CT Blue

The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. So they say anyway.

Every day we see evidence that we haven’t been vigilant enough.

Clear Channel Communications, which dominates radio in this country, has silently decreed that Bruce Springsteen’s new album will not be played on its stations. Apparently even its rather cryptic criticisms of our exalted leader are too much. Clear Channel can do this because its stranglehold on the radio industry renders it impervious to competition in the over the air radio marketplace. It achieved that dominance because Congress, the entity we pay to be vigilant on our behalf, repealed the laws that barred a single entity from owning huge numbers of radio outlets. This happened, dear readers, on Clinton’s watch. Democrats and Republicans joined hands to wrest the nations radio stations from local owners to hand them over to the mega corporations.

As a result we see a corporation free to ignore what would, on the surface, appear to be its own best interests. After all, Springsteen’s album is at the top of the charts. It would seem to be good commercial sense to play it. Indeed, in those long ago days it would have been played, because no single station would have had any interest in currying favor with, much less becoming an appendage of, any particular political party or national politician. (The Big D, as I recall played both Barry Sadler and Barry McGuire) But Clear Channel has other concerns than merely turning a profit, and in any event, it is impervious to competition. It has a political ax to grind, and in the long run, it is confident that keeping that ax sharp is more important than keeping the customer satisfied.

The unsettling part of all this is the fact that in 1996, when the Telecommunications Act was passed, it was already apparent that corporate radio equaled Republican radio. Rush and his clones were already a political force. We can extend that statement a bit, actually. It was apparent that corporate media equals Republican media. It was definitely in the interests of Democrats to block this shift toward corporate ownership, at least if we assume that they are interested in remaining a viable political force. Yet they were, and are, curiously uninterested in taming the corporate media or doing anything meaningful to combat media consolidation. It’s almost as if the national party has priorities other than winning or, for that matter, maintaining a level playing field. It is somewhat reminiscent of the Democrats curious silence in the face of massive evidence of vote stealing by the Republicans in the last two presidential elections. (If you still doubt that Kerry won in 2004, I urge you to read Greg Palast’s Armed Madhouse, where it is all nicely put together, or visit his website, read the various articles, and piece it together yourself. You can start with this one).

What we are seeing is a merger of the corporate media world with the Republican party. Corporations like Clear Channel are more than willing to take a tiny little hit to the bottom line to advance the long term interests of the Republican-Corporate complex. Don’t fool yourself into believing that the dire straits in which the Republicans now find themselves will last forever. All they need is a Democratic president and a compliant media. Suddenly folks like Clear Channel and NBC, which simply can’t tolerate disrespect for this president (re; NBC, remember the Dixie Chicks) will discover the patriotism inherent in non-stop attacks on the president in particular and Democrats in general. It won’t take long for them to propagandize their way back into power. And remember, they don’t really need to always be in power. Look at all the harm they’ve managed to do in just six long years. It would take a Franklin Roosevelt 20 years to clean up this mess, and folks, we don’t have any Franklin Roosevelts available. It is a tribute to them that they manage to hold power roughly three quarters of the time, when they espouse policies destructive to about 95% of the electorate. They couldn’t do it if they didn’t have a monopoly on framing the issues and they wouldn’t have that monopoly if they didn’t have a media monopoly.