CT Blue

This sort of thing is all too familiar:

VoteVets, a progressive organization founded by veterans of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, unveiled a strong television ad last week, connecting a climate bill to the nation’s national security interests. The spot notes that “a clean energy climate plan would cut our dependence on foreign oil in half and cut oil profits for hostile nations.” Sounds right to me.

The ad has already aired on CNN and MSNBC, but not on Fox News. It’s not because the group didn’t try; it’s because the network refused the commercial. A spokesperson for VoteVets said Fox News rejected the ad as “too confusing.”

The sad truth is that it is progressive messages that are most likely to be banned, for reasons that should be mystifying, but are actually quite clear. When they don’t run counter to the narrative of overtly political networks like Fox, the run counter to the narrative of the corporations that control the supposedly non-political networks. And then, sometimes, their just too controversial, like the spot referenced in the linked article in which the United Church of Christ propounded the un-Christian message that it welcomed all comers.

They are our airwaves or, in the case of cable systems, regulated monopolies or quasi-monopolies. They are analogous to public accommodations, and Congress should step in and forbid these corporations from refusing to air political messages based on content, unless that content is obscene. To ease feigned concerns, Congress could at the same time relieve the networks from any liability for libel or slander arising from the content of the ads. This will never happen of course; Republicans like the current system too much; and Democrats are too spineless and too addicted to the crumbs they get from the corporate table to do something so clearly in their theoretical interest.

Still, one can dream. After all, we on the left are already bombarded with messages with which we disagree. It could only get better for us.