Protest Songs in the Internet Age

June 13, 2006 3:23 PM

The Broad Band has released an on-line protest song: God Save the Internet. Jill Sobule, Kay Hanley, and Michelle Lewis are trying to stir up a webgrass protest against what may already be a done deal. They are in favor of Net Neutrality, by the way.
posted by mmahaffie (30 comments total)

via Crooks and Liars ... which I should have added to the post itself.
posted by mmahaffie at 3:25 PM on June 13, 2006

Just say no to "webgrass".
posted by smackfu at 3:27 PM on June 13, 2006

Sorry smackfu, I couldn't bring myself to type "netroots." I am willing to eschew "webgrass" in the future.
posted by mmahaffie at 3:30 PM on June 13, 2006

it's not a done deal, it has to go through the senate, and a lot of senators have said they'd oppose it.
posted by delmoi at 3:40 PM on June 13, 2006

Internet protest: changing the world without leaving your armchair. It's been very successful in the past, I hear.
posted by reklaw at 3:47 PM on June 13, 2006

Works for Republicans, reklaw.
posted by dhartung at 4:05 PM on June 13, 2006

Internet protest: changing the world without leaving your armchair. It's been very successful in the past, I hear.

Only when a shady camera dealer tries to bait and switch an unsuspecting consumer. If only Congress sold us some faulty electronic equipment...then they would finally feel our wrath.
posted by any major dude at 4:06 PM on June 13, 2006

I can't care about this only because I think Jill Sobule did that horrible "I Kissed a Girl" song about 10 years ago.
posted by chococat at 4:17 PM on June 13, 2006

Y'know what terrifies telcos? The prospect of millions of customers canceling their wireline service and just going with their cellphones and/or cable+VoIP. It's already happening, and this is why they're planning for more services, like IPTV and VoD, to try to stop the bleeding. They're ridiculously late in doing this --possibly too late-- already but they won't admit it. Worse, they just can't resist an additional money grab while they're at it, which is why they want to be able to charge tolls to other providers.

Use this fear against them. Write them, and say that if they start manipulating your bandwidth to extort fees from content provders, you'll cancel your landline, and you'll advise everyone you know to do the same. Tell them that you have a phone line for one reason only: dedicated, unfucked-with bandwidth. And if you can't get that from them, you have no further reason to do business with them.
posted by George_Spiggott at 4:21 PM on June 13, 2006

george_spiggott: I don't think that will do you any good.
posted by delmoi at 4:39 PM on June 13, 2006

Sadly, in a capilatist society such as this, major decisions are often, if not damn near always, made per the financial implications.

This situation is no different. Despite the ethical aspects of the situation and the popular support for net neutrality, the final result will be determined by money, power, and control. I have accepted the fact that there will be a "multi-teir web" in my lifetime.
posted by Raoul.Duke at 4:39 PM on June 13, 2006

It's been very successful in the past, I hear.

Yes you heard correctly. Sometime it's even more effective then going down in the street and have somebody designate a "free speech" zone in which like cattle people will be menaced into ; yet it's hard not to understand one that doesn't want his head breaked because he dared manifest in freedomland. It's a lot better to underline how fascist a country can turn on a dime.
posted by elpapacito at 4:40 PM on June 13, 2006

What we need is a way to funnel money directly to politicians to get them to support our agenda.

Corporations can bribe politicians because they have a direct line, but there's no way for individual people to do so.
posted by delmoi at 4:40 PM on June 13, 2006

This situation is no different. Despite the ethical aspects of the situation and the popular support for net neutrality, the final result will be determined by money, power, and control. I have accepted the fact that there will be a "multi-teir web" in my lifetime.

Not like huge corporations like Microsoft, Google, Apple, or eBay have any stake in this.

There are huge corporations on "our" side in this, and that's why there is a reasonable chance it might succeed.
posted by delmoi at 4:42 PM on June 13, 2006

Delmoi- You are right, there are influences on both sides.

But what upsets me about this is that the final path taken will be influenced by money and power, not by any ethical considerations.
posted by Raoul.Duke at 4:47 PM on June 13, 2006

God Save the Internet

Because God loves amateur porn.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:51 PM on June 13, 2006

I think Arianna Huffington nailed part of the problem The name "Net Nutrality". It's not very inspiring. If it were up to me I would have called what the phone companies wanted "Subscriber Slavery". No one wants to be a slave, and that's kind of what the phone companies want, because they'll be able to sell you, and you won't be able to get away.
posted by delmoi at 4:55 PM on June 13, 2006

I saw Jill Sobule on Friday night and she was awesome. She mentioned, but didn't play, this song; she did play "Manhattan in January," though, which is a hilarious global warming anthem.
posted by aaronetc at 5:25 PM on June 13, 2006

What we need is a way to funnel money directly to politicians to get them to support our agenda.

PACs are not a new idea. However, it's a sad state of affairs when ordinary citizens conclude that they have to pay their politicians for the legislation they want.

I don't think that will do any good.

That's because you've never worked with the telcos, and you're not familar with what's going on inside there right now. They know that there's only one direction their market share can go, from its historic saturation level and that's down. And that's the direction its going. They can only do two things: diversify into the competing space (which they are doing), and expand their services to overlap competitors' (which they are also doing). But simply losing customers forever remains their number one concern.
posted by George_Spiggott at 7:18 PM on June 13, 2006

Jill Sobule?!? She is still alive! Fabulous! She once kissed a girl, but I (guiltily) enjoyed this cd much better than her one novelty hit.
posted by cubby at 8:40 PM on June 13, 2006

The fight over 'Net Neutrality' is really between a few Mega-Billion Dollar Corporations that own the pipes and a handful of Billion Dollar corporations together with many multi-Million Dollar corporations that have content.

It just so happens that the content companies are for once both the underdogs, and the sane ones.

It's only about the consumer in an ancilliary way, and the way the liberal establishment is bungling this obviously winnable issue is really sad. They lost the debate a long time ago.

See this 6 part (so far) series by wunderkind Aaron Swartz on exactly how the 'Think Tanks' have poisoned our political atmosphere.
posted by blasdelf at 8:51 PM on June 13, 2006

It's only about the consumer in an ancilliary way, and the way the liberal establishment is bungling this obviously winnable issue is really sad. They lost the debate a long time ago.

There wasn't one single democratic vote against net-nutrality.
posted by delmoi at 9:03 PM on June 13, 2006

In a roll call vote, 58 Democrats joined 211 Republicans in turning back the measure. Only 11 Republicans joined the 140 Democrats voting for the amendment.
posted by George_Spiggott at 9:26 PM on June 13, 2006

yeah, but they're framing the debate in a mediocre fashion.

They could have easily made this a slam-dunk win for net-neutrality. But they didn't. They used the words netroots and webgrass. For any normal person, that'll set off their douche-meter pretty hardcore.

They had to go straight back to the tactics that have never worked for them in the past instead of confronting the issue head on.
posted by blasdelf at 9:54 PM on June 13, 2006

In a roll call vote, 58 Democrats joined 211 Republicans in turning back the measure. Only 11 Republicans joined the 140 Democrats voting for the amendment.

Hmm, I had read that somewhere, They must have meant the committee vote
posted by delmoi at 10:14 PM on June 13, 2006

I tried to download this, but for some reason the download is taking a very long time. I know I have high speed because the video ads on my service provider's site download almost instantly.
posted by eustacescrubb at 5:09 AM on June 14, 2006

There were Democratic votes against Net Neutrality in Subcommittee and Full Committee before more Democrats voted against it on the House Floor. That said, many more Democrats have shown strong leadership on this issue, and the Leadership (Pelosi and team) have made it a priority and helped educate members of the House to see through the telco/cable spin.
posted by kenneth at 9:21 AM on June 14, 2006

Kay Hanley once hit me in the head with a flip flop.

Because of this long ago episode I will oppose this Net Neutrality!
posted by Captaintripps at 3:18 PM on June 14, 2006