Bill Clinton signed the 1996 Telecommunications Act - That's why we are where we are.

Tell me otherwise.

The media has consolidated and that is why our news is slanted to please the Corporations.

That's how Monicagate was advertised, and impeachment insued.

That How Gore lost the election in 2000; the media.

That's why we are currently at war, because it was sold to us by the media.

That's also why we are missing a Trillion dollars from our Treasury, not to mention lost lives.

I'm sorry, but I'm gonna blame the Glenis for this one. Just like Hillary's war vote, he couldn't see it till after it happened!

Now, same folks want to come back. What do they want to do this time? Scary just to think of it.

What other unintended consequence do we have to look forward to?

And Union workers and "real" Democrats voted for this again? God help us!

for all of the above. But are you saying that the media was on HRC's side in the run-up to the NH primary?

because the media was decidedly savaging HRC prior to the NH primary.

after reading Hillary's political obituary all week, this was an extremely satisfying win!

I'm saying that Clinton screwed the country in 1996 when he signed that piece of shit of an act.

and that We've been screwed ever since. Hell it screwed the Clintons too, which makes it a bit ironic.

Why do I want the same family in there again?

What will they be signing next?

Don't even let me get into NAFTA and the unintended consequences there.

I thought you were on that subject. Thanks for setting me straight.

so she has to take the good with the bad, doncha think? :shrug:

just one person would call her out on those vaunted 35 years of experience, 20 of which were spent in First Ladyhood (AK & US)

Someone, please tell me just what she has don, REALLY DONE< aside from aid and abet the illegal and immoral invasion and occupation of IRAQ?!

She has yet to distinguish herself from her husbands record. She wants credit for the years of "Clinton prosperity" yet her supporters seem to be allergic to the garbage that occasionally came out of the white house at the time.

Something else you need to know: no poor man ever owned a newspaper. No newspaper ever supported the poor over the rich. Not for more than ten minutes. The best we ever got was competition between the rich guys for our attention. Now there's no competition...but they're also losing our attention.

But it's really nice how now Clinton is to blame for every evil in the world. Even the war in Iraq.

That is so twisted you must be able to lick your own ass. I'm sure it's a great source of income to you.

Sometimes I think people are blaming Clinton because they are scared of the Bushes/Cheney and the Right Wing. Dictatorships are scary.

Seriously, those of us on the left that hold Clintons feet to the fire have always been anti-bush and anti right wing and we were NEVER afraid to say this out loud, and I am insulted that you would suggest our dissatisfaction with the policies that Clinton went along with (welfare reform, Nafta, and the Telecom act) might be cowardice.


Most of my lefty friends and I were anti-bus/anti-right wing back in 2000 when the election was stolen, 2001-when Democrats and the media gave him a damned free pass on Bush incompetence in the name of getting along, or later 2001 when most of the democrats went along with the patriot act, the phoney war on terror, and then in 2003 they rolled over with the war on Iraq.

Save your under the table accusations of cowardice for Lieberman and the DLC crowd.

as you are presenting it.

"Under the table accusations?" I suggest you re-read my post.

Are you not a Democrat? You say democrats and the media gave Bush a free pass, went along with patriot act, phoney war on terror, and rolled over with the war on Iraq.
I am suggesting that an overlap between people afraid of Bush-representatives as well as general public- and people attacking Clinton. If you don't fit in that category why defend yourself or attack me.

I happen to know a lot of people who have muted criticism of Bush while attacking Clinton.

I am sorry but I have yet to find these "people" that You are talking about. I don't know any liberal people, critical of the Clintons, that have been scared into silence in regards the Bush administration. I just don't see it.

If it seems that there are a lot of us lefties here picking on the Clintons I can assure you that it is not due to any fear of the Bush admin and if you doubt that I suggest looking back at the postings from a year or more ago at this site.

The fact is most of us on the left have long been marginalized or pushed out for quite some time. We have been the ones struggling and fighting and kicking and screaming and protesting for all of the Bush administration. We have been the ones crying "foul" through two stolen elections while the moderates have been telling us "get over it." We have called, and wrote, and emailed our brains out.

Now that the country is finally turning many of us see a chance to bring this country back to the working class and a lot of us think that though Hillary might straighten the steering wheel a bit, that she does not have the intention nor the fortitude to take a hard left turn and get this damn country back on the road.

was about Consolidation, which means that GE could not only own NBC, but also MSNBC, CNBC, and Newsweek....so they could go round and round attributing each other....in other words, get control over the media.

Reagan did away with the Fairness Doctrine on Public Network. That was fucked too, but it's not the same. It is the consolidation and the cable stations that are killing this democracy.

Plus, I wouldn't want to vote for Reagan again, either.


The policy of the United States Federal Communications Commission that became known as the "Fairness Doctrine" is an attempt to ensure that all coverage of controversial issues by a broadcast station be balanced and fair. The FCC took the view, in 1949, that station licensees were "public trustees," and as such had an obligation to afford reasonable opportunity for discussion of contrasting points of view on controversial issues of public importance. The Commission later held that stations were also obligated to actively seek out issues of importance to their community and air programming that addressed those issues. With the deregulation sweep of the Reagan Administration during the 1980s, the Commission dissolved the fairness doctrine.
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/F/htmlF/fairnessdoct/fairnessdoct.htm

Nice try.

Clinton is LARGELY to blame for the Telecommunications act and that is the only thing being discussed here.

Do you support that piece of legislation?

He helped corporations along on many paths, but he was NOT the trailblazer in media consolidation.

Bush I didn't sign the act, Clinton did.

This was after the cable stations came to life.

Without the media consolidation things weren't perfect, but they weren't truly fucked like they have been since 1996......after O.J., it went all downhill.

Did you read the act? I posted it.

Whose fault was it that we got Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Bush, and a Republican Congress in 94?

The media changes present challenges sure, but the conservative movement was going strong long before 96. Further, the telecom act was very complex and had to pass through a republican congress, therefore it was a compromise solution. It needs to be reworked under a Dem congress and Senate based on what has been learned. Clinton is not God, I will give you that.

I don't know if it will be reworked. I don't know if President McCain will go for it.
(just teasing....I am a bit pissed that the media played us with this NH Primary pre dram bs).

your frustation, these elections are tough to go through as a supporter. I can only say that NH had a lot of leaners and undecideds right up to the last days and the pundits did not do a good job of considering that (no surprise). I was surprised at the outcome same as you. But the truth is the media did not know what was going to happen, but when did that ever stop them from pretending they do know. Hang in there, this thing is far from decided and you are backing a great candidate.

..

:sarcasm:

why are you trying to pin this on her? She was the First Lady. Not the President. Should we look into Obama's past and study it in minute detail? I suppose if it's good for the goose etc.

and when the going gets tough, she pulls out the big dog who quite frankly is fast losing his luster.

Plus, they are both too fucking cozy with those damn Bushes.

HRC saddled her horse to Bill's years ago because she knew HE was going places. Recall the roommate who helped her drive to Arkansas, asking why on earth she want to sacrifice a brilliant future (having served on the House Committee investigating Nixon and having the possiblity of lucrative positions in NYC law firms) to go there of all places. And it wasn't ALL love.

Were it not for him, her candidacy for NY Senator in 2000 would have been ludicrous and without that position, we wouldn't be considering her now. BILL, not Hill, had the political skills, elan and silver tongue that connected with people. He was the one who held elective office on his OWN merit for 12 years in AK and 8 on the national level.

So, I stand by the statement that were it not for him, she would not be where she is today. PERIOD.

I was going to try to explain the Telcom Act of 96' to the 'OP' but figured it'd be like trying to convince someone at a Jim Jones BBQ to stay away from the Kool-Aid.

I would like to know what was good about this act.....


Thanks.

and the point isnt' that the 1996 Telecom Act was "good". Its just that trying to turn it into the bogeyman that is responsible for all our woes is factually wrong and nonsensical.

but there are several others. Look at all the weird crap that's happened in the last three weeks.

I remember thinking; wow - Democrats and Republicans meeting for a signing ceremony in the Rose Garden. This surely means we all just got fucked.

the implications have been enormous....

Thanks Bill.

Guess will be waiting for more of the same Brilliance from y'all. :hi:

I had a front-row seat for the implosion of journalistic credibility, and the erosion of the wall that had previously separated the financial and editorial interests of the particular big-media company I was working for.

It wasn't pretty. It's still not pretty.

:toast:

act. I'm not sure why he shouldn't be accountable for that one?

I don't blame Bill Clinton for everything, just those things that are obvious.

Feb. 8, 1996 -- Clinton signs telecommunications deregulation bill.
http://i.abcnews.com/US/story?id=247332

Who should I be holding responsible for it then? :shrug:

Clinton signed it. I'm just sayin'. I'm a *huge* fan of the big dog. He has his flaws, and this travesty of a law is probably the biggest one he's responsible for.

The 1996 Act was a bad law. Significant parts of it should be rolled back.But as has been pointed out in other posts, thinking that things would be significantly different if hadn't been enacted misses the mark. Fox News would still be Fox News, indenpendent voices would still be struggling to find a spot on cable and satellite line ups because of the power given -- in 1992 -- to broadcasters to demand compensation for carriage. GE would still own NBC (which it bought in 1989); AOL and TW would still have merged, Disney probably would still have bought ABC, and News Corp. would've bought DirecTV (which they are now selling off). The big broadcast networks would still have affiliates nationwide that broadcast the networks' national news programming. THe biggest difference -- and its not insignficant, its just not the entire source of our current situation -- is that station groups like Sinclair wouldn't have bought up as many stations as they have and then run them into the ground by stripping away local programming.

The tendency to find one bogeyman to blame for everything is strong, but it ignores the complexities of the real world. No one thing got us to where we are, and no one thing is going to straighten it out. I'd like to see the Fairness Doctrine restored, for example (although my bet is that it would be struck down as unconstitutional). But I don't believe that the FD alone is a panacea. To think that way is to ignore history: the FD was around when Nixon and Reagan were elected and it was gone when Clinton was elected.

Don't forget NAFTA, too. Perot was right.

Don't forget welfare deform. Why Peter and MArian Wright Edelman kicked the Clintons to the curb.

...lobbied for it, and which two houses of Congress passed it, yeah, it was entirely Bill Clinton's fault. :eyes:

I was for Hillary becoming President in early '07 and then I started to research some things that led me to uncover all the outsourcing that was done under the Clinton's - NAFTA is a whole other subject too! I suggest that voters who truly care about the future of this country read up on just what did go on in the Clinton years. Yes he was a very good President but when you look at what was "sold" down the river at the expense of the middle and lower class one wonders just what the motives truly were for. You be the judge as I was and start to look around with an open mind! I am now for Obama and would hope that Edwards would play an important part in his Administration also. No more of the same old establishment for God's sake! Let us try to start with a whole new Team and make it someone who has the education and heartfelt passion for the middle and lower class to make it right this time around! We the people!!!!!

I just passed this on to my friends and family on why I am for Obama - please pass this on:

He (Obama) graduated from Columbia University, where he majored in political science and specialized in international relations. He then attended Harvard Law School, graduated magna cum laude, and served as the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. After law school, he worked as a community organizer and a civil rights lawyer in Chicago. He also taught at the University of Chicago Law School as a senior lecturer specializing in constitutional law.

For this and other reasons like his fight against lobbyists, and his vote against the Iraq War, he has my vote. Now it is up to the U.S. voters.

:kick:

I loved Bill Clinton because he was so eloquent and because I was so enraged at how viciously repukes went after him from the moment he was elected on November 3, 1992. The best things that emerged from his 2 terms were the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Omnibus Budget Bill of 1993.

But for the most part, his entire presidency was about fighting repukes and sadly yielding to watered down versions of some of their legislative wishes. That's why I cannot fathom why HRC would ever, under any circumstances, cede ANYTHING to the dumber Bush. I was done with her after her IWR vote and won't vote for her in the SC primary.

I like Obama's resume, too, and his anti-war stance and powerful speech against it when it mattered.
I like Edwards populist position but still take issue with his IWR vote despite his mea culpa. Ya see I met him at a Dem rally here in SC in the summer of 2002 (he and Kerry were tag-teaming the state)and I begged him not to let Bush get us in another war on Iraq. I was not alone. We were hearing the war drumbeats then and many of us knew it was Bushit. Now because of that vote and the resultant illegal, immoral invasion and occupation of IRAQ, too much death and destruction, waste of capital and goodwill has transpired for an I'm sorry to do justice.

Sen. Robert Byrd warned his colleagues about a hasty vote, Constitutional responsibilty, executive hubris and the rush to war. And many of them, notably many of the current and former presidential hopefuls, failed the leadership and political courage test about a huge issue when it mattered.

So my friend (not to sound like Insane McCain), I see your point and I AGREE.

The Telecom Act is one of the biggest banes to progressive voices in existence.

Vetoing the bill would've been an empty gesture -- one that would simply have resulted in an embarassing defeat for Clinton -- something that presidents avoid because it weakens them going forward.

The vote in the House for the Telecom Act was 414-16; in the senate it was 91-5

I think it was a bad law and that parts of it should be rolled back. But there was no realistic chance of a veto succeeding.

I'm no big fan of the 1996 Act, but some of the claims made in this thread simply don't bear up to scrutiny. For example, it was suggested upthread that it was the 1996 Act that made it possible for GE to own not only NBC, but also MSNBC, CNBC, and Newsweek.

Well, for starters, there was never anything in the law before 1996 that prevented GE from owning NBC or NBC from owning cable networks such as MSNBC and CNBC. And GE bought NBC in 1986 and NBC created CNBC in 1989 -- long before the telecom act. In fact, MSNBC was launched in mid-1996 and had been in development for a substanitial period before the 1996 Act was signed -- not that it mattered since, again, nothing in the law limited a broadcast network from creating/owning a cable network. ANd Newsweek isn't owned by GE. Its owned by the Washington Post and has been for more than 45 years.

Also, while its true that the 1996 Act opened the door to greater consolidation, its impact was far greater on radio than on broadcast television. Before the Act, NBC was allowed to have 7 owned and operated stations. Today it has 10. While some of the other networks, particularly FOX, have greater numbers of O&Os, they don't have duopolies (yet) and their real strength comes from having nationwide networks of affiliates -- something that they had before the 1996 Act.

I think a bigger problem with consolidation can be pointed back to the 1992 Cable Act, which gave broadcast stations the right to demand compensation from cable operators. Instead of demanding cash, the big broadcast networks ended up creating new networks (Fox created FX, Fox News, Fox Movie Channel, etc; NBC created MSNBC; Disney creaeted Soap, ESPN Classic, etc) and demanding that they be carried in return for giving permission to the cable operator to carry the local broadcast affiliate. The result is that established broadcasters have a leg up in getting carriage for their services and new voices get crowded out.

The act did this for TV:

Lifted from 12 the number of local TV stations any one corporation could own, and expanded the limit
on audience reach. One company had been allowed to own stations that reached up to a quarter of
U.S. TV households. The Act raised that national cap to 35 percent. These changes spurred huge
media mergers and greatly increased media concentration. Together, just five companies – Viacom,
the parent of CBS, Disney, owner of ABC, News Corp, NBC and AOL, owner of Time Warner, now
control 75 percent of all prime-time viewing.

http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7B8A2D1D15-C65A-46D4-8CBB-2073440751B5%7D/FALLOUT_FROM_THE_TELECOMM_ACT_5-9-05.PDF

Not to me its not. I didn't make the claims about the Act allowing GE to own NBC and CNBC and MSNBC and Newsweek -- someone else did, and it would be irresponsible to leave those statements uncorrected.

And while the change in the ownership limits allowed broadcasters to own more stations and reach a greater percentage of the audience, the idea that there is a causal relationship between that fact and the big "media mergers" cited by Common Cause is tenuous. For example, the broadcast ownership rules had not impact whatever on the AOL/TW merger (nor did anything else in the 1996 Act). Nor, obviously, did the change in the law impact the GE/NBC merger, which occured 7 years earlier. And for that matter, it probably had minimal impact on the ABC/Disney or Viacom/CBS mergers in that those networks could've grown larger in terms of the number of stations that they own with or without the merger. Indeed, the broadcaster that has taken advantage of the ownership cap relief to the greatest extent is News Corp, which has not been part of any post-1996 broadcast media merger.

Again, facts matter, and while I am a big fan of common cause, that doesn't mean that I accept everything they say uncritically. To give just one more example, the report linked in your post states as follows: "The Act permitted the FCC to ease the cable-broadcast cross-ownership rules. As systems increased the number of channels, the broadcast networks aggressively expanded their ownership of cable networks with the largest audiences. Ninety percent of the top 50 stations are owned by the same parent companies that own the broadcast networks, challenging the notion that cable is any real source of competition."

This statement is so muddled its hard to know where to begin. First, the cable/broadcast cross-ownership rule lifted per the 1996 Act barred a broadcaster from owning a cable system within the broadcasters service area (and barred a cable operator from owning a broadcast station whose local market overlapped with the cable system franchise area). It had absolutely nothing to do with ownership of cable networks and, in fact, to date, there are effectively no cross-owned cable systems/broadcast stations. Second, as I pointed out in my post, it was the 1992 Cable Act, not anything in the 1996 Act that allowed broadcasters to expand their ownership of cable networks by giving them the ability and incentive to force new cable networks down the throats of cable operators as the price the cable operator has to pay to retransmit the local broadcast affiliate.

Again, I'm no defender of the 1996 Act. I think it was a mistake to increase the broadcast ownership limits both for television and radio and would like to see it rolled back. But the 1996 Act was not the source of all of the ills that seem to get attributed to it and there is nothing disingenuos in pointing that fact out. (Indeed, the one thing not mentioned in the language quoted from the COmmon Cause report that I think is most troubling is not the increased ownership of stations by the big four networks, but rather the increased ownership of stations by non-network station groups like Sinclair, who offer little in the way of local service and crush diversity.

And my take is that your voluminous posts do nothing to clarify the issue... they only serve to confuse it.

I don't know why you hold the opinion that that act had nothing to do with the mergers... that's your opinion and you're of course welcome to it, but I won't join you in assuming that the mergers only just happened to speed up after this act, not the previous one... but really they were more due to the last one.

I also don't understand why you're even mentioning cross-owned cable systems/broadcast stations. Can you explain your reasoning in bringing that up?

You certainly can stand by whatever take you want and if you want to close your eyes to the facts there is nothing I can do.

But its not merely an opinion that the Act had little to do with the mergers, its a fact. If you can point to anything in the law before 1996 that would've prevented AOL and TW from merging but that was eliminated by the 1996 Act, I'd be curious to see it.

And I brought up the cable/broadcast ownership point to show that the Common Cause report on which you rely doesn't always get its facts straight.

if you wanted to discuss this civilly I'd be interested.

As it is, fuck the hell out of this shit. I'm done with attempting to have civil discourse with people who say things like "if you can't be bothered to read more than short posts".

You start out calling me disingenous and then complain that my post responding to your comment criticizing my post as "very wordy" and "voluminous" isn't civil.

Thanks for the laugh!

I said that your claim was disingenuous.

:eyes:



Oh, and you might want to write to Robert Scheer, cause he's apparently deluded about the effects of the act as well.

Better yet, go trumpet it in GD. I'm positive you're in a distinct minority of people who really gets how innocuous the act really was.

In fact, I clearly expressed the view that the Act was bad and that its provisions relating to broadcast ownership should be rolled back.

But go ahead and make things up. I'm getting used to it.

So instead of paraphrasing your claim as saying it was innocuous, I should have said you belittled its damaging effects. Better?

THe original post in this thread claimed that the 1996 Act "is where we are where we are" and that's an overstatement, as I have shown. It has been harmful, no question, but its silly to think that things would be just peachy if it hadn't been enacted. And that's because a lot of what has gone on, like the dominance of the broadcast networks over what is available on cable, or the consolidation of big media companies would've still occurred. The Fairness Doctrine would still be repealed. Fox News would still exist.

Hope that clears things up a bit.

... media fucknuttery drives me up the wall, so that 'boogeyman' word got to me like a red flag does a bull. :P

Reagan started things rolling downhill (note that Rush and hate radio started shortly after 1987), and then the act of 1996 sealed our doom.

That was a massive Corporate Giveaway that was actually closer to Highway Robbery.

Many people at the time begged, pleaded, warned the administration and Congress against this, because it was so obviously going to put the consolidation of media and communications into hyper-drive.

But we were told we were "naive" and that this legislation would be wonderful.

I guess some of you either
1) missed the point that Hillary Clinton is running for office, not Bill Clinton.
2) Hillary Clinton does not allow Bill Clinton to tell her what to do. They may talk things over, but she is her own woman.
Some believe the fallacy that husbands and wives agree on everything.

Bill certainly did not do everything right while in office. He tried to work the old bipartisin ship...much the way Obama is now saying he will do if he gets into office.
He was dealing with a Republican congress, and he was dealing with a bunch of rabid hounds who tried every single day to bring him down. He mostly kept his focus on the country, but he did make mistakes, as has every president we ever had, including JFK.

It seems to be a presumption that if a person somehow gets experience they will then make the same mistakes that were made while getting or assimilating the experience. Experience means they've been there or near there before and they won't make the same mistakes.
To try to saddle Hillary with Bill's mistakes is ludicrous.

Clintonism is a term that describes a whole approach and view of the world that reflects the "centrist" DLC mentality.

Many of Bill Clinton's failures were more of a lack oif either the will or lack of desire to actually stand up and defend liberal principles.

The Telcom Reform Act of 1996 was so abominable at the time that many people (not just "lefties") were begging and urging him not to do it. But Clinton knew best, and basically told the critics to go f themselves.

Same with NAFTA.

We need a break from Clintonism if we are ever to begin to steer the country in the right direction.

as part of her resume, those vaunted 35 years of experience. She has to take the good with the bad and quite frankly, she saddled her horse to his years ago because she knew HE was going places. Recall the roommate who helped her drive to Arkansas, asking why on earth she want to sacrifice a brilliant future to go there to him. And it wasn't ALL love.

Were it not for him, her candidacy for NY Senator in 2000 would have been ludicrous and without that position, we wouldn't be considering her now.

Clintons Gave You This and NAFTA... The Clintons are why working people are not doing very well. :puke:

"Nothings Over UNTIL WE Say It Is!" Blutto Blutarski... F*ck the Corporatist Pundits! :puke:

and not in a good way. The Media Heathers are an embarrassment. They employ pack mentality with immunity.