BuffaloPaul
03-28-2004, 08:11 AM
National
Administration for
Zero
Indecency
Censorship is fine until Big Brother looks you up
By Andrew Lisa
First they came for Opie and Anthony, but I wasn't into radio, so I didn't speak out. Then they came for Janet and Justin, but I didn't watch the Super Bowl, so I didn't speak out. Then they came for Howard Stern, but I wasn't awake early enough to listen to his show anyway, so I didn't speak out.
And then they came for me, and there was no one else left to speak out.
Fifty years later, the words of German anti-Nazi activist Pastor Martin Niemöller still hold true. All you need to do is change the names of the persecuted.
Cover your ears and eyes, people, and don't even think anything indecent.
Janet's breast was like Kristallnacht for the entertainment industry. And that day marked the beginning of a new, final solution for the airwaves that says there is but one master race of broadcast programming: wholesome, family shows.
Everything else must be eliminated.
Now, the family values, concerned parents, religious morality types have always been an annoyance. There have always been these irritating people who see or hear something they don't like, and insist that the rest of the world shouldn't be allowed to see or hear it either.
Every entertainer who had something worthwhile to say from the time of Lenny Bruce -- and probably before him -- had been beaten over the head by these stiffs with words like "decent" and "obscene" and "inappropriate."
They've always lurked in the shadows, waiting with their fingers crossed for someone to break the rules.
But now these people -- with the help of an administration that also likes to pretend it has values -- have whipped the nation into a mouth-foaming frenzy and joined them on a crusade to lobotomize television and radio into such a coma that Bono is seen as risky and offensive.
They are trying, with a frightening amount of success, to castrate the entertainment industry.
The strategy? Install Colin Powell's awful little Bryant Gumbell-looking son as a puppet to "run" the Federal Communications Commission. Then give more power and leeway to the FCC than any commission that regulates speech should ever have. And finally, use the Mini Me Powell like a ventriloquist doll to do the one thing that this skid mark of an administration does best: Create a climate of fear.
Case in point? Simon Cowell's stubby, British finger.
On last week's "American Idol" -- one of the true atrocities of reality TV -- the show's "mean guy" scratched his face for a second with his middle finger. If someone had paused the frame at the exact moment, they could have chosen to interpret this as him purposely extending his middle finger. Oh, the horror.
The result? Absolute pandemonium.
Fox issued an apology and swore to uphold tighter editing standards. Cowell swore that it wasn't intentional and went on to explain that sometimes he rests his face on his "index finger. Sometimes a different finger. Sometimes two at the same time." "Inside Edition" compiled an investigative report. The FCC was flooded with "what about the kids?" complaints and vowed to launch an investigation if one was necessary.
This is what it has come to, people. This is where we are.
The bad cop on a talent show is quivering and begging for mercy and actually explaining to a commission a sub-conscious shift in posture.
Do you not see the danger that's inherent to this hysteria?
When already passive, non-threatening garbage like "American Idol" has to be sanitized, we are in serious trouble.
And is anyone shocked? Is anyone shocked that the pendulum is swinging this far right in a world where the schmuck son of an Army general is the guy who decides the difference between art and obscenity, appropriate and inappropriate, decent and indecent for all of America?
Howard Stern is obnoxious, but he's not dangerous. And if you don't like him, don't forget that you can always LISTEN TO SOMETHING ELSE. Michael Powell and his media police are dangerous. You can't change the station. You can't turn them off.
Understand, people, that legislation is being written to dictate what can and cannot be said and heard on radio and television. Old guys like Tom Daschle and Bill Frist are deciding for you what can cross the airwaves from a production studio into your home. And that's not Big Brother paranoia. That's real. That's happening now in Congress.
A world where we watch what we're told to watch by a handful of people in government?
You tell me if that's better or worse than a seeing naked lady on television.
Originally published (http://www.thedailyjournal.com/news/stories/20040327/localnews/155361.html) Saturday, March 27, 2004
http://data.blogg.de/thorte/images/adolf_bush_gruss.jpg
Administration for
Zero
Indecency
Censorship is fine until Big Brother looks you up
By Andrew Lisa
First they came for Opie and Anthony, but I wasn't into radio, so I didn't speak out. Then they came for Janet and Justin, but I didn't watch the Super Bowl, so I didn't speak out. Then they came for Howard Stern, but I wasn't awake early enough to listen to his show anyway, so I didn't speak out.
And then they came for me, and there was no one else left to speak out.
Fifty years later, the words of German anti-Nazi activist Pastor Martin Niemöller still hold true. All you need to do is change the names of the persecuted.
Cover your ears and eyes, people, and don't even think anything indecent.
Janet's breast was like Kristallnacht for the entertainment industry. And that day marked the beginning of a new, final solution for the airwaves that says there is but one master race of broadcast programming: wholesome, family shows.
Everything else must be eliminated.
Now, the family values, concerned parents, religious morality types have always been an annoyance. There have always been these irritating people who see or hear something they don't like, and insist that the rest of the world shouldn't be allowed to see or hear it either.
Every entertainer who had something worthwhile to say from the time of Lenny Bruce -- and probably before him -- had been beaten over the head by these stiffs with words like "decent" and "obscene" and "inappropriate."
They've always lurked in the shadows, waiting with their fingers crossed for someone to break the rules.
But now these people -- with the help of an administration that also likes to pretend it has values -- have whipped the nation into a mouth-foaming frenzy and joined them on a crusade to lobotomize television and radio into such a coma that Bono is seen as risky and offensive.
They are trying, with a frightening amount of success, to castrate the entertainment industry.
The strategy? Install Colin Powell's awful little Bryant Gumbell-looking son as a puppet to "run" the Federal Communications Commission. Then give more power and leeway to the FCC than any commission that regulates speech should ever have. And finally, use the Mini Me Powell like a ventriloquist doll to do the one thing that this skid mark of an administration does best: Create a climate of fear.
Case in point? Simon Cowell's stubby, British finger.
On last week's "American Idol" -- one of the true atrocities of reality TV -- the show's "mean guy" scratched his face for a second with his middle finger. If someone had paused the frame at the exact moment, they could have chosen to interpret this as him purposely extending his middle finger. Oh, the horror.
The result? Absolute pandemonium.
Fox issued an apology and swore to uphold tighter editing standards. Cowell swore that it wasn't intentional and went on to explain that sometimes he rests his face on his "index finger. Sometimes a different finger. Sometimes two at the same time." "Inside Edition" compiled an investigative report. The FCC was flooded with "what about the kids?" complaints and vowed to launch an investigation if one was necessary.
This is what it has come to, people. This is where we are.
The bad cop on a talent show is quivering and begging for mercy and actually explaining to a commission a sub-conscious shift in posture.
Do you not see the danger that's inherent to this hysteria?
When already passive, non-threatening garbage like "American Idol" has to be sanitized, we are in serious trouble.
And is anyone shocked? Is anyone shocked that the pendulum is swinging this far right in a world where the schmuck son of an Army general is the guy who decides the difference between art and obscenity, appropriate and inappropriate, decent and indecent for all of America?
Howard Stern is obnoxious, but he's not dangerous. And if you don't like him, don't forget that you can always LISTEN TO SOMETHING ELSE. Michael Powell and his media police are dangerous. You can't change the station. You can't turn them off.
Understand, people, that legislation is being written to dictate what can and cannot be said and heard on radio and television. Old guys like Tom Daschle and Bill Frist are deciding for you what can cross the airwaves from a production studio into your home. And that's not Big Brother paranoia. That's real. That's happening now in Congress.
A world where we watch what we're told to watch by a handful of people in government?
You tell me if that's better or worse than a seeing naked lady on television.
Originally published (http://www.thedailyjournal.com/news/stories/20040327/localnews/155361.html) Saturday, March 27, 2004
http://data.blogg.de/thorte/images/adolf_bush_gruss.jpg