Letters to the Editor
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The Marketplace Of Ideas
If there's one place the conservatives don't like a free market, it's the marketplace of ideas. Here they need a monopoly more than anywhere else, because their product is so shoddy. If you open this up to competition they know they'll lose customers, because very few people would buy what they're peddling if they could see the alternatives.
Of course this is about maintaining the persecution complex. And of course this is about riling the base with the spectre of Grand Illuminati Master Chomsky and Cult Of Dagon Leader Soros. But more than anything it's about opposition to parity as embodied by the Fairness Doctrine. Because opening dialogue means opening minds, and an open mind cannot hold the fumes of conservative deception for long.
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Conservatives lie about the Fairness Doctrine to attack Equal Time
Are these guys even familiar with The Fairness Doctrine?
http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/fairness.html
It was a vague thing from the start and remained despite a supreme court decision upholding it. It was a mix of good and dubious motives which is probably why when it got killed it stayed dead.
The most specific and consistend enforcement surrounded elections and is still addressed by the equal time rule. I do think this needs strengthening, but this wouldn't affect talk radio - just prevent thinly disguised free campaign ads during elections.
In part this stems from right wing lies over the Sinclair Broadcast Group's attempt to air the anti-Kerry Swift Boat documentary. They attempted to claim this was about the defunct fairness doctrine, but it was actually about the parameters of the Equal Time Rule. In the end, it was public reaction which decided it, because government intervention didn't occur.
This whole topic is nothing but another "War On Xmas" pandering to the base. It a way for conservatives to pretend they're endangered or being unfairly attacked at a time when they are in trouble for not obeying real rules.
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Remembering the Fairness Doctrine
I'm old enough to remember AM radio under the "Fairness Doctrine." Back then, you actually had informative debate and civil discussions by guests with opposing viewpoints.
The content was inarguably better than in today's era of one-sided polemics, vein-popping rants and outright propaganda.
When the enemy is "fairness," it's easy to spot the bad guys.
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Collect Your Raspberry Sucker
They're doing it again. Beating the bushes for birds that aren't there--motivating their troops with the latest injustice from the liberal elites.
It is getting very boring. On the "View" this morning there was mostly agreement that the Imus firing was political correctness at it's most explicit--and if the "View" ain't MSM I don't know what is--so maybe there is hope.
Guys like Morris especially excell at this kind of mudslinging. He's been doing it for years--and doesn't even try to conceal licking his lips any more when he has an opportunity to create choas and dissention. He is peerless at appealing to the lowest common denominator. If you can count on anything or anybody today to divert attention from the real issues--it's Morris. (Blackwell ran for Governor of Ohio by using homophobia as an issue--so they belong together.)
For the record, (just in case children read this) liberals do not have a history of curtailing freedom of speech. That is a given. Right wing conservatives (not moderates) do and one need look no further than the current administration for ten times more proof than needed. Fall for this little piece of inverted logic and collect your raspberry sucker at the end of the show...
Meanwhile, the rape of the public treasury by the oil industry goes on unabated, and the dialogue hasn't even begun.
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Imus Isn't Gone; He's Moving to XM-Sirius
I find it deplorable that Sirius was quick to pick up Imus. However much I enjoy the opera and jazz programming on my satellite radio, I know that more of my monthly fees will be going to support Imus (and Stern and Don and Mike and Glenn Beck and Michael Savage) than will be going to support the programming I enjoy.
I call on all XM & Sirius employees and subscribers to complain to the management. We should not allow satellite radio to become a haven for racism and hate speech.
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All I can say is, WHAAAAA!!!
Or, apparently that's all I could say if I were a conservative at the end of the Bush era. "Liberals are persecuting us! Whaaa!"
Please. Right wing reactionary religious nuts started the purge of the airwaves a long time ago by targeting anyone who had the audacity to suggest on TV or radio that humans might occassionally engage in sex *gasp!*. Portray the bloody mutilation of as many people you want on TV, that's fine. But you mention a boob and you're off the air. Violence: good, Sex: bad. Doesn't make much sense to me, but whatever.
The fact is, unlike the Christian Conservatives who used the power of the government to stop speech they didn't like by fining some radio hosts into oblivion, this isn't a freedom of speech issue. Don Imus has the freedom to say whatever he wants. Al Sharpton has the freedom to use his speech to convince Imus' advertisers to stop supporting him. Hence, everyone's rights were served. The conservatives who complain about the Imus firing as a freedom of speech issue are really are not concerned about Imus' freedoms at all. There was no government involvment here, therefore no freedom of speech issue. In actuality, conservatives are trying to shore up support for a conservative voice by divesting activists of their freedom of speech.
It is a con-game the conservatives have used to great success before, but the public is beginning to catch on. It is cynical and I'd like to think it underestimates the public's perception. I hope I'm right about that.
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Two Sides To Every Story?
Balance is not the end-all/be-all of public discourse. We are not obligated to balance truth with lies.
When we state the simple truths that Saddam really had no WMDs, and that he had no real connection with terrorism, and that life in Iraq is worse now than it was under Saddam, misguided people claim the right to present lies in the name of "balance."
But reality is not an opinion. And doing a good job of presenting a lie is not the same as finding the truth or seeking wisdom.
It appears that Americans need guidance about reality. In 2007, we cannot even agree about what is real.