posted 07-27-2003 09:17 AM            

Btw, how do you argue against your own party without being able to use the usual anti-clinton bandwagon techniques anyway? This should be interesting.....your own people are concerned about these actions, what does that tell you? I'm sure there will be some kind of warped, convoluted reasoning for supporting this idea. I can only imagine what it might be.

"FCC OKs landmark ownership changes, easing restrictions on expansion
Critics fear a few firms may wield all power
By Stephen Labaton
New York Times

WASHINGTON - The Federal Communications Commission on Monday narrowly approved the most important changes to the nation's media ownership rules in a generation.

By a partisan 3-2 vote, the Republican-controlled commission relaxed many of the most significant restrictions on the ability of broadcast and newspaper conglomerates to both expand into new markets and extend their reach in the cities where they already have a presence.

The decision is among the most far-reaching deregulatory actions of the Bush administration.

It will permit a company to own up to three TV stations, eight radio stations, a daily newspaper and a cable operator in the largest cities.

The old rules had restricted a company from owning both a newspaper and broadcast station, prohibited a company from owning more than two TV stations, and restricted a company from owning more than a total of eight broadcasters.

The new rules also permit the networks to buy more TV affiliates.

FCC Chairman Michael Powell, who was the architect of the changes, said in a telephone interview Monday that court challenges were inevitable both by critics who said the agency went too far and some companies, such as TV networks who wanted the commission to go further.

On Capitol Hill, a growing group of Republicans and Democrats have also vowed to move legislation to reverse portions of Monday's decision. More than 150 lawmakers, including many Republicans, had asked the agency to postpone its final rulemaking to allow more time to study the issues.

Political fears emerge

While all sides have heavily lobbied for and against the rules in Congress, the fear among professional politicians who have more dealings with their local television and newspapers than perhaps any other profession, was that the regulations would promote greater consolidation and media power in the hands of too few interests.

``I want to emphasize that there is not a partisan position here,'' said Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., at a news conference with two Democratic colleagues, Ernest Hollings of South Carolina and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, where they criticized the decision and described plans for rolling back aspects of it. ``A lot of Republicans -- in fact, probably most of the Republicans in the Congress, would not agree with this decision.''

But there is hardly a consensus over how to proceed. Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., who heads the House Energy and Commerce Committee, applauded the commission's decision but said it should have gone even further. He said the agency had ``taken a big step toward removing the regulatory muzzle from American broadcasters.''

Bush gives his approval

The Bush administration on Monday applauded the FCC's decision.

``I commend the FCC for its action on media ownership today,'' Commerce Secretary Don Evans said. ``The FCC has answered the call of Congress and the courts to modernize its rules.''

The overhaul of regulations developed over more than six decades drew intense lobbying and more public attention in recent weeks than any other proceeding in the commission's history. Commission officials said they received more than 520,000 public comments, mostly in opposition.

The critics represented an ideologically diverse array of organizations. They included the National Rifle Association, the National Organization of Women, Common Cause, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Leadership Council on Civil Rights, the Writers Guild of America, and the Parents Television Council.

The groups said they feared the changes would prompt greater consolidation and make it more difficult to get diverse views on the airwaves, a position that was disputed by the advocates for change.

Opportunity arises

Many of the nation's biggest newspaper companies, including Gannett, Tribune, and the New York Times, have long sought the elimination of the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership restrictions. And the networks, most notably News Corp., which owns Fox, and Viacom, owner of CBS, had sought a greater loosening of the rules governing how many stations that they can own.

But they had come under sharp opposition from the television affiliates. The affiliates have raised concerns that too many network-owned stations would tip the commercial balance in favor of the networks, make it more difficult for the independent programmers to reject network shows, discourage local news in favor of national broadcasts, and lead to more homogenized programming.

FCC argues its case

Powell and his two Republican allies said the changes were vital in light of a series of court opinions questioning the old rules and a marketplace where consumers now have the luxury of subscribing to cable and satellite television services with hundreds of channels, as well as an unlimited offering on the Internet.

Kathleen Abernathy, another Republican commissioner, said fears raised by the opponents of change were unfounded.

``Those who oppose our decision will continue to fear a mythical media monopoly that will descend upon our media landscape without any regulatory review of its power,'' she said. ``But the reality is that under Monday's order there will continue to be hundreds of pathways into the American home in the average American city or town.''

Kevin Martin, the third commissioner supporting the changes, said, ``People today have access to more information from more sources than at any point in our history.''

But the commission's two Democrats, Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps, said the FCC had struck a new balance favoring the largest corporations at the cost of giving up the presentation of a diversity of views on the airwaves.

posted 07-27-2003 03:00 PM            

and...

The spiraling descent of democracy seems infinite.

the United States is NOT a democracy...

statments like that one are why you are third string talent....

your just another shithead with a belly full of hate....

posted 07-27-2003 05:25 PM            

that's why you are 3rd string your crainium has no original thought...the DNC is calling hurry home !

posted 07-27-2003 05:53 PM            

Is the United States a Real Democracy or a Republic?

The Bismarck Tribune
By Grael Gannon
4 October, 2002

During the campaign to ratify the new Constitution of the United States, a series of essays were published to explain and defend the reasoning behind it. They were eventually gathered together as 'The Federalist Papers,' and rank as one of the all-time great presentations of political philosophy. I shall, in a small way, follow their example and reflect on the American polity.

What kind of nation is this United States? Some see America as a democracy, although others deny that and say we are a republic -- or concede that we have become a democracy, but that this is a perversion of our original design as a republic. What is the argument about? What is the truth? And, whatever it is, is it good or bad?

I submit that the United States was both a republic and a democracy in 1789, and that it has continued to be both to the present day. What that means, and whether it is good or bad, will require this and one or two subsequent columns to explore.

What is a democracy? What is a republic? If we consult history to see how these concepts have actually functioned, we find that democracy has a clear core meaning, but that republic is a somewhat more nebulous concept.

'Democracy' comes from two Greek words, 'demos' and 'kratos.' The first means 'people' and the second means 'power.' In other words, 'rule by the people.' Ancient Athens gets the credit for inventing democracy, but it would probably be more accurate to say the Athenians were the first to articulate the concept and practice it in a philosophically self-conscious way.

Rule by the people seems pretty clear: Either all of the people agree on something, or else they take a vote and the majority -- at least half plus one -- prevails in a quantitative exercise in which each person equals one.

'Republic' comes from two Latin words used by the ancient Romans: 'res' and 'publica.' 'Res' means 'thing,' and 'publica' means 'public.' Thus, 'public thing' -- whatever that is. A bit murky right from the beginning.

The democratic idea is clear, but there are all sorts of variations and qualifications. Within the boundaries of a given political entity, not everyone has a vote. Even the most total kind of democracy does not allow infants and children to vote on public matters.

The vote is limited to adults, whether defined as over 12, 16, 18 or 21 years of age. In many societies, the vote has traditionally been reserved to males. In early 17th-century Massachusetts, one had to be a member of a Puritan church.

States of the new United States generally limited the franchise to white males of at least 21 years of age who owned real estate. One historian thinks that about 50 percent to 75 percent of adult white males met that property qualification. If we remove blacks, Native Americans, women, children and the propertyless, we may be left with somewhere between 8 percent and 12 percent of the total population.

At the end of the 18th century, that could have been something like 400,000 men who could vote -- certainly nowhere near a majority of the population. Is it democracy?

I would argue that societies in which political power ultimately resides in a very substantial portion of the citizenry, even though still a minority, can fairly be called democratic, as I hope to show in a later essay.

Apart from the question of what percentage of the people can vote, what is the mechanism of their voting? How is it exercised? What is it intended to achieve? Is it direct or indirect?

Direct or 'pure' democracy has all the voters come together to decide every issue, or at least the more important ones. This is what the famous New England town meeting does to this day, and it is what ancient Athens did during its years of democracy. The Athenians understood that pure democracy could not very well exist beyond the boundaries of a single city state where all the citizens could physically meet together.

To have democracy in a larger state, such as ours, it seems necessary to institute indirect or 'representative' democracy.

This is a two-stage thing: The people elect a few individuals to represent them, and these representatives run the government.

In theory, the representatives know what the majority of the people want, and carry out their wishes. If the representatives wander from the will of the people, or if they prove to be less than competent, the voters may replace them with others.

If the United States is a democracy, or to the extent it is a democracy, this is the type of democracy it tries to be.

posted 07-27-2003 06:56 PM            

What it really is under bush is a dictatorship. Tyranny you can vote for, well almost, except in Florida where dirt bag repugs throw your votes in to the ocean. The use of deviance to secure an undeserved victory, what a pity.

Lets not forget the leftist media who called the election victory for Al Gore an hour before the polls even closed.