While Democrats are spending this country into oblivion, there’s a move afoot to end successful businesses – conservative talk radio.
Michigan’s Democrat Sen. Debbie Stabenow is the latest, and she makes no bones about it. She says “fairness” and “balance” on talk radio “is coming.” She says the issue is “accountability.”
She means the government will decide what can be said, where and by whom. She’s not alone: Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, Harry Reid, John Kerry, Jeff Bingaman and others are on board, too.
Conservative talk radio is successful. It’s a business providing a product people like and want. Consumer demand means it’s a good vehicle for other businesses to advertise their products. When people buy those products, money circulates, profits are made, people have jobs and customers – both of the radio programs and of the advertised products – are satisfied, and taxes are paid to government.
You’d think it’s a win-win situation.
But, that’s too easy – too logical – which is exactly why Democrats are aiming at it. They want to end it because they don’t like what conservative radio says. Democrats don’t like that conservative principles and analyses are available to the public – free to the listener.
The bottom line is control. All those federal bailouts have long strings attached, meaning those begging companies will be beholden to the government for a long, long time. Their operative phrase will be: “Yes, boss.”
Congress wants to control talk radio. It wants to give orders and be obeyed. Congress’ method will be to reinstate the “Fairness Doctrine” – though it might rename it – which was ended during the Reagan administration. During “fairness,” everything on radio with ideas had to present “both sides.”
Sounds good, but since there are often more than two sides to ideas and issues, it meant generally boring radio, sounding like a long, dull, repetitive and self-indulgent high school class.
When I was a kid, whenever anyone tried to stop us kids from saying something – usually innocuous – our comeback line was “It’s a free country!”
Adults didn’t get upset because the issue at hand wasn’t that important and because they knew we were right.
It was innocent kid stuff, but our comeback reflected the belief this was a free country, that Americans of any age had the freedom and right to think independent thoughts and speak their minds even if others disagreed.
People had no right to censor our thoughts and beliefs.
There was no talk radio then, but the radio communicated through news and entertainment and commentators about current events.
Eventually, a talk format evolved, focused on personality chat or subject oriented – financial, health, consumer, legal, etc. It wasn’t opinionated because that would bring the FCC wrath upon them, threatening the station license.
But ratings were low, resulting in a scarcity of advertisers. The result? Lots of music stations. It was hard then to offend people with music. That’s changed, but no one worries too much about musical offense. The attitude is, if you don’t like it, change the station or turn it off.
But it’s different with ideas and words. Politicians consider them dangerous – especially when they want to lock in their power. That’s where we are today with talk radio.
It all changed in the late ’80s when Rush Limbaugh came on the scene with a talk show and format like no other. Rush knew the medium, and he knew how to use it. He had the voice, the manner, the brain and the talent. He also was politically conservative and had the showmanship to present it satirically with wit and style spiced with carefully couched zingers.
Limbaugh moved from local to New York to national quickly and successfully. He soon became the template for a new kind of radio giving vitality to conservatism. Prior to Limbaugh, conservatives had learned it was the better part of valor to not talk about their views. It was akin to discussing religion at a dinner party: not a good idea.
Limbaugh’s program made closet conservatives across the country realize they weren’t alone, that others believed as they did, and they weren’t crazy or subversive. His ratings soared, and he became and has remained No. 1 – on 600 stations.
Liberals went crazy. They wanted a cut of the action but almost without exception, leftist political talk didn’t make it. Ask Debbie Stabenow’s husband Tom Athans. He headed (among others) the leftist Air America: bankrupt.
Liberals don’t understand Limbaugh’s humor and satire. They’re too serious; they insult and denigrate everything conservative and listeners evaporated taking ratings and advertisers with them.
Barack Obama’s election was a core battle between political conservatism and liberal/socialist/Marxism. If ever there were a “choice” – this was it. Listeners knew where Rush stood; likewise other conservative talkers. The left hated it, and now that they have won – the long knives are out.
Clearly, there’ll be a move to reinstating some form of a “Fairness Doctrine” with the goal to undercut and eliminate nationally syndicated talk shows like Limbaugh’s. They believe “local” programs are more easily controlled.
But they’re forgetting that the crashing economy is talking a huge toll on broadcast, radio and TV. In radio, management is cutting everything, with hiring freezes, salary caps, staff elimination and ultimately, for many stations, the elimination of all live, local programs including in-house news departments.
In other words, it’s cheaper for stations to resort to syndicated programs. Program content is canned music or syndicated talk with no live people in the station – everything is automated.
Talk about unintended consequences! Because of the down economy, the politician’s urge to control talk by destroying syndication could result in no talk radio at all.
Then again, they’d have free rein to socialize this country with impunity because they already have TV, cable and print in their pocket.
If that happens, they win; the country loses.
If you ever wondered whose side they’re on, now you know.
There was a book in the ’60s titled: “None Dare Call It Treason.”
I would.
