CORRUPTION WATCH-The majority of people reading this will not know the name Brian Roberts. Roberts is the president and controlling shareholder of Comcast, the largest cable television company in America.
He is in the middle of one of the largest power plays ever made in the history of America, yet politicians pretend they don't know about it. The pending acquisition of Time Warner cable would give Comcast control of almost half the cable television households in America. The pending destruction of net neutrality by the FCC would provide Comcast, the largest broadband provider in the United States, total control over the use of the Internet by the American public. Once net neutrality is destroyed, there will be no limits on how the broadband providers will further control access in the future.
Cable television is the primary gatekeeper for all video media that goes across your television. As gatekeeper they determine what you will see and when you will see it. The only viable competitor for cable television is broadband internet service. Brian Roberts handpicked chief of the FCC, Tom Wheeler, is set to destroy net neutrality.
In the modern-day corporate world, when an individual owns one third of the outstanding common stock of a publicly held corporation he controls that total corporation. This is the status of Brian Roberts. There is no doubt that he is already one of the most wealthy and powerful men in America but the new powers that will be given to him will make him the most powerful man in America. Never mind the President of the United States. The new power that Roberts will have will allow him to determine who will be President of the United States by virtue of his control the media and the internet.
The open-door policy between the federal government and Comcast has created a cloud over the integrity of government and its ability to control this media behemoth. Cable is one thing but the internet is a source of power for all the American public. To turn that power over to an already obscenely powerful company is simply lunacy. There can be no substitute for net neutrality. Once it is gone they will continue to make changes that will limit your ability to use it and create new profit centers for the declining cable-television industry. The broadband industry will be allowed to take control of something it did not even create, the World Wide Web.
How can this be any different than China or Russia and their control of the internet? Instead of a government controlling it a single person will have total control over your ability to access information from throughout the world. That is too much power for any single individual in a “free society” to have.
We should never forget that the cable television industry was created by one of the most corrupt government operations in the history of America. Local governments, such as the city of Los Angeles, spent tens of millions to create monopolies that private companies could not create for themselves. I know this my from my personal experience. Racketeering laws were used against government officials during this time. Now the federal government and the FCC will do their bidding.
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The open-door policy between the government and the FCC has seen commissioners from the FCC go to work for Comcast immediately after supporting transactions that directly benefited Comcast. When the former head of Pres. Obama's Secret Service contingent, Joseph Clancy, left the government he went to work for Comcast and Brian Roberts. Now he has returned to the federal government to become the head of the US Secret Service. If you think that this is a coincidence you may as well start buying the beachfront property in Arizona. So who really is running the government?
You know more about Kim Kardashian, Jodi Arias and the Dallas Cowboys then you know about Brian Roberts. This is no accident. Mr. Roberts has chosen to keep his power and direct involvement with the federal government quiet. Since he also controls a major broadcast network and determines what will be on your television there will be little challenge in the media to make you aware of the power of Mr. Roberts.
Very few politicians have take a position regarding net neutrality and the acquisition of Time Warner cable by Comcast. Very few elected officials in Washington have not received a contribution from Comcast or one of its related companies that include NBC and GE. The politicians are going to protect their money by selling you down the drain.
(Clinton Galloway is the author of the fascinating book “Anatomy of a Hustle: Cable Comes to South Central LA”. This is another installment in an ongoing CityWatch series on power, influence and corruption in government … Corruption Watch. Galloway is a CityWatch contributor and can be reached here. Mr. Galloway’s views are his own.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 83
Pub: Oct 14, 2014
