Re: the spirit of radio - Rush
heathcliffe
location: woods
listening to: silence
registered: 2008.11.18
posts: 956
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We are forced to tolerate that shit because Ronald Reagan, by presidential decree, eliminated the "Fairness Doctrine" which insisted that opposing views be presented on the same radio station spewing the shit out.
The doctrine met its fate in 1987, coincidentally the same year Rush Limbaugh began his "say anything you want to without fear of rebuttal to the same listeners."
Limbaugh and Beck have their way with any audience the far right beneficiaries of the Doctrineless pap steers them. And because members of that audience never tune into any other station, they never hear voices from the other side.
L and B insist they have the right of free speech. The problem is, their audience doesn't have a like "freedom of listening", as they would have had before Reagan's repeal of the "Fairness Doctrine."
So John Stuart Mill's discussion about the exchanging of ideas as a way to bring participants to the truth, goes wanting in our society today. The absence of the "Fairness Doctrine" is largely responsible for the terrible partisanship that grips our politics today.
If one never hears the other side of an argument, then one's opinions soon become cast in stone.
Ironically it protects the universe of the religious right--Reagan's chief backers--whose members fear opposing views as if they were the plague.
Can you imagine the strength of a faith so easily threatened? I have observed, over the years, that religious zealots need company, that is, they need like minded persons who from Sunday to Sunday, pew to pew, give each other confidence that what they believe is inpenetrable. Otherwise paranoia prevails.
Bond this Jerry Farwellian fear of dissenting views with a political goal of eliminating from the airways political dissent, and you get Reagan's executive order that guarantees Rush Limbaugh the right to label Assange a serial rapist without any kind of dissent except from those of us who are far removed from Limbaugh's protected arena.
The hopes I have of Assange and his Wickileaks army is to bring into proper focus the distorted shit Limbaugh's pulls out of his ass on a daily basis.
It is the "Fairness Doctrine" writ large, larger than the far right can manipulate.
H
heathcliffe
(view)
We are forced to tolerate that shit because Ronald Reagan, by presidential decree, eliminated the "Fairness Doctrine" which insisted that opposing views be presented on the same radio station spewing the shit out.
The doctrine met its fate in 1987, coincidentally the same year Rush Limbaugh began his "say anything you want to without fear of rebuttal to the same listeners."
Limbaugh and Beck have their way with any audience the far right beneficiaries of the Doctrineless pap steers them. And because members of that audience never tune into any other station, they never hear voices from the other side.
L and B insist they have the right of free speech. The problem is, their audience doesn't have a like "freedom of listening", as they would have had before Reagan's repeal of the "Fairness Doctrine."
So John Stuart Mill's discussion about the exchanging of ideas as a way to bring participants to the truth, goes wanting in our society today. The absence of the "Fairness Doctrine" is largely responsible for the terrible partisanship that grips our politics today.
If one never hears the other side of an argument, then one's opinions soon become cast in stone.
Ironically it protects the universe of the religious right--Reagan's chief backers--whose members fear opposing views as if they were the plague.
Can you imagine the strength of a faith so easily threatened? I have observed, over the years, that religious zealots need company, that is, they need like minded persons who from Sunday to Sunday, pew to pew, give each other confidence that what they believe is inpenetrable. Otherwise paranoia prevails.
Bond this Jerry Farwellian fear of dissenting views with a political goal of eliminating from the airways political dissent, and you get Reagan's executive order that guarantees Rush Limbaugh the right to label Assange a serial rapist without any kind of dissent except from those of us who are far removed from Limbaugh's protected arena.
The hopes I have of Assange and his Wickileaks army is to bring into proper focus the distorted shit Limbaugh's pulls out of his ass on a daily basis.
It is the "Fairness Doctrine" writ large, larger than the far right can manipulate.
