Randy Rhodes: There is no FREE SPEECH in this Country it's a fantasy

[bigdarryl]

Quote:I got fired for doing a stand up comedy on a Saturday night so there is no free speech in this country especially if you go against the right wing propaganda machine so you can work for 50 years and make a 26 second statement and you loose your job.She was talking about Helen Thomas

[ecstatic]

1. she was fired?

:shrug:

[bigdarryl]

3. Yes from Air America for making fun of Hillary Clinton during the campaign

[dflprincess]

8. I'm not a fan of Hillary

but, as I recall, Randi went beyond making fun of her and called her some pretty nasty, sexist names.

[Greyhound]

72. While MC'ing an event completely unrelated to her show.

BTW, I despise her, but fair is fair.

[davidinalameda]

11. I can't remember exactly what she said

but I think it was a bit more than simply making fun of Hillary

[Drunken Irishman]

12. She called her a big fucking whore.

[AtomicKitten]

37. She didn't mention size (ha ha)

I was there. Randi was doing stand-up at a nightclub here in SF on a Saturday evening. She called Clinton and Ferraro "fucking whores" for their race-baiting during the primary campaign.

[davidinalameda]

52. that might be reason to fire someone

[baldguy]

67. She was fired for having a political opinion which differed from that of her employer.

So, she's right. There is no free speech in this country.

[Beacool]

66. Calling a former First Lady and then sitting Senator a "big fucking whore"

is much more than making fun of her. Rhodes can go screw herself!!!

:shrug:

[mkultra]

83. even Goebbels believed in freedom of speech for people he agreed with

free speech means things you don't agree with as well.

[SteppingRazor]

2. Meh.

You don't get to say whatever you want with no consequences. If you call your boss a pigfucker, your boss will probably fire you.

But the government will not, of course, come and take you away and toss you in jail. Randy seems to be confused about what exactly free speech is.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. First amendment fail.

[msanthrope]

56. Correct. n/t

[zipplewrath]

5. Free from government control

There is "free" speech. Free from government control. But corporate control is another thing. The constitution did a poor job of keeping us free from control by corporations. It wasn't designe to.

[dflprincess]

14. Probably because the Founders didn't see a time when corporations would own the government

Thom Hartmann has spoken about how corporations were not trusted by the founders and used to have limited life spans.

[treestar]

63. Corporations do not own the government

They may own the mass media, and thus can keep people from that, people who say things they do not like.

But they are losing that power with the internet and the sheer number of publications. It may be harder to spread a message without all that money, but it can be done.

[baldguy]

68. Wake up.

There is no aspect of our lives which aren't adversely effected by the political decisions made by corporations. And there's practically nothing the general public can do to influence those decisions.

[treestar]

77. It's not that bad

In fact, we don't even have to vote for whoever the corporations support. Not if we really don't want to.

[Hawkowl]

85. WAKE THE FUCK UP

Jeebus man, take off the blinders.

[Cleita]

6. My mother told me the same thing over fifty years ago

when she cautioned me about airing my opinions and she was able to back up her assertion with the example of the communist witch hunts that were going on back then.

[DrToast]

7. What is she talking about? Nobody threw her in jail

I don't think she has a good understanding of what "free speech" means.

[Billy Burnett]

64. I think she means that free speech has a price, so it is not really free.

The price for her free speech was the loss of her job.

[Drunken Irishman]

9. It's really shocking how many people don't actually understand this whole free speech business.

Free speech doesn't give you the right to say whatever the hell you want without any responsibility for your actions.

I can't walk into my boss' office and tell him I think he's a complete fucktard and expect to keep my job. He can fire me and I can't hide behind the free speech argument.

Free speech only mandates the government has no right to impede on your freedom of speech. Not the private world. Randi was working for a private company and so was Helen Thomas. They have every right to fire whomever they want if they feel it is justifiable.

That isn't a breach of free speech because it's not the government doing it.

I am appalled at how little people actually know about free speech in this country. It's pretty embarrassing - especially when people cry about it on online message boards when they're banned or their posts are deleted. How many posters here have been banned by the moderators for saying something that went against the terms of agreement? Is Skinner revoking each of their right to free speech? Of course not.

[atreides1]

21. So

As long as the government doesn't restrict your speech, it's okay for anyone else to do so?

That is an interesting concept, as long as the government can get some private entity to do it, it's okay because the government isn't acting directly to curtail the freedom of speech.

Do you really think she would have been fired if she had made a disparaging comment about the Palestinians?

[Drunken Irishman]

48. I don't know.

I do know an Arizona DJ was fired last week for making disparaging comments toward blacks & Hispanics.

Maybe that was the wrong move then?

[Raineyb]

79. You don't know? Do you pay attention? Helen Thomas would not have been forced

to retire if she made disparaging comments about Palestinians.

And that Arizona DJ won't be unemployed long. No one has ever been unemployed long for making disparaging remarks about black and brown people in this country.

[msanthrope]

57. are you suggesting someone from 'government' got Rhodes fired? n/t

[Hosnon]

76. The Supreme Court isn't that stupid.

The local police can't hire a mercenary force to go shut down the local paper without violating the First Amendment.

[Cleita]

29. I will say this again. They have a right to fire you for what you say on the job

if they don't approve. They should never have the right to fire you for what you say on your off hours when you aren't working for them. It's none of their business and the fact that employers can do this leads up to the situation we now have in the gulf of employees too afraid of losing their jobs to tell authorities and media what was and is still going on.

[Drunken Irishman]

49. Of course it's their business...

If someone is the face of a company, or one of many faces, they take on the responsibility that carries. Which means you probably should pick your words carefully.

Just because she said it on her own time doesn't mean it doesn't impact the company she works for.

There was a similar situation, albeit involving blogging, where a woman was fired from her non-profit because she ran a blog about her sexual escapades and the company felt they didn't want that to be apart of their company.

Just because the constitution says the government can't restrict your free speech doesn't mean businesses shouldn't look out for their self interests.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

50. No kidding.

[geek tragedy]

10. She was fired for calling Hillary a "big fucking whore."

If you're going to get paid for what you say, don't say stuff that will get you fired.

[Cleita]

24. She said that in a night club doing stand up which had nothing to do with

her day job. What you do and say on your own time is not your employer's business although many of them seem to make it so. I got fired from one of my day jobs because I was working part time as a bartender as well. When my employer asked me to quit that job or be fired, I told him if he could pay me a salary that equalled what I was getting, I would quit but not before. So he fired me. So much for free speech or personal freedom for that matter.

[geek tragedy]

27. If your job is to be a public figure, then you have to be careful

about what you say. Whether you're a talk radio host, priest or politician.

[Cleita]

31. Yes, in this day and age you do have to be, but that isn't freedom

is it? I lived in a country where once we had real freedom of speech. We could air our opinions even in the workplace without fear of retaliation. It was part of the national character of the people there. I don't even know if there was a law about it, but the situation existed.

[geek tragedy]

34. What country was that?

In most European countries, they can throw you in jail for making the wrong comment about someone's ethnicity.

[Cleita]

40. Chile before our country got President Allende assassinated and replaced him

with Pinochet, a brutal dictator Nixon liked better. Yes, I believe there was no more free speech after than. I once went to a dinner party where among the guests were a Nazi refugee from WWII, a card carrying communist labor leader, a couple of American corporatists from the mining industry, an English Sir and various other people from opposite corners of ideological spectrums. The conversation was lively and honest, but no one shot any one, arrested any one nor told any one to shut up or attempted any retaliation. It was very civilized. But at that time it was a country where the poorest person had no hesitation about telling the high and mighty what they thought about them and not worry about losing their job, being thrown in jail or something happening to their family. My father, an American, had his men in his shop regularly tell him off to his face when they were displeased and my dad had to suck it up.

[Sebastian Doyle]

53. Unfortunately for Randi

..at the time, her day job was working for a company (Air America) whose corporate leadership at that time was essentially a DLC pro-Hillary campaign organ. Mark Green made no attempt to disguise his pro-Hillary, pro-DLC bias.

The further irony is that Randi herself has become pretty much a DLC sellout these days, and while I may agree with her comments on Helen Thomas, I haven't listened to her since her three hour assault on Keith Olbermann last year.

[msanthrope]

58. Maybe not according to her contract for employment....

employers do draft Ks that restrict personal freedom all the time.

[baldguy]

69. Her contract also said Air America couldn't fire her - that's why they manufactured this incident.

It allowed them to take her off the air, spread lies about her, deny her the ability to present her side to the public & deny her the right to work elsewhere until the dispute was resolved - either by forcing her to quit or forcing her to renegotiate her contract.

[baldguy]

70. She was forced to quit because Air America wanted to renegotiate her contract, and she didn't.

The whole incident was a set-up.

[bigdarryl]

13. The bottom line is you can't say shit bad about Israel without getting lambastic

you can say bad things about the Mexicans and African Americans but Israel and Jews are off limits

[leftofcool]

15. No one in this country says a word when

Irish, Native Americans, Dutch, Latinos, Blacks, Asians or any other nationality have something bad said about them but you are right, not one bad word can ever be uttered against a Jew.

[geek tragedy]

16. Oh boo hoo you can't make antisemitic comments. Boo hoo! nt

[treestar]

62. Actually, you can

We still have free speech to do that.

Helen apparently exercised that freedom. She can do it again.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

30. Yes, anti-Semites are horribly persecuted.

There are massive boycotts of Arizona right now on behalf of Latinos. There is outrage over a state senator's comments concerning "rag heads". Your claim is so easily disprovable its laughable.

[Rebubula]

46. Bullshit

And you know it.

You can say whatever you want...you just cannot control reaction to it from others.


The lack of 1st Amendment understanding around here is pretty amazing.

[Bonobo]

86. I started a whole OP because of assholes like you.

Read what this POS wrote, everyone, and tell me "A Jew" doesn't sound like he is spitting it out like it's a filthy insult.

[Cleita]

19. And you can't say good things about Hugo Chavez because it's

contrary to the propaganda they want you to believe about him because our government has him in their crosshairs hoping to overthrow him and replace him with a dictator who is more favorable to the oil companies.

[avaistheone1]

22. Good point.

:thumbsup:

[NoPasaran]

54. And that's why all the pro-Chavez posters on DU have been rounded up and thrown into prison

:crazy:

[Greyhound]

73. I think you are looking for the word lambasted. n/t

[Raineyb]

81. That's the point I've been making over and over and over again for the last couple of

days. Somehow though people seem to be oblivious to that.

The fact that Pat Buchanan, whose racist "rap sheet" is as long as it gets remains employed and still appears on the television despite the numerous things he's said about black and brown people while Helen Thomas is forced to retire for one remark over a 67 year history seems to be rather conclusive proof that some of us are more worthy of dignity than others in this country.

[GodlessBiker]

17. Who said the right to free speech protected you from someone else's free speech?

Doesn't a media outlet have the right to speak through the hired mouthpieces of its choosing and base its decision on the speech of those it is considering hiring or firing?

[Phx_Dem]

18. Helen's been arrested?

Of course not. Randy is just being as bombastic and wrong as always.

FYI, Randy. Employers can fire employees for lots of different reasons, including making a public statement they don't agree with or posting pictures the employer deems "inappropriate" on Facebook. The government doesn't care, which means your free speech is still in tact. Dumbass.

[Cleita]

20. She lost her job as a White House reporter after fifty years because she

wasn't being politically correct.

[Phx_Dem]

Delete dupe post.

[Phx_Dem]

23. And deservedly so. The government didn't fire her. Her employer did.

Free speech is still free.

[Raineyb]

82. And Pat Buchanan still has a job.

I guess you CAN say disparaging things about black and brown people so long as you keep your mouth relatively shut about Israel and keep your job.

[Jim Sagle]

84. If you actually think Pat keeps his "mouth relative shut about Israel", you might want to

get your hearing tested. :wtf:

[geek tragedy]

28. She resigned because she made a vile, offensive comment

that shredded her credibility.

[Cleita]

33. She's almost ninety years old and it seems she could have gotten some

sympathy for having a senior moment.

[geek tragedy]

35. Hard to maintain credibility as a journalist and then plead

'senior moment' reduced capacity.

[Cleita]

36. She wasn't on the job. She was being interviewed and expressed a personal

opinion, which showed a lack of judgement IMHO like a little kid and it could be due to old age. In no way should it have negated fifty years of service. Right now caller saying Pat Buchanan said that there were too many Jews in the Supreme Court and he gets away with it all the time.

[kurtzapril4]

38. That's what I thought

It looked like she was walking down the street, and got interviewed. I think even journalists should be allowed to say what's on their mind...as long as they aren't on the clock.

[onenote]

43. Does that also apply to non-journalists?

If a non-journalist speaks his or her mind and says something offensive to millions of people is it okay? Do you think it was wrong for Al Campanis to get fired? If Don Imus hadn't been the host of the show when he made his comments, but had been interviewed by someone else, would you argue that he should've been given a pass?

[onenote]

39. you could say the same thing about Al Campanis, Don Imus, and any

number of jerks that have made offensive statements on air and been fired for it. I don't shed tears for them and while I honor Helen for the good work she did in the past, she stepped in it and I have no problem with her paying the price for it.

[Cleita]

42. But those guys were on the job when they said those things.

Helen expressed an opinion on her own time to another reporter. She didn't express anything like that in her reports and columns for her job.

[onenote]

44. wrong. Campanis was being interviewed.

He was a baseball executive being interviewed on Nightline by Ted Koppel. Not a journalist. Not there as an official representative of the Dodgers. There as someone who knew Jackie Robinson.

And are you really saying that if Imus hadn't been the host of the show but had been a guest on someone else's show, he would be entitled to a pass?

[Cleita]

45. Then Campanis shouldn't have been fired.

Well, I'm surprised Imus hadn't been on another show like on Bill Maher for instance, where famous people do express various opinions and Bill sometimes calls them on what they say, but they shouldn't be fired from their day job for it.

[Raineyb]

80. And then quickly rehired by someone else.

No one stays unemployed for long making disparaging comments about black and brown people.

[treestar]

60. But the thing is, she can still go on and say what she wants

In fact she is in a position to write a book and have it published. She can say whatever she wants in that book.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

25. That's a failure in understanding the first amendment, Randi

[onenote]

26. and Randy demonstrates that she doesn't understand the legal concept of "free speech"

I'm wondering if Randy thinks that there was a time in this country's history that she wouldn't have been subject to being fired for what she did during her Saturday night stand up routine?

[thelordofhell]

32. Helen The Greek

[lynne]

41. She was fired by the government????

Because that's the only way her Freedom of Speech would have been infringed. Randi needs to brush up on her Government 101.

[PBS Poll-435]

51. Randi spent 60 days in jail and had to do 400 hours of community service

After she called Hillary Clinton some nasty names at a SF bar/nightclub.

(This was after she had her new dental implants put in so maybe she, literally, could not control her mouth)


Oh, wait. Nevermind. That never happened. She was fired for embarrassing an affiliate radio station. THEN she joined Premier Radio Networks (Home of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Dr. Laura, Jason Lewis and others).

And moved to DC.


I love(d) Randi, but what a strange tirade that was.

[tledford]

47. By the way, her name is Randi. eom

[Jersey Devil]

55. Let's face it, Tom (Randi), and all due respect. The Don, rest in peace, was slippin'

After following Helen Thomas all these years, no, I don't think that she is a "vicious anti-Semite" as some have described her. But I think she was slipping. I mean, could this woman who we have held in such high regard for her intelligence and ability to hone right in on many problems really think that Jews first came to Palestine only after World War II?

[Boudica the Lyoness]

59. America is kind of right wing.

You are expected to conform and if you don't the shit hits the fan.

[Greyhound]

74. Oh yes, obedience above all.

You can fuck up for your whole life and retire in relative comfort, but disobey and you're done.

[treestar]

61. So she was just free to say that

And have it disseminated in the media, more than can be said for most people.

[tammywammy]

65. I think the lack of understanding the Constitution is sad. n/t

[amb123]

71. There is Freedom of Speech, but only for right wingers.

Right Wingers can say anything they want. When they spew their hatred and bigotry, all they have to do is "apologize to anyone I MAY HAVE offended" and nothing else happens to them. But, if someone dares to call them out on their bigotry and hatred, they get roasted by the corporate media, fired from their jobs, beat up in the streets and encouraged to "do the world a favor and commit suicide, you Satan-Worshiping, America-Hating, Terrorist-Loving, Sub-Human Liberal Demoncrat Vermin Scum!"

Randi Rhodes is dead on.

[Hosnon]

75. Haha. I can't believe anyone with even the slightest bit of interest in politics can have such a

poor grasp of the First Amendment.

[DailyGrind51]

78. Free speech only exists for those on "the right", just ask the Dixie Chicks, Phil Donahue,

Bill Moyers, or Dan Rather.