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The story of net neutrality as an Obama-led takeover of the Internet has been a key Republican talking point for months, a talking point which has been refuted by internal FCC documents obtained by Motherboard using a Freedom of Information Act request. These findings were made by the independent, nonpartisan FCC Office of Inspector General an Inspector General. However, the findings were not made public prior to Thursday’s vote.
[...] First, some background: The FCC is an independent regulatory agency that is supposed to remain “free from undue influence” by the executive branch—it is not beholden to the White House, only the laws that Congress makes and tells it to regulate. This means the president cannot direct it to implement policies. In November 2014, President Obama released a statement saying that he believed the FCC should create rules protecting net neutrality, but noted that “ultimately this decision is theirs alone.”
[...] Since 2014, Republicans have pointed to net neutrality as an idea primarily promoted by President Obama, and have made it another in a long line of regulations and laws that they have sought to repeal now that Donald Trump is president. Prior to this false narrative, though, net neutrality was a bipartisan issue; the first net neutrality rules were put in place under President George W. Bush, and many Republicans worked on the 2015 rules that were just dismantled.
What happened, then, is that Republicans sold the public a narrative that wasn’t true, then used that narrative to repeal the regulations that protect the internet.
Internal FCC Report Shows Republican Anti-Net Neutrality Narrative Is False
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 20 2017, @02:57AM
the Soviet system also had to arm itself into bankruptcy thanks to American defense spending
Yup. (You forgot to put "defense" in quotes.)
USA has been a aggressor nation for over a century.
...but it wasn't USA alone on the offense.
A Major Cause Of The Failure Of Socialism In The USSR Was The Military Threats From Capitalist Countries [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [counterpunch.org]
[1] Kinda like "jumbo shrimp".
Actual Communism, as described by Marx, is international in nature; the brotherhood of Workers doesn't fight each other.
...and USA.gov didn't stop its militarism when the WWI armistice was signed.
It simply redirected that against anything that wasn't Capitalist/Oligarchical in nature.
USA.gov Kept Fighting After WWI Was Over In Order To Destroy The Nascent Soviet Union [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [counterpunch.org]
...joined by Britain, France, Japan, Canada, Italy, and others in breeching its borders. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [criticalenquiry.org]
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