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
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