Bayosphere

Given the Bush administration’s fondness for corporate interests and its disdain for enforcing laws designed to enhance competition, it seems likely that Comcast, the Philadelphia-based cable-TV company, will be permitted to buy AT&T’s cable and broadband unit (AP). Given the natural inclinations of business people, it seems equally likely that customers of these companies will end up considerably less satisfied than shareholders.

The current thinking among the people in charge is that technology moves so quickly that oligopolies, duopolies or even monopolies are constantly under threat. That logic is contrary to the practical reality, notably in the Microsoft situation, but it’s now federal policy.

So we’re on the verge of a new consolidation wave in telecommunications. We’ll end up with oligopolies, at best, in the key industries of the 21st Century.

Yes, you should be unhappy that you’ll pay higher prices to mega-companies that have less competition to worry about. You should recognize a more subtle threat — the decreasing diversity in the mass media, the news and programming that reaches the vast majority of Americans.

It’s worrisome enough that a few big corporations produce most of the news and entertainment people receive today. Now consider how things may be when two or at most three companies could soon control the digital access points to knowledge and entertainment.

This is what the mergers are about. Control the choke points and you win.

I’m not talking about you, of course. You’re just the customer, one of those folks who’ll feel the choking.

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Dave Winer and his UserLand Software colleagues think bloggers deserve their own awards, and was kind enough to nominate this weblog, among others, for one of them. I’m honored.

I see that they’ve excluded the UserLand sites from consideration. That’s a good decision from an ethical viewpoint, but a shame in another respect — they deserve notice in several categories.

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At the World Economic Forum annual meeting in early 2000, then-President Bill Clinton gave a speech of clarity and common sense — embracing globalization but warning that globalization had to occur with less secrecy and more inclusion of the have-nots. Many of the Americans at the meeting wondered in sadness where this president had been for eight years, and why he’d squandered what should have been a great presidency with lies, sleaze and — worst of all — the unwillingness to take real risks in service of larger goals.

That memory has returned twice in the past few weeks, after reading transcripts of two powerful speeches by a man whose lost opportunities will surely haunt him for the rest of his days.

Optimism in the face of deep problems shines through both speeches. But both make the absolutely crucial point that winning the war against Al Quaeda, while essential, is not enough. We in the developed world must bring our wealth to bear on the problems of those who languish or suffer in poverty and hopelessness elsewhere.

Here are the transcripts: