President Obama To Nominate Cable and Wireless Lobbyist To Head FCC

symbolset writes "The Wall Street Journal and others are reporting that longtime telecomm lobbyist Tom Wheeler will be nominated to head the Federal Communications Commission. According to the LA Times: 'Wheeler is a former president of the National Cable Television Assn. and the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Assn. Despite his close ties to industries he will soon regulate, some media watchdogs are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. "As someone who has known Tom for years, I believe that he will be an independent, proactive chairman," said Gigi B. Sohn, president and chief executive of Public Knowledge, adding that she has "no doubt that Tom will have an open door and an open mind, and that ultimately his decisions will be based on what he genuinely believes is best for the public interest, not any particular industry."'"

Comments

Yep, typical

[i kan reed]

I really wish the alternatives in the recent elections weren't more in bed with corporate interests.

Re:Yep, typical

[JackieBrown]

What do you expect? This is the same party that gave us the DMCA.

Re:Yep, typical

[interkin3tic]

Back up further: what do you expect of politics in general? Money buys influence in any government, no matter what form it takes. The only time that is not true is when enough people oppose the money. You can argue about this party or that party, or the number of parties, or term limits, or democracy even, but in any organization where the citizens don't care, you'll get money buying rules. Parties aren't going to do the job of the public for the public.

Actually, you can generalize that last part as well. No one is going to do any job you want them to do unless you keep on them or they have their own interests in doing it. Politicians aren't going to have our interests at heart unless you threaten to kick them out if they don't. And we're not doing that.

The revolving door continues to spin

[Anonymous Coward]

adding that she has "no doubt that Tom will have an open door and an open mind, and that ultimately his decisions will be based on what he genuinely believes is best for the public interest, not any particular industry."

Seriously?

Third parties

[betterunixthanunix]

You must not have been paying attention. There were many third party candidates who were not on the corporate payroll.

Re:Third parties

[i kan reed]

The most viable third party, the libertarians, really really really are pro-corporate in their actual published platform. The lack of money in that regard seems to just be and artifact of their lack of electoral potential.

Re:Third parties

[claytongulick]

This is a common misunderstanding/misperception. The Libertarians vehemently oppose corporate welfare and public/private partnerships. What you're calling "pro-corporate" is really not true - they believe that in general, the market should be left alone, regulation minimized and clear separation between companies and government should exist. They are deeply suspicious of things like the military-industrial complex.

The Libertarians believe that a person has a right to the fruit of their own labors, and that people should be free from burdensome regulation and oppressive government manipulation of markets. This is not "pro corporate" this is "pro human". They also believe that just as a person should be free to succeed, they should be free to fail. The libertarians are passionately opposed to "bail outs" and "stimulus" government corporate welfare programs.

Any Libertarian who tried to pull the sort of shenanigans that we're seeing here would be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail by his/her own party.

Re:Third parties

[jcr]

the libertarians, really really really are pro-corporate in their actual published platform.

Nope. Libertarians are pro-market. The Ruling Party is pro-corporations, and does all it can to help their cronies exclude competition.

-jcr

Re:Third parties

[frank_adrian314159]

Any Libertarian who tried to pull the sort of shenanigans that we're seeing here would be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail by his/her own party.

And then the Libertarian would rebrand himself a Republican and run as that.

Plus, it wouldn't matter anyway - after killing off regulations, the large corporations would have an even larger stranglehold on the marketplace, as there would be no anti-trust laws to keep them from colluding, price-fixing, etc. and any competitor who tried to enter the field would be crushed before they could get a foothold.

Re:Third parties

[Arker]

Believing each individual has an inalienable right to the fruit of their own labour does not equal believing that capitalists have the right to the lions share of the fruits of others' labour. The difference should be obvious to anyone that can read English.

Re:Third parties

[Archangel Michael]

But that doesn't fit the Leftwing view that anything different from their limited view is 100% wrong, therefore deserves to be mocked and exaggerated.

I've started parroting their techniques back at them. They make exaggerated claims about things they don't understand, I make exaggerated claims about what they believe. "All Liberals believe government should tell people how much they should make, and should pick the winners and losers through the body politic. And government should punish the successful and reward failue. Fair share is 'code' for punish the rich."

You can see hints of this in the GP post "The Libertarians' believe that capitalists have a right to the lion's share of the fruit of others' labours." Punish the wealthy, because they stole it all from the poor. If they only realized how ridiculous their view actually comes across. They make Sarah Palin look like a genius. (another technique, equate them with being more stupid than those they mock)

Re:Third parties

[Archangel Michael]

I am a libertarian and I don't support the military, industrial, media complex. I support proper accountability for corporations by holding their senior officers and corporate boards personally liable for corporate sponsored crimes. Additionally, I support being able to pull ill gotten gains from private trusts as well. Change the laws so that those running these non-person entities are held responsible for corporate sponsored crimes, and you'll see a change in corporate culture. You don't have to destroy corporations to keep them accountable, you just have to change who is accountable for when corporations do illegal acts. Right now, nobody is accountable.

Re:Third parties

[amiga3D]

This is why Libertarians are hated so much by both sides. The corps run both the R's and D's and use social issues to divide the population into these two camps. Divide and conquer works today as it always has. Blacks against Whites, Gay against Straight, Religious versus Atheists, etc. You'll notice shit like the patriot act gets full bipartisan support though. When will people wake up? I think only when they get hungry. As long as the bread and circus acts keep going it will never change.

Re:Third parties

[amiga3D]

You fail to see that corporations use government regulations to control the market to their exclusive benefit and kill any competition. There is no free market capitalism and has not been for decades.

Conflict of interest

[onyxruby]

This doesn't even pass the sniff test with regards to conflict of interest. Obama is as much of a tool of industry as W ever was, his entire populist election campaign of 2008 was one of the biggest frauds ever perpetrated on the American public. Seriously, look at industry after industry and you will see Obama acting fundamentally the same. How many bankers are in jail for the collapse of the economy, etc, etc?

Re:Conflict of interest

[Krojack]

Every President that gets elected to a second term stop giving a shit. It's the home stretch to pad their pockets and spend paradise on a beach.

This is nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

Despite the promises made by President Obama, there are plenty of lobbyists with jobs in government, hired on his watch. What's one more? What difference does it make?

http://www.businessinsider.com/meet-the-lobbyists-inside-the-obamas-administration?op=1

Re:More of the same...

[Anonymous Coward]

The more votes a third party gets, the more the Rs and Ds try to copy their policies in order to win those votes back. Better to change position on a few topics then let another party gain good media attention. The third parties see that someone cares about them and they keep on fighting for their principles. Your vote does more than you think it did.

Thank you for voting for a different party.

Fucking hell...

[FuzzNugget]

Privately run prisons, rubber stamping patent office, one-sided antagonistic copyright, violent take downs of non-violent civil offenders who pissed off corporations, multi-million dollar salaried revolving door jobs for politicians who fucked the public in the ass to do their corporate buddies a favor, hiring former corporate cronies as regulators so they can continue doing corporate favors... Why don't we just save ourselves the trouble by dropping the pretenses and officially handing all government duties to private corporations?

Re:Bring back Teddy

[sconeu]

I enjoy reading Revolutionary War history, and apparently, he was held in incredibly high esteem by his contemporaries. He may not have been perfect, but he was certainly principled, and took his *CONSTITUTIONAL* responsibilities seriously.