13 things you need to know about the FCC's Net Neutrality regulation

Having trouble digesting all 400 pages of the FCC's Net neutrality order? Have no fear, Marguerite Reardon is here to tell you what you really need to know.

- By Marguerite Reardon - March 14, 2015

Two weeks after voting to preserve the open Internet (also referred to as Net neutrality) the Federal Communications Commission finally released a 400 page document detailing the new rules in all their glory.

If you haven't been following along, Net neutrality is the idea that all traffic on the Internet should be treated equally. That means your broadband provider, which controls your access to the Internet, can't block or slow down the services or applications you use over the Web. It also means your Internet service provider -- whether it's a cable company or telephone service -- can't create so-called fast lanes that force content companies like Netflix to pay an additional fee to deliver their content to customers faster.

Even though most people agree with the basic premise of Net neutrality, the FCC's rules have become a lightning rod for controversy. The reason: The FCC has now reclassified broadband as a so-called Title II telecommunications service under the 1934 Communications Act. That reclassification places broadband providers under the same strict regulations that now govern telephone networks.

Broadband providers, like AT&T and Comcast, say Title II allows the FCC to impose higher rates and will discourage them from building or upgrading their networks. On the flip side, Title II will help the FCC fight any legal challenges that AT&T, Verizon and Comcast (among others) lob its way.

But 400 pages of government-speak and legalese is a lot to swallow (let alone digest). So we've done it for you. What follows is a quick FAQ explaining the most pressing issues.

1.What are the new rules?

The FCC's Net neutrality order boils down to three key rules:

No Blocking. Simply put: A broadband provider can't block lawful content, applications, services or nonharmful devices.

No Throttling. The FCC created a separate rule that prohibits broadband providers from slowing down specific applications or services, a practice known as throttling. More to the point, the FCC said providers can't single out Internet traffic based on who sends it, where it's going, what the content happens to be or whether that content competes with the provider's business.

No Paid Prioritization. A broadband provider cannot accept fees for favored treatment. In short, the rules prohibit Internet fast lanes.

2. Why did it take 400 pages to say that?

Just to clarify, the actual order takes up 313 pages, and the remaining 87 pages are statements from the five FCC commissioners, including lengthy dissenting comments from two of those commissioners.

Beyond that, FCC officials say they needed to give detailed explanations of how and why they wrote these rules, because they expect the rules will be challenged in court. That's because the FCC's two previous attempts were thrown out of court for improper legal justification. AT&T and Comcast have already hinted they will sue the FCC over the rules and, in particular, their reclassification as broadband services.

3. Some broadband providers say the FCC's rules ban them from effectively managing traffic on their networks. Is this true?

That depends on how they want to manage traffic. According to the FCC, broadband providers need to show a technically justified rationale for how they manage traffic, rather than for purely business reasons.

Generally speaking, this means your broadband provider can block spam from your email inbox, block traffic from a denial of service attack and slow down or redirect traffic to ensure the network runs smoothly during times of congestion, so long as the provider isn't targeting any particular application or traffic source. It can't block or slow down access to video streaming services like Netflix or Hulu just because it thinks those services use too much bandwidth.

4. Will the FCC determine how much my broadband and wireless service costs?

No, the new rules don't regulate broadband rates or require providers to get the FCC's permission to offer new rate plans or new services. Broadband providers will still be able to offer new services and rates, which means they can add a faster tier of service, at a new price, without permission from the FCC.

That's different from the old-style telephone regulation. Under the full Title II regulation, phone companies were required to file tariffs with the FCC and wait for regulatory review before they could offer new products. The FCC said it is "forbearing" from using some of those requirements for broadband services.

5. Will my broadband bill go up because of taxes associated with these rules?

There is nothing in the FCC's Open Internet order that imposes new taxes or fees on broadband service. That said, there is a separate FCC proceeding that began before the Net neutrality order was published that looks at whether broadband customers should pay into the Universal Service Fund. (Customers of traditional telephone services already pay into USF to help subsidize phone service in rural and low-income areas.)

Depending on how that proceeding plays out, broadband customers could be required to contribute to USF. If that does happen, your broadband bill could go up a few pennies each month.

6. Is the government taking over the Internet?

These new rules don't regulate any content or application on the Internet, or dictate how the Internet operates or where traffic is routed. So in that sense, the answer is no. They do regulate access to the "last mile" of the Internet, which is the network that connects your home or mobile device to the Net.

This means the rules govern just the companies and the sections of their networks that deliver Internet access to consumers. Companies subject to the regulation are broadband providers, like AT&T, Verizon or Comcast, which sell consumers fixed or wireless access to the Internet.

7. The FCC keeps saying that not all of the Title II regulations apply to broadband. What pieces of the old style regulation will apply?

The FCC isn't applying more than 700 rules found in the Title II regulation.

So what's left? The FCC has kept at least nine sections of the Title II regulation. These include sections 201, 202 and 208 -- which the agency said are necessary for open Internet rules.

Additionally, the agency is applying parts of sections that protect consumers, promote competition and "advance universal access, all of which will foster network investment, thereby helping to promote broadband deployment."

Section 222, for instance, protects consumer privacy. Sections 225/255/251(a)(2) ensure broadband access to people with disabilities. The agency also kept section 224, which requires utilities to give cable system operators and telecommunications carriers access to their poles so they can attach their own wires for service.

The agency is also keeping section 254, which promotes universal deployment of services. But to make sure broadband customers aren't forced to pay into the Universal Service Fund, the FCC is forbearing from a subsection of section 254 that would require broadband providers to collect universal service fees from customers. That said, the agency does have the authority under section 254 to distribute USF funds already collected to promote broadband deployment in rural or low-income areas.

8. This current FCC may be forbearing most Title II provisions, but could a future FCC change that?

In theory yes. But FCC officials said on a call with reporters on Thursday that it's not that easy. That's one reason the FCC spelled out its rationale in a 400 page document. With it, the agency creates a record that could be used to prevent future iterations of the FCC from undoing everything.

And keep in mind that the FCC has to follow procedures for any official action it takes, including changing its own regulations. Those procedures include a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which must be introduced and accepted by the majority of commissioners. Then there's a public comment period on the proposal, followed by a comment period on the comments. Then the full commission votes. And at least three out of five commissioners need to approve those new rules before they can pass.

9. Will emerging services, like connected cars and telehealth applications, be regulated under these new rules? Won't that stifle innovation?

Services that don't offer full Internet access won't be regulated. These include things like cable telephony or voice over IP services, dedicated heart-monitoring services, e-readers, connected cars or the new voice over LTE services offered by wireless operators. Such services all use the Internet, but they don't offer consumers access to the public Internet.

10. Let's get into some specifics. Will the FCC put a stop to "sponsored data" deals where a certain service, like Spotify, won't count against my monthly data allotment?

The answer is a fuzzy "maybe." The FCC said it understands some people worry such plans could "distort competition by allowing service providers to pick and choose among content and application providers to feature on different service plans." But it also realizes these plans can benefit consumers and promote competition.

Therefore, it will not ban these types of services outright. Instead, it will evaluate these plans on a case-by-case basis to make sure a specific offering doesn't give any one service an unreasonable advantage over another.

11. Will wireless providers still be allowed to use data caps to limit the bandwidth their customers use?

The FCC said it can't make "blanket findings about these practices." For instance, some data caps can benefit customers because they allow wireless operators to offer a variety of service plans at different price points.

Still, the FCC acknowledged that broadband providers can wield data caps against competing "over-the-top" services like Netflix, which offers streaming video over the Internet.

For now, the FCC will not ban data caps. But if consumers or other Internet companies feel that a certain data cap policy is unfair, they can lodge a complaint, which the FCC will examine case-by-case.

12. What about "interconnection" deals between companies like Netflix and broadband providers like Comcast? Is the FCC regulating those deals now?

Yes and no.

First, let me explain what "interconnection" is. The Internet is made up of a series of networks. The "last mile" is the connection your broadband provider offers consumers to get to the public Internet. A broadband provider then connects with other network providers to get access to content on the Internet. These "interconnections" between network operators are commercial arrangements between companies. The FCC has never before intervened in these commercial deals.

But the FCC acknowledges that broadband providers could act in a way that harms competition, affecting how or if consumers can access certain services. Netflix will say that's just what happened last year while it was in contentious negotiations with Comcast and Verizon. The streaming video service provider argued that Comcast and Verizon were unfairly charging it for increased capacity to their "last mile" networks. Meanwhile, Comcast and Verizon said they were justified in asking Netflix to pay for network upgrades to accommodate an uptick in Netflix traffic.

And all the while, some Netflix customers saw a degradation in the quality of their Netflix service.

Was this Netflix's fault or the broadband provider's fault? It depends on how you look at it, the FCC has reasoned. It also recognized that the industry is rapidly changing. And it concluded that it's currently unwise to impose the same no-blocking, no-throttling, no-paid prioritization bans on this part of the Internet.

Instead, the agency said it will review these disputes when complaints are filed.

13. Have the lawsuits started yet?

Not yet. And they won't until the rules are officially published in the Federal Register, which may take a few days or a week. The rules will then take effect two months after they're published.

America - From Freedom To Fascism - By Aaron Russo

Published: May 10, 2007

The true enemies of liberty and all modern societies and people are the central bank counterfeiters. The largest counterfeiter in the history of the world consists of the Federal Reserve banking scheme, which counterfeits American dollars through fiat currency and fractional reserve banking.

America Freedom to Fascism exposes the fraud and deceit of the Federal Reserve Banks (Fed), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the 16th Amendment, the income tax, the Federal Reserve System, national ID cards (REAL ID Act), human-implanted RFID tags (Spychips), Diebold electronic voting machines, New World Order (globalization), Big Brother, taser weapons abuse, and the use of terrorism by government as a means to diminish the citizens' rights.

The Federal Reserve System is a privately held, for profit corporation, and not a government agency. It was created by bankers for bankers as a lender of last resort, so that whenever a banker ran his businesses poorly he could be bailed out at the expense of the public. The Fed does not have any reserves, it simply creates fiat money out of nothing and lends it out at interest to businesses and the federal government. The American people are then forced to pay for the bailouts to government and businesses through inflation and personal income taxes on their labor. The currency the Fed creates out of thin air and loans out to the government at interest is called Federal Reserve Notes - look at the top of what you may think are your Dollars and you will see they are actually Federal Reserve Notes (FRNs). FRNs are backed by nothing. US Dollars are required by law to be backed by gold and silver, but US Dollars are no longer in circulation. The only real US Dollars still somewhat in circulation are US Silver Eagles and Gold Eagle coins, but they have become so valuable due to the Fed's inflation and destruction of the FRN currency, that it takes thousands of FRNs just to buy a single US $50 gold coin, and dozens of FRNs to buy a single US $1 Dollar silver coin.

The Federal Reserve System operates through manipulation of interest rates, which results in expanding and retracting bubbles of inflation, referred to as business cycles. When the Fed inflates the currency, it is effectively a hidden tax on existing currency, because the value of the newly created currency is stolen from the value of existing currency. This is reflected in continually rising prices, even though advances in technology and manufacturing processes should result in lower prices and a higher standard of living for everyone. Since the creation of the Fed in 1913, it has debased 99% of the value of the Dollar. In other words, it now takes $100 FRNs to buy what just $1 US Dollar would buy in 1913, as a result of inflation due to the Fed counterfeiting so much currency. If you had saved $100 in 1913, it would now only buy as much as a single 1913 Dollar would have bought at that time. The other $99 of value would have been stolen through counterfeiting (cheaply duplicating money out of nothing) over the years, resulting in the vale of the $100 being taxed through inflation, behind your back.

The film explains how monetary policy is the most powerful form of control over people that has ever existed, and is central to the unconstitutional, global New World Order ambitions of those that own and benefit from the Fed. The founder of the Rothschild family international banking dynasty, which became the most successful business family in history, Mayer Amschel Rothschild once declared, "Give me control of a nation's money, and I care not who makes the laws."

Most Americans are kept ignorant of how the Federal Reserve operates through actions of corrupt politicians and an increasingly centralized media. Using terms like, 'quantitative easing,' 'monetizing the debt,' or 'adjusting monetary policy for increased fluidity of credit,' the Fed conceals it's true actions behind veils of legitimacy.

The U.S. Congress has the duty and responsibility of coining and maintaining the value of our dollar and money, yet Congress is being negligent in overseeing the Fed, as many politicians depend upon large campaign contributions from the Federal Reserve system bankers. In 2008, Democrat Barack Obama's 1 campaign contributor was Goldman Sachs, among many other banks involved in the fraudulent Federal Reserve counterfeiting system. What is particularly important to note is that Republican John McCain's top contributors were the same as Barack Obama's.

The List Of 97 Taxes Americans Pay Every Year

- By Michael Snyder - March 24, 2009

Just like most Americans, paying taxes is one of our pet peeves. The deadline to file our federal taxes is coming up, and this year Americans will spend more than 7 Billion hours preparing our taxes and will hand over more than Four Trillion Dollars to federal, state and local governments. Did you know individual income tax is extortion, illegal and unconstitutional.? We, the American people, will fork over 30 percent of what we earn as extorted income taxes, for which there is no law on the books to compel us, the people, to pay income tax, but that is just one part of the story.

As you will see below, there are many, many more other taxes that Americans pay each year. Of course not everyone pays all of these taxes, but without a doubt we are all being taxed into oblivion. It is like death by a thousand paper cuts. The criminal politicians have become extremely creative in finding ways to extract, or extort money from all of us, the people, and most Americans don’t even realize what is being done to us.

By the time it is all said and done, a significant portion of the population ends up paying more than half of what they earn to the government. That is fundamentally wrong, illegal and unconstitutional, but nothing will be done about it until we, the people, start demanding and enacting change ourselves.!

The following is a list of 97 taxes, we the people pay each and every year:

01 - Air Transportation Taxes (just look at how much you were charged the last time you flew)

02 - Biodiesel Fuel Taxes

03 - Building Permit Taxes

04 - Business Registration Fees

05 - Capital Gains Taxes

06 - Cigarette Taxes

07 - Court Fines (indirect taxes)

08 - Disposal Fees

09 - Dog License Taxes

10 - Drivers License Fees (another form of taxation)

11 - Employer Health Insurance Mandate Tax

12 - Employer Medicare Taxes

13 - Employer Social Security Taxes

14 - Environmental Fees

15 - Estate Taxes

16 - Excise Taxes On Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans

17 - Federal Corporate Taxes

18 - Federal Income Taxes

19 - Federal Unemployment Taxes

20 - Fishing License Taxes

21 - Flush Taxes (yes, this actually exists in some areas)

22 - Food And Beverage License Fees

23 - Franchise Business Taxes

24 - Garbage Taxes

25 - Gasoline Taxes

26 - Gift Taxes

27 - Gun Ownership Permits

28 - Hazardous Material Disposal Fees

29 - Highway Access Fees

30 - Hotel Taxes (these are becoming quite large in some areas)

31 - Hunting License Taxes

32 - Import Taxes

33 - Individual Health Insurance Mandate Taxes

34 - Inheritance Taxes

35 - Insect Control Hazardous Materials Licenses

36 - Inspection Fees

37 - Insurance Premium Taxes

38 - Interstate User Diesel Fuel Taxes

39 - Inventory Taxes

40 - IRA Early Withdrawal Taxes

41 - IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)

42 - IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)

43 - Library Taxes

44 - License Plate Fees

45 - Liquor Taxes

46 - Local Corporate Taxes

47 - Local Income Taxes

48 - Local School Taxes

49 - Local Unemployment Taxes

50 - Luxury Taxes

51 - Marriage License Taxes

52 - Medicare Taxes

53 - Medicare Tax Surcharge On High Earning Americans Under Obamacare

54 - Obamacare Individual Mandate Excise Tax, if you don’t buy “qualifying” health insurance under Obamacare you will have to pay an additional tax

55 - Obamacare Surtax On Investment Income, a new 3.8% surtax on investment income

56 - Parking Meters

57 - Passport Fees

58 - Professional Licenses And Fees, another form of taxation

59 - Property Taxes

60 - Real Estate Taxes

61 - Recreational Vehicle Taxes

62 - Registration Fees For New Businesses

63 - Toll Booth Taxes

64 - Sales Taxes

65 - Self-Employment Taxes

66 - Sewer & Water Taxes

67 - School Taxes

68 - Septic Permit Taxes

69 - Service Charge Taxes

70 - Social Security Taxes

71 - Special Assessments For Road Repairs Or Construction

72 - Sports Stadium Taxes

73 - State Corporate Taxes

74 - State Income Taxes

75 - State Park Entrance Fees

76 - State Unemployment Taxes (SUTA)

77 - Tanning Taxes (a new Obamacare tax on tanning services)

78 - Telephone 911 Service Taxes

79 - Telephone Federal Excise Taxes

80 - Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Taxes

81 - Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Taxes

82 - Telephone State And Local Taxes

83 - Telephone Universal Access Taxes

84 - The Alternative Minimum Tax

85 - Tire Recycling Fees

86 - Tire Taxes

87 - Tolls (another form of taxation)

88 - Traffic Fines (indirect taxation)

89 - Use Taxes (Out of state purchases, etc.)

90 - Utility Taxes

91 - Vehicle Registration Taxes

92 - Waste Management Taxes

93 - Water Rights Fees

94 - Watercraft Registration & Licensing Fees

95 - Well Permit Fees

96 - Workers Compensation Taxes

97 - Zoning Permit Fees

Yet despite all of this oppressive taxation, our local governments, our state governments and our federal government are all absolutely drowning in debt. If it was up to me, I would abolish the income tax and shut the IRS down. But neither major political party in the United States is even willing to consider such a thing.

So the monstrous system that have been created by the criminal politicians will continue to get even bigger and even more complicated. We are literally being taxed into oblivion, and most Americans don’t even seem to care.

The Amazing Utopian Life of Matriarchal Era

- By Bahram Maskanian

You will be shocked to learn that language, science, mathematics, chemistry, cooking, agriculture, the arts, music, philosophy, literature, dance, democracy cooperative, herbal medicine, female and male equality, and generally human culture were founded and created by the women of the matriarchal era, all through out Persia (IRAN) known as: "World's Cradle Of Civilization".! But, Persian women of the matriarchal era never created any religion.

Mithras, a Persian man invented Mithraism nearly 4,000 years ago. Semite men (Arabs and Jews of today), took Egyptian's Book of Death, add some more barbarism to it and fabricated Torah and Judaism 3,500 years ago. Semite men attached their hideous Torah to book of Mithras, rename Mithras to a mythical figure Esau, and invented today's Christianity 2,000 years ago, later on Greeks rename Esau, to Jesus. Judaism is the worst thing that ever happened to humanity.! Everyone must read the evil bible to understand why.?

All patriarchal religions are fabricated by misogynist, pedophile, woman hating criminal men, actively conducting coup d'état against the matriarchal social governing system and its utopian life, made possible by the ruling enlightened women. It took Semite men and their army of slave African men close to five hundred years to achieve their evil goals through murderous religious wars, plunder and slaughter of millions of innocent people, under the name of Jehovah, to destroy the matriarchal civilization, based on the just and fair system of "Democracy Cooperative" in Asia and North Africa, and replaced it with barbaric feudalism.!

The reason for systematic destruction and or suppression of matriarchal cultural and civilization evidences is to cover-up and hide the obvious historic facts, that people were much better off at the matriarchal era, than criminal patriarchal rule. Otherwise there would be no reason to suppress matriarchal era's historic facts. Patriarchal rulers of past and present would have simply said, that people were not better off under matriarchal rule, due to the following reasons, thereby patriarchal oppressive and brutal rule is better than the matriarchal utopian life.!

Try to imagine if the said historic facts and knowledge reach the people, that in our past matriarchal era, we were much better off than we are today, that could cause a political eruption.! People would be asking the obvious question: "would we be better off without patriarchal religions, respecting matriarchal values, instead of women hating barbarism.?" Which could cause a worldwide social uprising and revolution, greatly undermining the criminal patriarchal power of the current ruling elites.

We, the people, must understand that Semite men fabricated religions: Judaism and its two derivatives; Christianity and Islam; through promoting men to god like being, and demoting women to a subhuman, have done an enormous harm, digging a deep canyon, separating men and women all over the world. "Divide and Conquer".! More than half of any society’s population consists of women; religion has effectively silenced half of the world's population creativity, brilliance, and participation in world's affairs. Humanity has lost immeasurable amount of knowledge and opportunity for having done so.

Through countless brutal ethnic cleansing religious wars, causing total destruction of the matriarchal era's historic evidences, through plunder and or destruction of all sources of knowledge discovered, after slaughtering all men and elderly folks, all females and children were taken as property slaves, raped and auctioned off, sold to criminally minded, slave holding men.

Keep in mind that reform begins with oneself.! To achieve true peace and tranquility in life one must inform and enlighten oneself and come to terms with the three major killers of all time: Judaism, Judeo-Christian and Judeo-Islam religions, manufactured and promulgated by power hungry criminally minded men for promotion and preservation of their male gender’s self-proclaimed holier-than-thou superiority over women.

To heal the said deep division between female and male of the world, men have to let go of their sense of entitlement and superiority over women, and face the fact that without women, they wouldn't even be here in the first place. Men must let go of religion and begin to understand and accept the fact that women and men are equal. Men have to let go of their idiotic macho outlook and behavior, and treat women the same way they like to be treated; with dignity and respect.

Looking into the future; raise your children free from religion's barbaric and mythical nonsense, allow your children's mind to wonder and flourish. Teach children reason and common sense, analytical thinking, deductive reasoning, and keep children away from all religions as far as possible.

Buy enlightening books, form your own book club with your children, turn off all of your electronic devices, and go back to the basics, books, pen and paper. Who knows, maybe your daughter invent and build the zero-gravity (magnetic levitation) spaceship needed to travel to the moon, so NASA would stop faking it, and lying to the world.

We must never forget that evil religions are the main factor and pillar of support, prolonging and perpetuating the destructive rule of the women hating criminal elites.

Boycott all men and women, and companies, radio and television stations, that support and broadcast the use of derogatory names referring to women.! Insulting names such as, but not limited to: dame, broad, chick, bimbo, airhead, witch, cunt, bitch, slut, hag, whore, etc.!

Also read: Definition of Evil - What Evil Does and Looks Like

Culture of Violence

The gangster or thug culture is becoming the norm for the mass of young British men. Greg Williams finds its roots in films, gangster rap, hip-hop and a colossal failure of educational system

- By Greg Williams - The Guardian - Saturday November 11, 2000

If one is to believe gloomy news reports regarding exam results, literacy, absentee teenage fathers and (most of all) casual violence then there exists a generation of young men who wilfully fail every educational and behavioural standard set for them.

Whether you believe that schools are failing our boys or that our boys are failing the schools, one thing is as clear as the serial Fs on their report cards: boys are becoming increasingly marginalised from the education system. Denied or rejecting traditional roles of parenthood or breadwinning, young men are increasingly looking to the street and to what can only be described as "attitude" to define themselves.

The influences that wash over them are many and varied - ranging from acquisitive trainer culture and combative video games, to the corporate sponsored financial free-for-all that masquerades as the Premiership. But one thing is increasingly clear, these days, being perceived as a geezer, or its more alarming cousin, a thug, is a more commonly travelled avenue for young white working-class men in search of identity and purpose than we would like to think.

Even the posh boys, the providers of culture, want a slice of the action. The movies Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch - the makers of which were, unsurprisingly, not educated at the state's expense - have had huge success amongst the key cinema-going demographic of young men in their late teens and early 20s.

Lock, Stock … and Snatch, of course, offer no real insight into thug culture, preferring to reference superior American movies, dress them up in Arfur Daley's camel Crombie and package them in skilfully edited chunks accompanied by an MTV-friendly sound track. What they do well is to trade on the stereotypical bish, bash, bosh culture of wideboys and the various hilarious racial archetypes that they encounter on their crazy adventures in the land of mockney. So acute was the nerve that the Lock, Stock … movie tapped into, that the Channel Four TV series was rewarded with a marketing tie-in to its very antithesis, The Sun.

These movies are the Robbie Williams of film-making: cheeky, ironic, knowing, crass and central to a culture that the writers Steven Daly and Mark Jordan have dubbed Thick Plus. "Thick Plus is the sum of the moronically ironic, the cluelessly camp, the oafishly sexy, the methodically soulful and the gamely ersatz," they wrote recently. Thick Plus consciously pilfers black and gay culture and reappropriates it within the mainstream. It is possible that white youth, robbed of meaningful ways of representation, is finding itself further marginalised by the upper-middle-class programme makers/editors/film-makers who co opt the lives of traditional outsiders for mass consumption.

The brutish and reductive nature of cultural totems such as Lock, Stock … and Robbie Williams goes some way to explaining why there is a "crisis" of sorts amongst young British men. It wasn't always so. Young men, from teds to punks to skinheads have always rebelled, and always actively and wilfully used clothes, music and attitude to distance themselves from the mainstream, to declare themselves outsiders. And in Britain, perhaps more than anywhere else in the world, reacting against the mainstream can take the form of dressing smartly and conservatively - from the mod to casual to today's Polo geezer - in order to prove that you are worthy, that you've arrived.

The semiotics of apparel are such that dressing up has also been the mode of choice for gangsters from Capone onwards. One of the most memorable images of recent times was that of the young white men accused of murdering black teenager Stephen Lawrence leaving a public inquiry into police handling of the case. Dressed in natty suits and shirts, eyes masked by sunglasses, they behaved with a brazenly studied bullishness that marked them out as more like a football firm than witnesses summoned by the official fiat.

The look was derivative, culled from one of the opening sequences of Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, which itself came from classic iconography of that most masculine and exclusive of male clubs, the Rat Pack.

The attitude, of course, was calculatedly disrespectful. They also wanted to demonstrate something else: they wanted to show us that they were game, that they could look after themselves. In contemporary Britain it seems that the culture amongst many young men is exactly that - they're a bit tasty, can take care of themselves when it comes to the pavement. Sadly, few would wish to doubt them. • Greg Williams is the author of the novel Diamond Geezer, and a former editor of Arena magazine

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,4087521-106548,00.html