The Poet's Eye
commentary by Lightning Rod
The Poets' Eye is skeptical without being cynical, innocent without being naive and critical without being judgemental.
Dirty Airwaves
03-12-04
Yesterday the House of Representatives voted to increase fines for indecency on the airwaves. Stations broadcasting “indecent’ material could be fined out of existence if this bill manages to pass in the Senate.
I can’t think of another time the words ‘fuck’, ‘asshole’, ‘cocksucker’, ‘piss’,‘shit’ and ‘cunt’ appear in the Congressional Record, but they do now thanks to the indecent…er….indecency bill passed yesterday in the House.
If our courts aren’t hopelessly partisan or intimidated, this bill, should it pass the Senate, will surely be struck down on First Amendment grounds, but even if it is it will have served its purpose—to send a chilling message to those who would step out of linguistic line. Because this rank example of puritan atavism is not about obscenity at all, it’s about telling the press and broadcasters to get with the program or we’ll regulate you out of business. It’s typical Republican reasoning—if you want to control them, hit them in the pocketbook.
Just the fact that this is an issue speaks to how the Administration and the right-wing House of Representatives are pandering to the religious-Right.
When you can tune in to cable TV and see every permutation of the sex act, when rap tunes talk of beastiality and the ad industry is saturated with soft porn and when you can click your way on the internet to view anatomical parts clear up to the liver, it is slightly more than absurd to try and curtail the mass media in this self-righteous way. Why can’t Bono use the word ‘fuckin’ as an expletive? Adults and kids hear it every day.
But it fits with the current atmosphere of repression and intimidation. The re-born Bush and these posturing Representatives in the House probably have their own private porn collections. They don’t care about protecting the tender eyes and ears of our children. What they care about is having a tool of control over the mass media.
Janet Jackson’s tit is no more obscene or indecent than Brittany Spears’ belly button. Bono making an excited expletive at the Academy Awards is no more indecent than any number of top-selling rap artists using the same word on their records.
The wisdom of the First Amendment is that it protects ALL speech, even unpopular speech. It’s the foundation of our democracy and if we let these tight-assed mock-puritians have their way, we will all be muzzled before it’s over.
What The Poet’s Eye sees as indecency on the airwaves is not a few blue adjectives uttered by comedians, it is lies told to the American people about WMDs, terrorist threats and the economy coming from the filthy mouths of our president and his surrogates. Expect to see 200 million dollars worth of this kind of indecency spread on our airwaves between now and November.
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