OT-Re: Comcast

[Marvin Bellamy]

"But arm-chair activism never worked. Neither does standing on the 
street with a sign."
"Go around, not through."

These are the quotes of an utterly defeated man.  Admittedly, sitting on 
your ass doesn't accomplish anything, but discussion is the first step. 
 How many people heard of globalization before thousands of people just 
"stood in the streets with signs" protesting the WTC?  I suppose your 
argument is that you're just being realistic, but when your reality is 
to succumb to any obstacle, then you're done.  What happens to other 
broadband providers when they see that customers don't object to their 
practices since "it's in the license"?  Then, it becomes the industry 
standard.  Big businesses want to squeeze you for what you're worth, and 
the moment their customer bases start accommodating unfair practices, 
they unleash the hounds on you.

Adam Turk wrote:

> I believe what everyone has said, but if something must be done, then 
> someone must do it. Why quibble over conspiracy theories? They're just 
> theories until proven. We as a people seem to have been trained out of 
> activism by the wonderful, cloistered lives we live, where our voices 
> don't count and our rules are only followed by us. We're better 
> informed and more worldly trained than past generations. Information 
> on anything is available to us. We can make good decisions. We can see 
> the bad from the good. But arm-chair activism never worked. Neither 
> does standing on the street with a sign. It's the digital age. Find 
> services that work without being watched. Network. Don't 
> centralize. Go around, not through. They will always try to 
> gather 'marketing statistics'. They always have. Information isn't 
> just readily available to us, but also to them. Privacy is a right, 
> it's a freedom. Yes, it will protect the bad, but it will enlighten 
> the good, which is far more profound. Liberty is dangerous, but it's 
> the safest thing we have.
> </rant>
>
>  
>
> Adam
>
>  
>
> In honor of present holiday:
>
>  
>
> When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers 
> than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men 
> -- his crop of potential soldiers. Valentine, realizing the injustice 
> of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for 
> young lovers in secret. When Valentine's actions were discovered, 
> Claudius ordered that he be put to death.
>
>  
>
> 
http://www.historychannel.com/cgi-bin/frameit.cgi?p=http%3A//www.historychannel.com/exhibits/valenti
ne/history.html 
>
>
>  
>
> >>> Bradley Miller <bradmiller at dslonramp.com> 02/13/02 03:24PM >>>
> At 02:47 PM 2/13/02 -0600, you wrote:
> >They were only doing it to
> >make a really big and fast caching DNS server so you could all surf
> >faster.
>
> Think of AOL's "cache".  What's the difference here . . . except capturing
> the data by user?   Makes you wonder about lots of other things . . .
> doesn't it?
>
> -- Bradley Miller
>
>
>