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Feb 27, 2004 Boy, just when you thought is was safe to come out of your spider hole and dig out of the rhetorical rubble known as the Democratic primaries, along come the Culture Wars to liven things up again. And what a week it’s been already: Howard Stern getting bitch slapped, the President coming out in support of offending (I mean amending) the Constitution, and Mel’s Masterpiece hitting the popcorn circuit. Geez, with the Oscars on Sunday this week could turn out to rival the halcyon days of the mid Eighties when Jim and Tammy Faye were playing King of the Moral High Ground with Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. There’s a lot to be said for each of these stellar events and that’s going to happen. They also won’t be going anywhere for a while. The mainstream media’s (predictable) reaction to each of these debacles is also fodder for a lot of hilarity as well. Howard Stern’s tribulations were at least the most predictable and the biggest head- scratcher as far as hard news is concerned. The chain of events leading up to Clear Channel’s decision to drop Stern in the six markets it carries him in is so clear that it defies logic to think that it wouldn’t happen. The FCC has had a jihad against Stern since at least 1992. It has fined Infinity Broadcasting (Stern’s actual employer) numerous times. Mel Karmazin, Viacom Chairman (and Infinity’s parent company) was hauled before a Congressional Sub Committee two weeks ago after the Super Bowl Boob-Out and chastised like a wayward delinquent before a group of haughty principals. This led to more outrageous (and outraged) grandstanding by the C- Span crazed legislators, after which Karmazin had a Come-To-Jesus meeting with all of the Infinity PD’s about not pissing off the wrong people right about now. Stern, of course, rightly ridiculed all of this. Then, some hack named Bubba the Love Sponge got let go by Clear Channel and the clock was ticking. Let’s get one thing clear though- this is not censorship. Yet. The government may have created a climate where this happened and that’s sorry enough. But Clear Channel has every right to do what it did for business reasons. And that’s the real tragedy of all of this. This is what you get from corporate radio. Just ask the Dixie Chicks, another “ victim “ of Clear Channel malfeasance. Clear Channel is a huge corporation that has successfully homogenized radio to the point where risk aversion is the name of the game. They don’t have CBS and Blockbuster to fall back on for revenue should the radio thing fall apart. So Stern gets to play victim again even though he’s doing exactly what he’s paid to do. The part that does bother me is the notion that he can say whatever he wants to and that somehow this is all part of the right wing quashing of free speech. He can’t and it’s not- ‘nuff said. That’s the tip of the iceberg. For some full-blown demagoguery, nothing beats the bleating surrounding President Bush’s announcement that he’ll support a Federal Marriage Amendment. The “ tolerance “ lobby has been working overtime on this and had already couched the debate in the starkest of terms: either you support full gay marriage rights or you’re a bigot with no middle ground in between, unless your name is John F Kerry, of course. Mr. Kerry’s position is essentially the same as President Bush’s except that Mr. Kerry wouldn’t do anything to prevent what is a foregone conclusion via judicial fiat barring a constitutional amendment. That’s leadership for you. Mr. Kerry says he prefers to leave the issue to “ the states” as if that ends the debate. The problem is that the “states’” unselected judges and lawless magistrates operating under the laughable guise of civil disobedience are already unilaterally deciding the issue for us. John Kerry ought to be well aware of this since the unselected judges that got the ball rolling on this happen to hail from his home state, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. And that’s the real threat here. Anyone with a vested interest in this issue should be welcoming a debate. Even those that support redefining marriage to include gay people should welcome this process, especially if they believe in the righteousness of their cause. Having this decided by a few zealous state judges won’t end the debate and will only highlight the extremist agendas involved, as Roe v. Wade has done for the last 30 plus years. But that’s precisely the issue- those that support this agenda to redefine marriage for the rest of us don’t want a public debate, which is what a Constitutional Amendment, whether it passed or not, would give us. The most ridiculous arguments must fall to Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ. The mewling started before anyone had even seen the film. The cries of anti-Semitism rang forth across the land from so-called Jewish leaders. If you want real, honest- to-goodness anti- Semitism, Europe (or the Middle East) should be your destination of choice. The hyperbole doesn’t end there, of course. The heavy breathing has continued from supporters and critics of the film- there’s doesn’t seem to be any ambivalence involved on this topic. There also doesn’t seem to be any understanding or even respect of people of faith, Christian faith that is, from the mainstream media. The utter condescension and ridicule that people that actually want to see this movie have to endure from some quarters, like Maureen Dowd or the Boston Globe, is astonishing. At the same time, the rapture with which some people are treating this flick is a little overboard. It’s just a movie. It’s one man’s interpretation of one part of a story that’s been retold for two thousand years. The sooner some of us remember that, the better off we’ll all be. Then we can concentrate of really important things, like the Oscars. What is he WEARING?!?!? I’d love some feedback on all of this. ------------ Email Jamie Moulthrop: jmoulthrop@comcast.net Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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