Putting The F Word Out Of The FCC

The Federal Communications Commission has always had a reputation for rather improbable rules. While there is no doubt that this has always been true, under the Bush Administration, one of the worst FCC commissioners ever happened to be Michael Powell, the son of then Secretary of State Colin Powell.

To have a Powell in charge at the FCC always struck me as a little too incestuous, when the Powell family has often sat on boards of communications companies like AOL/Time Warner. And Michael proved me right many times because never before has an FCC head worked so damned hard to:

a) block efforts for community based programming as with radio and TV
b) fine any company that allowed anyone to say or do anything unfavorable to the more extreme right wing (I wasn't happy to see Janet Jackson's nipple either but hey... bigger fish to fry, no? - and the hard turn on Howard Stern only after he started to go after Bush) and
c) "sell" the airwaves owned by the people to corporations.

So yes, after years of truly stupid, corporate-and-Bush friendly decisions, I was thrilled this week when the FCC decided that if Bush and Cheney can utter the "F words" as the big bold face of the hard right, then huge fines should not be handed out in other cases.

But we need the FCC to make other wise decisions. Now, we need to make sure the FCC doesn't help in handing off the Internet to corporations (aka Net Neutrality).