NJ Radio Station bans Jethro Tull

[Maccagirl]

for comments made by lead singer Ian Anderson.


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/13/entertainment/main583423



Is this censorship? Discuss.

[progressivestudent]

1. Must

Get out of my state NJ, must get accepted to school in DC, must run as fast as I can.

[RandomKoolzip]

2. Yes it is. Typical Clear Channel machinations....

Clear Channel is tied into the current administration by its pockets. This is facsism.

[Scott Lee]

3. As loathsome and stupid as the stations actions are....

It isn't censorship in the context that makes it a political issue to Americans.

Censorship is government stopping the exercize of free speech (and some expression). You have no "right" to be heard or seen on privately owned media outlets, although there are some equal time statutes out there, none of which concerns the issue between Jethro Tull and this lame ass NJ station.

[chascarrillo]

6. Look up the definition of "censorship", then come back to us

The short answer: you're wrong.

The long answer: get out your dictionary and look up the definition to the word.

[DieboldMustDie]

7. Don't the airwaves belong, in theory, to the American people?

I consider this censorship, though I'm sure it's not an illegal form of censorship under current law.

[Rooktoven]

4. Time to pay to see Tull again--

and augment my 20+ album Tull collection. Well said, Ian!

Well you can excommunicate me, on my way to sunday school, have all the Bishops harmonizing lies...

[Mel]

5. Interesting article

http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/PID.jsp?articleid=8728
Clear Channel Rewrites Rules of Radio Broadcasting

By Dante Toza
Special to CorpWatch
October 8, 2003

Against a backdrop of red, white and blue curtains, emblazoned with the words of the constitution of the United States, the heads of some of the world's biggest radio companies gathered for the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) annual meeting last week in Philadelphia, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.
</snip>

<snip>
Yet when radio began in this country, it was not supposed to simply be a commodity. The Federal Communication Commission, a government federal agency that was established by the Communications Act of 1934, was charged with allocating spectrum space to maximize "the public interest and to encourage a diversity of voices so as to promote a vibrant democracy."

Over the years this original mission has largely been forgotten, says Norman Solomon, the executive director of Institute for Public Accuracy. "The FCC has functioned much more as a lap dog to the media industry than any kind of watch dog on behalf of the public to further deregulate and further hijack the public airwaves for private profit."

Clear Channel has gone beyond just axing news. Many believe that the company fires anyone with political opinions other than their own such as Davey D, the host of a popular talk radio show on KMEL, a black-owned station in Oakland, California, that launched the careers of rappers like Tupac Shakur and MC Hammer.

In October 2001 when the United States was on the verge of launching its invasion of Afghanistan, Davey D broadcast an interview with Barbara Lee, the only member of the United States Congress to vote against the war.

KMEL, which had recently been bought by Clear Channel, heard about the show and promptly fired him. Meanwhile company executives sent a memo round to its stations at about the same time warning them not to play any peace songs such as John Lennon's "Imagine" or music by the band Rage Against the Machine.

On the other hand, Clear Channel has not been opposed to all forms of political organizing. In 2003 the company paid for pro-war rallies around the country to support the invasion of Iraq as well as for a 33,000-pound tractor to smash a collection of Dixie Chicks CDs, tapes and other paraphernalia, at an event in Louisiana, because the bands had the arrogance to protest against the war.

Today the rules of media ownership that spawned Clear Channel have been further loosened. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC)), which is led by Michael Powell, none other than the son of United States secretary of state, Colin Powell, voted in June to allow companies to buy more television stations and own newspapers as well as broadcast outlets in the same city.</snip>



What Clear Channel is, is a monopoly we have corporatism....fascism. We own the airwaves at least that's the way it started out, I don't understand why some people would think this sort of crap is just business as usual, it's not!
The reason clear channel is shutting up dissent (their own form of McCarthyism) they want Bush* to keep that FCC (Powell) rule that came down which by the way people on both sides of the political spectrum where against. It will allow Clear Channel to buy up even more radio stations it's a monopoly that's working as a tool for Bush* so they can get what they want more ownership of what is suppose to be the peoples airwaves.

[ClintonTyree]

8. Ian has always been............

one to challenge the establishment. These small minded twits amaze me. Correction, nothing really amazes me anymore in "Bushamerica". We are fast becoming a fascist state where no political dissent will be allowed. Canada, (although I hate cold weather) here I come.

[Grins]

9. Nothing to discuss..

It's censorship. And it's more. So much for "I disagree with what you say, but I'll defend your right to say it..."

Anderson is right. Like Anderson I "… hate to see the American flag hanging out of every bloody station wagon, out of every SUV, every little Midwestern house in some residential area," Ian Anderson was quoted as saying in an interview published Sunday in the Asbury Park Press. "It's easy to confuse patriotism with nationalism. Flag waving ain't gonna do it."

He was bitching about the same thing I bitch about with these self-appointed “Patriots” displaying torn, dirty, flags from their antennas they bought from gas stations who had thousands of them printed up at a cost of probably $.50 each and sell them for $2.95. Or the people who print up thousands of "patriotic" bumper stickers at the cost of pennies per sticker and turn around and sell them for $3.95 on the web. They think they have done their part; yeah, we're patriots, time to move on... NO! They just war profiteers, making a buck on the dead bodies from the World Trade Center and Pentagon!

PBS’s Bill Moyer had a couple of good comments on this:

”The flag's been hijacked and turned into a logo - the trademark of a monopoly on patriotism. On those Sunday morning talk shows, official chests appear adorned with the flag as if it is the good housekeeping seal of approval. During the State of the Union, did you notice Bush and Cheney wearing the flag? How come? No administration's patriotism is ever in doubt, only its policies. And the flag bestows no immunity from error. When I see flags sprouting on official lapels, I think of the time in China when I saw Mao's little red book on every official's desk, omnipresent and unread.

“But more galling than anything are all those moralistic ideologues in Washington sporting the flag in their lapels while writing books and running Web sites and publishing magazines attacking dissenters as un-American. They are people whose ardor for war grows disproportionately to their distance from the fighting. They're in the same league as those swarms of corporate lobbyists wearing flags and prowling Capitol Hill for tax breaks, even as they call for more spending on war.”

Thanks Bill. (Sorry I didn’t get the link, but you should be able to get it at pbs.org. BTW, I wore Army green for two years in an Armor company in an Infantry division.)

[Kolesar]

10. That was insightful eom

The flag's been turned into a logo.

[bobja]

11. Definition

censor
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): cen·sored; cen·sor·ing /'sen(t)-s&-ri, 'sen(t)s-ri/
Date: 1882
: to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable