Fox the Cable and Power!

The following is an entry by a guest reader without a blog of his own currently.

I will not name the source but rather state it is an intelligent affected former viewer of shows on Fox who has seen the light!

The foreign Australian/Saudi Arabian controlled News Corp is conductng an experiment to measure the extent in which it can manipulate the future of the US.

I am referring to the Australian Rupert Murdoch family, with 38% ownership in the Company, and Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the second largest equity owner behind Murdoch with holdings valued in excess of $2 billion.

The experiment, currently in progress is on a relatively small scale in which just a mere nine to 12 million innocent third party Americans are being used as hostages to create leverage for News Corp as it tests its ability to bully US media companies and influence Washington policies as it pursues its own interests and the interests of Australia and Saudi Arabia.

I am not referring to the heavily biased Fox News which publicly claims to be fair and even, cynically offering a 'we report, you decide' motto nor am I referring to the millions Rupert Murdoch, the Murdoch family, and News Corp has spent this year in supporting right wing causes.

Our recent 5 to 4 Supreme Court  decision that corporations have the same rights as individuals, allowing corporate money to flood the political marketplace has facilitated this new form of democratic corruption, empowering News Corp.

The experiment I am referring to involves News Corp's outrageous demand that New York and Tri-state based Cablevision's annual retransmission fee to Fox TV be increased from approximately $70 million to $150 million.

While Fox's demand is negotiated, Fox has pulled the plug on its broadcasts otherwise aired on Cablevision, affecting three million homes.

News Corp knows their demnand is unreasonable and has thus refused Cablevision's offer for binding arbitration.

This has nothing to do with money and is all about power. To further extend its power, News Corp has aired public announcements advising Cablevision customers who wish to watch Fox TV to switch carriers, pointing the way to Direct TV, Verizon, or a simple antennae since Fox TV channel 5 is carried free on airwaves leased to them by the U S Government.

Perhaps the our FCC should give News Corp its own ultimatum; return Fox 5 et al to Cablevision while you negotiate fees by October 25 or we will revoke your transmission bands.

Foreign ownership of critical media and public utilities is not typically considered to be in the interest of National welfare.

Serious consideration of the potential consequences of foreign interests controlling our media (the News Corp), our gas utiities (i.e. National Grid), and electric utilities (i.e J-Power, Iberdrola) should be high on our Government's to do list.

Wonderfully said by a concerned citizen.

Without government oversight the owners of the Foreign Fox Family of networks will continue to inch it's way into our government until it will be too late to turn it around.  And then, heaven help us!

The Verizon Intelligence Agency?

Fixing a problem without getting rid of the underlying cause is a blueprint for disaster. An unwillingness on the part of one company to share even the most inane of information with another company is what led in part to the disasters of 9-11. Information sharing between our nation's two covert agencies, the Fedral Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency proved fatal as each jealously held onto their own pieces of a puzzle. And just as in a jig-saw puzzle if one or more parts are missing the final picture may never be seen.
Naturally the following story is nowhere near as momentous as the events of that September day but in a small way it shows that big business has not learned from others' mistakes and probably never will. Their only line is the bottom one.
In the Newsday’s Community Watchdog section of Sunday February 10, 2008 it was reported that a problem had been fixed. A large overgrown tree in someone's back yard had to be cut down as it was embedded in the overhead phone lines. Unfortunately after the tree was removed wood remnants remained stuck on the lines. To make matters worse the wood occasionally showed signs of smooldering.
Aside from being a fire hazard the wood posed a danger to anyone unlucky enough to be under it when gravity took over. This included children playing in the back yard.
Repeated calls to Verizon produced no results and it was not until the home owner found out that the lines were actually owned by Cablevision that the wood was removed.
It seems that when Verizon originally sent their people to examine the problem they discovered that the lines belonged to Cablevision so they chose to do nothing. A simple inexpensive phone call between the two giant companies would have removed the danger immediately as was subsequently shown by Cablevision’s prompt response. I am certain that the lady who had made the original complaint would have been glad to foot the bill on that call.
Granted that the two companies are competitors but one would hope that Verizon would think of the consumer and safety first instead of behaving like the FBI or the CIA.