No reason to miss his speech.  I recorded the entire thing using evoca.com.  Check out the link:
 http://www.evoca.com/everyone_recording. jsp?rid=9283

andrew.

That's a very good point.

It's funny, because not too many people are hitting him because of the Telecom Act. He's just obviously a crook.

He has bad decision making skills all around.

phat

I wouldn't be surprised if it something akin to their opinion on the 'Fairness Doctrine'.  You may recall that the Fairness Doctrine required radio stations to air equal time to poosing viewpoints.  Once that was done away with, the right wing media completely took over the AM side of the dial, and claimed that was perfectly fair.  

They claied that liberals couldn't succeed because there was no interest in hearing their ideas.  The truth of the matter was that liberals broadcasters were run out of town by the station owners who were all supporters of the right wing media machine for business reasons (amongst others).

Net Neutrality is likely the same way.  Driven off the radiowaves, liberals have made a home on the net, and have shown how they can use it in many different ways.  It's our communications medium by and large, and we have pushed many issues onto the front page because of our presence.  The GOP would love to shut us down here too.

I read an editorial in the Wall Street Journal who claims that the telecoms who are providing internet service would be hampered from pioneering new services (such as better video streaming capabilities) if they are not allowed to make money from the content that flows along their lines.  I think that makes our point.  The telecoms do not need to be deciding what we see on the internet.  They do not need to be deciding how the internet is going to look in the future.  The users of the internet will make that decision by the free market.  If the playing field is not level, then we do not have a free market (in this case a free market of ideas).  

Of course, the other upside of this is that without net neutrality, the telecoms would have the ability to make life difficult for content that does not pay the internet toll.  It would cripple the blogs, and most certainly the liberal blogosphere which relies on the freedom of this media to communicate.  The GOP would likely be effected too, but not nearly to the same degree.  They would saw off one of their toes to chop off our legs.

So in that sense, it is the Fairness Doctrine all over again -- cripple the progressive voice so that the conservatives are the ones who can set the agenda.

The technical side of this is way outside my expertise.

But I can't help feeling that, as you say, the devil is in the detail, and that some deliberately neutered form of net neutrality would be attractive to Dem senators looking to cosy up to the telcos without flipping off their bestest new buddies in the lefty sphere.

(When Matt adopts that gloopy tone over a pol, it's wise to count your ideological spoons!

What to do with this lot?:

Harry Reid just told me that he strongly supports net neutrality and that he will not support anything going through the Senate that does not include protections for it.  

Is it just a personal pledge? And, if it is, is it a pledge

• to vote against cloture and passage;
     
• to vote against cloture only;
     
• to vote against passage only;
     
• to not vote in the cloture RCV;
     
• to not vote in the passage RCV;
     
• or what?
  

If Matt really believes he's got a commitment there, I fear that there'll be tears before bedtime.

And as for

He's saying that what has saved us is the blogs. To be heard, you don't need money, you need ideas.

Of course, he has the advantage of being there...)