Lumps of Coal for Vets and Media Watchers
December 25, 2007
Some Special Lumps of Coal from Washington!
First, the word from Congress is that the Veterans Equity Bill, which had a chance of passing before Christmas, is officially off the sleigh.
Lobbyists are trying to salvage the year by pushing for a family reunification measure that would help veterans’ immigration problems. It doesn’t cost any budget dollars, and it’s a warm and fuzzy, feel-good bill that appeals to the guilt of a bastard Congress.
But it doesn’t hide the disappointment in the failure of the broader equity bill that would have made the Filipino veterans of WWII again feel whole.
Blame it on the budget-busting war? The sub-prime woes of the economy?
It’s really a matter of leadership in the House. And all fingers should point to Madame Pelosi. In the past, she has come through. The funds for the Manilatown Heritage Center at the I-Hotel site in San Francisco wouldn’t have come through if not for her help. But on this goal-line drive, the veterans hit a brick wall.
That’s how fast things change. The vets have seen this thing before, when the rights they earned for fighting under the United States flag during World War II were suddenly rescinded. And now, it seems most of them will die fighting their longest battle — a political one, against the U.S.
Coal from the FCC
In “the more lumps change, the more lumps stay the same” department, add the FCC’s new media cross-ownership rules.
In my formative years in the media business, I worked for San Francisco’s KRON-TV, which at the time owned the Chronicle as well as an FM radio station. All family-owned. Then, the FCC came in and busted up the business for being too concentrated and anti-democratic.
Just over a generation later, we find the family who owned the Chronicle now out of the business, along with big corporate ownership of all its former properties. And this week, the FCC ruled to allow newspapers in the top 20 markets to buy any station that isn’t in the top four in its market.
That means Hearst, which now owns the Chronicle, can theoretically come in and buy any independent station in the area for the right price. Hemorrhaging money at the Chronicle while trying to maximize its increasingly video-oriented Internet profits, Hearst can now come in and buy KRON, which is no longer an NBC affiliate and now a struggling also-ran.
If that were to happen, it will have only taken one generation for the old Chron Martins, McEvoys, Theriots et al. to transfer, in a roundabout way, their biggest holdings (TV and newspaper) to the monstrous corporate Hearsts (at one time believed to be a family). And all it took was some FCC affirmative action.
I would have preferred to see the FCC take stronger, more traditional affirmative action stands that would either serve minority communities more responsibly, or benefit real minorities who have been shut out of the ownership arena. Sadly, the only thing bureaucrats understand in the present political environment is corporate affirmative action. Protect the monied interests. Asian American? Irrelevant. What counts? Are you an S-corp. or a C-corp.?
The FCC rule change that would permit my aforementioned KRON fantasy will get most of the attention. And watch the corporate jockeying that will ensue as newspapers drool over what properties to take over. What will hardly be mentioned is the waste and turmoil in the lives of workers caught up in all these media changes, past and future. Such rule changes are the bailout for the corporate bean counters who missed their number. But don’t cry for them. Think of the innocent workers who have always been subjected to layoffs, firings, and re-trainings because of corporate miscalculation.
They’re the ones no one will dare mention as the new rules play out.
A Merry Merry to All
No lumps from me. Just a book: Stage Presence: Conversations with Filipino American Performing Artists, edited by Theodore Gonsalves (Meritage Press). Performing artists like Pearl Ubungen and Alleluia Panis speak of their work and drive to create. A book like this is important for young Asian Americans trying to break out of the Asian American doctor/lawyer/techie/yuppie stereotypes, and who wish to create a unique life of creativity. To dare to express oneself as Asian American is an amok act. Stage Presence girds you against the urge to conform.
e-mail: emil@amok.com
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As a board member of both the Manilatown Heritage Foundation and the San Francisco Veteran’s Equity Center, I would Like to correct Mr. Guilllermo. Ms. Pelosi did not only support the Manilatowen Center and the I-Hotel would not have been re-build by the Chinatown Community Development Center without the major support of Senator and former mayor Diane Feinstien. Although, we would welcome funding from Pelosi’s office for the Manilatown Center, we don’t receive any monies directly from her office
Secondly, it was Idaho Republican Congressman Larry Craig, that’s right, that Larry Craig, who stonewalled the Equity Bill from getting out onto the floor before Christmas . Ms. Pelosi had nothing to do with it. Sure, Ms. Pelosi could flex her muscles for us, like she has in the previous Congress, but it is largely the Republicans who are blocking the Equity Bill. Those lobbyists that are friends with Mr. Guillermo need to work harder on their Republican friends. Let it be known, the veteran’s that I work with and talk to, don’t want a an empty-suit Re-unification or Health Care Bill, they want Equity - nothing more, nothing less.
It’s nice that Mr. Guillermo shares information with everyone, but it would be very professional of him if he were to work harder to get his facts better researched.
Mr. Recio:
Absolutely.
All ANY man, no, make that individual, wants is R-E-S-P-E-C-T, nothing more but nothing less.
The rest is irrelevant.
On the other hand, Nancy Pelosi is the one who said, on ascending to the catbird seat, that “impeachment” was “off the table.”
Now, what kind of “leader” is that?
And, for that reason, I have lost all respect for Mme. Pelosi, AND the Congressional chair in which she sits.
Human beings are dying in far too many places for far too few reasons, precisely because this so-called “democracy” is actually an oligarchy, and/or an outright dictatorship of the extreme Right, who are self-defeating in their mindless embrace of presumed “power” and firepower.
Republicans are yesterday, one hopes, and Democrats not quite or today.
And unless someone, somehow, emerges out of the muck and mire of domestic politics to evince “truth” against “power,” then, indeed, has this nation surrendered its claim to validity.
We are idiots, led by the lame, the halt AND the blind.
God! ANYone’s, help us, but, on the evidence, why the Hell SHOULD he, or she, or it?
Frank Eng
Readers are free to take their potshots. But let me correct the person who attempts to correct me. The facts are subtle so maybe the reader should simply read the column again.
I did not say Pelosi gave any money directly to the Manilatown project. My column referred to Pelosi’s political might in getting the project completed.
Source: a Manilatown executive boardmember.
As for Republican Larry Craig, his antics blocking the equity bill are irrelevant. Lobbyists for the Filipino Vets in Washington staged vigils at Pelosi’s San Francisco home for a reason. They tell me they are sorely disappointed that Pelosi could not deliver the Democratic votes to cinch a victory before Christmas.