We didn't stop the House Appropriations Committee from passing that nefarious legislative rider effectively defunding FCC efforts to enforce net neutrality, but the fight isn't over, because now the full House will vote on the Financial Services and General Governmental Appropriations bill that contains the rider, and CREDO helps you tell your Congressfolk to stand tall for net neutrality and fight any efforts to undercut the FCC's efforts to enforce its net neutrality rules. As you know, the rider would forbid the FCC from spending any funds to enforce net neutrality rules as long as three lawsuits against net neutrality are working their way through the courts -- and that process, as you know, could take years, meaning we could go for years without our government enforcing the internet freedom rules we fought for. I'm not so old I've forgotten the day Republicans supported net neutrality because net neutrality meant freedom to their constituents, too. Now they only support whatever their big corporate donors tell them to support. But if we raise our voices enough, we'll beat them.
Meanwhile, how did NPR's Morning Edition cover Congress's granting of "fast-track" authority for "free" trade deals this past Thursday? By talking to three corporate lobyists and zero "free" trade or "fast-track" opponents, even though the number of "free" trade or "fast-track" opponents in America is considerably higher than zero. The Morning Edition mentioned that opposition, of course, and then allowed one lobbyist to answer, in much the same way President Obama did, that "(t)he critics are just wrong." If we're "just wrong," it shouldn't be that damn easy to describe the multitudinous ways we're wrong, but if lobbyists don't do that, you can go ahead and assume it's because they can't. But the pro-"free" trade folks don't have winning arguments -- they say we're "just wrong," or they say ZOMG TEH CHINESE WILL CONTROLZ TEH WORLDZ!!!!, or they say we have valid concerns that can be addressed after their pet "free" trade deals get passed. The FAIR link at the beginning of this paragraph helps you contact NPR's ombudsman and ask why "free" trade opponents get such short shrift during this "balanced" "debate."
Meanwhile, the Freedom Flotilla III is currently heading to Gaza, to deliver humanitarian aid and protest the Israel/Egypt blockade thereof, but Israel has this unfortunate habit of attacking these flotillas when they come around -- in 2010, Israeli forces attacked several ships in the Flotilla, and killed nine activists, all because of, guess what, "ties to terror organizations" that remain unproven five short years later. Freedom Flotilla II never got off the ground in 2011, largely due to international opposition from elite governments if not the citizenry they nominally represent, and with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu having just received the blessing of the voters at the polls to continue his reign of error, things could go badly again. So Just Foreign Policy helps you tell U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to ensure the Flotilla reaches its destination unscathed. This is hardly some bleeding heart liberal position, certainly not when former IDF military intelligence head Major General Shlomo Gazit calls for the Flotilla's peaceful passage -- he thinks Israel can win the argument by not attacking the Flotilla, so let's at least have that argument.
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