Life Isn't Fair but Media Should Be

A couple of years ago the autos that were parked overnight in the streets of New York City were having their car radios heisted by agile crooks. Car owners were then removing their radios from their dashboards overnight and posting hand written signs in their windows announcing "No car radio" in the hope that they would avoid a broken window. After listening to Rush Limbaugh one day I put a sign in my old Volvo reading "No hate radio." So my car was spared by some right wing thief. Somehow this form of thievery lost its luster, and the clever crooks found more lucrative forms of boosting; flat screen TVs, Prada handbags, Florida elections, hedge funds and sub prime mortgages. But the idea of no hate radio still appeals to me - or at least balancing the preponderance of conservative hate radio with other voices. I know that hate speech is protected as free speech by our Constitution. And no, I don't advocate imposing love radio (a yawn inducing notion) on the world but creating a forceful plain-talking progressive radio, one that should have a place on our radio airways and television. No, not another Air America which floats about the ether, lost to anyone who tries to find it, but an effective, pervasive, easy to find voice for progressive views.

The truth is that hate speech can often be funnier than reasoned talk. And it has a long tradition in our democracy going back to the Founding Fathers, Andrew Jackson, and Lincoln with their savagely mocking, duel fighting and libel tossing opponents. Hate sells. Always has. Sadly, it always will. The trouble with its use during the McCain/Palin campaign was that it teetered on encouraging serious hate action by the desperate Republican candidates by demonizing our now President elect Obama as a secret traitor, and we all know what they'd like to do to traitors.

Rush Limbaugh, Oxycodone's own Oliver Hardy, has been bringing joy and gladness to the Repubs for years by pounding on liberals relentlessly, and his rewards for doing so have been enormous. I say let him go on ranting and rolling. Let him have his ditto-heads, his mansions, his forbidden little pills and his fat cigars. Let him mock a critically ill actor, Michael J. Fox, let him rave on against the reality of AIDS, let him declare war on the environment, not for me to stop him. And that goes for his fellow right winger Sean Hannity as well in that Hannity/Comes show where Hannity, the fast talking radical right guy with the gift for gab outshines the dim bulb that is his nerdy liberal opponent, Alan Colmes. A Foxy set up if I ever saw one. I must admit that I was troubled by the debates in this election which excluded Nader who was desperately running on the Egotist Party ticket, and Libertarian Bob Bar from at least one of the debates. I felt that their absence diluted the debates and diminished the discourse.

All of this is just a preamble to my view that we must restore the old Fairness Doctrine. From 1974 until 1987 under Ronald Wilson Reagan's Presidency, it was the policy of our government to provide contrasting views over the public airways (remember that word - public - we the people as owners of the airways) so that we would have an informed electorate who voted on facts rather than rumors and lies. Equal time was not the issue, just the assurance that differing sides of an issue would be aired publicly. When Congress attempted to renew the Fairness Doctrine in '87 Reagan vetoed it. In his overall deregulation of democracy, Reagan used as allies for deregulating radio the notable Judges Bork and Scalia to rule that congress did not have to mandate the doctrine and the FCC did not have to enforce it. And so it ended. And just as the deregulation of our economy lead to this recession, unemployment and despair, so the deregulation of our airways has led to the crash of fairness and loss of intelligent debate and discourse. Rising from the sludge of deregulation was not only Rush and Sean but our Venus of the Right Wing, Ann Coulter, and her sister siren, Laura Ingraham, members of the Clairol Confederacy.

And what have we gotten as a result of losing that doctrine? A lopsided view of our democracy in which the right-wing attacks and accuses and the left plays defense. I am not advocating any restraints on the Limbaughs and the Hannitys. Let them rant on. But it's time for the Democrats to take a long and hard look at that old Fairness Doctrine, revise it and restore it for our times. Barack Obama ran on a message of change, but sometimes change has to look to the past for what was good and valuable that has been lost. And nothing better describes that loss than the Fairness Doctrine. Obama has not come out in favor of this restoration - he has far too much on his plate right now - but here he does not have to be our guide any more than he does in his reluctance to support gay marriage. Every leader has his limitations. For once Nancy Pelosi has it right in speaking about getting back that lost fairness, back to basics.

I am sure that in the coming years there will be more and more liberal voices making themselves heard even if this doctrine is not restored. I suggest it be restored not only in the name of fairness, but for the joy of giving the far right wing an old fashioned hot foot. It's fun to watch Limbaugh and Ingraham and their brothers and sisters scream about how persecuted they are. They have been screeching since the election that they will be undone if that doctrine is restored, that they will loose their programs if their networks are forced to air opposing views, and that the Fairness Doctrine is like the shark in Jaws, "it's "baack!" They certainly won't be undone if this doctrine is restored. There is always room in our Democracy for guys and gals with a talent for mockery and a swaggering anger to make a buck by abusing the truth, the sick, and the environment, but in serious times it is also necessary for thoughtful men and women to have the chance to express opposing views on the public airways. There are more smart progressives out there like Rachel Maddow waiting to add their voices to our continuing American debate. And I would like my three year old grand-daughter, and my new grand-twins to live in a world where all sides of an issue are heard so that they can someday become informed citizens. And while we're at it how about restoring Civics as a subject in our schools so that the majority of the electorate understands that we have three separate but equal institutions, and then how about..., okay, okay, enough for today. You distract Rush while I strike the match and stick it in his shoe. Okay?

Comments

[creaturevoidofform]

What's the big deal? Rush is just an idiot. For a while I thought he was a liberal in disguise because he really does make the conservatives look like stupid, spoiled children. I say let them make fools of themselves!!!!!

[SnapShots]

The Fairness Doctrine requires broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest, and to air contrasting views regarding those matters. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine

Reagan began the process of deregulating the mainstream media.

In 1987, the FCC unanimously abolished the Fairness Doctrine with the stroke of a pen. They are a level of government where decisions can be strongly influenced by lobbyists: http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/commish-list.html

Rush's show went on the air Aug. 1, 1988.

Reagan and H.W. Bush vetoed Fairness Doctrine congressional legislation. G.W. Bush would never have supported the Fairness Doctrine.

See the connection?

This will be a major media issue during the Obama administration. The broadcasters will fight. It will end up in the U.S. Supreme Court.

In the end, the Fairness Doctrine will return. Limbaugh, O'Reilly and other hacks will cry "Socialism!" and the Supreme Court will rule "Democracy!" because the airwaves on which these idiots broadcast are owned by you and me.

In a 1969 U.S. Supreme Court Fairness Doctrine decision, Justice Byron White declared, "It is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount.­"

What this means is that people like Limbaugh and O'Reilly will no longer be able to act like spoiled teenagers on the air without being held accountable for their words. They are trembling in their loafers.

[RoloTomassi]

To me, conservatives don't want a return to the Fairness Doctrine for two [2] primary reasons:

1) Offering equal time to programs of opposing political ideology goes against conservati­ve/corpora­tist media owner's grain; they avoid the experiment of airing programs with opposing views by making an ideological argument [and far from a market based one, as Mike949 claims above] against such programming by pushing the notion that if Bill-O is selling, then a Rachel Maddow show has no market [obviously not true, but if left up to Murdock, we'd never know].

2) Should media conglomerates offer pro-progressive political programming and said programming were to prove to be more popular rightwing hate-talk over time, they would be faced with making a choice between supporting their own ideology or making sound business decisions that oppose their ideology--and that's not going to be allowed by choice; only the Fairness Doctrine could force rightwing media moguls to put themselves in a position where such could happen.

The nonsensical and extremely tired rightwing argument that the Fairness Doctrine opposes free speech is pure BS, and anyone claiming otherwise is indulging in intellectual dishonesty for the sake of having a position to argue.

And as I've asserted above, the standard "market driven" programming selection--at least in the realm of all things political--is also a bogus excuse and doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

[Mike949]

Another view is that when the Fairness Doctrine was repealed the "Market" chose the type of talk radio people preferred. A few months ago WROC AM in Rochester, New York stopped broadcasting Air America as people did not listen and therefore advertisers did not buy advertising time. Is that unfair or was this station selling a product people simply didn't want to purchase?

Fox News is the ONE television outlet that is continually criticized for having a conservative bias. It is indeed rare to hear CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and NBC accused of having a conservative bias. In spite of this conservatives do not demand the Fairness Doctrine be applied to television. Sure, conservatives complain about the liberal bias of these networks but they don't ask for the government to intercede.

I hope that your grand-daughter and my two grandsons will live in a world where people may express their views without being labeled as evil or ingnorant by those who have contrary perspectives.

[OldAmerican]

So why didn't Air America get syndicated? Hmmm could be it already has ie..CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and NBC!! I don't believe the fairness doctrine is about being fair but rather an attemtp to silence opposing views. Clearly these broadcasting companies are as far left as it gets! If FAIR is realy what they are after, why don't they fire up Air America in all major markets and go for it?

RoloTomassi: a bogus excuse and doesn't stand up to scrutiny? Rachel Maddow show has no market [obviously not true? so...where is she? you think Murdock,is stupid? The one thing a repub/capitalist doesn't turn down is money!!

How far does this so called fairness doctrine go? Do we have to put an atheist on with every preacher for an opposing opinion? How about a conservative Proffessor in every college? Now THAT would be an opposing opinion!
The way I see it we'd have to put Rush Limbaugh on every network to be evenly ballanced then put Michael Savage on afterwards to get the TRUTH!!

[Sorti]

I'd love to see many of the old laws return from the classic banking laws to the Fairness Doctrine.

The current laws are all crap, just bring back the old ones, they worked well for years.