General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Many Democrats prefer Clinton over Warren for president because the Clinton name is already [View all]cascadiance
(19,537 posts)One word of caution though... I think take care in making it sound like it was them consciously helping the breakdown of our media landscape. I think at the time it was probably something that, even though those who wanted a lot of the pieces of the telecomm act wanted the media landscape to be changed to what it is today, to many then it seemed like a good way of helping our media landscape grow, and perhaps was similar to NAFTA, etc. passing and being supported by both Bush and Clinton, though Perot had greater wisdom to see what would really happen from it down the road.
At the time the telecomm act passed, there were far more like myself and Senator Leahy at the time that were more adamant about the problems of the unconstitutional Communications Decency Act part of that bill being included and passed than the rest of the bill at the time. That issue and the Clipper chip (google that one) at the time drew civil liberties concerns in a similar way that Snowden gives us today with what he's released about the NSA.
Bottom line is that it is hard to say whether Clinton was actually complicit with the goals of those who wanted to break down the media that happened after that bill passed. But the poor judgement they used in effect throwing out many of the years of laws, FCC governance, etc. that protected the media from monopolization, and provided for rules to encourage a free press has me question whether Hillary would make many of the same mistakes in the future that Bill made then in allowing for business interests concerns to be looked at more than the larger issues of how our legal frameworks protect all of us and the delicate constitutional framework of things like a free press that our founders felt necessary for our democracy to work effectively.
I see that happening similarly recently with Hillary Clinton talking in favor of expansion of H-1B Visas, when she's echoing the talking points of Silicon Valley's corporate lobbyists that this is needed because of the false notion they push that we in America don't have an effectively educated enough workforce or one that is interested in high tech careers, when that is really NOT the case, and it is more that they want to be able to have a very educated but CHEAP labor force, that is not attainable or sustainable in the cost of living of our economy versus that of economies like India which are about a 10th in terms of costs that ours are. And for the younger generation now the cost of education in this area is daunting today, especially considering that India provides free education to many of its citizens through a bachelor's degree, even with the other advantages they have in terms of cost of living in their society.
The Clintons may or may not be complicit in establishing the goals of the corporatists. But they have certainly been active and effective enablers of the corporatists over the years in legislative areas like the above, and we need some leadership that is very conscious of the real issues and what the corporatists are pushing us in to.