Saving Mark Lloyd – the FCC’s socialist diversity czar
Obama’s Federal Communications Commission “Diversity Czar” Mark Lloyd once said: There are few things, I think, more frightening in the American mind than dark-skinned black men. Here I am.
From Ron Arnold’s Left Tracking Library
Lloyd, a 55-year-old civil-rights attorney, took office on August 4, 2009, in Obama’s newly created FCC post of Associate General Counsel / Chief Diversity Officer. The post of chief diversity officer in the FCC, unlike the same job title in corporations and universities, has no policy-making power and no control over the FCC’s budget ($335,794,000 for 2010). But his socialist views before being appointed alarmed Americans far more than his dark skin.
The Wall Street Journal said, “Mr. Lloyd in the past has criticized corporate ownership of media outlets, saying it has led to conservative dominance of talk radio.”
The WSJ also noted that Lloyd was a senior fellow at John Podesta’s Center for American Progress in 2007, and co-authored a report “that proposed ways the FCC could change the balance of conservatives to progressives on talk radio by imposing new rules on the radio industry, such as more frequent license renewals and a national radio-ownership cap.”
Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) headlined an editorial, “Diversity Czar Threatens Free Speech,” with a subhead reading:
1st Amendment: Mark Lloyd, a disciple of Saul Alinsky and fan of Hugo Chavez, wants to destroy talk radio and says free speech is a distraction. The new FCC diversity “czar” says Venezuela is an example we should follow.
To underscore the Chavez remark, IBD quoted a June 10 video of Lloyd at the Free Press 2008 National Conference for Media Reform, which showed him saying:
In Venezuela, with Chavez, it’s really an incredible revolution – a democratic revolution. To begin to put in place things that are going to have an impact on the people of Venezuela.
The property owners and the folks who then controlled the media in Venezuela rebelled – worked, frankly, with folks here in the U.S. government – worked to oust him. But he came back with another revolution, and then Chavez began to take very seriously the media in his country.
Mr. Lloyd’s praise of Chavez earned him a place on an old Soviet propaganda poster of Lenin / Lloyd leading the people to socialist glory – not exactly something the Obama administration wanted Americans to think about their Federal Communications Commission Diversity Czar.
Investor’s Business Daily editors did not mischaracterize Lloyd, who did indeed refer extensively in his 2006 book, Prologue to a Farce: Communication and Democracy in America, to Saul Alinsky as a model for activists (pages 249 and 271 through 276), and indeed Lloyd calls for an all-out “confrontational movement” against private media.
But the truth could not be allowed to stand. So an army of Obama non-profit supporters came forward to deny it all by changing the subject and not addressing the concerns. So, on September 16, 2009, a letter went to the FCC’s Commissioners and selected members of Congress with the title, “Public Interest and Civil Rights Groups Speak Out Against Unfounded Attacks on Mark Lloyd.” It had the sub-title:
More than 50 organizations call on the FCC and Congress to support the work of the FCC diversity officer and to correct the record on localism and diversity policies
What the long letter didn’t say was how closely connected to Obama the 55 authors were and how rich their groups were from left-wing donors including George Soros, Peter Lewis, and other ultra-partisan Democrat fat-cats. Groups with combined annual revenues of several hundred million dollars put full effort into keeping Obama’s Media Diversity Czar in office.
| THE 55 SIGNERS THAT WROTE TO SAVE MARK LLOYD (with group income) | ||||
| Josh Silver Free Press $2,702,303 |
Wade Henderson Leadership Conference on Civil Rights $1,073,950 |
Winnie Stachelberg Center for American Progress $26,638,475 |
James Rucker Color Of Change (ColorOfChange.org) $343,651 |
Stephanie Jones National Urban League Policy Institute $47,145,386 |
| Brent Wilkes League of United Latin American Citizens (Income Secret) |
Larry Cohen Communications Workers of America $176,856,960 |
Alex Nogales National Hispanic Media Coalition $559,071 |
Bernie Lunzer The Newspaper Guild $3,816,429 |
No Photo Kimberly Marcus Rainbow PUSH Coalition’s Public Policy Institute(Income secret) |
| Malkia Cyril Center for Media Justice $60,000+ |
Andrew Schwartzman Media Access Project $619,284 |
John Kosinski Writers Guild of America West $23,196,986
|
Sandy Close New America Media (Project of Pacific News Service) $6,593,313 |
Amalia Deloney Media Action Grassroots Network (Project of Center for Media Justice) |
| Angelo Falcon National Institute for Latino Policy $2,325 |
Michael Calabrese New America Foundation $14,193,707 |
Melanie Campbell National Coalition on Black Civic Participation $2,089,992 |
Gigi Sohn Public Knowledge $687,720 |
Rinku Sen Applied Research Center $2,555,600 |
| John Clark National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians $424,306 |
Graciela Sanchez Esperanza Peace and Justice Center $596,597 |
Mimi Pickering Appalshop $1,526,372 |
Steven Renderos Main Street Project $557,880 |
Hal Ponder American Federation of Musicians $12,210,236 |
Tracy Rosenberg Media Alliance $139,150 |
Terry O’Neill National Organization for Women $3,680,200 |
Roger Hickey Campaign for America’s Future $1,301,395 |
Andrea Quijada New Mexico Media Literacy Project (Southwestern Alternate Media Projects, Inc.) $345,812 |
Jonathan Lawson Reclaim the Media (Center for Social Justice – Seattle) $32,572 |
DeAnne Cuellar Texas Media Empowerment Project (Esperanza Peace and Justice Center) $596,597 |
Chris Rabb Afro-Netizen (Bread & Roses Community Fund) $721,296 |
Loris Ann Taylor Center for Native American Public Radio (National Federation of Community Broadcasters) $776,940 |
Lisa Fager Bediako Industry Ears (Form 990 not available) |
O. Ricardo Pimentel National Association of Hispanic Journalists $1,159,872 |
Todd Wolfson Media Mobilizing Project $257,528 |
Erica Williams Campus Progress (Center for American Progress) |
Gary Flowers Black Leadership Forum $297,181 |
Eva Paterson Equal Justice Society $878,118 |
Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr. Hip Hop Caucus Peace Action Education Fund $871,694 |
| Cheryl Contee Jack and Jill Politics (BLOGGERPOWER ORG) $902,822 |
Dr. E. Faye Williams National Congress of Black Women $496,705 |
Emily Sheketoff American Library Association $57,224,984 |
Ari Rabin-Havt Media Matters Action Network(Form 990 not available) |
Kathryn Galan National Association of Latino Independent Producers $1,021,182 |
| Roberto Lovato Presente (writer, blogger) |
Joshua Breitbart People’s Production House (fiscal sponsor: Fund for the City of New York)$34,682,290 |
No Photo Karen Bond National Black Coalition for Media Justice (no record of incorporation or exempt status) |
Tracy Van Slyke Media Consortium (fiscal sponsor: National Training & Information Center) $1,367,648 |
Shireen Mitchell Digital Sisters, Inc (fiscal sponsor: National Council of Women’s Organizations) $371,153 |
| Tessie Guillermo ZeroDivide: $1,286,208 |
Ariel Dougherty Media Equity Collaborative (fiscal sponsor: International Media Project) $280,376 |
Helen Soule Alliance for Community Media $580,812 |
Helen De Michiel National Alliance for Media Arts & Culture (a non-exempt professional network) |
Carol Pierson National Federation of Community Broadcasters $776,940 |
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