WHO'S AFRAID OF THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE by Steve Almond

 Almond raises some good questions in his Boston Globe article on this subject.

OF ALL the Big Lies told by the pooh-bahs of talk radio - that our biracial president hates white people, that global warming is a hoax, that a public health care plan to compete with private insurers equals socialism - the most desperate and deluded is this: that the so-called Fairness Doctrine would squash free speech.

Nonsense.

The Fairness Doctrine would not stop talk radio hosts from spewing the invective that has made them so fabulously wealthy. All it would do is subject their invective to a real-time reality check.

If you don’t believe me, consult the historical evidence. The Federal Communications Commission adopted the Fairness Doctrine in 1949. Because the airwaves were both public and limited, the FCC wanted to ensure that licensees devoted “a reasonable amount of broadcast time to the discussion of controversial issues,’’ and that they did so “fairly, in order to afford reasonable opportunity for opposing viewpoints.’’ That’s the whole shebang.

[skip]

If Obama and his congressional counterparts don’t have the guts for that fight, Americans of all political persuasions will continue to seek out “news’’ and opinions that merely reinforce their biases, rather than forcing them to question those biases. America will continue to limp along as a nation of enraged dittoheads, rather than free-thinking citizens who may differ in our politics, but share an honest desire to solve our common plights.

Which brings me to a final mystery: If today’s conservative talkers are so sure they’re right about everything (and they certainly sound sure), and if they believe so ardently in the First Amendment, why don’t a few of them screw up the courage to invite me onto their programs to discuss the risks and rewards of the Fairness Doctrine? No shouting or cutting off microphones. Just good, old-fashioned freedom of speech.

Actually, consider that a dare.

POETRY BREAK...ONE OF MY FAVORITES

Boy, do I need to get away from the anger expressed in the comments in the post below this one by a particular visitor.  Whew.  So much anger.  So little time.  This poem by Archibald MacLeish has special meaning for me and it suits this time of the year.  I love it:

EPISTLE TO BE LEFT IN THE EARTH

...It is colder now,
      there are many stars,
       we are drifting
North by the Great Bear,
   the leaves are falling,
THe water is stone in the scooped rocks,
     to southward
Red sun grey air:
  the crows are
Slow on their crooked wings,
      the jays have left us:
Long since we passed the flares of Orion.
Each man believes in his heart he will die.
Many have written last thoughts and last letters.
None know if our deaths are now or forever:
None know if this wandering earth will be found.

We lie down and the snow covers our garments.
I pray you,
   you (if any open this writing)
Make in your mouths the words that were our names.
I will tell you all we have learned,
    I will tell you everything:
The earth is round,
     there are springs under the orchards,
The loam cuts with a blunt knife,
    beware of 
Elms in thunder,
  the lights in the sky are stars——
We think they do not see,
   we think also
The trees do not know nor the leaves of the grasses hear us:
The birds too are ignorant.
      Do not listen.
Do not stand at dark in the open windows.
We before you have heard this:
    they are voices:
They are not words at all but the wind rising.
Also none among us has seen God.
(...We have thought often
The flaws of sun in the late and driving weather
Pointed to one tree but it was not so.)
As for the nights I warn you the nights are dangerous:
The wind changes at night and the dreams come.

It is very cold,
  there are strange stars near Arcturus,

Voices are crying an unknown name in the sky.

--Archibald MacLeish 

THE HOUSE PASSES HEALTH CARE REFORM

House health care bill gets votes needed for passage.

220 members of Congress -- including one Republican, Rep. Joseph Cao of Louisiana -- voted in favor of health care reform, advancing the legislation by the slimmest of margins.

Holy Cao! 

And thank you New York #23!! 

Thank you Limbaugh and Palin for supporting the losing candidate. 

That vote from New York's district #23 was tres valuable!

On to the Senate.

DISGUST

SEE UPDATE BELOW:

Sign seen at the fake grass roots anti-health care protest in Washington DC.

[I  had intended to insert a photo here of the sign carried by the phoney protesters in DC, but I will not further stain the memory of the human beings depicted in it by placing it here on my blog.  If you don't know what I refer to, go to the Huffington Post where it is documented.]



They've gone too far.

When will decent people rise up and tell these brainless mobs that comparing health care reform and President Obama to the slaughter of millions of Jews is indecent, inhumane, and unacceptable?

More important, Congressional Republicans took part in the protest and not one had the moral courage to condemn the slur committed on the memory of the Holocaust.

I don't watch FOX, listen to Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, or Malkin, so I don't know if any of those self-absorbed rabble rousers denounced the sign.  But I'm guessing none of them did, because feeding into the murderous rage of phoney grass roots imbeciles attracts more imbeciles to their audiences, and that means more dollars in the bank for them.

Cynical heartless bastards.  All of them.

Eight years ago, during a trip to Germany, I visited Dachau.  The stark horror of what that place represents has stayed with me since then.  If I remember correctly, after the war, the people of Dachau were given the chance to rename their city, for obvious reasons, but instead chose to keep it.  And they were correct to do so.  We cannot remove the monstrous history of that place and all the other camps where men, women, and children suffered and died just by changing a word.  Nor should we ever allow the memory of the horrors committed there to be appropriated by mindless fools who have no sense of decency or human empathy for what the signs they carried represent.

We as a nation have reached yet another new low in our political discourse.

Today I am ashamed to be an American.

UPDATE: 

WIESENTHAL CENTER: USE OF HOLOCAUST IMAGERY IN HEALTHCARE PROTESTS,

“ A CHEAP AND DISGUSTING ABUSE OF HISTORY”The Simon Wiesenthal Center is calling on the organizers of today’s grassroots rally in Washington D.C. to publicly repudiate the use of Nazi and Holocaust imagery, sometimes gruesome, in the protest against government ... [Simon Wiesenthal Center - 11/06/2009]

Jewish Organizations Condemn GOP For Standing By As Tea Party Protesters Waved ‘Vile’ Anti-Semitic Signs

One of the most disturbing images from yesterday’s Tea Party rally against health care reform on Capitol Hill was a protester’s gruesome sign showing a pile of dead Holocaust victims. The banner — captured by ThinkProgress here — read: “National Socialist ... [Think Progress - 19 hours ago]

 

Elie Wiesel on the GOP's anti-semitism and Holocaust comparisons in signage at protest:  "This kind of political hatred is indecent and disgusting."

Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) has a message for Rep. Michele Bachmann:

JON STEWART DOES GLENN BECK BETTER THAN GLENN BECK.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
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GAIL COLLINS UNDERSTANDS WHAT TUESDAY'S ELECTIONS MEAN

Gail Collins:

There seems to be a semiconsensus across the land that the myriad decisions voters made around the country this week all added up to a terrible blow to the White House. If that’s the way we’re going to go, I don’t think it’s fair to dump all the blame on gubernatorial contests in New Jersey and Virginia.

Although there is no way to deny that New Jersey and Virginia were terrible, horrible, disastrous, cataclysmic blows to Obama’s prestige. No wonder the White House said he was not watching the results come in. How could the man have gotten any sleep after he realized that his lukewarm support of an inept candidate whose most notable claim to fame was experience in hog castration was not enough to ensure a Democratic victory in Virginia?

New Jersey was even worse. The defeat of Gov. Jon Corzine made it clear that the young and minority voters who turned out for Obama will not necessarily show up at the polls in order to re-elect an uncharismatic former Wall Street big shot who failed to deliver on his most important campaign promises while serving as the public face of a state party that specializes in getting indicted.  [...]

We have a dramatic saga story line brewing here, and I do not want to mess it up by pointing out that Obama’s party won the only two elections that actually had anything to do with the president’s agenda. Those were the special Congressional races in California and upstate New York. But obviously they reflect only a very narrow voter sentiment, since one involved a district that was safe for the Democrats and the other a district that had not been represented by the party since 1872.

Winning two more seats in the House, where votes are counted for actual legislation, is quite heartening.

And here's another analysis on Tuesday's results:

First of all, the Democratic candidate in New Jersey, Jon Corzine, was an unbelievably unpopular incumbent who ran a tragically poor campaign. Corzine's unpopularity vastly predates Obama's impact on the electorate, and was the entire reason he lost. As for Virginia, well, that state has been a tough get for any Democrat for a couple of generations now; Obama's success there in the 2008 presidential election was the exception and not the rule for Democrats historically, and speaking of history, the party that wins the White House has gone on to lose the Virginia governor's office one year later every time since the Carter administration, so we're not into any kind of mold-breaking situation there.

Second of all, these were two statewide elections where Obama was not on the ballot, and there is no national significance whatsoever behind two states out of fifty voting for Republicans. Furthermore, Democrats cleaned up in local elections all across the country, especially in mayoral races, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of breathless reporting on this facet of yesterday's vote coming from the news folks. The umpire made the call, and that's how it goes. Or something.

Speaking of the national picture for the GOP, it is difficult to make a cogent argument that two statewide gubernatorial wins are enough to alter the country's opinion of the party, especially since the country's opinion of Republicans remains monumentally bleak. Just two weeks ago, a Washington Post/ABC News poll reported:

Less than one in five voters (19 percent) expressed confidence in Republicans' ability to make the right decisions for America's future while a whopping 79 percent lacked that confidence.

Among independent voters, who went heavily for Obama in 2008 and congressional Democrats in 2006, the numbers for Republicans on the confidence questions were even more worse. Just 17 percent of independents expressed confidence in Republicans' ability to make the right decision while 83 percent said they did not have that confidence.

On the generic ballot question, 51 percent of the sample said they would cast a vote for a Democratic candidate in their congressional district next fall while just 39 percent said they would opt for a GOP candidate.

And, perhaps most troubling for GOP hopes is the fact that just 20 percent of the Post sample identified themselves as Republicans, the lowest that number has been in Post polling since 1983. (No, that is not a typo.)

Finally, the idea that yesterday's elections bode well for the Republican Party might make for good television, but that doesn't make it right. The race in New York's 23rd District has far more national import than the other two, and the writing on the wall doesn't make for good reading for the GOP going forward. The election went sideways several weeks ago when moderate Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava came under fire from the high priests of the far right because they deemed her not conservative enough. Ersatz luminaries like Limbaugh, Beck and Palin jumped on board the third-party candidacy of Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, and the resulting bedlam eventually drove Scozzafava out of the race. Scozzafava stepped aside after endorsing the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens, who went on to win Tuesday's election by a margin of 49-45.

This was a nifty win for the Democrats, because the seat was formerly held by Republican John McHugh, who vacated the seat after he was tapped by President Obama to serve as secretary of the Army. Beyond the pick-up, however, is the fact that the whole national Republican infrastructure has been shaken up thanks to this race. The hard-right GOP base revved itself up and successfully tore down an electable moderate member of their own party. If they get it into their heads to do this in other races come 2010, we could very easily watch the GOP eat itself next year, as its ground troops attack and soften up fellow Republicans, making them ripe pickings for Democratic opponents. The Democrats have been expecting to lose seats in 2010, something that nearly always happens during the first midterms of a new presidency, but open warfare within the GOP could very much mitigate the damage.

Speaking of the NY-23 race, memo to news reporters: the Democrat won. It isn't a "sweep" when the other team wins a game. The news people should ask the sports reporters for a refresher course on athletic terminology. It's probably a good idea to have your facts straight before your broadcasters open their mouths or your printing press puts ink to paper.

 Source

LIMBAUGH SAYS PALIN IS READY TO BE PRESIDENT NOW!

He really said that.

Imagine. 

The Gassiest of Gasbags actually proclaimed that a woman who had been the mayor of a small town in Alaska and who voluntarily QUIT her job as governor of the same state--this same woman who had never travelled outside of the US until just a few years ago--Limbaugh proclaims she's ready to be the president of the United States of America.  LOL! 

NOTE:  Keith Olbermann refers to Limbaugh as a "Comedian Rush Limbaugh."

Oh please, please, please.  Let them nominate her.

Rush Limbaugh isn't endorsing Sarah Palin for president in 2012 but he says she's ready for the job now.


"One thing I do not do is follow conventional wisdom, and the conventional wisdom of Sarah Palin is "She's not smart enough. She needs to bone up on the issues. She's a little unsophisticated. Alaska, Where's that?, [She] doesn't have the pedigree,'" Limbaugh told Fox News' Chris Wallace. "She's the only thing that provided a spark for the Republican Party. This is not an endorsement, but I do have profound respect for Sarah Palin. There are not very many politicians who have been through what she's been put through and still able to smile and be ebullient and upbeat. This woman, I think, is tough," he said.

Because what this country needs is--well, not a really smart person who has met some intellectual challenges through completing a rigorous educational experience--NO!  This country don't need no pointy-headed person who actually can hold two thoughts in his/her head at one time, who can speak in his/her native language, NO!  What this country needs in desperate times is EBULLIENCE! 

You know.  A cheerleader!  You betcha!

Limbaugh says he doesn't follow conventional wisdom.  I think we already know that.  We know what Limbaugh follows--and it has nothing to do with wisdom.  Same with Palin.  What could she possibly have to offer this country at this time?  Her ability to quit a job before it's finished?  That's her legacy:  A small town mayor and a big time quitter.

The Limbaugh/Palin crowd really, really doesn't get it.