It’s Time to Break Up AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner and the Rest of the Telecoms

By David Rosen and Bruce Kushnick, AlterNet
Posted on May 11, 2011

To join the fight to break up the telecom giants, check out the Web site Break Up the Communications Trusts! and ‘like’ them onFacebook.

At the dawn of the 20th century, the oil pipes defined America. As the 21st century emerges, the information pipes define America and the world.

A century ago, a courageous muckraker, Ida Tarbell, wrote a series of articles that lead to the breakup of Standard Oil, which had become a trust controlling the energy and associated industries to fix prices, restrict competition and harm the nation.

  • This is the first in a series of articles to be published on AlterNet channeling the approach pioneered by Tarbell and her compatriots. This spirit needs to infuse 21st century journalism with a sense of critical engagement. It targets the telecommunications trust and has three explicit goals:

    • Divest the big telecom companies of their wireless subsidiaries to engender meaningful competition.
    • Divest cable operators of their content companies and open the networks to real competition, thus furthering democracy.

    * * *

    The Rise of the Standard Oil Company and The Shame of the Cities. These works culminated in, respectively, the breakup of Standard Oil and good-government reform throughout the country. An insurgent presidential candidate, Teddy Roosevelt — who actually named them “muckrakers” — championed their critiques and helped change American politics and business.

    Trusts now dominate the major sectors of the American economy, be it finance and banking, pharmaceuticals and health care, extraction and energy, agriculture and food or communications and the media.

    The telecom trust is systematic ripping off the American consumer. Three examples are illustrative:

    • * * *

      Making matters worse, 18 states outlaw municipal competition. The trust has had state legislatures adopt regulations prohibiting localities from upgrading their networks even though these corporations failed to do so after being paid billions.

      © 2011 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
      You can also view this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/150752/

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