Saving Network Neutrality Will Require a Culture War on Corruption
jeffreifman.com
http://jeffreifman.com/2014/05/05/its-time-for-a-populist-culture-war-on-corruption
jeffreifman.com
“contrary to what decades of political science research might lead you to believe, ordinary citizens have virtually no influence over what their government does in the United States.”
Then for his own proofs of that he first lists the abject failure of the top down, elite gun control movement since 1994 in the face of grassroots opposition (and often opposition to the eeeevil NRA; e.g. that 1994 "assault weapons" law was the first Federal gun control measure to pass without the NRA's OK).
For example, in 1986 less than a handful of states were concealed carry "shall issue" or better (I'm not sure it was more than Vermont, the only state to never restrict the bearing of arms, and Washington state, but lately I've been told Indiana had a good regime), them starting with Florida in 1987 it's swept the nation, ending with Wisconsin and Iowa in 2011, leaving around 8 states. Since then the courts, following Heller and McDonald, which wouldn't have happened without (indirect) gun owner support, have forced it on Illinois and California and Hawaii are in the process (resulting in a total of 90% (!) of the population), leaving only a few benighted northeastern states and Maryland.
This, and abject failure of post-1994 Federal gun control measures, the net gain in gun laws post-Sandy Hook, etc. etc. etc., is one of the most significant modern political developments, but he scores it as "corruption". You should realize you're in deep trouble when the only significant remaining anti-gun organization is billionaire Bloomberg's (not counting Josh Sugerman's VPC think tank) ... and he just had to do a refresh/relaunch of it.
Anyway, like gun control, I believe net neutrality abuses will result in productive political counter-reactions if and when they get bad enough that enough citizens get sufficiently upset. At which point the the telcos and cable companies will wonder what hit them.
Towards the end of the article Reifman proposes a thoughtful but perhaps overly-simplistic solution: a populist "culture war against the corrupting influence of financial power in government." But he doesn't develop this idea or offer any roadmap for how it would work. And it isn't clear that the culture war strategy which has been so successful for single-issue advocacy--e.g., marriage equality and marijuana legalization--would be a successful model for an abstract, theoretical, and systemic issue like campaign finance. Or at least, it isn't clear how this would work in practice.
Perhaps I'm underestimating the public, but I think it's considerably difficult to create meaningful conversations about the conceptual topics--e.g., theories of representative democracy--that are at the heart of this issue. While this issue is undeniably important, it is also--to all but the political science nerds among us--also undeniably unsexy, theoretically tedious, and difficult for the average person to relate to. I would be interested to hear him flesh out suggestions for how to develop a successful culture war that effectively educates and engages the public on these complex issues.