Comments on: putting the ME in media reform

By: gregory

gregory — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 12:41:24 +0000

which is a good place to offer that sooner or later we are going to have to look at the institutionalized greed that is american capitalism, simply because it is getting in the way of growing as a country, or as human beings within that country …. our greed is slowly killing us, i suggest

By: Frank Paynter

Frank Paynter — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 04:13:07 +0000

I love the way Frankston uses “regulatorium,” but I’m not sure I agree that it’s all bad. An uncorrupted FCC with strong statutory directions could flip the transport markets horizontally; and, for example, they could assure that those who deliver bits for a living don’t have a vested interest in whose bits they deliver. The regulatorium could mandate upgrades in everybody’s last mile so that we on edges in the USA are equal to Koreans and Japanese in available bandwidth. Part of my hope for Obama is that he takes a strong hand (like FDR) and helps straighten out the hopelessly corrupted and latterly deregulated “free” markets.

By: Doc Searls

Doc Searls — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 03:22:42 +0000

I’m with you on wankering neocon warmongers. That they have any credibility left at all amazes me.

As for the Regulatorium, it’s a term coined by Bob Frankston, a lifelong Democrat. Specifically, it refers to communications industries that live like zoo animals in the regulatory habitat mandated by Congress (in the 1934 and 1996 telecom acts) and controlled by the FCC. This is the system that makes saying “fuck” on the radio (and other forms of free speech) punishable by million-dollar fines, and is in deep cahoots with the telcos and cablecos to subordinate the Internet to ancient and irrelevant concepts of lines, minutes and channels, so the carriers can continue leveraging their old business models, at whatever cost to everything new.

It’s not really a gripe that falls along party or philosophical lines. Mostly it’s about a very broken system.

By: fp

fp — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 22:48:08 +0000

One way I’ve chosen to help is to spread the message that while there may be at least two sides to any story, the truth does not necessarily lie in between. Often the truth is on one side and not on another. Honest reporting, indeed real discernment, does not follow from presenting “both sides” and letting the reader choose which to believe. Honest reporting follows from asking probing questions and research, from clarity of expression, from presenting facts as facts and not letting rhetorical devices and obfuscations get in the way of digging out the truth.

“Ilk” is a noun that means “sort” or “kind.” “Of the same sort or class,” is a good way to read “ilk.” there’s probably a negative connotation implicit in th euse of “ilk,” but obviously we each are like others in many ways, and based on those likenesses we could be said to be of “that ilk.” Everybody has an ilk.

I’ll save the discussion of libertarianism for another time. Reading and listening to what you’ve had to say about the role of government, the “regulatorium,” and the free market I’m guessing that if you were to be pigeon-holed, the label would bear the L word. Nevertheless, I respect your desire not to be pigeonholed.

Can you agree with me in certainty that we absolutely don’t want to let these Neocon wankers run up a war with Iran?

By: Doc Searls

Doc Searls — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 17:28:56 +0000

I won’t be pidgeonholed as a libertarian, Frank; nor will I accept having an “ilk”.

But I do want to help, any way I can. More here.

My greetings to everybody at NCMR2008. Great conference.