If you’re new here, you may not realize that my cat, Fatty, is running for President in 2020. It’s true, he is – and at
least five people have already committed to voting for him!
As his campaign manager and the possessor of opposable
thumbs, I check in regularly with Fatty about the issues important to American
voters, so that he can give the people what they want. As a Cat of the People,
Fatty is committed to making things better for honest, hardworking Americans,
and also for lazy, dishonest Americans because Fatty doesn’t believe in
discrimination, and also because he suspects that a lot of you who fancy
yourselves in that first category actually belong to the second, ahem.
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| What? He tells it like it is! |
ANYWAY, that’s why Fatty is appalled that the FCC wants to hand control of the Internet in the United
States over to big companies, so that they can raise costs for average users by
splitting access to online services into packages, impose data and bandwidth
limits, and block or blacklist sites and services of which they don’t approve.
Fatty believes that access to a free and open Internet is a
cornerstone of our democracy, and he strongly suspects that those who want to curtail
that access are doing so because they don’t want us sharing ideas freely
anymore. Fatty would like to point out that the Internet has done a lot of
things that members of the current administration don’t like, such as:
- Showing us what life is like in other countries, where they have things like universal health care, affordable higher education, livable minimum wages, and effective gun control laws;
- Showing us that people who live under those allegedly appalling conditions are actually happy and healthy and can afford to have kids and take vacations and get sick, unlike many of us;
- Enabling marginalized groups to band together and even become less marginalized;
- Helping us get to know people who are different from us, so that we can see they’re not that different after all, and so that we might want to be more like them and/or let them come live here and/or not bomb them or at least bomb them a little freaking less;
- Enabling us to put our ideas and beliefs before a worldwide audience of hundreds of millions, even billions, which includes
- Casting light on injustice and effectively organizing for change.
That’s not to mention all the other things a free and open
Internet lets us do, like stay in touch with loved ones who are increasingly
forced to move to other states, cities, and countries to look for opportunities,
order cat food, shop for cat toys, and binge watch human TV programs.
If elected, Fatty promises to take steps to protect net
neutrality forever and ever, but he can’t do that unless the American people come
together now to protect it for like the
fortieth freakin’ time from corporate interests. The FCC votes to dismantle
net neutrality rules on Dec. 14. Fatty implores you to use your opposable thumbs
to call the FCC, repeatedly if possible, and tell them you support net
neutrality:
- Call 202-418-1000 to reach the office of Ajit Pai, Chairman of the FCC. Not sure what to say? Intimidated by the prospect of speaking to another human being? Fatty understands. Visit 5Calls.org for a helpful script.
- Text RESIST to 50409 to use Resistbot to send fast, free faxes to your representatives in Congress, and/or your governor, and/or the President
