In yesterday’s blog I wrote an article entitled Buy Local. The article was censored. Particular interest groups decided that you did not have the right to read it. I resubmitted the article today under the title of Free Market Choices. I will write a follow up article about it in a few days. I decided that it might be helpful if I wrote an overview article on the topic of censorship:
The Death of the Fairness Doctrine?
I started writing these blogs six years ago, and the biggest change that has occurred during these years is the fact that it has become more difficult to be the dissenting voice or the non-group thinker. It has become almost impossible to tell the truth: Everything is becoming very corrupt ― including our free speech.
A few years ago, those who did not want to hear a particular point of view switched channels or turning the broadcasting devise off. Today, those who do not want to hear a particular point of view are trying to insure that no one else hears it either. They are blocking communications, disrupting signals, and miscasting messages.
If you’re sitting at home wondering why you are not getting a wider range of alternative ideas about balancing the budget, reducing unemployment, cutting defense spending, empowering local communities, Medicaid, Medicare, increasing revenues through taxes, increasing employment through government funding for innovations, I will tell you that many of these ideas have been blocked from public viewing on the internet. They have also been censored from in depth coverage on the major television networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX). PBS, which is the only major station that tries to give a balance coverage, and does the best job of providing both sides of the issues, is the station whose voice these particular interest groups are trying to silence. Think tanks or interest groups, often with the approval of political parties and government officials, are making a concerted effort to keep the public from hearing opposing views to the issues they’re promoting.
Their censorship actions are more dangerous than most Americans suspect. It is already creating social, political, economic, and ideological divisions from which this nation might never recover. It had already created a level of disunity and distrust that is making us increasingly vulnerable against nations, whose citizens are becoming socially, politically, economically, and ideologically united. Our beliefs in ourselves, our fellow citizens, and the United States of America were the greatest weapons we had against all enemies ― foreign and domestic. These weapons are being destroyed with each passing day, and we are becoming more and more defenseless ― individually and collectively.
Yes, censorship silences voices. In due time it silences 100 percent of them!
