On August 21st, 2014, Mayor Jere Wood of Roswell, Georgia, sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission expressing emphatic support for Comcast’s controversial effort to merge with Time Warner Cable. Not only did the mayor’s letter express personal excitement for the gargantuan deal — which critics say will create a monopoly that will harm millions of consumers — but it also claimed that the entire town of Roswell adored Comcast. “When Comcast makes a promise to act, it is comforting to know that they will always follow through,” Wood’s letter explained. “This is the type of attitude that makes Roswell proud to be involved with such a company,” the letter asserts, “our residents are happy with the services it has provided and continues to provide each day.”
Yet Wood’s letter made one key omission: Neither Wood nor anyone representing Roswell’s residents wrote his letter to the FCC. Instead, a vice president of external affairs at Comcast authored the missive word for word in Mayor Wood’s voice. According to email correspondence obtained through a public records request, the Republican mayor’s office apparently added one sign-off sentence and his signature to the corporate PR document, then sent it to federal regulators on the official letterhead of Roswell, Georgia.
– From The Verge article: Exclusive: Politicians are Supporting Comcast’s TWC Merger with Letters Ghostwritten by Comcast
So what does a mega corporation do when there’s no grassroots support for a mega merger? Invent grassroots support, naturally.
It’s one thing for cutthroat corporate executives to think this way. It’s quite another for shameless, unethical, incompetent politicians to so eagerly play along. Readers of Liberty Blitzkrieg know that I have very little respect for America’s cadre of professional authoritarians and thieves, i.e., politicians. Due to a combination of apathy, ignorance and huge sums of bribe money from large corporations, our elected politicians are about as useless as you can get. Greedy, self-interested and immoral. The following article describes what is likely happening every single day, on pretty much every single issue of importance.
As a groundbreaking academic study proved last year, average Americans have essentially zero influence when it comes to public policy (see: New Report from Princeton and Northwestern Proves It: The U.S. is an Oligarchy). Kind of a peculiar outcome for the so-called “land of the free.”
From The Verge:
On August 21st, 2014, Mayor Jere Wood of Roswell, Georgia, sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission expressing emphatic support for Comcast’s controversial effort to merge with Time Warner Cable. Not only did the mayor’s letter express personal excitement for the gargantuan deal — which critics say will create a monopoly that will harm millions of consumers — but it also claimed that the entire town of Roswell adored Comcast. “When Comcast makes a promise to act, it is comforting to know that they will always follow through,” Wood’s letter explained. “This is the type of attitude that makes Roswell proud to be involved with such a company,” the letter asserts, “our residents are happy with the services it has provided and continues to provide each day.”
Yet Wood’s letter made one key omission: Neither Wood nor anyone representing Roswell’s residents wrote his letter to the FCC. Instead, a vice president of external affairs at Comcast authored the missive word for word in Mayor Wood’s voice. According to email correspondence obtained through a public records request, the Republican mayor’s office apparently added one sign-off sentence and his signature to the corporate PR document, then sent it to federal regulators on the official letterhead of Roswell, Georgia.
The letter was part of what Comcast called an “outpouring of thoughtful and positive comments” in support of the proposed mega-merger, which is now entering the final stages of federal review. Comcast asserted that the numerous letters sent by local officials expressing support for the merger displayed its broad grassroots backing. “We are especially gratified for the support of mayors and other local officials,” Comcast boasted in an August 25th release, “underscoring the powerful benefits of this transaction for their cities, constituents, and customers.”
Yet email records obtained by The Verge indicate that these letters are far from grassroots.
For instance, a letter sent to the FCC by a town councilman from the small community of Jupiter, Florida, was in fact largely orchestrated by some of the biggest players in corporate telecom. Not only do records show that a Comcast official sent the councilman the exact wording of the letter he would submit to the FCC, but also that finishing touches were put on the letter by a former FCC official named Rosemary Harold, who is now a partner at one of the nation’s foremost telecom law firms in Washington, DC. Comcast has enlisted Harold to help persuade her former agency to approve the proposed merger.
If the FCC follows the recommendations of the letters and approves the merger, American consumers could see big changes to their broadband and cable TV services. Critics argue that the merger would give Comcast a dangerous grip on an estimated 50 percent of the United States’ high-speed broadband market, which already lacks the sort of fierce market competition that helps drive down prices and ensure quality service. The merger would hand Comcast a level of market power, according to critics, that would allow the company to jack up already-rising cable prices while making it a gatekeeper over which movies, news, and music Americans can access. Last month, a coalition of industry groups intensified opposition to the merger for fear that it will give Comcast too much leverage over things like programming choices and local advertising. And earlier this month, a conservative political action committee joined the anti-merger movement, which had hitherto been associated with more progressive-leaning figures like Senator Al Franken (D-MN).
“I think they have failed to meet their burden of persuasion that this will make life better for the average American consumer,” says Tim Wu, a law professor at Columbia University who has written extensively about the telecom industry. “What does the average American consumer care about? They care about prices being too high. Comcast could have said this merger will lower prices and committed itself to lower prices but it has made no sign that it will do this.”
Wu, who reviewed the documents obtained by The Verge, said that the new information “confirms the impression that evidence that the merger is in the ‘public interest’ is simply being manufactured.”
“It’s sort of become an amusement park where the fake stuff outnumbers the real stuff,” Wu says. “The fact is a lot of telecom issues are pretty obscure, they often don’t get the public very excited. So what do you do? You buy it.”
An amusement park indeed. Welcome to the Truman Show serfs.
For my prior thoughts on the Comcast/Time Warner merger, see:
The Comcast/Time Warner Merger and the War Between Centralization and Decentralization
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
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The evidence of the non-stop shafting of the average American continues. There is no large institutional presence in national life these days that is not contaminated either by influence of the moneyed players or the supine acceptance of corporate domination among our “representatives.”
The only non-violent yet effective response is simply to pull the plug on these bastards. Using as much will as you can muster, cut off the cable service; it doesn’t make any difference if there is a monopoly on a service no one wants. Use open source software; why do I care about a forced upgrade path when I get my OS and applications free…or at the price I decide is worth it? Take you money out of the big banks and stop using their credit cards. Use cash as you can and a local credit union when you can’t. Educate yourself about how the pharmaceutical companies operate, what many drugs do to your body and the markup–as in we’re the marks–which they charge for their poisons. Spend that money on organic food and supplements instead and give them a big Italian Salute instead.
The vast majority of enslavement and oppression in America is still done with our accession. We can’t be bothered to help ourselves, it seems.
Pull the plug on these bastards and you will feel the surge of freedom again…priceless.
I don’t see a “like” button but just have to say i like your comment and this solid article about our “amusement park” paradigm by Michael. Totally agree that we accede to our own demise and slavery. It’s uplifting to see global populous shift and uprising – as in Greece this week as a dignified citizenry install a new anti-austerity administration to stand up to the amusement park handlers.
Here in Canada, we’re trying to wake people up as we head into our 2015 election phase. In a controlled deficient “economic” construct with a limited electoral marketplace, it’s important that we try to offer up a new construct from both within and outside of this one. Our Harper administration puppets all of these corporately controlled neo liberal strategies that globalized elite interests pull the strings on. Hopefully strategic ABC voting will install an administration that is less damaging to the public interest and our environment as we weather the inevitable transition towards a money-less, eco centric, sharing, and circular socio economic construct that will value living systems balance and happiness. Thank you Michael for your articles that illuminate the interests that promote disinformation and pollutes the narrative for change.