Couple of updates here on where Net Neutrality stands, from Art Brodsky and MyDD. It’s nice to see more Congressional candidates make an issue out of this (and kudos to David Harris and Tim Barnwell for being at the front of the line), but it’d be a lot nicer to see a lot more of them take this up.
On a related note, this bit by Matt Yglesias about the netroots-versus-Mike McCurry flap (McCurry is flacking for the telcos in their fight against Net Neutrality, and has taken a sadly typical “Help! I’m being oppressed by a bunch of rowdy online hooligans!” approach) is spot on:
One of the most neglected aspects of the blogosphere, in my opinion, is that precisely because it’s (mostly) composed of people who aren’t professional journalists, it’s composed of people who are professional doers of something else and know a great deal about what it is they “really” do. Consequently, the overall network of blogs contains a great deal of embedded knowledge. The consensus that emerges from that process can, of course, be mistaken but even though the most prominent people expressing that consensus may not be experts in the subject at hand (the most prominent bloggers tend to be generalists), the consensus will almost always be grounded in some kind of well-informed opinions. If you want to push back on that, in other words, you’d better know what you’re talking about and not treat your audience like a pack of mewling children.
Amen. The sooner some people figure this out, the better for all of us.