Time To Bring Back The Fairness Doctrine

My first job as a dj was at WUSB in Stony Brook, New York, my college station. That's when I learned about the Fairness Doctrine, which the FCC had put in place in 1949. Being pretty opinionated, I didn't always love it but I did realize it was... well, fair. I was also booking the speakers program at the university at the time and when I hired the Julian Bond (D-GA) my faculty advisor, Mrs. Couey, insisted I present a balanced program as though the Fairness Doctrine also governed the Speakers Bureau. Bond was one of 8 African Americans elected to the previously all white Georgia House of Representatives after the passage of the Voting Rights Act (1965). The unrepentant racists who ran Georgia's House refused to seat him (ostensibly because he opposed the War in Vietnam) but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 9-0 (Bond v Floyd) that hey were denying him his freedom of speech and had to seat him. I asked her if she wanted me to hire someone from the KKK. "Now, Howie..." she said. I hired Strom Thurmond to speak on the same night. I've written about what went down and here's my 2006 recitation of the story. Fair and balanced.

But the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, doesn't govern communications in a college auditorium, only over the publicly-owned airwaves. And the idea is that those airwaves, although they are being used by private companies to make millions and millions of dollars, should also be used for the public good. The fairness doctrine was deemed part of the public good, probably because the kinds of companies that gained control of the radio industry were owned by wealthy conservatives who would-- if not forced to take the public good into consideration-- fill the airwaves with corporate whores and fascists pushing the reactionary line-- people like Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, Coulter, Savage, O'Reilly... the whole panoply of American neo-facsism. And look at what happened when 25 years ago this month, the FCC did end the Fairness Doctrine. The radio waves because a virtual brainwashing machine for deranged right-wing ideology.

Progressives-- without the backing on conservative Democrats-- have tried to bring the Fairness Doctrine back. In 2005 Louise Slaughter (D-NY) got the ball rolling with the Fairness and Accountability in Broadcasting Act which failed to gain enough support to get out of committee, Since then Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Tom Harkin (D-IA) have both tried and even President Bill Clinton indicated he might support the idea: “Well, you either ought to have the Fairness Doctrine or we ought to have more balance on the other side, because essentially there’s always been a lot of big money to support the right wing talk shows.”

Demonstrating a fatal character flaw, Obama, is always looking for common ground with the extreme right no matter how they undermine and denigrate him. I suspect it was to try to please that that he said he opposes reinstating the Fairness Doctrine. The has put a kind of a crimp in the efforts of progressives who would like to work on the issue. But it's certainly encouraged right-wingers:

"Radio Independence Day" will be July 4, if activist Brent Bozell, Rep. Mike Pence (a former talkshow host), Rep. Greg Walden (a former group owner), talk host Laura Ingraham and tax activist Grover Norquist get their way. Their idea of "independence" is getting the House to hold an up or down vote on the Broadcast Freedom Act-– which would prohibit the FCC from reviving the long-dormant Fairness Doctrine. They and a bunch of talkshow hosts fear it would squelch the voices of conservatives. There’s a discharge petition to get the BFA out of committee and onto the House floor, but it’s still 14 votes short. Bozell, president of the Media Research Center and publisher of NewsBusters, "demands" that members of Congress sign up for a vote on free speech by July 4. Bozell says "the era of the Fairness Doctrine represented dark days for this first and fundamental right."

An aside-- Walden, who represents the right-leaning eastern half of Oregon, is currently campaigning to be the head of the NRCC, the GOP's version of the DCCC. He thinks he should be part of the Republican leadership team.

Almost All The Cowardly Senate Democrats Join The GOP In Bolstering Hate Talk Radio And Banning Gun Control

All but 11 Democrats join Repugs in validating Hate Talk Radio

The headline at The Hill this afternoon was well-chosen: Senate Tunes Out Fairness Doctrine, 87-11. In the run-up to this afternoon's vote on granting representation to Washington, DC's residents, the spineless, craven almost-as-bad-as-Republicans Democrats couldn't throw enough compromises the GOP's way. I'm surprised the Republicans didn't get them to seat Norm Coleman. What they did do-- after stopping the de facto filibuster of 34 obstructions on Tuesday-- went a lot further than just throwing the Republicans an extra vote by creating another Mormon seat. Today they dealt with 3 ugly amendments to S. 160-- the 2 of which passed will hopefully be stripped out by the House in conference. The first was something by Geert Wilder's host Jon Kyl (R-AZ) asking that the District of Columbia be absorbed by Maryland; anything rather than create a Hose seat for another African-American! Neither the residents of DC nor Maryland want this and the Senate, sanely, rejected it 67-30, every single Klan Republican, except Jeff Sessions (R-AL) voting for it, joined, disgracefully by Tim Johnson (D-SD) who may have been suffering a relapse. Corker hid in the men's room so he wouldn't have to vote. After Kyl's silliness was defeated Dick Durban offered an amendment encouraging "diversity in communication media ownership, and to ensure that the public airwaves are used in the public interest." Sounds good, right? It was just so much hot air with little meaning and just some cover for what was to happen next. Durbin's airy-fairy amendment passed 57-41 (party-line). Twenty minutes later they voted on Jim DeMint's "We Love Limbaugh" amendment which seeks to prevent the FCC from promulgating the fairness doctrine. Only 11 Democrats-- and obviously no Republicans-- voted for fairness. Isn't it great that the Democrats have such an overwhelming majority in Congress? Imagine if they could pass a spine around. There were 87 votes against fairness, all the Republicans and a sickening list of Democrats that went way beyond the Landrieux and Nelsons and Pryors. Here's the list of the only members of the Senate with the right to call themselves Democrats today:

Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)
Kent Conrad (D-ND)
Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
Tom Harkin (D-IA)
Tim Johnson (D-SD), partially making up for the KKK support earlier
John Kerry (D-MA)
Jack Reed (D-RI)
Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)
Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)

The Democrats were almost as pathetic in their response to John Ensign's guns, guns, guns amendment, which would strip DC of it's gun control laws. It passed 62-36, every Republican but Dick Lugar (IN) being joined by Max Baucus (MT), Evan Bayh (IN), Mark Begich (AK), Michael Bennet (CO), Robert Byrd (WV), Bob Casey (PA), Kent Conrad (ND), Byron Dorgan (ND), Russ Feingold (WI), Kay Hagan (NC), Tim Johnson (SD), Mary Landrieu (LA), Blanche Lincoln (AR), Claire McCaskill (MO), Ben Nelson (NE), Mark Pryor (AR), Harry Reid (NV), John Tester (MT), both Udalls (NM & CO), Mark Warner (VA) and Jim Webb (VA).

You know, no one is asking them to ban guns in their own gun-lovin' states. This was about the citizens of Washington, DC, where the only thing to hunt walks upright on two legs, wanting sane gun control laws and these pompous assholes voting against their rights of self governance. It's what I would expect of Johnny Isakson and Richard Burr, but not Russ Feingold and Tom Udall. (Feingold, usually one of my favorite senators, requested an endorsement from Blue America this week. Remind me of this vote if you see him appear on our endorsement list anytime in 2009.)

In the end, all that compromising with the Devil passed the bill, 61-37, almost all the Republicans voting against it anyway, including, of course, the two who got their unconstitutional amendments passed, Ensign and DeMint. All the Dems but Baucus voted yes and they were joined by Collins, Hatch, Lugar, Snowe, Specter and Voinovich. In effect they didn't gain a single wingnut vote after playing footsie with them all day. Yecchhh. I need a hot shower.

Wrong time for Senate Democrats to sign on to the Republican agenda for failure:

By One Blog Post

Darcy Burner voted this morning-- pic courtesy of NPI

Lately, every time Roland comes over after work he says something to the effect of "Jesus, you look like a wreck." And I do. I haven't shaved in weeks and my hair is an overgrown horror show. After I swim in the morning and hike I don't get away from my computer until it's a dire necessity-- and for as short a time as I can. I mean what if Darcy Burner or Larry Kissell or Alan Grayson or Jeff Merkley loses by one... blog post!

Today is very calm. Everything's pretty much done-- at least as far as what I can do. I just got back from voting. Ten machines, no real line to speak of, very smooth and easy. I decided to drive to my barbershop and get a haircut. Slow day, unless you want to bother with the psychopaths. On the way I passed two polling places in poor neighborhoods with huge lines down the street. I didn't get a shave; I want the beard so I have even a chance of getting into the closed-to-the-infidels ancient mud mosque in Djenne when I visit Mali in a few weeks.

Other than voting and the haircut, the most useful thing I did today was register my cell phone so that telemarketers can't call it. The Do Not Call Registry is at 888-382-1222. It takes 60 seconds to complete.

Biggest news so far today comes from someone I rarely admire but who sure rubbed some shit in the far right's face today.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday defended the so-called Fairness Doctrine in an interview on Fox News, saying, “I think we should all be fair and balanced, don’t you?”

Schumer’s comments echo other Democrats’ views on reviving the Fairness Doctrine, which would require radio stations to balance conservative hosts with liberal ones.

Another Democrat I don't always see eye to eye with is Dianne Feinstein, who explained it even better: “I believe very strongly that the airwaves are public and people use these airwaves for profit. But there is a responsibility to see that both sides and not just one side of the big public questions of debate of the day are aired and are aired with some modicum of fairness.”

Yes, as Bush reminded us, there are consequences to elections. That's democracy.