Well, I certainly hope that net nuetrality advocates in Dingell's district & throughout Michigan make thier views known.

On the DLCish side, Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Barney Frank are moving to put a partial repeal of Sarbanes-Oxley on the agenda.

Let's be fair.  Loosening Sarbanes-Oxley is good for the business lobby, no question about it.  But the fact is, Sarbanes-Oxley is a mixed bag, with some portions of the law that make sense and other portions that impose excessive regulation for minimal benefit.  With enough time having passed, we're in a position to look back in hindsight and determine which parts of the law have worked and which haven't.

A smart rewrite of Sarbanes-Oxley would be a win-win.  That's not to say I have any idea whether this will be a smart rewrite or not, although any time Barney Frank is involved I feel pretty optimistic.  I do think it's important that we not become ideologically wedded to corporate regulation whether it produces a benefit or not.  We can stick to our guns and still cut the business lobby some slack when they have a legitimate case to make.

Has anyone proposed enshrining Net neutrality in a constitutional amendment? It seems to me that a free and open Internet is the most powerful tool for democracy the world has ever seen. As such, corporate interests will keep attacking until they get what they want -- if not this decade, then next decade.

We need something stronger than mere legislation, imo.

Thoughts?

They ran during the election ad blizzard and they are still running.  On broadcast TV I have seen TeleCo ads that explicitly say that "net neutrality is bad for consumers".  On cable I see ads that are more subtle and do not refer to net neutrality explicitly.  Instead, they tout cable's long history of innovation and plead that cable not be regulated out of innovation.  

I saw one of those ads last night.

By K.C. Jones
InformationWeek

"U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who proposed legislation supporting their cause, is set to lead telecommunications policy for the House majority in 2007. So is U.S. Rep. John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, who said he would propose a telecommunications reform bill with public interest and net neutrality in mind.

Dingell is positioned to take over as the chair of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, which held hearings on the issue during the last congressional session. The committee presides over telecommunications and Internet policies. Markey will chair a subcommittee devoted exclusively to those issues.

SaveTheInternet also sees hope in the U.S. Senate, where all representatives who supported net neutrality were re-elected and several challengers who came out in favor of the issue were also elected."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/cmp/20061118/tc_ cmp/194500121

Personally, I'd like help in creating a googlebomb that would link "Quickbooks Pro" to "Organized Racketeering Enterprise." I just got off the phone with a job-stealing telemarketing representative from India who extorted an additional $199  from me for a product that doesn't meet any common-sense warranty of fitness.

But I think the Congress should be even more concerned with the rights of those who can't afford computers and DSL than with those who can.

To be sure, Silicon Valley and high technology companies in general have gotten a huge pass on every conceivable consumer and labor issue, including, not coincidentally, an only partially-successful attempt to organize the janitors who work second jobs at night emptying trash cans and cleaning toilets so that overpaid yuppies can spend happy hour drinking martinis and chatting about lazy Mexicans.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again, the problem is with the cockamamie electorate. Like the johns in big cars who keep the working girls in business, it's the citizenry who send the politicians to DC to do the telecom's business.

Is it any surprise the telecoms want to own the Internet? What could be more predatory than a cell phone bill, where the consumer is required to estimate his own usage and is penalized for bad guessing? What nastier and pettier violation of fair play than AOL-type memberships that are effortless to sign up for, agonizingly difficult to resign from? What more heartless than starving the poor of vitally-needed pay telephones to encourage the purchase of another wave of non-biodegrable electronic crap?

I've given up, in my advanced middle age, of ever seeing one big union and one big strike. But I've not given up on seeing the powerless become powerful through organization.

The bankruptcy laws will change when debtors (both bankrupt and merely teetering on the edge), from a union, and ALL register and vote.

The cruelty of the Katrina flood--and all it represents during the dry years--will end when every bus rider in America demands and gets public restrooms that are not for "customers only," because bus people individually are forgotten, despised lowlifes, but collectively a huge bloc of registered voters that won't be ignored.

Real tax reform will begin renters demand--and get--deductibility of rent payments, and when those who inherit less than $8 million from their parents or spouse get money from those who inherit more.

What better places to educate and register voters than at the bankruptcy court, the bus stops, and the apartment buildings? We could start anytime; the day after Thanksgiving would be good.

I'm not just for class war; I'm for winning it. The Internet is a valuable organizing tool, but so is Kinko's. Let's not only protect Net Neutrality, but also remember why we're doing it.

One of my favorite things about Senator-elect Jim Webb is that he's such a rockin' writer.  Virginians agree, given the backlash from Allen's attacks on Webb's novels.  Thanks for sharing Webb's op-ed, Matt.  It was the most well-crafted op-ed I've read in a long time.

Good and interesting analysis Matt. In terms of the political (and potentially substantive) details, Rothschild does now seem like a key player worth watching very closely.

I think you summarized a very broad and important set of fundamentally related issues when you said:

The trend of moving against unfair economic practices and the inequitable power relationships they spring from is real.  And it was the backbone of last cycle's net neutrality fight, which is about the public's desire to treat the internet as the commons it is presumed to be.  The ideal solution for business and political elites would be to recognize this new force in American society and alter their practices to accommodate it.

The book lays out key structural (e.g., property-ownership) changes that promise to greatly reduce our dependence on piecemeal regulatory approaches and other "band-aids" aimed at addressing the systemic imbalances and problems of the modern capitalist system.  For example, Barne's says that "If money circulates too unequally, the new code will alter the circulation, not be redistributing income, but by predistributing property."  It will make similar adjustments when there's too much corporate distortion of culture, communities or democracy itself."

Your comment about Webb's "stunningly populist" Op-Ed piece reminded me of some of the things Wes Clark said during his 2004 primary campaign. Listening to Clark, Webb and other vets (especially lifers), you get a strong sense of the military as a community, or even a large extended family, albeit one that exists within a fairly rigid hierarchy.  In key respects, people in the military experience the power and value of cooperation and "preserving the commons" (whether applied to their specific unit, the military as a whole, or the country they're trying to defend).

In a different but significant way, Tester--as an organic farmer in state full of awe-inspiring and sustenance-giving nature--is another new Senator who probably has a strong sense of the value of protecting the Commons.  

I can't help but think that these two Senators (maybe throw in Brown on labor, trade and economic fairness issues?) could and should emerge as advocates of a systemic "upgrade" of our economic and political system.  By using a "commons-based" argument to clarify an updated definition of "progressive", these two Senators can help drive new political understanding and policies, and accelerate the political realignment that seems to be underway in their states and regions.

How that could play out in terms of inside-baseball dynamics is well beyond my political-analysis pay grade.  But it makes sense to me in theory, and also at a gut level when I hear Webb and Tester speak.

...I guess the fun ride for accountants is over...  Man, it was good to be an accountant, thanks to Sarbanes-Oxely... big salaries... huge demand for labor...  sigh  Well, it was fun while it lasted...  now accountants can be put back in their place as the geeks no one likes...  :-(

I am glad that I never finished those accounting courses I was taking to get my CPA.  It seems that I have already wasted enough time and money on those with the accouting job machine now crashing and burning.

It keeps getting harder and harder for the middle class, doesn't it?  Thanks for taking away good American jobs, Chuckie!  

Mike

For what it is worth, I got an e-mail from Carl Levin saying that he supports net neutrality.  If I recollect his postion from before, it was I have no position.  

Even if net neutrality is "resolved" the computing and software industry is still so far ahead of the government in it's Satanic thoughts and business practices that any "legislation" will be a total non-response to a societal problem.

Let's not forget the MASSIVE coalition of supporters that have rallied around this issue.  Christian conservative groups, the NRA, and other traditionally conservative groups are on our side of this issue.  If not on the merits of the issue itself, this alone warrants that the Democrats should place themselves front and center in support of this issue.  It is one of those rare opportunities to make people reconsider their partisan affiliation.  If the ardent supporters of net neutrality on the right see how the Dems deliver for this issue, there's less of a chance that those right wingers will reflexively attack or dismiss the Democrats the next time the right-wing noise maching ratches up knee-jerk attacks against them.

In my opinion, net neutrality and election reform are the two major bi-partisan issues that are just waiting for one party to get behind in a big way and reap the electoral benefits.

Kevin Drum had a good post on this.

The conclusion?

But I think [Clay] Risen makes a sensible point: Sarbanes-Oxley may need some tweaking, but it isn't the bogeyman that conservatives seem to think it is. Likewise, putting a freeze on trade deals isn't the panacea some liberals seem to think that is. Centrism may sometimes seem like nothing more than a tic, but in this case it makes a lot of sense.

I'm in agreement with Steve M.  Small cap companies are being hurt by the strictures of Sarbanes Oxley, with little upside for investors.  It's a windfall for accounting firms and is spawning a lot of going-private activity, which takes the opportunity to own growth equities out of the hands of ordinary investors.  The costs of SOX compliance is also putting American companies at a competitive disadvantage with respect to their international peers.  A lot of lessons have been learned since SOX was passed, and I trust a Democrat-controlled Congress to improve upon the bill in a way that makes sense for investors and the folks running our public companies.