Saturday, September 09, 2006

Newton Minnow Returns

Don't you just miss Newton Minnow? Many "liberals" and Democrats do. Newton Minnow was chairman of the Federal Communications Commission during the administration of John F. Kennedy. He is most famous for his "Vast Wasteland" speech on television content at the National Association of Broadcasters on May 9, 1961. In this speech Minnow made the classic statement on "liberal" views on free speech in the electronic medium and what constitutes the "public interest:"


I have confidence in your health. But not in your product. I am here to uphold and protect the public interest. What do we mean by "the public interest?" Some say the public interest is merely what interests the public. I disagree.

No the "public interest" is what Newton Minnow, his elitist leftist pals and leftwing politicians say it is. As most everyone now knows, five Democratic senators are pressuring ABC to either edit or cancel the airing of "Path to 9/11" because its interpretation of history reflects poorly on the eight years of Clinton inattention to terrorism.

Liberty Film Festival has an article posted which includes the letter from Senators: Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Debbie Stabenow, Charles Schumer and Byron Dorgan. As Jason notes this move by the Democratic fascists, and their allies, is an attempt to make it illegal for conservatives to produce films for television.

I don't know if these senators have seen the movie yet, however those who haven't are still supportive of censorship of viewpoints that they disagree with. Some of these people have declared themselves the arbiters of "truth" for the rest of us. Instead of allowing the film to be showed and then have a debate, they would kill debate in the name of "truth." Do I exaggerate? Professor Grimsley is explicit on the government's right to suppress viewpoints damaging to the Democratic Party:

There's an argument to be made, I guess, that judgment ought to be postponed until the film is aired. But the swift boating of John Kerry is much on the minds of those who have followed this story, and the consensus is that this is a time to contact ABC and object.

There is an "open letter" being circulated online by academic historians calling for ABC to cancel the showing of "Path to 9/11." The historians who wish to control what you watch on your airwaves include: Arthur Schlesinger Sean Wilentz, Princeton University Michael Kazin, Georgetown University Lizbeth Cohen, Harvard University, Nicholas Salvatore, Cornell University; Ted Widmer, Washington College; Rick Perlstein, Independent Scholar;David Blight, Yale University; Eric Alterman, City University of New York; Beverly Gage, Yale University.

These arrogant academics seem to have confused the "public's airwaves" with their classrooms. What a disgrace to the history profession. If these professors were so sure of their position they would welcome the film's showing and the resulting public debate. However, they are opposed to genuine debate, they prefer the pseudo debates of their classrooms where they set the terms and determine the reading.

Update: The Democratic/Daily Kos/Leftwing Academic plan for the American media has already arrived in Canada:

One of Canada's top television reporters has been suspended from her job for praising the country's increasingly troubled military mission in Afghanistan, the company said on Friday.

Crossposted at The Dougout

2 comments:

KG said...

The left showing their true colours for all to see...
Not a pretty sight, but at least it may wake some people up to the enemies we face.

truepeers said...

Don't play word games Rick, it just shows your contempt for your supposed interlocutors. Of course you are trying to have this film censored, because you believe it is communicating a lie. Yes, you don't have the decision whether it goes to air, but for this lack of power you are not going to take resonsibility for being censorious in your attitude? Come on.

Now, it would be fair to debate whether or not the film misrepresents events, but since we haven't seen it yet, it's kind of tough. The bottom line for me is that fictionalized scenes, if presented as such, are fair game in the search for truth, as long as we know they are fictionalized - i.e. we know they are only hypotheses about the truth that are constructing scenes in an attempt to transform a complex series of events into a story and truth that can be communicated effectively (which is nothing different from what some professional historians have done, like Simon Schama in his book Dead Certainties: Unwarranted Speculations). The truth of the fictionalized hypothesis is then up for debate.

Yes, if it's a completely crazy and libelous hypothesis, then ABC should know better than to air it in the first place. But it seems to me that all you are offering ABC at the moment Rick is a kind of moral blackmail - i.e. promise of a big scandal to come - based on the supposed moral authority of your professors who presumably have not seen the film either but are simply sympathetic towards those Clintonites who say they are being slimed.

Seems to me that's not good enough. If you accept public office, you allow yourself to become a target and you accept that sometimes you have to fight to clear your name and even suffer injustices because of your public position; you have to fight to represent the truth because that is what public office is all about; you don't get any easy outs and you are not God and you cannot expect to live in an elite club that protects you from the resentments your decisions or lack thereof generate.