per the Eric Idle song, the FCC are all fucks.
(mp3 here)
Yet again another government agency who only licks the boots of the corporations it oversees....
The Nation FCC: It Could Get Worse | John Nichols & Robert W. McChesney:
Bush will definitely have an opportunity to appoint a new chair, and if, as some predict, former wireless industry lobbyist Kathleen Abernathy also leaves, he could radically reshape the commission. One prospective replacement for Powell is the third Republican appointee on the commission, Kevin Martin. But Martin upset industry insiders when he sided with Democrats Copps and Adelstein to block Powell's attempt to choke off local phone competition--former House Commerce Committee chair Billy Tauzin dismissed Martin as a “renegade Republican” after that vote. And the insiders want to be sure the agency is chaired by someone who is 100 percent in favor of their agenda.
That's created something of a bandwagon for the appointment of Becky Klein--a former head of the Texas Public Utility Commission--with whom the industry has already developed a cozy relationship. When Klein challenged Texas Congressman Lloyd Doggett last year, the Austin Chronicle described her as “a horrible candidate” who appeared to be less serious about winning a House seat than “auditioning for her next GOP patronage job.” Despite that fact, Klein collected more than $800,000 in campaign contributions, with a substantial portion coming from telecommunications and energy companies--more, in fact, from those industries than any other first-time GOP candidate in the country. Klein earned just 31 percent of the vote, but as Gene Kimmelman, a senior director of Consumers Union, explained, “Clearly, the companies are investing in the future.”
There is no way that Bush is going to put a champion of the public interest in charge of the FCC. But members of the Senate, which must confirm his nominee, should signal now that Klein is simply unacceptable. It would be an important show of independence by Congress, where there is growing bipartisan awareness of public disenchantment with one-size-fits-all media.
{B12 recommended, Current Affairs}
Tags: B12 recommended, /Current Affairs
