For a public option regarding internet service

Susan Crawford, Former Special Assistant to President Obama on Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy, urges that the internet is too important to be left to the private market. - for more than 77% of Americans, their only choice for a high capacity connection is their local cable monopoly. - Residents of Stockholm pay about 30 bucks a month for gigabit access. That’s something we can't even imagine in the United States. Residents of Seoul and Japan and Hong Kong other Northern European countries have access to internet service 100 times faster than that in the U.S. - Twenty states have passed laws saying, "Cities don't have the choice to [build their own public internet options]." These laws have been rammed through by incumbents happy with the way things are. One thing that needs to happen is we need to block these state laws so that cities can make these decision for themselves. FCC Chairman Wheeler has announced that this would be a good direction to investigate. The full interview is here.

Continue ReadingFor a public option regarding internet service

Why the Comcast – Time Warner Merger Is Bad for You

From Free Press, the Comcast-Time-Warner Cable merger will be bad for you.

Free Press research shows that the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger would create a media behemoth with unmatched power to raise prices, squash competition and reshape the future of the Internet. If the merger is approved, all kinds of bad stuff will happen. (Click the thumbnails in the article (here, here and here) to get the full scoop.) First off, Comcast will be the largest pay-TV provider in 104 markets encompassing 65 percent of the U.S. population. Wait, it gets worse: Comcast’s service area will cover almost two-thirds of the U.S., and it will be the only broadband provider that can deliver Internet and pay-TV services to nearly four out of every 10 U.S. homes. (See the company’s reach.) And to top it all off Comcast will control half of the truly high-speed U.S. Internet market, half of the TV/Internet-bundle market and a third of the pay-TV market.

Continue ReadingWhy the Comcast – Time Warner Merger Is Bad for You

Bill Moyers: Government is the “protection racket for the 1 percent.”

Truly, we should stop celebrating the Fourth of July until we see meaningful reform. Bill Moyers and Michael Winship write:

Inequality is what has turned Washington into a protection racket for the one percent. It buys all those goodies from government: Tax breaks. Tax havens (which allow corporations and the rich to park their money in a no-tax zone). Loopholes. Favors like carried interest. And so on. As Paul Krugman writes in his New York Review of Books essay on Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, “We now know both that the United States has a much more unequal distribution of income than other advanced countries and that much of this difference in outcomes can be attributed directly to government action.” Recently, researchers at Connecticut’s Trinity College ploughed through the data and concluded that the US Senate is responsive to the policy preferences of the rich, ignoring the poor. And now there’s that big study coming out in the fall from scholars at Princeton and Northwestern universities, based on data collected between 1981 and 2002. Their conclusion: “America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened… The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.” Instead, policy tends “to tilt towards the wishes of corporations and business and professional associations.”
Oh, and if you're wondering why your elected representative won't pay attention to you and your ideas . . .
"Last month, Matea Gold of The Washington Post reported on a pair of political science graduate students who released a study confirming that money does equal access in Washington. Joshua Kalla and David Broockman drafted two form letters asking 191 members of Congress for a meeting to discuss a certain piece of legislation. One email said “active political donors” would be present; the second email said only that a group of “local constituents” would be at the meeting. One guess as to which emails got the most response. Yes, more than five times as many legislators or their chiefs of staff offered to set up meetings with active donors than with local constituents. Why is it not corruption when the selling of access to our public officials upends the very core of representative government? When money talks and you have none, how can you believe in democracy?"

Continue ReadingBill Moyers: Government is the “protection racket for the 1 percent.”

Lee Camp: Our political system has cancer

A new study demonstrates that the United states is not a democracy, but an oligarchy. Lee Camp comments on this study: Common Dreams has also commented on the study, entitled "Testing Theories of American Politics."

A study, to appear in the Fall 2014 issue of the academic journal Perspectives on Politics, finds that the U.S. is no democracy, but instead an oligarchy, meaning profoundly corrupt, so that the answer to the study’s opening question, "Who governs? Who really rules?" in this country, is: "Despite the seemingly strong empirical support in previous studies for theories of majoritarian democracy, our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts. Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association, and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But, ..." and then they go on to say, it's not true, and that, "America's claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened" by the findings in this, the first-ever comprehensive scientific study of the subject, which shows that there is instead "the nearly total failure of 'median voter' and other Majoritarian Electoral Democracy theories [of America]. When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy." To put it short: The United States is no democracy, but actually an oligarchy.
You can find the study here. The following is the bottom line:
The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence. Our results provide substantial support for theories of Economic Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.

Continue ReadingLee Camp: Our political system has cancer

Some Context for my Concern with Government Corruption

I realize that I probably look obsessed due to my many posts about government corruption. Perhaps that is because I saw it first-hand when I worked as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Missouri. That was back in the late '80s, when William Webster served as Missouri Attorney General. My job required me to prosecute consumer fraud. That's not quite how it worked, however. If the target was a significant contributor, I would be given lots of excuses that good cases were "not good cases." I resisted for many months, documenting my cases as best I could and refusing to close good files--this behavior confused me at first, but then it became all too clear. Ultimately, several substantial cases against major contributors convinced Webster to transfer me out of of the Trade Offense Division. Because I refused his transfer, Webster fired me. Little did I know that my experiences would become a focus for the 1992 Missouri Governor's debate. The debate featured Mel Carnahan (the Democrat) versus William Webster (the Republican). Prior to this debate Webster had held a 20-point lead. The election occurred two weeks after this debate, and Webster conceded by 7:30 pm on election night. During the debate Carnahan blistered Webster with accusations much of the night. You'll get a flavor for this well-deserved barrage if you watch the first 5 minutes--I was discussed beginning at the 3-minute mark. One other Assistant Attorney General also took a bold stand. After it became clear to him that the office was corrupt, Tom Glassberg resigned, immediately driving to Jefferson City to file ethics charges against Webster. Tom wrote a letter defending my reputation and his letter was published by the Post-Dispatch. It was letter I will never forget. A few sentences were read at the Governor's Debate. Those were intense times for me, of course. You can't solve problems like this in a day. It requires immense patience and diplomacy, and bucking the system is risky. When you start resisting, you quickly see who has both a conscience and a backbone. When I see the constant stream of money for political favors stories, I'm disheartened but resolute. Corrupt money and power are formidable, but they can't prevail where good people organize. I'm sure that my time as an AAG was formative, and it continues to drive me forward. One last thought is a sad one for me, however. During the Webster scandal, the St. Louis Post Dispatch was an aggressive newspaper that did real investigative journalism thanks to excellent reporting by several reporters, including Terry Ganey. The Post-Dispatch no longer does significant investigative journalism, as is the case with most newspapers. Reporters across the country are being laid off by the hundreds, and this has led to a huge news vacuum. These days, we simply don't know what is going on in most corners of our government. Many stories don't see the light of day, and the mass media offer no local alternatives (local TV "news" tends to be a joke). Hence my non-stop interest in media reform through organization such as Free Press. Media Reform and Election Reform need to be fixed before we can meaningfully address any other issues. That has so sadly become apparent.

Continue ReadingSome Context for my Concern with Government Corruption