I’m tired of the one-sided RW ONLY radio. They’ve had the radio airwaves since Reagan killed the Fairness Doctrine. Their reign is OVER. The Fairness Doctrine didn’t and doesn’t kill free speech. It just makes free speech more BALANCED. If you have a Conservative blathering on for an hour, you have to let a Liberal blather on for an hour. WHY do you think the RWers are foaming at the mouth over this???? It’s because they know the Liberals will now have equal time no matter what and they can’t stand the thought of the Liberal message getting out.

Yes. I’m an unapologetic Liberal. I supported Hillary, John Kerry, Bill Clinton (twice) and all other Dems who ever ran for office and I won’t apologize for it. I voted for Cynthia McKinney this year. It’s about damn time we get our voice back on the radio. How do you think BUSH won twice? It was because Liberals were silenced EVERYWHERE….on TeeVee AND radio….just ask Phil Donahue.

Sure, I agree. Everyone should have a voice, and have a forum for their views. The difference is, you and I aren’t framing issues or spinning “news” items, or going so far as to make virtual mountains out of molehills (and vice versa) to hundreds of thousands of listeners/watchers on a daily basis.

What concerns me are the mega-mouthpieces, set in their chairs before microphones and cameras by the corporate monarchy.

Like I said, I don’t know quite where I stand on this slippery slope. I know for certain that one must not abide censorship. I also know for certain that this last silly season was by far the slickest and most unhealthy tribute I’ve seen to the lack of critical thinking by the American Electorate – many of them all too ready to be spoon-fed whatever their mouthpiece of choice was shrieking into his megaphone.

When I turned on my DishTV guide one day in October, and noticed the new channel 73 Obama Channel – which was a two and a half minute loop of teh awesome and his so-called platform, played over and over all day, every day – I had to wonder: On what side of the fence was this undercurrent of fascist media going to come down?

The divisiveness is driven in a huge part, by these mouthpieces, and corporate money and influence. It has ever, at least in my lifetime, been thus. The danger lies in a refusal to recognize that this intent needs to be opposed. If not, we are going to have more than just Freedom of Speech. What we will have is idiocracy, and freedom from the intellectual exercise of critical thought.

I don’t believe the Fairness Doctrine, as it once stood, is necessarily the answer. The government needs to stay the hell away from our right to freedom of speech and communication of ideas.

But, what path do we take? A culture can be led to the forum of independent thought, but you can’t make them think. People want to be told what to think; they will listen to those who validate their own suspicions; who speak and postulate inside their comfort zone.

Like I said, I don’t know where we go from here. It appears that ever since Bill Clinton took up his saxophone on Letterman, that our bed has been made, and now we’re to lie back in it, and think of England.

Pelosi et al intend to STRETCH this Fairness Doctrine BS to include blogging

I would welcome seeing some evidence this is what is being discussed by the pols. And as I pointed out to you in the past I can’t see how you could enforce the FD onto blogs. They will just get set-up overseas and not even the Oborgbots will tolerate overseas Internet traffic being censored or blocked. Even an Oborgbot drunk on koolaid would see this as sliding way down the slippery slope. And this would be deemed unconstitutional by the SCOTUS, just as the law that was passed under the guise of “protecting children” (I think it was called the Internet Decency Act?) by the Bush admin was slapped down real hard as being unconstitutional. Things have gone to hell for sure, but not knee deep in it.

There’s that word again. The national guys talk as if what they say is FACT, not entertainment. Like Fox NEWS having “commentary” shows.

It’s when you put something out there as FACT, without backing it up with real facts that fairness goes down the drain.

My folks, for years!, would not admit Rush was entertainment, that he would lie and just talk out his Oxycontin arse. FINALLY, they admitted that he’s just “entertainment.”

And guess what Randy Rhodes, even before her bizarre leap off Reason, would spew crap that wasn’t accurate or at least misleading.

But it everybody realized there would be penalties for spreading falsehoods and lies, like the swiftboating nonsense, they’d be MORE LIKELY to back up their claims.

Or guess what, you want to have a program that’s all fluff and conjecture, pay a higher fee and lead in the program with a statement that this is entertainment. Like the TV ratings.

There’s a lot of garbage on AM talk just as there is on corp TV. So if you listen to talk AM, but still bitch about MSCNBC or Olbermann (sp), ya might need to rethink things.

It is also impractical and impossible to apply it in an even handed manner.
How is going to determine what “balanced” means?
Who is going to police this? The pol that’s in charge at any given time??

Makes NO sense.

NPR proclaims to live by this and most of them were still were just as bad (I used to like them expect in
middle east reporting).

They do stupid things: eg. when there was the Kansas push to change the curriculum to actually teach “creationism theory” while debunbking evolution in schools (ugh). You have what 90% of the population that believe in evolution and 10% not? (for example). Then what they do is they invite ONE person from each side and they give them equal air time to push their
agenda. Same in many foreign reporting (in South America for example; horrible) The impresion this creates is that you have an equal support for both sides. That is that both sides have the same strength
which is absurd.

It just doesn’t work. Imagine that for every Customer review of a product that is positive you HAVE to publish a negative one. What’s the value then of any of this?

Besides as I said before: I am against anything that has the word ” Doctrine” attached to it by default.

Enough already !!

We have a freedom of political speech, that should not be censored, on EITHER side of the isle. That is different that imposing decency laws.

I do not want talk radio censored, and I don’t want liberals censored either. This is America! No one can tell us what opinion we can and can not express. That is what our brothers and sisters before us laid down their lives for!