Selling the World

In the midst of all the troubling things that go on in the world of economics and politics, something happened that seemed like a small thing.  The Court of the land decided that telecommunications companies like Verizon and Comcast have the right to offer more data bandwidth to paying customers, and to restrict the bandwidth available for free to the public.  This means that giants like Amazon and Google will be able to pay a fee and make sure that their pages load faster than pages that rely on the free infrastructure of the Internet.  This is a decision that basically does away with "net neutrality," it does not mean that free pages like my little blog here are going to disappear, it's just going to mean that the interweb will be biased in favor of those who can and do pay for privileged status.
If you want to know why this is bad, listen to the radio, yeah they still have a thing called radio.  Most radio stations are owned by a conglomerate called Clear Channel, which means that you will hear the same sorts of songs, separated into the same sorts of genres, punctuated by the same sorts of advertisements and bland radio-jockey banter, all across the country.  Clear Channel, basically owns most of the radio frequencies that are open to be used by broadcasters.  Which is why most of the public radio stations on the FM dial, the classical music and college radio stations are all within the 87.5-91 mhz range.  The "open" frequencies go all the way from 87.5 to 108 mhz.  Most of which is entirely dominated by Clear Channel, and they have run all the little independent radio stations out of town.
This is what privileging those with money does to a "public" resource.  Whether it's radio frequencies, internet data or politics, it means that fewer voices can be heard.  And our Supreme court has made some bad decisions in this arena of late.  They have scrapped some of the rules about campaign finance in a move that specifically favors about 600 "super-donors."  The fact that the SCOTUS heard a case that essentially only affects 600 people and ruled decidedly in the favor of those 600 people, arguably at the expense of the public good, is disturbing.  In much the same way as the "net neutrality" ruling.
It's not that I think this is going to end the world as we know it, or even that it's totally going to wreck the interweb.  It's just a blatant show of bias in our culture for the rich and powerful.  In a nation that still makes some pretense of being a democracy, it is rather troubling to see the common people so apathetic as the inequity of their culture increases.
In our criminal justice system, a person who gets caught in possession of a few ounces of a regulated substance, can get more jail time than Bernie Madoff, who bilked thousands of people out of millions of dollars, and had a hand in almost totally crashing our national economy.
In our political system, the rich have a voice and the poor are lucky to have a vote.  There is a difference, you know, between a voice and a vote.  If you have a voice you are able to join the conversation and be heard (the being heard part is crucial).  A vote makes you a commodity to be accumulated by those who truly have a voice.  The voices shape the direction of culture, the votes pretty much just have to go with the flow and constantly seem to have to pick the lesser of two evils.
If Wal-Mart wants a zoning variance they can push local jurisdictions around, if Joe's Random Small Business wants one, well tough.
If Verizon want to tack on all sorts of extra fees and mysterious surcharges, they just do it, and you don't really have much of choice, what are you gonna do, use T-Mobile?  Not if you actually like your phone to work.  They own the infrastructure, and they suppose that means they run the show.
A wise Uncle of mine once told me that if you wonder why things are the way they are, in law or any other public arena, you have to understand that things don't just happen.  Things are the way they are because someone, somewhere wants them that way, and usually it's the person who has the money to throw at the problem who gets their way.
It takes a massive, organized popular movement to counteract the influence of one George Soros or a couple of Koch brothers, and quite frankly most of the proletariat just isn't paying that much attention.
Until we do, we're probably going to get what we deserve for our apathy.