anyone else to do it. They’re now threatening to introduce similar bills in other states where municipal broadband efforts are poised to provide citizens with cheaper and faster alternatives. “In light of what has happened in North Carolina, we need federal legislation that would protect the rights of communities to build their own municipal networks. Protecting local communities’ ability to build their own networks was a key recommendation of the National Broadband Plan, and such legislation has attracted bipartisan support in the past. Millions of people across the country lack access to broadband Internet because big companies like Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink and AT&T chose not to extend services to where they live. These same companies – and the politicians whose campaigns they fund – should not be able to block local governments from offering the Internet service their constituents need.”

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Quid pro quo over at the FCC and Comcast

It's time to investigate FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker, who voted for the Comcast merger with NBC only a few months ago, but is now leaving the FCC to become a lobbyist for Comcast. This is outrageous. Three words: Quid pro quo. She should headed for prison, not soaking up a big lobbyist salary at the expense of United States citizens. Here's some low-hanging fruit federal investigators. Let's see if they do the right thing, or if they do anything at all.

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Corporatized political ritual presenting itself as “news”

To my dismay, my law office installed a flat screen high definition television in the lunch room a few months ago. You couldn’t design a better device for shutting down spontaneous conversation in the kitchen. I’ve also been dismayed to see the kinds of topics covered by the networks, hour after hour. The major news networks pump out endless headlines about war, terrorism, conflict, freaks, athletes and celebrities. There is also a constant droning on by economics-charlatans. All of it punctuated by commercials attempting to make me believe that I’m a failure because I don’t own something. I’m trying to look at this television invasion as an opportunity to be more knowledgeable about television “news.” When I go in to refill my glass of water in the kitchen or grab a snack, I often take a small camera so that I can capture something bizarre about the “news,” so I can illustrate a post. I’ve rarely been disappointed. There is always something wacky going on, both on the shows and on the commercials. The way they present the “news” is news to me because I don’t watch any live television at home (we do watch movies, but no live TV), so I only know the news by clips I choose to watch on the Internet. Seeing bits of the news streamed in live, day after day, is shocking for many reasons that I’ll be discussing in future posts.

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