My missives to letters@mercurynews.com
11/28/07
Letter to the Editor,
Re: Story 11/27/07 Page 4B
How important are the “other causes that Howie Rich is involved in”? While these dots are not connected by the article about these powerful organizations with their “drown it in a bathtub” approach to government, the briefly mentioned eminent domain proposal, California’s Prop. 90, is a perfect example of this strategy to eliminate and bankrupt State and Local governments. In this disastrous proposal that would have gone down in history as the most expensive corporate welfare pork our state has ever seen, companies could sue for lost profits to whatever extent they could claim a regulation or property seizure cost them future profits. There would be an avalanche of lawsuits slowly bleeding the citizen taxpayers for firms, especially developers.
David Moglen
Economics Professor
San Jose
For this topic I sent 2 versions:
Editor:
In the first line of George Will’s “Treatise on Obama” (Dec 30, 23A) he calls Shelby Steele “America’s foremost black intellectual.” Steele, he tells us, is of the Hoover Institution, one of the many (he doesn’t tell us) right-wing think tanks who dominate every major facet of our media and our government.
I’m sure he also has in his top ten (for this honor of “foremost black intellectual”) Alan Keyes and Ward Connerly. It sounds like for George Will to call you by such a title, you must advocate stripping back measures for equality. To be the foremost black intellectual in George Will’s view, you must stab your people in the back. If you can’t find progressive blacks who will run circles around these intellectual Uncle Toms, you’re not looking hard enough. And don’t try finding them in the mainstream media (eg TV or print news). They only elevate to visibility minorities who are willing to kick the ladder out from under them.
David Moglen, Economics Professor
San Jose
Editor:
In George Will’s “Treatise on Obama” (Dec 30, 23A) he is almost able to articulate the philosophical truism Obama presents to our society. It does have to do with absolution – whites need Obama for absolution. It’s not that he opts out of the absolution transaction Steele and George Will both agree exists, the one where whites gain it for giving blacks a slice of success. This transaction has been completed countless times and whites feel either more guilty because it can’t erase the sins of slavery, and/or they feel embittered because they never wanted to ield any such affirmative action in the first place. But Obama presents a deal that will achieve absolution for whites – if he’s elected, they can say, see, we elected a black president! All those racial issues are behind us (read: end affirmative action now). And the real irony is neither of his parents descended from slaves. So now we can feel we gave back without ever allowing into the highest office someone who’s family was directly abused by slavery. So it gives us a feel-good deal, without having to face the black candidate (like Jesse Jackson) who really is owed some equity. All that said if he gets the nomination, I really hope he wins and it will be the brightest day in America if he does win.
David Moglen, Economics Professor
San Jose
Editor:
In “Art of Fib” (Dec 30, 6A) Michael Dobbs, in the media’s usual game of false balance, includes John Edwards statement that NAFTA cost millions of jobs in his list of major candidate falsehoods. He says this, like his other examples fom the other candidates, is “demonstrably false.” Then he gives absolutely zero evidence to support this. Not one word. In other words, it is, we are to believe “demonstrably false,” just on Mr. Dobbs’ say so. Have we not lost millions of manufacturing and textile jobs? Does NAFTA really have nothing to do with it? Lumping Edwards in with the liars was just a baseless opportunity to slam an honest person. He’s at least as honest as one can possibly be and still hold on as a major candidate. Without the massive runup in military and government spending over the last seven years, employment actually has contracted since 2001. Forget about adding jobs to keep pace with population growth, the private sector has shed more jobs than it added. I suppose Dobbs thinks this too is totally unrelated to NAFTA and other disastrous “free-trade” agreements.
David Moglen, Economics Professor
San Jose
My letter to the FCC in 2006:
I am a constituent. I am an Economics Professor. I influence people to vote and I vote myself. There are some public trusts that our sacred to our democracy, where it is the reponsibility of you and every uncorrupt official to DRAW A LINE.
I implore you as a citizen of this nation, this democracy, to overturn FCC's recent giveaway/travesty regarding the cross-ownership rule.
When will we ever see diverse ownership and independent voices take a place in our media when this vital unrepresented unseen majority of Americans are struggling and hav now lost thanks to the FCC their last little hred of the media pie.
Most of us cannot get any exposure, and hence MOST important ISSUES cannot get any media. This why a volume called Project Censored has to come out EVERY YEAR to just skim the surface o fthe huge, all important stories that our media will not tell us - like Hallinurton providing Iran with Nuclear material.
Let's please right this ship in the name of democracy, independent voices, in
dependent media, and the 1st Ammendment.
We do not have a 4th pillar of government because corporate journalism is coopted by the Republicans and a siamese twin with their corporate interest.
So in the words of my fellow progressives, the American majority, those who are physically sick with pundits on the media, starved to see the views of any reasonable person except for the one hour a day that Olbermann is on:
We write to you today to ask you to act swiftly to overturn the FCC's Dec. 18 vote to relax media ownership rules.
We have spoken out against media consolidation in every way we know how: attending hearings, writing letters, submitting comments. However, on Dec. 18, the FCC ignored this widespread public opposition -- just like it did in 2003. The FCC has turned its back on its mission and its mandate. Their decision to let Big Media get even bigger will erode localism, diminish minority ownership, and decrease competition.
Please take action now to overturn the FCC's reckless action.
My letter to the FCC in 2004:
I am one of the few people nationally who enjoys the right that has now a privilege: I can hear one radio station without having reality obscured into sound bites subjugated for entertainment to ultimately serve only narrow corporate profit and market share interests. Like countless like-minded people, I am now restricted to one radio station and zero TV stations (most people don’t get the Free Speech TV station). Sadly, this meager privilege is far more than even other Californians who simply live outside the range of the one remaining network that prioritizes the public. 70% of Americans get all their news from TV, so the argument that the Internet is a valid alternative to public interests in other media is multiply flawed. Internet companies can censor or promote sites in a number of ways; it is just another version of a few disproportionately powerful people controlling the masses.
Somehow the FCC or the Commerce Committee should “slip some legislation” past the lobbyists, instead of passing their legislation unbeknownst to the public and often with key clauses buried to the point of indecipherability by lawmakers. Can our regulators do nothing positive in recent years? Is it all repeal and rollback of laws to protect the public’s access to information? The 1996 rules that squelched local programming and helped deliver us to this point today must be assessed and revamped if not revoked. With their existence and the upcoming vote on further deregulation, it is nothing less than the sanctity of our democracy at stake. The wholeness of our system is predicated on an informed populace, and nearly all opinion on public matters is media-determined. The current extent of homogeneity of viewpoints due to consolidated ownership does unrelenting harm to our democratic rights to be heard.
Too many Americans now feel forced to get news from firms abroad so they do not have to be lied to. US media firms have a third goal lately, and it is quite evident: please the Administration and the Pentagon by being their megaphone, in addition to the idols of entertainment and profit. In so doing they can increase owner wealth by getting an almost tit-for-tat return: further deregulation. The result is that the media no longer exists as a “fourth pillar” checking up on the other democratic branches of government.
No TV networks broadcast the hearing on proposed rules changes that took place on the 26th of April in San Francisco, meaning most Americans are in the dark about the further monoculturization that looms. These hearings were at first thought by the FCC to be unnecessary, and the commission saw fit to rush through this elitist deregulation with no public comment or awareness. We still don’t have the level of awareness due to the monopoly of big media in bed with military and government, but somehow social action groups were heard, in Virginia, where lobbyists are nearby. Contrast that hearing with the one in San Francisco, where countless eloquent members of society gathered for six hours. Not one favored deregulation, and not one representative of its proponents attended or said a word of logic in its support. Also, as the FCC knows well, due to affiliation agreements, networks shamelessly determine local broadcasting, including brazenly compelling entertainment to be shown over important political functions like high-level candidate debates. Many intelligent activists have technically sound alternatives devised. If the FCC and Commerce Committee could give these leaders a tiny fraction of the time allotted to corporate sponsors, true progress could be made.
In closing I respectfully voice my outrage as an American citizen at having no substantive media source that is not continually checked by narrow ideology and profiteering. There are legitimate ways to open the airwaves to the public. The FCC and all federal regulators need to wean themselves off corporate ties and rediscover the interests of the public they are meant to support. The banning of songs by Sarah Jones and Eminem in the same year shows both a disregard for the first amendment and an uneven hand, where the vile Eminem can quickly be heard due to big media approval while the moral, upright Ms. Jones faced an unjustifiable uphill battle to have her song heard. Even now, Clear Channel has mandated the banning of songs by Springsteen, the Beatles, and many others. Speech is a microcosmic arena of rights infringement that must be alleviated for all others to have air.
Chairman Michael K. Powell: mpowell@fcc.gov
Commissioner Kathleen Q. Abernathy: kabernat@fcc.gov
Commissioner Michael J. Copps: mcopps@fcc.gov
Commissioner Kevin J. Martin: kjmweb@fcc.gov
Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein: jadelste@fcc.gov
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20554
McCain
241 Russell Senate Ofc. Bldg.
United States Senate
Washington D.C., Washington DC 20510
Boxer
112 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
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