The FCC’s move to regulate the Internet runs deeper than just unelected bureaucrat tyrants wanting to exercise control over every aspect of our lives, and government agents wanting to control the flow of information:
Probably unbeknownst to Comcast, the company had fallen afoul of an organization with an animosity toward free enterprise, and thus to corporately controlled, privately owned assets. The organization Free Press was co-founded by University of Illinois professor Robert W. McChesney. From 2000 to 2004, McChesney served as editor of the Marxist/socialist journal Monthly Review, published in New York City. Monthly Review was founded in 1949 to speak “for socialism and against U.S. imperialism.”
This is no idle matter — McChesney views the media as a battleground in the socialist revolution. In a revised version of chapter seven of his book The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the Twenty-First Century, published online by Monthly Review, he writes: “Progressives need to work on challenging the corporate domination of media as part of the broader struggle for social justice. If changing media is left until ‘after the revolution,’ there will be no revolution, not to mention fewer chances for social reform.”
A chance to “change the media” apparently existed in the case of Comcast’s management of its network access. But the case finally ended up in the courts, where it found its way to the federal D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled in April that the FCC could not regulate Comcast’s network management policies. The court found that the FCC “has no express statutory authority” over an Internet service provider’s network management practices.”
That came as a blow to the FCC. In its press release announcing that the agency would begin to “seek best legal framework for broadband Internet access,” the agency complained that the “recent decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit cast doubt on prior understandings about the FCC’s ability to ensure fair competition.” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski put it more bluntly. The Court’s findings, he said in a statement, amounted to an “unwelcome decision” and “a curveball.” The setback was also viewed unfavorably by FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, “a self-described New Dealer,” according to McChesney who had already tangled with Comcast earlier in the decade when he “was the one vote against approving Comcast’s takeover of AT&T’s cable systems in 2002.” In other words, Copps was familiar with using the power of government to thwart free enterprise.
The FCC is another agency that should never have existed, and exerts a continual drain on the economy and production of our nation.
