[MD] Here come the censors

[Arlo Bensinger]

Andre (Platt and Ham mentioned),

Beware a dangerous ideological tactic here, and that is to pair 
falsely the notion of "censorship" with "leftist" (or liberal, or 
democrat, or the favorite "them" du jour). Censorship in America, for 
example, has been driven largely by right-wing ideologues and 
Congressional Republicans pandering to organizations like Focus on 
the Family. For some historical perspective, consider the roles of 
Reagan and Meese (who would later serve as his Attorney General) in 
the People's Park "Bloody Thursday" debacle. 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Park_(Berkeley))

"Governor Ronald Reagan had been publicly critical of University 
administrators for tolerating student demonstrations at the Berkeley 
campus, and he had received enormous popular support for his 1966 
gubernatorial campaign promise to crack down on what was perceived as 
the generally lax attitude at California's public universities. 
Reagan called the Berkeley campus "a haven for communist 
sympathizers, protesters and sex deviants." (Wikipedia)

I had provided much more context in a previous post to the recent 
"Interent Censorship" initiatives, all of which can be traced 
directly to Congressional Republicans (initiating) with Congressional 
Democrats supporting.

Beware the snakeoil salesmen like Platt and Ham who are more 
interested in party propaganda and ideological pandering than a 
serious discussion on censorship, which must lay much of the blame on 
social conservatism. A good site which lists banned books, including 
years and countries, can be found at http://title.forbiddenlibrary.com/

Even a short perusal of that list bears witness to the impetus to 
censor being as strong on the "right" as on the "left", if not 
stronger. Recall, too, that it was right-wing politicos back in 
Montana that sought to censor Pirsig, whom they deemed a "radical 
professor" long before Hannity and Levin took that up as a central 
squalking point.

With regard to the "Fairness Doctrine", the same ideologues who are 
now crying foul are the same ones who fought tooth and nail for 
Howard Stern to have his show censored, who lobbied endlessly to the 
FCC to revoke Stern's broadcasting license. Indeed, there seem to be 
few people who would fight censorship "in toto" rather than simply 
jumping on whatever bandwagon the pundits troll out for them on any given day.

Platt would have you believe that suddenly, with Obama's presidency, 
the "censors" are just appearing. The truth is that they've been 
around for ages, strengthened and vocal during the Reagan years, 
carried strongly by the right's love-affair with radical christianity 
and xenophobia, and witnessed under every government as far back as 
one can go. It is not a "leftist" problem, and pretending it is is 
more dangerous than the censorship itself.

Arlo