CORRUPTION FILE-After the Donald Sterling/NAACP fiasco I thought that the organization couldn’t get any lower than to give awards to a blatant racist. I was wrong. This pandering was small compared to the national organization itself. I recently read of the NAACP supportfor eliminating net neutrality in favor of a two-tiered system. This system would provide a high-speed Internet for the wealthy and large corporations and a low-speed Internet for the rest of us.
The true purpose of eliminating net neutrality is so that wealthy cable corporations such as Comcast and AT&T can now extort billions of dollars of increased revenue by decreasing the reliability and speed of our Internet. It is fundamentally a gift for the rich given by the government, which is clearly controlled by the large contributions received from the cable television industry. This is how the industry got their best friend appointed by the President to be their regulator.
The broadband systems in United States are like a pie. There is one whole pie and as bigger pieces are given out (high speed broadband) to the rich and powerful part of the pie that remains for the rest of us must be diminished. They are now proposing that there be a gatekeeper for the World Wide Web. That is the effect of eliminating net neutrality.
Would the NAACP be so receptive to this idea if it were the Koch brothers, and not Comcast stood to take full control of the Internet. I think the enthusiasm would be slightly less… but if you paid them they would of course support it. That is the nature of pandering.
As a black man, I watched the NAACP, since 1980, continually ignore the development and spread of cable television throughout the United States and especially within black communities. When black America was poised to get involved in the cable television industry by virtue of a US Supreme Court ruling, the NAACP stood silent. Black America was once again excluded from all economic growth that came from the cable television industry. I'm thoroughly familiar with this ruling because I was in charge of the company Preferred Communications that was the recipient of the unanimous Supreme Court verdict. The NAACP remained silent as black America was excluded from this $100 billion a year business. Once again they're more concerned that the best interest of billionaires be protected.
The concept of having a high speed and low speed Internet reeks of the "separate but equal" legal theory that was used for a century to prevent black America from receiving equal treatment in the educational field. The NAACP in 1954 in the case of Brown versus the Board of Education fought and successfully overturned the "separate but equal" theory that had kept Black Americans as second-class citizens since the late 1800s.
There is a reason why the United States Supreme Court overturned the “separate but equal” theory. The reason was that the concept was blatantly false on its face. The reason why you separate things is so that they may be treated in a fashion that is not the same as the other. This really means that “separate but unequal” is the effect of the asinine concept of "separate but equal".
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The simple reason that the NAACP is willing to take a position in favor of supporting additional income for billionaires is that they are simply pandering for contributions in order to support their extravagant salaries and benefits. There can be no benefit for black America. Not only have they betrayed all of black America but all of America. Who will pay for the additional billions that are going to the already filthy rich cable-television companies? It can be no one but the average consumer and there is no more an average consumer than the black American.
If Comcast is successful in its merger with Time Warner cable then the single company will control almost half of all cable television systems. The same company will control almost half of all broadband systems in the United States. Broadband is the only true competitor to cable television. With the elimination of net neutrality Comcast will become the gatekeepers for all information. They will be a government unto themselves with no controls except for the impotent leadership shown in Washington DC.
The NAACP has failed to show how this two-tiered Internet will provide any benefit to the millions of black Americans that it claims to represent. Considering the small imprint that currently exists for black America on the Internet, we can only assume that they do not care.
● For other Clinton Galloway articles, go to search.
(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 75
Pub: Sep 16, 2-14
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