Saturday, December 14, 2019

Need for an Antitrust Action against Comcast, TimeWarner, and Disney


Dear Mr. President:

The deterioration of the American media and its open partisanship should be addressed through an antitrust action.  More than 75 percent of airwave and cable broadcasters are in practice affiliated with the Democratic Party.  This came about because in the 1930s the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration illegally required ideological litmus tests in its granting of airwave monopolies.  

When the country had something of a dominant, bipartisan consensus, perhaps from the candidacy of Wendell L. Wilke through the George W. Bush administration, partisan monopoly of the airwaves was unimportant, although conservatives have never been happy. When the cable monopolies were established by local governments in the 1970s and 1980s, the extension of the New Deal system seemed natural, although by then the media was increasingly at odds with moderate Republicans. Moreover, the major parties had not diverged ideologically to the degree that they have since Goldwater and McGovern--and to a greater degree since Obama. Conservatives have lived with an unresponsive, monopolistic media for the past ninety years.

The recent handling of the impeachment hoax and the legacy media’s deceitful coverage of your presidency has intensified the issue.  At present, the Democratic media monopoly is becoming  an embarrassment, a system at odds with the preferences of the majority of Americans. Given that the media lacks professionalism and intersects with state influence—via the Democratic Party---the current system makes a mockery of Constitutional protection of freedom of the press. The current system is a state-granted monopoly that favors one party and is much like a totalitarian system. This is especially so of the stations owned by Comcast, TimeWarner, and Disney.    

There needs to be an antitrust action and a divestiture of airwave and cable networks from the Democrats so that airwave and cable control are wrested from Comcast and Disney and  fairly distributed among Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Greens, and others in rough proportion to their numbers in the population.


Sincerely,


Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.

Cc: Robert Iger, The Walt Disney Co.
Brian L. Roberts, Chairman, Comcast Corporation
Joseph J. Simons, Chairman, Federal Trade Commission

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