roundtable: COMMON SENSE IN CYBERSPACE (short version)
roundtable: COMMON SENSE IN CYBERSPACE (short version)
COMMON SENSE IN CYBERSPACE (short version)
Vigdor Schreibman - FINS (fins@access.digex.net)
Sat, 2 Sep 1995 13:14:53 -0400 (EDT)
Date: Sat, 2 Sep 1995 13:14:53 -0400 (EDT)
From: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net>
To: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net>
Subject: COMMON SENSE IN CYBERSPACE (short version)
Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950902131047.1064A-100000@access4.digex.net>
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FINS: Communicating the Emerging Philosophy of The Information Age
FEDERAL INFORMATION NEWS SYNDICATE
Vol III, Issue No. 16 (203 lines) Embargoed Until September 4, 1995
READ THIS ISSUE OF FINS TO CONSIDER:
* Breakdown in congress
* Filling the bellies of the behemoths
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COMMON CAUSE IN CYBERSPACE
A Cause for People Power
By Vigdor Schreibman
Breakdown in Congress
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Telecommunication bills that have already passed the US Senate and House
of Representatives [S. 652; H.R. 1555] will be taken up before a House-Senate
Conference Committee after the summer recess to iron out differences between
the two Houses. The final measure would transform the entire field of
telecommunications in the United States, affecting about one seventh of the
whole US economy, and radically changing the global civilization, including
the way people relate to each other, work, learn, shop, and play.
However, this profound transformation and the legislation that would provide
an infrastructure for it was not sought by the American people, but reflects
a "contract with 100 American corporations," according to Sen. John Kerrey
(D-NE). Public interest groups were largely locked out of the process of
formulating the measure, which was crafted out of public view, through the
lobbying efforts of telephone, cable, broadcast, newspaper, publishing,
online services, consumer electronic, entertainment and other companies.
In this action, the US Congress has arrogantly disregarded the general
welfare of the people. Instead, the overwhelming majority of the people's
representatives in Washington have fallen captive to special corporate
interests at the expense of society-at-large. The legislative process with
regard to the telecom bills amounts to no more than a rigged and lopsided
competition of ideas to serve mega-corporate centers of power, without
serious attempt to secure a desirable future for the whole people.
The great lesson of "people power" from which democracy itself was born
must now be assert to alter the structure of power that has corruptly taken
over the government of the United States. In his biography of Tom Paine
published earlier this year, Australian John Keane described the profound
meaning of "people power" is these words:
The power to shape the world does not derive ultimately
from rulers or their monopoly of the means of violence.
Rulers surrounded by spies, police, jurists, tax
collectors, generals, and administrators cannot rule
for very long. Power ultimately emanates from below.
Rulers can rule only insofar as they have the tacit or
active support of the ruled. Without it, they become
impotent in the face of citizens acting together in
solidarity for the achievement of their own common goals.
Filling the Bellies of the Behemoths
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The ink has not even set on the telecom bills, nor approved by the President
(he has promised a veto), and corporate chiefs are already lining up the
multibillion dollar payoffs that they will pocket at the expense of society-
at-large. The No. 1 TV network, Capital Cities/ABC, Inc., announced July 31
that it would agree to merge with Walt Disney Co., in a $19 billion deal. The
very very next day Westinghouse Electric said it plans to buy CBS, Inc., the
No. 3 network, in a transaction valued at around $5.4 billion.
The stock of CBS drew a premium of almost 23% above the market price of
the stock, amounting to more than $1.1 billion. A 27% premium was paid for
ABC, some $6 billion more than the market price. Other media buyouts with
even higher premiums have been pouring in ever since. The announcement of the
multibillion dollar acquisitions of two of the major TV networks on July 31
and Aug. 1, took their cues from the start of the floor debate by the US
House of Representatives on the "Communications Act of 1995" [H.R. 1555].
The bill was loaded with a package of special benefits for the broadcasters.
For example, the bill authorizes "spectrum flexibility," which would
expand lucrative allocations of publicly-owned spectrum for broadcasters.
This would allow broadcasters to provide multiple new channels of digital
television services as well as non-broadcast services for paging, a vast
array of data services, pay-per-view, and home shopping, all without any new
responsibilities to the public. A report issued by the FCC May 5, at the
request of Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-CT) has confirmed not-for-attribution
estimates disclosed in an essay by William Safire published by The New York
Times, Mar 15, that this new business could have a value of as much as "half
a trillion dollars in the future." Industry insiders were allowed to write
the bill for themselves, James C. May, Executive VP of the National Association
of Broadcasters, bragged in a debate with Republican opponents broadcast Sun
Aug 13, over NET (National Empowerment Television), Washington, DC.
On Aug 1, the day the CBS deal was announced, the House Rules Committee
passed a resolution authorizing an 11th hour manager's amendment that rewrote
42 items in the bill, secretly behind closed doors, on directions from
Speaker Newt Gingrich and industry representatives. Rep. John Conyers
(D-MI), a member of the Judiciary Committee and former chairman of the House
Government Operations Committee, told his colleagues on the House floor in
the dead-of-night, of Aug 2 that "For American consumers, this is one big
sucker punch ... to cost our constituents, the consumers, a bundle."
Indeed, the anticipated 21st century global treasure hunt authorized by the
transformation emerging from the 104th Congress has placed in line to be
taken over by financial scavengers the whole constellation of telephone,
cable, broadcast, newspaper, publishing, online services, consumer
electronic, entertainment and other companies. The Bell Holding Company
behemoths have been engaged in just such global empire building initiatives
for a number of years. They are leveraging their nearly $300 billion, state
franchised, monopoly-based war chest to fill their corporate bellies to the
maximum, unfairly enlarging their wealth and political powers against the
public, perhaps, leading to a state of "telco feudalism," as Marc Rotenberg,
and other key public interest advocates, have characterized the situation.
The Politics of People Power
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It has been a stunning sight for all Americans, who innately understand what
people power is all about, to see its realization in the modern world. A
housewife led the way in the Philippines, an electrical worker in Poland,
and a poet in Czechoslovakia. Each of these citizen leaders has reaffirmed
our own Tom Paine's prophetic understanding of the overwhelming power of the
people to secure democratic control over their own destiny, peacefully.
This writer would advance no blueprint for such an undertaking, which must
come from the soul of the people, however, a number of ominous long term
implications of existing conditions should be taken into consideration:
o A civil society cannot long survive, yet permit the government to
unilaterally transform its important social relations and the primary civil
mode of communications, without the meaningful consent of the governed but
solely under a "contract with 100 American corporations";
o A civil society cannot long survive, when such a contract is the
proximate outcome of a corrupt system of influence peddling that calls, at
the very outset, for a multibillion dollar public payoff to just a few of
the chiefs of those "100 American corporations"; and
o A civil society cannot long survive, when such a contract is designed
by its very nature, not to serve the public welfare, but to most likely lead
to the enslavement of the people by a monopoly and oligopoly of those same
"100 American corporations."
In a democratic republic like the United States the first principle sustained
by the Constitution is that "all power is derived from the people," second
comes government power, then the power of private industry. Nevertheless,
the actual structure of power has been established in exactly the reverse
order of priority with grave adverse effects.
Moreover, one must recognize that a healthy society and environment as well
as a solid instrumental foundation to secure that outcome, are the basic
sources of meaning and the very preconditions for survival of the species in
a technological civilization. Nevertheless, it is the intent of Congress in
the current legislative program to provide no public support for those
essential public goods. On the contrary, industry would be authorized to
take a free ride on society and the environment, at the expense of everyone
and everything else.
These appalling defects in public policy must be overcome to avoid the
emerging calamity of "telco feudalism." The only viable way to achieve
this urgently needed reform is through the assertion of people power.
A promising instrumental structure that can right this fundamental wrong, is
the emerging National Information Infrastructure, which must be designed to
sustain and enhance democracy. No lesser order of morality may be allowed to
prevail over that ultimate end. An infrastructure architecture that can
wisely sustain and enhance the democratic mission, must contain three virtual
networks interconnected to one another, but each operating with an
independent economic model and social purpose. This includes:
A) public information about the conduct of the government, freely
available to the general public;
B) sustainable development for a life sustaining Planet Earth, which
can supports a balance between the economy, society, and the environment; and
C) useful commerce and trade under the free enterprise system.
Adequate funds to pay for the public segments of the necessary infrastructure
architecture must be allocated through alternative legislative priorities.
More that $200 billion was spent on information technology over the past
decade, both as a subsidy to industry and to empower the government. A large
part of this expenditure has admittedly been "thrown away" due to poor
planning and program management, according to a finding by the US Senate,
Aug 4, 1995, confirming previous reports of the General Accounting Office.
At least one-third of the annual appropriations for IT --now amounting to $27
billion a year--should be reallocated to fairly support the fundamental
Constitutional priorities of the people, through the public networks of the
NII. This reallocation should be a piece of cake with American people power.
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