Third Party & Independents: Archives

If clear channel wanted to pull them, thats fine, but this is done at the behest and threat of the FCC. this is a government decision not a free market decision- the FCC is pissed and clear channel realizes they better listen before they make the DJ fine look like a piggy bank or threaten to pull their lisence like they threatened CBS with.

There is more than the free political speech issue here, there is also the ownership of the airwaves.

But first freedom of speech. Well, there are two interpretations of the Constitution on this issue. One says all speech is to be protected from censorship regardless if others want to hear it or not, and the other says it is only Political speech that is protected.

Let’s be clear here, G.Washington, J.Adams, B. Franklin and all the others never intended that the Constitution should protect vulgarity or obscenity for its own sake. They would not have tolerated obscene literature passed out to school children anymore than we will, and their intent was clearly debated and discussed and the intent in the Constitution was to protect political speech from being gagged by the Government.

The Courts back in the 60’s and 70’s were deluged with political speech which also contained vulgarities and obscenities. In many of these cases the courts held that fines imposed and punishment delivered as a result of violation of local community standard laws, were not a Constitutional problem. In other Lenny Bruce could criticize the President or Congress or even the courts 24/7 and that was protected speech. However if he was going to promote his message with vulgarity and obscenity, that promotion was not protected.

Since then, we have lost our way and forgotten this relatively clear line.

Boortz, a talk show host, is using the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) involvement in pressuring broadcast obscenity and vulgarity of the airwaves to make his point that communications channels don’t belong to communities, or the public. He states the airwaves belong to the investors of the comm. companies that operate media on those airwaves. Thus he is attacking the FCC for applying public community standards to private free market enterprise.

Let common sense prevail here fellow Americans. We don’t want to protect a citizen’s speech of a sexual or bestial nature delivered to our children on the way home from school. We don’t want to protect a citizen’s right to megaphone his cussing and derogatory condemnations of Liberals or Conservatives at 3 AM in the morning in front of our house.

We do however want to protect political speech delivered by any citizen in a public area where passers by are free to listen or move along. We do want to protect a citizen’s right to bring wrongs committed by a politician to the media and press and have a voice where the message will be of concern to any other Americans.

The airwaves for broadcast like waterways, roadways, and public easements, do in fact belong to all the people. If the airwaves belong to the corporate media, then anything goes that sells and parents, children, nor adults will have access to broadcase media without their sensibilities being shocked and awed for the sake of controversy. Also, if airwaves don’t belong to the people, the only voices we may one day here will be a handful of fat cats, who can outbid all other advertisers.

David- i swear one of these days I am going to post something you agree with. I just have no idea what that might be. :)

Misha,

We are both American - if we can’t find common ground, this country is in real trouble. I think though, that what we have in common is vast and non-controversial, and who wants to hear us cheering each other on, anyway? In America, conflict sells, not harmony or Peace! :-)

Here’s another one to add to the list of government impinging on the citizens’ rights.

Last week, the Bush administration decided to stop providing closed captioning for 200 television shows. By doing so, the government is censoring much of the television programming that 28 million hard of hearing Americans can watch.

Officials at the Department of Education claim that “they are acting on the ‘intent of Congress’ to limit captioning to ‘educational and informational’ programming.” To determine this, “the Department of Education had external experts come in and help us determine the parameters for what would be appropriate,” Troy Justesen, deputy secretary for special education and rehabilitative services, explained.

While not offering any parameters followed, “‘Andy Hardy’ and ‘Inside Edition’ are educational and informational but ‘Discovery Jones’ and Lifetime’s ‘Biographies of Women’ are not.”

Here is the complete list of disapproved shows.

One blogger theorizes that Stern was suspended for his political beliefs, not his vulgarity. According to the blog entry, Clear Channel is owned by large contributors to the Bush Campaign, and Stern recently had been saying negative things about Bush (“neo-fascist”, etc). So, Clear Channel cut Stern to keep him from spreading anti-Bush ideas to his large audience.

I have no idea if this is true; I don’t listen to Stern, so I can’t verify if his content had recently changed. However, it’s an interesting theory.

LawnBoy,
I DO listen to Howard Stern, and have for many years. All Howard Stern is doing is voicing his opinion. Last time I heard, having an opinion is still legal in America, right? Howard has been putting on the same show for over 10 years. Recently Howard has become the one in the hot seat because of breast-gate, and all other Howard Stern Knock-offs who cant do it the right way.

And yes it is true, Howard does refer to Dumbya as a neo-facist, basically because americans have become way too sheepish lately, and having an idea that’s goes against the grain is taboo.

What Id like to see is for americans to stop bowing to the religious right who see everything american as a “deadly sin”.