With Hillary declared the winner in the first primary of the silly season Tuesday night, lets pause to consider the results of the last Clinton in the White House.
Whatever you think of Hillary and her politics, one thing is abundantly clear; she is riding on the coattails of her husbands eight years as President. A good yardstick of what will happen under a Clinton44 reign can be read in those ancient tea leaves of Clinton42's era. My point-of-view is that, as progressives, with Bill Clinton we were in the frying pan and the heat was on high. We then jumped into the fire with the election of George Bush..but I digress.
David Morris dissects the first Clinton's time in office very well this week in an Alternet article. I also tear into the Clinton's, the DCCC and the Clinton's personal democratic PAC known as the DLC here.
Bill Clinton, with the flourish of his pen, changed the course of all telecommunications. He signed into law the Telecommunications Act of 1996. This act allowed a free-for-all to take place with the blessings of the federal government, and I might add..without one iota of oversight or public hearings on the massive changes that would take place. Within three years, we went from having 13 Teleco's down to 5 huge conglomerates that control everything. The FCC lost control of the public airwaves as well thanks to the Teleco Act of '96. Two corporations, Infinity and Clear Channel sucked up a majority of the radio stations and consequently killed roughly 1100 of them in the process that didn't 'perform well' if you believe the two corporations. Clear Channel is all about the Benjamin's and its crystal clear if you read the series of articles at Salon by Eric Boehlert. Check out this quote from an Buzzflash writeup about the giant conglomeration that owns anything and everything regarding advertising and music:
It's no coincidence that Clear Channel executives Tom Hicks and L. Lowry Mays have contributed tens of thousands of dollars to Bush's gubernatorial and presidential campaign coffers. Or that Clear Channel gave $119,370 in "soft money" to Republicans in 2001-2002, this on top of the $82,850 it gave in 2000. (Democrats, meanwhile, got $25,000 in soft money in that same three-year period.) Or that Clear Channel stations have been known to pull radio ads criticizing Republicans.
It isn't a stretch to say our airwaves are controlled by Republican interests and continue to be since News Corp. is in the process of selling off some of it's holdings to another Republican-loving conglomerate, Oak Hill Capital Partners. Thank Bill Clinton for starting that ball rolling down the hill when he pushed The Telco bill and signed it.
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