Cleveland City Councilman Matt Zone’s testimony to the Ohio Senate regarding their bill SB 117. This serves as a concise description of what a real giveaway to corporate wants at the expense of the public interest and well-being this legislation really is.
The question someone should be asking in regards to the current telco legislation in Ohio, Senate Bill SB 117, is this….
Is TimeWarner profitable?
I believe the answer is yes.
So if they have been able to make a profit under the current law, why should we assume another company could not be as equally profitable? Why would we modify a law that is working for business and for consumers?
The argument over the high rates is because no other competition has challenged the current provider. But again, if the current provider was able to make a profit under the current law, why then would we assume a second company could not be as equally successful and why would the rules of supply and demand not apply under the current law?
Just because it is difficult and expensive to start up a business does not mean that the laws need to be changed. If the public is well served by the current law and the provisions in it providing for public use and compensation, just think how much more we can do if all providers are held to the current standard. This should be a time to discuss what other great services could be offered with the additional resources a second provider would be required to supply for the public.
I am not one to defend TimeWarner, but if they could do well under the current system why can’t another company? And this is itself is not a matter of a direct public interest issue, because cable tv is not right or even a privilege. It is a service provided by a third party to the citizens. The government’s only involvement is in the control of the use of the public rights of way. A citizen can choose not to have cable service. I am one of them because I think it is too expensive, but I do not look to my government to change that. I look to market forces to eventually lower the cost.
On a level playing field all companies can compete freely, under the same laws and regulations. The fact that one company got there before the other is a non-issue. It was and is difficult for the current providers to do what they do, but they are doing it because they can make a profit. When they raise the rates high enough that another company decides that they can provide a better product and win over customers, then they will enter the market and free market forces will control the price.
The laws should treat all companies fairly and changes might need to be made to correct current inequities. But to reduce the current level of resources allocated to the public in exchange for these company’s usage of public property in order to make a profit, all in an attempt to simply lower cable bills is to miss the point. This is not equal to lowering taxes for all citizens. All citizens benefit from the current public access. To reduce cable rates will only benefit a subset of citizens to the detriment to the entire body of citizens on a whole whom are compensated for the use of their collectively owned public space.
- Posted by Doug Fritz for USTV Media
Good analysis on the nature of how the corporate state actually works, and why talk about our system being one of ‘free market competition’ is pretty much bunk. This should be required reading for all high school civics classes. (It explains how things like Ohio Senate Bill SB 117 come into existence, for instance).
Crony capitalism is the practice of government supporting specific companies or industries for favorable treatment in legislation, government grants, legal permits and beneficial tax laws. The concepts of open competition and free markets do not apply, because government actively intervenes to assist privileged corporations. In crony capitalism, there is a close relationship between government and corporations, and their actions towards each other are mutually financially beneficial. National laws and regulations are enacted that provide special permission for particular companies for acquisitions, mergers, real estate transactions and tax benefits. The quid pro quo for Republican and Democratic politicians are campaign donations, future jobs for themselves or relatives, and are disguised or hidden perks in exchange for favorable legislation for privileged organizations. Crony democracy occurs when crony capitalism merges with democracy, with major players becoming interchangeable with the lobbying promoting it.
The Bushevik regime has brought this cycle to a new height of influence in American history. And the article talks about the Bush administration’s conflict of interests in regards to their policies and who benefits. I would suggest it is not so much the case of the Bush family and their cronies exploitation of conflicts of interest, as much as it is the family’s long history of an interest in conflict.
Read The Full Essay Here
The following is a pretty accurate analysis by Greg Coleridge of POCLAD (Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy) of the situation we are facing regarding Ohio Senate Bill SB 117. It brings to light the important fact that failure to properly understand the nature of the problem we face will result in applying solutions that do not actually solve the real problem (for without doing so we can at best only mitigate the symptoms for a time. We condemn ourselves to fighting defense instead of offense, and in the process cede our rights to asserting democratic accountability and local governing authority for our communities).
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Stripping local control over cable and telephone corporations Ohio Senate Bill (SB) 117 calls for stripping the authority of Ohio’s municipalities and townships to establish “franchise agreements” (i.e. contracts) with cable and telephone corporations, outfits like the Time Warner corporation and AT&T corporation. The bill, if passed, would profoundly threaten the ability of citizens from producing and airing programs on “public access” channels; public spaces that every franchise agreement legally stipulates. Public access program is what allows citizens to be producers, and not mere consumers, of information; information that most of the time is ignored in the corporate press.
Bills like this are popping up in state after state after corporate-backed efforts stalled (at least for now) at the federal level to transfer power and authority for cable franchising from the local to the federal level. Transferring authority to the state level is the next best corporate strategy. The rule of thumb for corporations is always concentration; to shift as many decisions as possible to corporate board rooms (corporatized decisions). If decisions must be “public,” then they need to be made by as few “public” decision-makers as possible (federal rather than state; state rather than local; judicial rather than legislative; regulatory rather than legislative). Of course, the ultimate goal is global decision-making transcending the nation-state itself.
SB 117 was introduced on March 12. It’s sponsored by Jeff Jacobson and co-sponsored by 6 (4 Republican and 2 Democrats) of the 9 members of the Senate Energy and Public Utilities Committee. Public hearings on the bill won’t take place until after Easter.
Below are 2 pieces analyzing SB 117; one from a law firm, Walter & Haverfield LLP, represenating municipalities and specializing in technology issues; the second from Dayton Access Television.
We’ll provide updates on hearing dates (there will probably be 3 of them) as they’re scheduled. In the meantime, familiarize yourself with the bill, call you State Senator (numbers and email addresses in second posting below), spread the word, and plan to be at one or more hearings if possible.
As with so many of these types of issues, the root concern here isn’t about cable television, but of self-governance. Who should have the right to decide? Will you and I have a greater opportunity to shape, monitor and evaluate actions of cable and television corporations at the state or local level? Should these decisions be public or private? In this case, the arena of decisions are specifically around items like cable service, community programming, access to equipment/studios, training, and the number of community channels.
But the core issue is the right of the community to make these decisions, not others at the state or federal level…or business corporations. It’s tough enough to get our democratic foot in the door of public buildings where public officials are making public decisions that are supposed to benefit the public, but most often don’t. Shifting decisions to the state or federal level where the [corporations] can influence decision-makers (especially when so much is at stake) and eventually assume decisions is the surest way for the public to have zero democratic access.
For a description of what this legislation entails, and a point by point run down of the core provisions of SB 117 and how it poses a grave threat to municipal Home Rule authority, municipal fiscal health, and the continued existence of PEG access in Ohio, read this report (pdf) from Walter & Haverfield, a Cleveland law firm that acts as counsel for a number of municipalities on cable and telecom matters
Dayton Access Television (DATV) has also posted a very good quick rundown of what this bill is, how it will eliminate PEG access in Ohio, and what you can do to help stop it and save public access in Ohio. Read it Here.
The legislation passed March 1st, 2007 by the House called the “Employee Free Choice Act” is being celebrated as a victory for labor, a “reward” from the Democrats. Highlights of the bill include:
1. Allowing unions to form without using the secret ballot. The beauty of the secret ballot was that corporations steered (cajoled and/or threatened) employees away from forming a union. Disallowing the secret ballot would mean employees sign up to form a union by filling out cards. Once a majority of employees have filled out cards, the union could form. So this would make it a bit easier for that to happen.
2. Penalties corporations would receive for not being good partners in business-labor relationships would be increased.
3. Mediation and arbitration would be required under first contract negotiations. This would benefit workers against corporations who refuse to negotiate˜on the first contract.
So often we read e-mails from the unions and from our liberal friends that exclaim how great it is to have the Dems in control again so we can get “victories” like the Employee Free Choice Act. George Will wrote a column against it in which he fulminated about the theft of “free speech rights” from the corporations via enactment of this new law. Why is it never about workers’ rights under the 13th Amendment? Why are workers regulated by statute, the way gasoline additives are “regulated?” Why are we agreeing to fight on this battlefield…the one that says workers can only beg for crumbs, but can never demand on-the-job rights?
Part of the problem is rooted in the ascendency of “Rights of Property” over human rights. So-called “representatives,” including those who voted for this law, accept the premise that on “corporate property” workers have no Constitutional protections, but the “rights” of the corporation are absolute.
We have yet to embrace the notion that People are self-sovereign, and self-owning beings whose authority to act and decide and to be un-harassed in their rights, wherever they may be, supercedes any claimed corporate “Rights of Property.” Boards of Directors regularly hide behind a corporate charter and use it to trespass on the inalienable rights of workers, and the law of the land protects them, the way it once protected slave masters as they violated the human self-sovereignty of people that the law recognized to be “property,” not sovereign citizens.
Some celebrate laws like this too easily, too readily. Perhaps the People are so use to being mere widgets in the commerce clause defined rules of American governance that they can’t imagine a rights-defined system of self-government. Some celebrate lip service and window-dressing as though freedom on the job has been achieved. This isn’t sour grapes you’re reading. It’s a raisin in the sun. It’s not that the glass is half empty; it’s that we aren’t allowed to pour our own water. It’s not that this law is a “step in the right direction” that I wish had gone further — what makes me want to turn off the celebratory music is that it’s being played in a hall of mirrors where everybody is dancing around the real issue.
- Posted by BenGPrice@aol.com, CELDF
And they don’t mean the denim kind. This is the advent of a true Dystopia, and the apex of corporate colonization. If this is allowed to continue, and it will be, as long as corporations and using the model of corporate economics as the primary driving principle behind every aspect of our society, then we are truly headed for a very disturbing future.
The degree of control that life patents grant their owners is of growing concern to scientists, human rights and patient advocates and ethicists. More than 20 percent of human genes have already been patented, and most of those patents are owned by corporations.
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There are many other examples of life patents causing public concern. One of the most important examples involves patents on food crops and cloned animals. These patents have a growing potential to cede control of the world’s food supply to biotech patent holders.
Important questions must also be answered about who can legitimately “own” or control our personal genetic information. And no one has yet been able to address economic, social and legal questions raised by the patenting of genetic resources taken from developing countries.
This month, for example, Peruvian farmers protested against the biotech giant Syngenta , which genetically modified a common potato variety so that the potatoes are sterile unless a chemical is applied.
Read the New York Times article Here
This pretty much lays it bare as to what the public commons is up against. Its daunting, and yet, its all perfectly legal. And that’s the problem.
This definitely qualifies as the money shot line (no pun intended) from this report….
“There is no connection between political spending and the policy work that gets done in the state Legislature,” Nunez spokesman Richard Stapler said.
Yep. And I’ve got that proverbial bridge to sell you.
What a hoot. Is Nunez doing stand up on the side? Can’t tell if he should be on C-SPAN or Comedy Central.
AT&T and Verizon, the two most dominant players in California’s telephone market, spent nearly $26 million to lobby lawmakers last year in a successful effort to access the state’s lucrative cable TV market.
The two companies also gave more than $1 million in campaign contributions, according to campaign finance reports released Wednesday by the secretary of state’s office.
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“The $25 million the telephone industry spent on lobbying was the factor in passing the bill,” said Carmen Balber, consumer advocate for the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, a Santa Monica group that has been critical of the measure.
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[Local governments] worry that a lack of local contracts means cable providers will bypass less affluent neighborhoods and focus instead on bundling TV, Internet and telephone service to the well-to-do. Some rural counties said they might be bypassed by cable and telephone companies entirely.
Consumer groups also warned that cable prices could skyrocket as telephone and Internet rates have in the past few decades.
As lawmakers considered the legislation, lobbyists paid by the two companies treated them to meals at local restaurants and gave their top aides tickets to watch the San Francisco Giants, San Diego Padres, Sacramento Kings, Sacramento Monarchs and the Los Angeles Lakers. The favors went to lawmakers of both major political parties.
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Meanwhile, AT&T spent $23.6 million to influence decision-makers in the capital, mostly for hiring lobbyists and paying for television commercials. Company spokesman Gordon Diamond said in an e-mail that California’s media market made the company’s advertising outreach expensive.
“AT&T spends what it needs to ensure that consumers, policymakers and others are well-informed and educated on issues,” Diamond said.
This bill is the same as the “Right to Farm” law in PA, where Factory Farms are deemed to be “normal agricultural activities” that local laws may not prohibit. The state legislatures are captives of corporate masters (which is to say we are governed by corporate states). Self-governance at the local level has been usurped. “Municipal corporations” are, by well-settled tyranny, mere administrative appendages of the state legislatures, with no autonomy or sovereignty of their own (this is a topic for a future discussion), while the minority of the opulent hiding behind private for-profit corporations enjoy limited liability, corporate constitutional privileges, the preemption of the Commerce Clause over local regulations of commerce, and the superiority of the Rights of Property over the Rights of People (for instance the right to self-governance).
These “Right of Corporations to Engage in Agriculture” laws never mention corporatization of agriculture, and instead refer to factory farming blandly as “farming.” Such illegitimate laws protect the privileges of opulent minorities to hide behind the fortress of the corporate form and immunize them from “nuisance suits” (attempts by citizens to self govern the communities where they live).
Such laws usurp the sovereignty of the People and bestow sovereignty on corporations. Corporate charters thus become institutionally akin to titles of nobility.
If the people affected by the decisions being made for their communities are not the ones making the decisions, there is no local democracy; there is no community self-governance. And if you don’t have democracy where you live, then where on earth do you have it?
This is not an agricultural problem. It’s not even a “corporate” problem. It’s a problem of rights-denial. It’s a problem of oppression in every community. It’s about the fact that municipalities are colonies of the corporate state.
- Posted by BenGPrice@aol.com, CELDF
Our fun friends at SBCAT&T are at it again. This is a particularly good column at directing attention towards what the actual point is in regards to the true nature of the situation regarding recent moves by SBC/AT&T against local municipalities control over their own public rights-of-way. Here are a few paragraphs….
After their novel and brilliant gambit of suing Geneva to “protect” the very citizens they’re taking legal action against, SBCAT&T managed to con the FCC into ruling that cities cannot unreasonably stop companies from competing with cable operators. But, just as the Greek Fates shared a single eye, the FCC commissioners share one brain which makes their finding that much easier to understand.
While children, abandoned to the video babysitter by negligent parents, witness 25 acts of violence per hour, the FCC is saving us all from Nicole Ritchie using the ‘S’ word and Bono dropping the ‘F’ bomb. Perhaps they’ve never walked down a high school hallway during passing period.
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As we all know, Mr. Brannock believes that SBCAT&T’s Project Lightspeed, and its refrigerator-sized emitters, should not be subject to local cable franchise agreements. At every opportunity he echoes the need for competition and lower cable bills. In fact, he spouts these arguments so frequently that SBCAT&T might save some money by replacing him with a digital voice recorder.
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To quote my favorite TV judge Marilyn Millian, “Ni te crees a ti mismo” or “Not even you believe what you’re saying.” Yes, SBCAT&T loves to promote competition, that is, unless it’s competition with them.
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In 2002 ten companies filed a complaint with the Texas Public Utilities Commission also accusing them of anti-competitive practices. When these competitors tried to set up T1 data lines, SBCAT&T claimed “lack of facilities.” Shockingly when Birch Telecom disputed SBCAT&T’s woeful tale, the missing “facilities” magically reappeared.
In 2005 Qwest Communications lodged a similar complaint with the FCC maintaining SBC was limiting the ability of rival companies to lease SBC lines at the cheaper government-regulated rates. They also said that SBC demanded smaller companies not merge with “blacklisted” competitors.
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I spoke with Geneva’s Information Technology Manager, Pete Collins, who had some very interesting observations. The next time you get your SBCAT&T phone bill, take a closer look at their new logo. It does look just like a Death Star. We have Emperor Whitacre and Darth Brannock using Jedi mind tricks on us. “This is not the broadband you’re looking for.” “You don’t need competition — move along.”
Read The Full Article from The Batavia Sun
More on the corporate borg’s colonization of your local community, even your own personal property space. If this isn’t a compelling issue over the fundamental question of who has authority over your local public’s ‘rights-of-way’, I don’t know what is. From the Cleveland Plain Dealer…
Norm Ockuly is certain that if he plunked a refrigerator on his tree lawn and left it there, Willowick would give him a ticket and make him pay a fine.
But the metal cabinet in front of Ockuly’s house on Bayridge Boulevard belongs to AT&T. And telecommunications giants are not easily brought to heel.
Despite complaints from some homeowners, AT&T has planted boxes - big and small, sometimes alone or in sets of two or three - on tree lawns across Northeast Ohio.
The cabinets are part of AT&T’s Project Lightspeed, which will extend fiber-optic cable into neighborhoods and add video services to telephone and high-speed Internet options. The $4.6 billion project spans 13 states.
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Upon returning from vacation last year, Ockuly and his wife were dismayed that workers had laid a concrete pad on their small Bayridge Boulevard tree lawn. Soon, the cream-colored cabinet - the size of an armoire or home-entertainment center - appeared.
“The people who want this should have volunteered to have it in their front yards,” Ockuly said. “It looks like an outhouse in the front yard. I wanted to put a half-moon on it and decorate it for Halloween.”
Adding to the clutter is a smaller metal box. And across the street, AT&T installed another outhouse-size cabinet.
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“The services are wonderful, but do you want that giant box in front of your house?” Willowick Mayor Richard Bonde said. “If you have two identical houses and one has an AT&T box on the lawn, which one would you buy?”
Officials in several cities said prohibiting the cabinets is not easy because federal and state laws restrict their control over what AT&T does in a public right of way.
There’s another article regarding this issue Here at DSL Reports, which includes a small photo as a sample example of these boxes.
There are better photos from the Geneva, Illinois lawsuit Here.
This matter was described in more detail in the previous USTV post “Fighting AT&T - A City Challenges Corporate Control”, as well as the related post “AT&T Assaults Michigan Municipalities: Whose Property Is It Anyway?”
The AT&T boxes are bigger than the Verizon boxes - and apparently have exploded on at least one occasion. See the insides of Verizon’s boxes Here
