ates in support of research and development) allows for greater consumer choice in terms of channels and content. Some of the arguments the moguls make, however, are preposterous. For example, America Online Chairman Steve Case and Time Warner Chairman Gerald Levin, in testimony before the Federal Communications Commission on the merger of AOL and Time-Warner, "extoll[ed] the virtues of their merger as one that will 'take the Internet to the next level' and 'increase consumer choice in communications service and content'" (Connell, 2000, p. 1). The fact is, however, that the rapid expansion of mergers related to the Internet have created logjams in which service is terrible, particularly in DSL lines. In response to a question about the limitation of choices threatened by the growth of media conglomerates, Case argued,
This notion people are putting out that we are constraining choice is a little silly. . . . Those companies that accuse us of being a monopoly are not worried because we are going to be a monopoly. These companies that are worried about us are worried because we are populists (Connell, 2000, p. 2).
The argument against monopolies has always been that they will corner the market and that consumers will have to buy whatever the monopoly is selling at whatever prices the monopoly decrees. In his response, Case simply ignores this fact and reverses the argument, claiming that those who argue against the AOL-Time Warner merger are actually against the people! Populism, which refers to the needs of the people, a grass-roots appeal in politics, is not the goal of monopoly. The goal of monopoly is precisely to control, as much as possible, the market for whatever goods and services are in question. Case's argument that the AOL-Time Warner merger is a populist effort is an insult to the intelligence of the FCC and the consumers of America.
Even other huge multimedia conglomerates recognize the threat of such media merg...