Pocketbook Protest

Residents of Prince George’s County Maryland beware! More is at stake in the November election than the fate of the free world…your taxes may also be on the rise. The ugly tax monster has reared its head once again in PG County, and on November 4, in addition to casting their ballots for the next President of the United States, the folks of PG County will be faced with the decision of whether or not to increase taxes on their wireless, landline and cable digital voice services. The obvious choice to the question ‘can I afford to pay more taxes’ seems like a “no,” but this particular tax is ostensibly aimed at provide funding for PG County’s School Board, and voters may not want to feel like they aren’t supporting education. But consider this, just because the tax is supposed to support education, we can’t be sure that it really will…

The county proposes a 3% tax increase on your basic telephone services. The more telephones/services you have, the more taxes you’re going to see. If this referendum passes, you could be taxed as many as THREE times each month–cell phone, TAXED, landline, TAXED, digital cable voice, TAXED…

This proposed tax may not seem like a big deal at first, but a 3% increase applied each month to each of the communications services affected by the county’s proposal means that consumers can expect heir pocketbooks to be a bit lighter come the end of the year, not because they are getting more or better communication services, but because the school board thinks this is the best way to increase its bottom line and raise revenue for the schools.

Now don’t think for a minute that I don’t support the schools. I am the product of public education, and I’ve been fortunate enough to achieve success in higher education courtesy of the foundation that was laid for me early on in public schools. A line has to be drawn, however, between funding the schools we care so much about and placing a financial burden on me every time I take advantage of an essential communication service. With the economy prices being what it is, I, and most people like me, can barely afford to put gas in the car, buy groceries, and pay the never ending stack of bills that seem to trickle in each week, much less afford an additional tax on those bills when I’m not getting more bang for my buck.

Think about the compounded effect of this tax on PG County residents: an 18% tax applied to your bill monthly for the county’s efforts at increasing education funding; this tax is on top of the state and federal taxes we’re already required to pay on communication services each month. Before you know it, a phone bill that started as $99/month FOR ACTUAL SERVICES, becomes $136/month because of all the taxes you have to pay for those services.

There has got to be another way. I get it, the piper wants to get paid too; everyone wants a cut of the ever-expanding communications industry, but at what price to the consumer?

The PG County Board of Education has an operating budget that is already operating at a surplus. I suggest they cut wasteful spending, minimize funding for programs that aren’t providing students with any real benefits, stop erecting unnecessary buildings and GET OUT OF MY POCKET. The choice should be clear for PG County voters, on November 4 vote “NO” to increased taxes on your communications bill!

The revolution has definitely been technocratized! The scene at this year’s Democratic National Convention is substantially different than in years past, not because of the political figures taking the stage to promote the Obama-Biden ticket, but because media coverage has increasingly expanded to bloggers.

According to The Christian Science Monitor, 500 of the 3,000 bloggers who sought a piece of the DNC pie were actually credentialed as bloggers for this landmark event. Of that number, 120 were granted floor passes to cover the Convention from inside the Pepsi Center. The increased blogger presence at the 2008 DNC marks a sharp increase in blogger participation from the 2004 Convention. Moreover, it demarks a major trend in our society towards utilizing technology to increase citizen participation in the media, politics, and every facet of American life.

Sponsors of the Blogger “Big Tent” include Google, Digg, EcoDrivingUSA, InterfaceFLOR, Meru Networks, Floorz, Moveon.Org, DemWire, Daily Kos, Progress Now, Alliance for a Sustainable Future, Service Employees International Union, Human Rights Campaign, PickensPlan.com, the Sunlight Foundation, the Alliance for a Sustainable Colorado and Chipotle.

The phenomena of the citizen-journalist is one that is only possible in our increasingly digital society. Gone are the days when CNN, MSNBC, FOXNews and other major network affiliates provided the only source of news coverage available to the public. Whereas many networks have their own allegiances across party lines (despite the ostensible “objective” veneer flaunted by established news media), bloggers are beholden to no one, and represent the broadest possible flavor of social perspectives reporting on the DNC events.

In conjunction with each other, conventional media and the new media bloggers are able to give the American people something we’ve yet to experience–a diversity of opinions unparalleled to those expressed when we only relied on established news sources as the gatekeepers for information.

Let us hope that coverage of the DNC continues to be analyzed from all angles, by old and new media alike. Let us also hope that no one side is too dominant so as to compromise the others’ ability to help us receive the benefit of having both types of media working in tandem to inform the American people.

About a month ago, CostQuest Associates released its results from a 50 state survey on broadband deployment across the United States. The purpose of the study was to evaluate national efforts at increasing access to high-speed internet. After a period of 6-weeks, the results revealed that although most states have some form of broadband policy in effect, there is no national consensus when and how broadband should be deployed. Interesting, especially considering America’s broadband access and penetration rates…

Of the 50 states in the union, 39 have a broadband policy of some sort, while 11 do not. 17 states plan to engage in broadband mapping to determine the areas having an increased capacity for broadband deployment, 10 have already engaged in this process, and 23 states have no plan to utilize broadband mapping (too bad for members of the rural and under-served communities in these states that still need access to broadband). Most notably, of the 39 states with broadband policies, only 5 actually perceive of broadband as a component of universal service.

Our dependence on high-speed technology will only increase over the years as our ability to utilize broadband becomes inextricably linked to our ability to function in society. That said, once the pipes have been deployed and access is possible, what policies are in place to ensure that the technology is actually being USED by Americans in rural and under-served communities?

At this year’s National Hip Hop Political Convention (”NHHPC”) an array of people and personalities appeared to discuss the issues affecting our communities, and a notable standout amongst the presenters were two young brothers on the rise from ITEmpowersU.

These guys gave a presentation on the paralleled progression of Hip-Hop and Technology and the importance of broadband and its application to today’s hip hop culture. Their presentation initially focused on the various technologies that were being developed and used as hip hop became more and more popular. They wanted to show the profound effect that technology can have in turning a phenomenon into a movement and a movement into a living, breathing culture.

From entertainment, to websites, to broadcasting and beyond, these guys gave the audience a real appreciation of the ways in which technology has developed over the years to not only promote hip hop culture, but to advance our world as we know it. They concluded their presentation by informing their audience about organizations that exist solely to insure that this “new” technology is made available and affordable to all, and then they challenged others to begin their own individual initiatives in support of the broadband diffusion movement.

Big shouts to these brothers for their grassroots approach of bringing the issues and the information to the people!

Today is the last day of the National Hip Hop Political Convention, and I just got a one in a million (and well fought for, my I say) chance to sit down and talk one-on-one with this political seasons most intriguing and unsung candidate running for the United States Vice Presidential running mate seat for the Green Party, Rosa Clemente.

This Bronx raised Nuyorican who has been known for years within the hip hop activism scene as an independent journalist and community organizer fighting for the marginalized rights of women and the uncontainable power of hip hop, is running besides Green Party presidential hopeful Cynthia McKinney.

I raced back through the Las Vegas swelter from the convention site to the pueblo styled hotel room of Clemente after the closing of this years agenda to get just a few minutes with the inspiring public speaker to talk about the limitless opportunities of a focused and well executed new media technology within society.

Pocketbook Protest (PP): Briefly tell us about your platform for office.

Rosa Clemente (RC): The Platform of the Green Party includes social justice and interracial profiling, single pare health care systems, no war. For me, as a hip hop generation activist one of the most important things I’m trying to work out is the prison industrial complex, repealing pretty much all drug laws, youth higher education that doesn’t put them into debt, and a way to create new jobs at a livable wage, not minimum wage, based on greening the environment.

PP: As one of the co-founders in 2003 of this National Hip Hop Political Convention, what are some of your aspirations for its mobility and legacy within society?

RC: I was one of the founders with another 13, or 14 people. It’s been through the political convention that I’ve done the bulk of the activism work and these people have been some of the most supportive of me. For me, the convention has been a personal success. I’m not longer in leadership with the convention. There are a lot of young people now in it, local groups that are doing some really good work. I think they have to get to the next level and really institutionalize the convention in the particular work that they want to do that’s different from all the other hip hop groups out there.

PP: How do you feel technology will play into the future in terms of politics and hip hop?

RC: I’m a self taught independent journalist and for about 3 years I have been doing a lot of work around media justice and protesting certain FCC regulations. Even how the FCC is trying to regulate the access to the Internet and at what broadband speed your at. I was advised about 5 years ago to watch out how cable companies were consolidating and how there would no longer be free access of the Internet. But even with that, with this new media like Myspace and Facebook are consolidating and now owned by conglomerates. Rupert Murdock is buying everything. So, I think, the issue of technology is critical to our generation because it’s going to be the one free mode of communication besides the radio, and even that’s being consolidated.

PP: How do you think that will change the scope of communication?

RC: It’s definitely creating an underclass in technology and I don’t know how that is going to play out. They don’t have a handle on the communities of color that are being affected in rural areas.

PP: What about the pros? Would you support being able to vote online?

RC: Of course. I also support on-the-day registration. Why in America, do you have to register to vote in different states at different times? There’s not one form of ID. You’re going to have a lot of older people who are not going to have the quote proper ID because some states have gone to licenses. And a lot of people in America don’t have driver’s licenses. So, there is going to be a lot of turning away at the polls this year without electronic voting systems. I think one way to bring electoral integrity is to of course let people vote online.

PP: And one last question, why do you love hip-hop?

RC: oh man, I love hip-hop because it has always given me a voice.

www.rosaclemente.com
www.gp.org
www.votetruth08.com

Let’s think about I.T. …literally.

Yesterdays afternoon breakout session about “The Transformative Power of Broadband Technology” lead by the two brothers Demetrus Thompson and Marcus Johnson of ITEmpowersU.Com is still in my head this morning. The conversation touched on some very interesting topics on how to leverage digital communications to our greatest means.

The two main points of discussion were Broadband vs Net Neutrality and Techies vs Users. In the conversation about broadband technology the debate of open source (the engine behind, or language of technology) arose. The most heated question was who are the representatives of our communities interests throughout “Internet Democracy.” They brought out the concepts of creating a Mesh Network, where one has a broadband signal and router and leaves it open for others to gain from freely. The “mesh” happens when others have a repeater that pulls and spreads the signal.

Pros to this dialogue were mainly this would be cost efficient for lower income families and it could be positive for the environment with the use of now available solar powered mesh network. Cons were how reliable would the mesh connect be, would website processing become slower with the increase of subscribers and questions of interpersonal computer privacy.

The second point was on “Techies,” the population of technology computer savvy wizards, verses the generic every day surface “Users” of the web. The challenge given was how do we begin a conversation and exchange of knowledge between these often very segregated digital citizens. Jokingly, it was noted that the two only cross when there is a specific computer meltdown or virus to be rid of. How do we proactively engage each others skills to really empower ourselves?

These are definitely discussions we will be following here at Pocketbook Protest.

August in Las Vegas, Nevada needs a new word for burning hot. Especially when the attendants for the third bi-annual National Hip-Hop Political Convention are in town.

The weekends activities located at the University of Nevada were an array of heat; heated panel discussions and building sessions, hot international film screenings, and sparking moments of change during agenda setting. With regional chapters worldwide, members of the hosting Las Vegas Local Organizing Committee (LOC) set the gathering as a catalog of “grass root organizers, artists, professors, feminists, social justice activist, politicians, students, religious figures, and progressive and radical strategists from all regions, races, and genders.”

If you were to graph the development of Technology and Hip-Hop (from the 1980s to today) the path, one could argue, could not survive without the other. The roles and usage of mobile technology in foreign countries are dramatically lead by hip hop- mixing and recording devices, ipod/itunes purchases, televised music channels, culturally based global website communities, etc.

Seizing the time of a better tomorrow, this years convention theme, saw three consecutive days of morning caucusing, beginning collective panels, and then a series of breakout sessions where attendees could mix and sample their very own focused agenda.

Panels, like the opening discussion “From COINTELPRO to RAPINTELPRO: The criminalization of a generation and the extent of their repressive measures” set the tone for conversations about the role of hip hop as a medium of communication that can connect within the political scheme of every country, as hip-hop’s culture has created an immeasurable global citizenship.

Other notable panelists and discussions were keynote speakers and 2008 Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates of the Green Party USA, Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente. King Downy from the Campaign Against Racial Profiling, Andre Banks from our friends over at ColorofChange.Org who spoke on the role of hip hop activist online who were the initial spark demanding mainstream coverage of the Jena 6. Also writer Jeff Chang, a session on the “Transformative Power of Broadband Technology from ItempowersU.Com, Popmaster Fabel of the Zulu Nation from the legendary b-boy Rock Steady Crew.

The convention was also a very smart media environment. After issues with finding the correct wireless signals to tap into were resolved, laptops, mini hand-held video cameras, and audio taping devices sprinkled every room catching priceless moments of strategy, exchanges of knowledge and points of view, the joys of brotherhood and sisterhood, and pure freestyle hip hop.

These connects were also solidified by the National Hip Hop Political Agenda website, the action of the convention. This online continuance of past and future conventions digitally keeps the networking built moving forward, and open to all with free registration.

Picture this… an entire room full of academically and street savvy young professionals all standing up and proclaiming they will never ever let you fall. Each introduction filtered more specific and intriguing. Everyone moving forward bound together with an obsession for documenting and spreading knowledge of the current state of black society in the US and at large.

This was the scene at last nights opening mixer at the inaugural Blogging While Brown conference in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. The meat of the conference will be thought provoking panels, group workshops, town hall meetings, and a space for networking. Registration is still open.

For the next few days, international writers, lawyers, fashionistas, techies, and business entrepreneurs alike are gathering to engage a dialogue on the most progressive uses of the Internet as a tool for building a better psychological and stronger economic tomorrow.

Notable sponsors include The Root and Blogher.com.

Blogging While Brown, organized by Gina McCauley, was designed in honor and preservation of the web+loggers= bloggers of color whose unapologetic online sites debate limitless social issues in an uncensored medium with attempts to mobilize the masses daily.

Blogs represented range from Necole Bitchie to Race Wire to Black Interactive TV.

Be prepared to witness the game changed.

Earlier this year, in an effort to stimulate participation by its underprivileged constituents, the NAACP made major strides in social advocacy by encouraging African-Americans to become an active part of the digital economy by adopting the Resolution Promoting Nondiscriminatory Adoption and Usage of Broadband Internet & Information Technologies.

As reported on The Wichita NAACP Blog, it was

Resolved: That the NAACP shall object to any corporate or governmental policies that increase costs, impede deployment, discourage adoption and usage, limit consumer access, reduce local commentary, or State oversight or that of public utilities commissions, public hearings, or other forums for citizen input and reduce affordability of broadband technologies AND that the NAACP will call upon its members to educate themselves and others on the importance of adoption and usage of broadband technologies.

With this resolution, the NAACP has clearly distinguished itself amongst political organizations because of its intent to empower everyday people through the use of broadband technology. This move by the NAACP is reminiscent of the resolution passed by the NBCSL, and it’s so encouraging to see an ideological alignment amongst our leadership geared towards promoting the use of technology as a means of advancement. If other organizations start follow suit, we will hopefully see an influx of broadband access and usage in under-served communities that will help facilitate improved access to information, healthcare and career resources for those who are able to take advantage of the incredible benefits afforded by access to broadband technology.

Talk about taking the protest from the picket line to our pocketbooks. If organizations like the NAACP are willing to overtly oppose government or corporate action that attempts to over tax, over regulate or limit access to broadband services, then maybe, just maybe, we can start to see the American Dream come to fruition for an often ignored and discounted segment of society.

In an encouraging move by a black political organization, the National Black Caucus of State Legislators (”NBCSL”) has proposed a Resolution on Telecommunications that seeks to have

Any governmental regulation of communication services be minimal and that future expansion be dependent mostly upon private investment; and…that transaction taxes and fees imposed on telecommunication services be simplified to minimize confusion, remove distortion and eliminate discrimination as long as such fees and taxes are not confused with rental payments for public assets, such as right-of-way…

With this resolution, NBCSL recognizes the necessity for increased access to broadband technology and new media to promote the well-being and socio-economic progress of African-Americans. The practical effect of this resolution has yet to be seen. It does inspire hope, however, that our communities and leaders are gaining a better appreciation of the fact that our advancement and longevity as a people is now predicated on the extent to which we can access broadband and new media technologies to facilitate our emersion into “American” life and culture.

In this digital economy, technology is giving us the ability to more efficiently access information, health care services, career building tools, social networking sites, and a wealth of other content, all of which can help us improve our quality of life. Absent access to technology, we will not be able to keep up with our rapidly changing, increasingly globalized, society.

As it stands, we already pay an inordinate amount of taxes on our communications services. Hopefully, in light of the NBCSL resolution, a movement towards reducing taxes can begin so that the have-nots can more easily access and afford this technology which is so key to our individual and collective success. Hats off to NBCSL for taking another step in the right direction!