Dr. Ford's Day in the Senate

I noticed a woman as she wrote on clear tape #MeToo taping it over her bright red lips and then she started to cry.  How many of us even in this era of the #Me Too movement are still speechless crying in private as memories of those moments surface in today’s crisis faced with potentially having not one but two Supreme Court Justices who have been exposed as sexual predators on the highest court in the land.  We are all crying, maybe not openly as this brave woman but she expresses the hurt we are all feeling.

The Women’s March put a call for women to gather in support of Dr. Ford.  I signed up to be counted on that Thursday, the day Dr. Ford was to be questioned in front of the world on her accusations that Brett Kavanaugh sexual assaulted her.  My friend agreed to go with me and I was glad to have company.  We ended standing in the back of the crowd because we arrived late. I started to take pictures a habit I have from my old journalist days.  We drifted to the steps behind the speakers to see the crowd, many of them wrote “I Believe” on their hands they were the real force of the gathering as they held up their hands from time to time chanting, “We Believe Survivors, We Believe Survivors.” 

I took refuge behind my camera so deep in thought I didn’t notice my friend comforting the woman with her mouth taped and tears burning in her eyes. She had her two girls with her.  We reached out to the girls talking and playing with them so that this woman could have her moment.  My friend comforted the woman, in a short time these two developed a connection.  

I froze as the woman cried, I have to confess sexual assault makes me uncomfortable.  As Dr. Ford’s story unfolded I got more and more uncomfortable like I always do.  Like other women if I was to write here #MeToo for every time I was sexual assaulted it would take up the whole page and if you think I’m uncomfortable now just thinking about this, I have become more uncomfortable as I write this. Memories of these untold moments are stuffed deep down in my emotional memories so that I don’t get uncomfortable.  Mostly of what you see is my anger not my tears.  The woman who cried has become my hero, she expressed what I feel in this whole narrative.  Dianne Feinstein got it right when she said, we have gone from blaming the victim to ignoring the victim. 

Maybe they think if they ignore us we will go away, women have started to stand up and fight back rejecting the paradigm of blame.  It has been years since we heard from Anita Hill, and Monica Lewinski but they have come forward in recent months in the wake of all the sexual assault allegations speaking up all of us women.   These two women know that sexual assault make women more vulnerable to anguish and torment than any other group of people who experience violent crimes this has been confirmed by a study RAINN, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network did.  I say to all women, take care of yourself during this time, for we all need support, turn to friends and read this article in the NY Times it helped me to take steps to cope with this awful news story that we can’t ignore and is so important to women getting justice.  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/style/self-care-sexual-assault-survivor-guide.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FSexual%20Harassment&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=collection

We will get through this and every little step forward is a small success toward healing.

In the words of Andre Lorde, “When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

More Consideration to Regulating the Internet

Trump tweeted on August 28, 2018 “’Trump News’ shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake News Media. In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD. Fake CNN is prominent. Republican and Conservative & Fair Media is shut out. Illegal? 96% of...”  I thought to myself that’s what you get in the age of no net neutrality.  From the beginning of Trump’s presidency, he surrounded himself with staff members who opposed net neutrality including his pick for the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Ajit Pai.  Trump knew Mr. Pai’s first piece agenda on the FCC board would be to propose vacating net neutrality laws and that’s exactly what he did. This policy that was not a vote in congress where people could have had some input ended net neutrality and any possibility of treating the internet as a public utility with government oversight to assure fair practices for the consumer which Trump happens is the biggest customers of all.

Net Neutrality a term the media extensively reports on has no agreeable definition and at best confuses us.  We all interact on the infinite internet yet we know little about how it works.  Toss in net neutrality into the internet equation and I for one am overwhelmed. Several people I know in Thailand expressed a higher concern to the end of net neutrality than international human rights, making me rethink my priorities. I always thought internet search engines and other internet services already rigged our access by entities paying for preferential treatment and believed this kind of treatment would multiple when net neutrality ended.  But Net Neutrality is more complicated than search engines.

Eliminating gatekeepers gives preferential treatment to any entity changing what internet sites and information you can or can’t access is the simplest way to describe net neutrality. I question whether we ever really had internet neutrality.   In 2007 TorrentFreak reported Comcast blocked customers from accessing ISP’s since 2005 which happened while the FCC was supposed to regulate net neutrality.  Privacy of people’s internet habits was front and center during the debate when net neutrality ended. While it’s true that eliminating net neutrality, FCC took the government out of the business of regulating and at the same time reports surfaced on how internet providers like Comcast, Facebook, and Google sold your internet practices for commercial gain and further developments exposed Facebook had been selling your information posted on their site to a number of political consulting firms during the 2016 election.

Facebook, Twitter and Google testify in front of congress on how they are better equipped to combat foreign interference as they grapple with censoring violence, fake facts, and other invasive content. This gives us a double message on the one hand the FCC just removed the government from regulating internet fairness to letting internet providers control and block content from their consumers but with the hearings on Capitol Hill one could conclude that the government still is in the business of regulating content.

Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Kavanaugh, wrote in his descending opinion in the United States Telecom case that came before him, The FCC’s 2015 net neutrality rule is one of the most consequential regulations ever issued by any executive or independent agency in the history of the United States. The rule transforms the Internet into government oversight prohibiting internet service providers from exercising editorial control over the content they transmit to consumers.  Why didn’t a policy of this magnitude go before congress to facilitate an open debate giving everyone a voice.

The end of net neutrality conforms with this opinion siding with Google, tweeter, Comcast, AT&T and all other internet providers giving them the right to discriminate and favor the internet traffic of those companies with whom they have pay-for-play arrangement like they have already been doing.  Free speech on the internet may become a thing of the past and censorship like what Trump tweeted about will become a standard. 

Free speech on sites such as Facebook kicked started many social movements such ones in Tunisia, Egypt and at home the women’s march are important for social change. Where do we draw the line?  If the government regulates the internet will it mean access for all with fair access and free speech or will it promote a pay-for-play standard.  We are all trying to get a handle on internet expectations and standards in an environment that grew up around us slowly seeping into our every day lives.  The decisions on internet regulation need far-reaching consideration and we the people need to have input into the solutions.