To stave off draconian consequences, President Obama has effectively nationalized both General Motors and Chrysler, in ways very likely to make his supporters rather pleased with him and thereby to enhance his powers to advance his social programs. Many of his programs, such as card check legislation and other nifty stuff for unions (or, perhaps more accurately, for union bosses), help further to solidify his own bases of power; whether the nation's economy will thereby be made better or worse is a different question. GM and Chrysler had too much economic power and were, therefore, "too big to fail;" concentrating their power in the Federal Government, rather than attempting to diminish it, seems to me to have been a mistake. The Venezuelan example suggests that this sort of mistake can be quite unfortunate.
Although President Obama claims to oppose any revival of the old "fairness doctrine," it is far from clear that even more restrictive efforts to limit speech are not being made in the name of "media diversity." The Federal Communications Commission now has a panel to consider ways to increase media diversity. It is chaired by former FCC Chairman Henry Rivera, who was an outspoken proponent of the fairness doctrine. The panel has thirty-one members, including the following:
Henry Rivera
Emma Bowen Foundation for Minority Interests in Media (Chairperson)
Raul Alarcon, Jr., Spanish Broadcasting System
Geoffrey C. Blackwell, Chickasaw Nation Industries, Inc.
Maria E. Brennan, American Women in Radio and Television
Steve Hillard, Council Tree Communications
David Honig, Minority Media and Telecommunications Council
Debra Lee, BET Holdings, Inc.
Marc H. Morial, National Urban League
Karen K. Narasaki, Asian American Justice Center
Jake Oliver, Afro-American Newspapers
Andrew Schwartzman, Media Access Project
Charles Warfield, Inner City Broadcasting
James Winston, National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters
The panel includes no member likely to favor the continuation of "conservative" talk radio, much disparaged by President Obama and his colleagues.
Fairness and diversity are good things; however, in my opinion, neither the old Fairness Doctrine nor prior FCC attempts to stimulate minority ownership were effective in achieving their stated and salutary purposes. I am at least modestly concerned, although (or perhaps because) it is far from clear what impact, if any, this incremental step may have on the nature of the media in the United States. I hope that the powers-that-be view Venezuela as a horrible, rather than as a good, role model.
Article comments
1 - Joanne Huspek
Interesting article and brings up too many points to stuff into a comment box. However, I will say this:
1. Such huge reversals such as what happened in Venezuela (and elsewhere) started with small chips that snowballed into a larger movement.
2. The dissenters should speak up more loudly. Because...
3. The majority of people are misinformed, uninformed and/or apathetic.
I've spent six weeks ignoring my world and now that I've emerged, all I can say is scary.
These are scary times.
2 - Doug Hunter
I'm not sure what was behind dropping the charges against the black panthers offshoot that is classified as a hate group by the SPLC and ADL. They have them on tape holding a weapon, they have them on tape telling white people 'you are about to be ruled by a black man', and they have witness statements from even civil rights lawyers that say they heard them call white people crackers in the midst of the intimidation.
If this were KKK in uniform with weapons calling people niggers there'd be hell to pay. Unfortunately, leftist propaganda has built republicans and whites up to be so evil that any action against them is justified. That's how you lose freedoms.
3 - Dan(Miller)
Joanne,
When Chávez was first elected, I kinda maybe thought he might possibly do some good for the country, particularly by diminishing the then endemic corruption. He did not do that, and corruption is, if possible, much worse now than it was in 1999. So is just about everything else in Venezuela.
Recently, Panama had her presidential elections, with two major candidates. One (from the party of the current President, who seemed a pretty good guy to me) was from the "left wing" of her party; she was pretty high on both Chávez and Castro, and had also been good buddies with Manuel Noriega when he was in power. She had me worried. Fortunately, she lost overwhelmingly to the other major candidate, who collected more than sixty percent of the vote; just over seventy percent of those eligible to do so voted. The winning candidate is a very successful businessman, and many of those who supported his candidacy felt that his election would be good for the economy. I hope, and think, that he will do quite well. The best news for me is that, at least in Panama, for now, we don't have to worry too much about many of the things going on in countries under the influence of el Presidente Chávez.
Dan(Miller)
4 - Dan(Miller)
Here is an interesting take, from a Venezuelan perspective, on the elections in Iran.
Dan(Miller)
5 - Dan(Miller)
I wonder whether Venezuela has inspectors general and, if so, how she deals with them. This might provide some helpful guidance.
Dan(Miller)