Note: This entry was originally posted on May 24, 2004. Due to a technical problem I have had to re-post this entry on June 26, 2004. Unfortunately all comments were lost.
When our Founding Fathers wrote the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights they were concerned about creating a government that would have the power to control the mind, actions and ideas of individual citizens. That is why our freedom of religion, press, and speech were guaranteed in the Constitution. Unfortunately our Founding Fathers (wise as they often were) did not foresee a much more sinister problem-- non-governmental censorship.
I remember censorship being an important issue to me when I was younger. But it was a very different time. A different Bush was in the White House and the issue of the time was censorship of music. That's right, it was the era of Madonna's "Justify My Love" video and 2 Live Crew's "Me So Horny." MTV had refused to show Madonna's video and 2 Live Crew's album was being banned from store shelves in Florida. Just a few years before, Frank Zappa had testified before the U.S. Senate about "Parental Advisory" labels. Also, my high school newspaper tried to censor a student-written article about STDs and condoms. This is what I thought censorship was. I thought it involved government agencies like the FCC, school boards and state legislatures. It often involved debates about whether Huckleberry Finn should be removed from school libraries because it contains the word "nigger."
Now Dubya is in the White House and the media landscape has changed a lot. There are a few large corporations controlling most of the U.S. media. Those few media outlets that are not owned by large corporations are still required to promote pro-corporate values or they risk upsetting their advertisers. Pro-business agendas are frequently right wing agendas. The current conglomeration of the media has allowed for a whole new kind of censorship. Now we have censorship by our news-media organizations, which are also often our entertainment-media organizations.
The reports about air quality in New York City after September 11 are a particularly nasty example of this corporate-media disinformation. The Environmental Protection Agency issued a press release saying that the air-quality in lower Manhattan was safe. According to FAIR, New York Daily News reporter Juan Gonzalez attempted to investigate the EPA's claims. He was demoted for his work. It appears that independent reporting and journalism take a back seat to the needs of the big corporations. Of course big business wanted everything on Wall Street up and running as soon as possible so that they could make more money. People went back to work and back to their homes in lower Manhattan believing that they were safe. (Source: http://www.fair.org/extra/0303/fear-favor-2003.html). Now we know that many people, especially rescue and cleanup crews are paying a heavy price.
More recently the Disney corporation (which also own ABC News) has refused to distribute Michael Moore's new film Fahrenheit 911. Disney claims that it just doesn't want to be involved in the distribution of a political film during an election year. I might be willing to buy that on some level, but since Disney is receiving tax breaks from the State of Florida and Jeb Bush is governor of Florida I find it a bit hard to swallow. But really, how can the American public not be talking about this? The movie takes its name from Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451 which is a great work of American literature (that just happens to be about censorship). Wake up folks! Bradbury's fictional vision is starting to become reality. If ideas can continue to be controlled this way, we will have lost our freedom. There's only one remedy--Public Backlash!