The "ownership society" is great. Until it's not.
OK, first off: if you haven't already signed and shared the Stop Comcast petition at whitehouse.gov,
do it now and join the 7,800+ people who, over the quiet, stormy Valentine's Day/Presidents' Day/Winter Olympics weekend chosen by Comcast to sweep outrage under the carpet, actually did something about the consolidation of corporate power in the U.S. But if you need a little more convincing, consider
this from the Dallas Morning News today:
Just last month, Discovery Communications, the owner of cable networks including Animal Planet and TLC, had considered acquiring rival Scripps Networks Interactive in a deal that would have been valued at more than $10 billion.
Discovery never went ahead.
But according to people close to the company, a main reason Discovery did not go down the road of a merger was that it believed it was big enough to negotiate effectively with big cable operators like Comcast.
Were Comcast to get much bigger, a person familiar with Discovery’s thinking said, there could be a pressing need for consolidation among cable network owners.
“If Comcast ends up with 40 million subscribers, all the content providers could have a real problem,” this person said at the time.
That fear is getting closer to becoming reality. With its proposed $45.2 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable, Comcast would have 30 million subscribers, the most of any cable operator by a wide margin.
And the prospect of such a behemoth looming over the media landscape could touch off a once-in-a-generation frenzy of deal-making.
What part of "this is real, real bad for democracy and economic opportunity for average folks" do you not understand?
Laughing sadly at Tom Tomorrow's great cartoon of "the one rich guy who owns everything" isn't going to actually change things for that guy. Please exit the cynicism zone of our current depressing situation in the U.S. long enough to create a vocal opposition to this merger. We have only the fate of democracy, the Internet and decent and humane living at stake, after all. It's not Rosa Parks sitting down on a bus, mind you, but if you can't at least let Obama know that his CEO golf buddy and fundraiser at Comcast is not da bomb with the voters, then heck, what are you doing reading this blog anyway.
So again. Sign the doggone petition, share it, and get hopping mad that we're being asked to bend over for Comcast. Please.