McCain Fights For Municipal Broadband > ?

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Well, being someone who used to be of your persuasion (paranoid ranting about how America is really a fascist one-party media state controlled by the shared interests of "big business") I can say, now being someone who lives and works in Washington D.C. NOT for the elite but monitoring issues as a journalist on one specific issue, utility concerns (who has NEVER been instructed how to write by any of his superiors, though has been told his "spin" was too left or too right when bias on my part appeared), that there are two parties and they are often vastly different. Environmental issues are one of the gaping differences. Democrats vote to have things like emissions cut all the time. More often than not, democrats are anti-clear skies and don't like the idea of "paying" for emissions violations. They thing you just shouldn't "violate" them. Most republicans contend that there's really not much evidence either way about what emissions or if global warming would actually cause a strictly negative affect on the environment. Plus, republicans are very often involved in oil industry. Of course, so are a lot of democrats, but its not their interest group that pays them. No, democrats receive their funding from lawyers and medical groups (doctors and hospitals). No surprise then that democrats interests are often geared towards those interests.

The point is, even if much of what motivates the parties is funding, that still in no way reduces the fact that they are funded from very different interests and often have very different views. Nagalaz, you also seem to think, from your post, that somehow "big business" is one party, which is really just not the case. Big business conflicts with itself all the time. What's good for the petrol industry is not good for the hydrogen industry. What's good for telco and bad for another. For example, municipal broadband is supported by companies like Dell and other hardware/software distributors, because more broadband means more stuff for them to sell to people. Broadband ISPs don't like it, because, well, they can't charge whatever price they want whenever they get around to installing networks based on a perceive demand.

Nagalaz, I wish the issues were so simple. I wish that senators and congress were harmless. It would be very clear then who to blame for the world's problems. However, the United States is the third largest country in the world and as such has incredible diversity in almost all ways. I suggest living in some foreign countries and observing how their governments and cultures collide/coalesce before attempting to understand the US. Compare our minimum wage with the minimum wages of countries with workforces of comparable sizes. Compare sexual equality in America with sexual equality in the far East (Japan in particular, most misogynist culture I've ever lived through).

The US is complicated because we have so many people or so many different lifestyles bringing so many voices to the marketplace. If you think McDonalds and Hollywood run OUR lives, just see how much those companies have succeeded in dominating the lives of others around the world.

However, that's not the US. Those are US companies. And there are plenty of French companies that do similar things (a French-owned label gave us that lovely role-model of unintegrity, Britney Spears, not to mention plenty of other entertainment phenomena that did their fair share of damage to the American psyche).

Anyway, the point is, the poor feel it anywhere. No, its not their fault. People are exploited all over the world for sex, resources, man power. Believe it or not, people are exploited less here. Especially women.

Yeah.

Nice take, broadbanderexpanderc
Yes, we're a country of many different cultures, opinions, ect..
We're also a Republic(I.E. reprepsisitentive government) to where all views are heard.
That's what people seem to forget.
They seem to feel that they are at the mercy of THEIR government. That's because the majority of voting age Americans DON'T vote.
Now, as far as this thread goes, let the individual municipalities decide for themselves for local broadband issues, and leave the "feds" out of the loop.
The breakup of "MaBell" back in the early 1980's is a great example. Now we have SBC, Verizon, and all the rest. What happened to "the baby bells"? They got assimilated("we are the Borg. Resistance is futile).
Texas Rep. Pete Sessions-you need to get a clue, Sport. Representative Government(and I mean at the city level)-not Socialism, will bring Broadband to the masses. Let the local folks where they live decide if they want to pay for Broadband HOWEVER THEY WANT IT!!!! It's their choice, not yours(or your wife's).

P.S. broadbanderexpanderc,
If you're poor in the United States, that's only because one is a lazy M.F., look'in for welfare!