The Story of Us: Five Years Ago Today

WE ARE THE CHANGE 2012

FIRST AMENDMENT FIGHT FOUND IN NET NEUTRALITY

Time Magazine/Getty Images

Net Neutrality is a "Flash-point" for "Big Government" tied to "Big Corporations" because they abuse their inferred power against the people who  gives it to them through votes and purchasing power. 

The explosiveness of this issue is obvious because "Net Neutrality Now" speaks to the simple protection of our First Amendment Right, against its further erosion.

But there are "big business" interests who consider themselves "big" in government who have "purchased" influence in "big government" who are asking government for the right to regulate the internet, or who "under their influence" play both sides and advocate for government regulation, in order to launch a campaign, to self regulate, set prices, slow web surfing speeds, curb free speech without supposed government intervention.

The main point is the protection of American's rights against the dilution or reduction of First Amendment rights by either government or business. The point is Bandwidth Capitalism and Bandwidth Socialism will not work. What is needed is a set of rules that codifies "Net Neutrality." 

Time magazine in their article "Net Neutrality: Flash Point for Foes of Big Government" reported Michael Copp the FCC commissioner to say: 

The Internet was born on openness, flourished on openness and depends on openness for its continued success," Copps told the crowd. "I suppose you can't blame companies for seeking to protect their own interests. But you can blame policymakers if we let them get away with it."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2016316-1,00.html#ixzz102aUMS7K

If his words mean what they say then, we may be heading in the right direction, otherwise allowing companies to create a tier system of speed over the internet amounts to "Internet Robbery" and gives control of the Internet to corporations, and becomes corporate welfare. 

Wired magazine in their article "Building the Internet Toll Road" makes it seem a harmless sure thing, and does not come out against the most blatant attempt of corporate theft of public services.

Why do we have to pay to allow a corporation to make it easier for a few to pay for better service. When there are millions without internet service, millions with poor internet service, and millions who are unemployed  and can't pay for internet service. 

Why make these people suffer? Instead, let's keep President Obama honest and make him put these people to work. Let's put the unemployed to work and have them build out the rest of the country's internet highway.

A "Toll" sounds harmless, but it in effect, commercially bypasses the law and cuts off our First Amendment rights . 

If Congress attempts any of these laws directly or creates actions that obviously removes or abridges our rights they will have an outraged nation on their hands.

Join the fight for "Net Neutrality Now" and write your Congressman and Senators and let them now where you stand and what they must do to protect our First Amendment Rights.

As a Reminder, Again

If we continue with our current apathy and leave corporations unfettered, without checks and balances, corporations will find  ways to commercially protect their interests without respect of our rights.

Before they abridge our Internet freedom of speech and press, and before Congress allows corporations to enact systems, tariffs, levies, or service tiers we must set out to fight against these "Speed Tiers and Internet Tolls."

More importantly allowing these companies to create a system that violates, impedes, and differentiates the free flow on information over the internet will impede the free exercise of religion, infringe on our freedom of speech, and infringe on the freedom of the press, and interfere with our rights as citizens to freely and peaceably assemble over the internet.

Moreover, we will see a "grass roots" prohibition and restriction, over the internet, of our ability to petition  for governmental redress of grievances. Under the 2007 S1 omnibus "Ethics Reform Bill,"  allowing corporations the ability to charge a toll, a levy, amounts to government sponsored censorship.

Creating a "tiered" for "better" service will impede "grassroots lobbying."  It will discourage the voluntary efforts of millions of people. Members of the general public will not be able or will be deprived, impinged, the ability to communicate their own views on any issue to Federal, state, and local officials, and will discourage and cut off other members of the general public to do the same. 

All a clear violation of the Constitution and the First Amendment.

This an election issue, Join the cause,write Congress Now and Demand Net Neutrality Now! 

COASTAL TOURISM: THE ECONOMIC ENGINE THAT CAN RESTART THE US ECONOMY

Here are some Cold Hard Facts, gathered from the book An Introduction to Coastal Zone Management, by Timothy Beatly,et. al., in fact everything garnered in this essay is a direct quote and is attributable to this text:

NO single agency at the federal level has the exclusive control over coastal management, and there is no single or unified coastal zone policy or strategy that guides or coordinates federal actions or programs. Thus, coastal zone management responsibilities are fragmented and dispersed at the federal level.

In this fragmented system, the programs and policies of different federal agencies often work at cross-purposes. For example FEMA provides disaster relief and flood insurance, and this promotes development in hazardous areas, thus working at cross-purposes with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management (OCRM).

Because some policies are designed to work in concert with other coastal management programs and authorities, and because these agencies are dispersed across different federal agencies, there is no unified national strategy for managing our national ecosystem and our coastal zones.

This fragmentation provides the federal government the opportunity to revamp and create a new system that reflects a strategic national policy for the management of the coastal zone, as one system.

The system's focus would then work in concert to create American jobs, boost our economy, and provide for the sustainable management of our coastal resources. The potential to kick start the economy with effective coastal zone management is tremendous because of these facts:

• Already MORE THAN HALF of the US Population reside along the coast and in coastal watersheds (Bookman et al.1999) 
• by 2015 US Coastal population will grow to 166 million
• The Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, and Southeast coastal regions of the US are expected to experience the most population  and development growth
• Of the nation's 20 fastest growing counties, 17 are coastal
• 80 % of Californians and 60% of Floridians live  live within 10 miles of the Coast
• In 1960 62 people lived per coastal square mile by 2015 the population on the coast it is expected to rise to 327 people per square mile

These facts present clear demographics changes, challenges, and opportunity to assemble policy and to help jump start our economy. It also provides insight to direct political capital: political influence, and political stratagem, to direct and manage the most pressing challenge of our generation, the management of our coastal zones and communities. 

More importantly, it provides the administration and its leadership the opportunity to focus on two pronged (long and short term) strategy to jump start the economy with coastal management.

More Statistics on coastal use indicates the extent to which the US is using coastal areas for recreational purposes:

• Some 180 million Americans visit the coast every year

• National Park Service data suggests that visitation to national parks, national seashores, and national monuments have risen markedly.
• 77 million Americans engage in recreational boating

Coastal tourism is an economic engine now!

The Obama Administration and it's analyst have given a hard look at traditional sources and ways to invest in, in order to quickly jump start the economy, we need to look at a new paradigm for growth led by population trends and coastal zone use.

Limited resources, and the pressure of a possible doubling of our population by the year 2025 must force us to look at our coasts and the coastal pressures and its critical management issues as a means of investment to help jump start our economy, and move it into the 21st Century.

More Data Shows that:

• The American coastal zone remains the location of major cities and urban agglomerations
• 14 of the nation's 20 largest cities are located on the coastal zone
• Recent decades show that uses of coastline have shifted to include more recreational uses 
• Resource use of coastal zone remains significant in agriculture, fishing, oil, gas and minerals extraction

The big point is that:

COASTAL AREAS ARE ECONOMIC ENGINES, GENERATING SOME $54 BILLION IN GOODS AND SERVICES AND 28 MILLION JOBS.

All of this important to know when considering how to kick start the economy, but just as important are the pressures, problems and policy issues that go with population and development growth.

The substantial issues that arise from coastal population and development pressures also present long and short term opportunity for investment.

A consortium of public and private investment can helps us out of this economic and environmental hole we are in. The Army Corp of Engineers can create and developed major projects to energize the economy. Projects that involve coastal planning, and policy, mitigation and reinforcement, protection and conservation, energy development, and marine/fishery management, social equity and quality of life.

The Challenge is to Sustain the Coast, Spur the Economy, and Create Millions of American Jobs.

How we manage the following issues will be pivotal in forming a comprehensive approach to saving the American economy, and way of life.  All of the following issues can be can be addressed separately, but clearly they are interrelated and key to the well being of the nation.

• Coastal Storm Mitigation
• Shoreline Erosion and Sea Level Rise
• Strategic Retreat or Coastal Reinforcement
• Protection of Coastal Wetlands and Resource-lands
• Energy Development and the Coast
• Biodiversity and Habitat Conservation
• Marine and Fishery Management
• The Coast as a Recreational Commons: Protecting Access to Beaches and Shorelines
• Social Equity in Coastal Planning
• Coastal Sprawl, Land Use Pressures, and Quality of Life
• Private Property versus the Public Interest in Coastal Planning

Tackling these issues presents opportunity for creating millions of jobs across the board and across this nation, but more importantly it will keep the jobs from being outsourced, because these issues are exclusive to the coastal regions of the United States.

 

The solutions and benefits that come out of this will therefore promote local, regional, and national commerce and industry. The immediate and direct impact to the economy will be enormous. Not only will living wage jobs be created, but well paying jobs that will also affect the quality of American life now and the American Way of Life for many generations to come.