Abuse of Power In Radio
Radio is a powerful medium. TV has the glamor and the big bucks, print gets the intellectual respect. But radio is the hottest, most emotional medium. Ira Glass says, "Radio is our most visual medium." He's right. It can also be our most personal and powerful. I think that is why I find the use and abuse of a broadcast radio license so infuriating. I think that Ira would agree with me. (By the way Ira, call me.) People who abuse their broadcast license hurt the rest of the medium.With power should come responsibility. I think a lot of people would agree with this. The right loves to talk about the rule of law. Submit to authority. When you break the law you should suffer the consequences. I've heard them say that on right-wing radio. They must believe it. Correct?
Nah. If you have money and smart lawyers you don't have to suffer the consequences. Especially if you can latch onto some "higher ideal" to defend your law breaking.
Image by Fish2000.
If I describe an action to someone on the right wing and ask them if this is breaking the law they might say, 'Yes. That is breaking the law." And if I then ask what the punishment should be they might say, "The person should be fined and fired for breaking the law." (They are very big on the right of corporation to fire people.)
But when this law breaking is about them? Suddenly the rules change. They will run to the lawyers and look for an out. Punishment is different for them vs. the generic (read liberal) law breaker. (This is so common we even have a phrase for it, "It's okay if you are a Republican" IOKIYAR)
And predicting what will happen in the future isn't really gratifying to me, it' s almost too easy. But I'll predict it anyway. I'm going to demonstrate right wing radio people breaking laws. In two areas. They will run to their lawyers who will defend them mightily. Previous one case in the same vein went all the way to the Supreme Court. Where they lost. Where their favorite Justice ruled against them and their view.
They see no irony in this. They are like Nixon that way. When the
They won't admit they have broken the law. But they have.
1 Comments:
Didn't Cheney admit to having known about the details of, and a approved, waterboarding on national tv on sunday?
Their strategy is archetypal demagogue: "It doesn't matter what I did. No jury in the country will convict me if i claim what i did was to protect the country."
46% of voters voted for McCain. Al most half. That's 5 of twelve to acquit, gauran--fucking--teed, cher!
The Busheviks are DARING Obama to try it!.
He has neither 1) precedent nor 2) mandate, nor 3) capital to do the job. Nobody would, but Obama less than others. Cuz these'd be "white" people he'd be "persecuting."
And if he's smart, he won't bite. They'll string up a few low-level creeps, make a lot of noise, and declare it all concluded in October, 2010.
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