It's The Marketplace, Stupid!

Before I get to an item at Think Progress that presents a serious threat to our freedom, I'd like you to take a look at this USA Today Nielsen link. While I may not agree with the preferences of many Americans when it comes to what they choose to watch on TV in the evenings, I wouldn't advocate passing legislation which would make the broadcasting of it unprofitable for the networks involved.

Top 20 listings for broadcast programs, including viewership for the week and season-to-date rankings. An "X" indicates a one-time-only presentation or program not normally assigned to a given timeslot.

Look at the similarities between many of the programs:

House - Grey's Anatomy - CSI - CSI: Miami - NCIS - Criminal Minds - Shark - CSI: NY

Crime dramas ... gee, how can that be? Are these leading to an increase of crime in America? Should we ban them, or make them unprofitable to broadcast? The answer to both questions should be a resounding No. Now look at this via Think Progress Regressively:

The Center for American Progress and Free Press today released the first-of-its-kind statistical analysis of the political make-up of talk radio in the United States. It confirms that talk radio, one of the most widely used media formats in America, is dominated almost exclusively by conservatives.

Yes, it most assuredly is. And that is because it is what a clear majority of Americans wish to listen to as regards that particular media. And anyone who attempts to draft and pass legislation that would ignore the marketplace that has created the current talk radio situation is engaging in a type of government censorship commonly associated with the former Soviet Union and current dictatorships such as that of Hugo Chavez.

Censorship is defined as the removal and withholding of information from the public by a controlling group or body.

The liberal powers that be behind the current movement to curtail free speech, as dictated by the free market in America, dislike and distrust capitalism because they cannot control it. They are against talk radio for the very same reason. All Americans need to come to understand the tremendous threat to our freedom that is represented by the coming push for some new form of a Fairness Doctrine and reject it as un-democratic, as well as un-American.

Given our forms of both economics and government, there is nothing more purely democratic than the marketplace today. That force and not the government should dictate what information is most readily available to us as citizens with the ability to make up our on minds about what we see, hear, or read.

And that says nothing of the tremendous lack of respect for you as Americans these liberals betray by their efforts to control our media. They think Americans are sheep and will follow something simply because they hear it, as opposed to seeking out that with which they basically agree, or enjoy listening to for entertainment and information. That's nonsense. Any effort to revive the Fairness Doctrine must be opposed with the collective effort of everyone with a voice in new media.

Comments

[rwilymz]

"The Iraqi population wasn't pissed off enough at their dictator to want to replace him."

They tried in late '91. The US promised the 60% Shi'a that if they'd revolt, we'd support them -- it was one of the side-bennies of the No-Flies: protect the potential revolutionaries.

But the US failed to support them, and Hussein's goons had another round of "Ethnic Cleansing" added to his resume. US foreign policy cannot be accused of being consistent.

A large part of the Iraqis between the wars simply didn't trust us, with good reason.

"the standard of living in Iraq took a disasterious nose-dive once our invasion was complete probably didn't help convince the population"

This was another of my personal criticisms of the after-war.

Ever see the movie _Patton_? At the end of the war, Patton was the regional military governor of Bavaria. He hired a whole phalanx of ex-Naxi bureaucrats to run his province. In the movie, George C Scott is riding around a horse arena and reporters are asking him questions, and one of them says "General Marshall is wondering why you've hired Nazis to run your occupation. Didn't we just fight the Nazis?"

Patton's reply was: "Tell General Marshall that when he sends me 10,000 people to replace them, I'll fire the Nazis, but until then the people need water and food and electricity."

Our immediate after-war policy was "No Ba'athists Need Apply". But the Ba'athists were the ones who ran everything, the utilities, the services, the distribution. Say whatever unkind things you want about "bureaucracy" and it's probably deserved, but it gets things done.

The US was so intent on removing Hussein, anyone who looked like him, and the camel he rode in on, that the needs of the Iraqi people -- whose favor we had a relatively short time to win -- were almost inconsequential.

[seekeronos]

"Our immediate after-war policy was "No Ba'athists Need Apply". But the Ba'athists were the ones who ran everything, the utilities, the services, the distribution. Say whatever unkind things you want about "bureaucracy" and it's probably deserved, but it gets things done."

---I have to agree with you on that. We might have done much better to keep the ex-Baathists on a short leash, and perhaps even replaced Saddam with a Baathist leader who was on a very short leash to the US, leaving the underpinnings of the remains of regime m/l intact in place, but drastically less able to savage other Iraqis.

[seekeronos]

Oops. forgot to add that it would have been more of a case of "Regime Management" than Regime Change". :P