New Orleans         Sometimes you just have to scratch your head and admit that you are out of your pay grade. That’s where I’m heading in trying to figure out why the giant Comcast believes its best political and commercial strategy for achieving monopoly concentration in the cable and internet world is to be the biggest bully on the block. Yet, darned if that’s not the way David Cohen, Comcast’s executive vice-president, is calling the plays.

Not that I’m surprised, since that’s the way Cohen and Comcast chose to deal, or I guess I should more accurately say, not deal, with Local 100 United Labor Unions, Action United, and ACORN International in our demands and entreaties that they actually make their public relations internet program, Internet Essentials, really work. Shame on us for believing that because the $10 per month program was a requirement in the FCC order approving their last big merger with Universal that they would actually do something real to bridge the internet divide for lower income families rather than have their government relations people just wine and dine local politicians in their cities.

In the most recent bully boy schoolyard play, Cohen and Comcast dropped a 1000 pages on the FCC mainly whining that some of their business buddies and potential, oh my god can it be true, competitors, have opposed their monopoly play to acquire Times-Warner for selfish reasons about protecting their own businesses. I guess Comcast believes that they have some kind of monopoly on self-interest as well, or maybe it’s just the modern hubris of “what’s good for GM is good for the country” and their arrogance that they believe what is good for Comcast is therefore good for the American people.

Comcast’s main claim is that its buddies were involved in extortion. I do have to take this seriously, since Comcast has certainly proven that it probably knows more about everyday extortion than virtually any company working on the planet now. Netflix’s spokesperson replied tit for tat to that claim though by saying, “It is not extortion to demand that Comcast provide its own customers the broadband speeds they’ve paid for so that they can enjoy Netflix. It is extortion when Comcast fails to provide its own customers the broadband speed they’ve paid for unless Netflix also pays a ransom.” Boom! Now we’re talking trash that’s music to our ears!

So I have to wonder, will trying to bully the FCC and point fingers at everyone else work, because if so, we need to modify our strategy in trying to push the FCC to do better in providing internet access for our people? One finger wagging reported in the New York Times, from a media analyst said, “Regulators are a sophisticated audience. They can assess the merits of the various arguments without having to be coached on what incentives might be behind why someone did or didn’t say what they did.”

Of course I’m not that sophisticated, but I do know some simple things. If Comcast can’t even pretend to play nice before they are allowed to become a monopoly, how can any of us or the FCC believe that letting them become an even bigger monopoly will be good for any of us? We all were schooled on the basics that in dealing with a bully, you need to slap them back hard. The Comcast purchase of Times-Warner must be stopped. It’s the only way to get a bully to listen.