I declare war on Comcast
I hadn’t planned to do much blogging this summer. I’m trying to crank out a manuscript at the pace of about 100 pages a month. I’m also putting the finishing touches on two journal articles. And then I’m moving to another state. But I have to write about Comcast.
Tonight I learned that Comcast has literally put the life of someone I care about in danger. How can an incompetent cable and Internet provider threaten someone’s life? Simple: my friend is in law enforcement and has to keep their address private so that convicted criminals cannot take revenge by attacking my friend in their sleep. So my friend gets a landline through Comcast and pays an additional $1.50 a month just for privacy.
In typical Comcast fashion, they took my friend’s money and failed to provide the promised services. Now my friend has to find a new place to live and I would not want to be the first person to move into that apartment after it has been vacated. Naturally my friend is suing Comcast for moving expenses, but that isn’t enough.
Comcast: Pick up your sword. Anonymous Rex declares war on you. This will not end until one of us is dead.
I am going to begin by presenting the case for why Comcast deserves to die before discussing the legal and ethical dimensions of my battle plan. Let’s start with the facts. The CEO of Comast is Brian L Roberts. The company employs about 8,7000 people that serve about 25 million customers. Last year, Comcast earned about 2.5 billion in profits. And if you didn’t know any of that, you probably knew this: Comcast has the worst customer service in the world.
I’m not kidding. In 2004 and 2007, the American Customer Satisfaction Index survey found that Comcast had the worst customer satisfaction rating of any company or government agency in the country, including the Internal Revenue Service and the Transportation Safety Authority.
How is Comcast so bad? I think they actually try to suck. Check this out:
You think THAT’s bad! A mother in Illinois received a bill addressed to “Dog Bitch.”
Best of all: try a Google search for “Comcast sucks.” A lot of hits right? But did you happen to notice that there is a SPONSORED LINK for Comcast Customer Care. That’s right: so many people hate Comcast, that they have made it part of their business plan and PAID GOOGLE to have their propaganda linked to the words “Comcast Sucks.” (Note to the petty: every time you click this link, it costs Comcast money.) Frank Eliason, a Comcast representative who has posted on this blog, is also part of this tactic.
OK, so Comcast has shitty customer service and you probably shouldn’t deal with them. That’s capitalism, right? Wrong. A recent study found that as Comcast’s customer satisfaction eroded by 7% over the past year, revenue increased by 12%. How can a company flourish even as it is universally hated by its customers? Where is the invisible hand of the market?
Of course everyone knows how Comcast does this: by being a monopoly. In this day and age you really HAVE to have a high-speed internet connection and in many communities, Comcast is the only game in town. If it weren’t for this fact, Comcast would never be the media giant that it is.
Comcast is more than just a monopoly. It basically shits on the entire notion of a free market. They see capital not as a way to improve production and lower costs but as a way to consolidate power through lobbying and bullying their customers. That’s not what Adam Smith imagined. That’s not even capitalism, that’s war on the consumers. Even if you’re a right-winger, even if you’re Milton Friedman, Comcast should be your enemy.
Would you want a private company to replace the US post office, charge you $30 a month for sending letters, and give you a shitty customer help line to call? Of course not! Americans have a right to a postal system and 99% of the time my letters get there. We have a right to high-speed internet and the local government should provide it, not Comcast. Philadelphia, the city where Comcast is headquartered, offers free wifi! Has this created a crushing tax burden on Philadelphians? No? Could that be cause the city of Philadelphia didn’t make 2.5 billion dollars by offering free wifi?
Now the worst part. What is Comcast doing with the 2.5 billion it took in last year? You think their using it to improve customer service? Maybe investing in better infrastructure to lower the cost of their product? Of course not! Comcast is using our money to take away our basic freedoms. They have already established a monopoly for internet access, but now they are using their money and influence in a bid to control the internet itself:
Comcast has violated Net Neutrality. They are under investigation by the FCC for “traffic shaping”—interfering with what you can access on the internet. This is a violation of our rights as Americans. In some cases, efforts to control Internet access have been followed up with harassing phone-calls:
You can go to this link to see leaked internal memos informing Comcast employees to lie about these practices
Essentially, the ultimate goal of Comcast is to reduce America to serfdom. They will perfect a system in which you must purchase cable, Internet and phone access from Comcast and pay them absolutely anything they ask for. Comcast will this money to control the media and to lobby for further control taking away your choice as a consumer and your freedom of speech. Comcast’s future is a boot stomping on a human face for eternity. It is the duty of every American to take down this corporation.
The solution.
I am shocked to see how many websites dedicated to hating Comcast have rolled over to the enemy. Consider this post from Comcastmustdie.com:
“Actually, I have no deathwish for Comcast or any other gigantic, blundering, greedy, arrogant corporate monstrosity, What I do have is the earnest desire for such companies to change their ways.”
Comcast will not change their ways. They have invested into pretending to change their ways, but this is not at all the same thing. Comcast CANNOT change their ways. They are a corporation and corporations are legally obligated to make as much profit as possible. If Comcast ever did change its ways, Brian Roberts would be fired and replaced with someone worse.
Comcast must be destroyed utterly and replace either with a free market of competing internet providers or else a public service controlled by the people. The fight against Comcast is four fold front: Financial, Legal, Social, and Revolutionary.
Financial
Let’s start with the obvious. Don’t give Comcast any money. Giving money to Comcast is like giving bullets to a terrorist. They will only it against you. All of Comcast’s power, their corruption of our government, their censorship, is facilitated by our money. If we starve the beast, it will die.
Comcast betrayed me (see previous post) so I’m boycotting them. Obviously, since your reading this I have found other ways of accessing the internet. I live about five minutes away from a coffee shop with free wireless. Comcast wanted $60 a month just for Internet access. That’s 30 cups of coffee and daily Internet access. I’ve actually been more productive since dumping Comcast because I only use the Internet when I really need it.
Now we already know that Comcast reads this blog because their customer service reps have posted on it. I’m sure part of Comcast’s business plan already entails identifying small business like my local coffee shop and preventing them from offering free wireless. This is why boycotting is not enough.
While I’m on the subject of finance, if you have any stock in Comcast you should sell it. Owning Comcast stock is immoral. Also don’t invest in any of their subsidiaries.
Legal
First of all, everyone needs to go and petition their elected officials for The Net Neutrality Act.
This will help to combat Comcast’s bid for greater control over the internet and reducing the American people to serfdom.
We must also fight Comcast at the local level. Comcast spends millions of dollars annually on government relationships. Regularly, Comcast employs the spouses, sons and daughters of influential mayors, councilmen, commissioners, and other officials to assure its continued preferred market allocations.
If you find out a local politician has sold your town out to Comcast in exchange for a cushy job for their son, you must activate local Comcast haters and vote this person out of office.
Finally, there is recourse in some communities that form Franchise Agreements with Comcast. If you become aware of Comcast forming such a relationship with your local government, you should attend the town meeting and explain that this is inviting evil into your town.
Social
Tell the people. Increase public awareness of Comcast’s evil. Not just their shitty customer service, which is infamous, but tell your friends and co-workers about all of the underhanded and dirty tactics they use. Join the petition at FuckComcast.com.
Revolution
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a student of Reinhold Neibuhr, also supported boycotts and famously stated that, “It is just to break an unjust law.”
Let’s start by sharing wireless. If you share WiFi with your neighbor, you are probably robbing Comcast of $30-60/month. That’s starving the beast. By the way, sharing WiFi is a third degree felony and a man in Florida was recently tried for it.
However, he was reported by a man who saw him parked outside his house. (Why this guy called the police instead of inventing a password is beyond me.) And why is this a felony instead of a misdemeanor? $100 says Comcast’s “influenced” local politicians to giving this victimless crime a stiffer penalty.
But as we starve the beast it will be harder and harder for Comcast to prosecute offenders. Remember when the record companies tried to prosecute everyone that was sharing MP3s? Seriously, if the corporations had their way they would make public libraries illegal.
Another revolutionary resource are antennae. These devices will plug into your USB port and allow you to pirate WiFi signals from farther away. You can also modify them with a coffee can to make a sort of radar dish.
Do you know who Mona “The Hammer” Shaw is?
She is a 75 year old woman from Bristow, Virginia. She and her husband waited in mid-August in a customer service line for two hours to speak the manager, only to be told that the manager had already left. So Mona returned to the Comcast office with a claw hammer and destroyed a keyboard, a computer monitor and a telephone.
Mona has received praise from a variety of media sources but always with the caveat that her acts were “inappropriate.”
Well let me say this: Mona “The Hammer” Shaw is an American hero, her actions were absolutely appropriate, and I wish this woman were my blood relation. Sing with me (Firefly fans, you know the tune):
“The hero of Bristow, the gal they call SHAW!”
Seriously, every old person in America who has been mistreated by Comcast should become a Mona Shaw. And this isn’t just about her age. Mona is part of the greatest generation. She fought the Nazis. Not like Brian L Roberts and his spineless generation, the baby-boomers.
Potential Mona Shaw’s should know that Comcast is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and also has corporate offices in Houston, Detroit, Denver,and Manchester, NH.
Finally, let’s talk about these scabs that were hired by Comcast to fill seats and undermined democracy at an FCC hearing in Boston. I will be in Boston soon, where another FCC hearing is being planned. Scabs should not cross the path of Anonymous Rex.
Soy Veganza.
Soy LaNoche
