Ever since Rush Limbaugh made those horrendous comments about Sandra Fluke, many people, myself included, have been and are up in arms. There has been a massive grass roots campaign to convince advertisers not to advertise on his show. Many advertisers, being sensitive to public opinion, have responded by pulling their ads. Needless to say, our voices are being heard about this situation.
Though we are seeing the early results of people power in action, it makes one wonder how much change those grassroots efforts will bring about? Will merely getting his show canceled fix the circumstances that helped to spawn the flock of conservative talk shows that dominate the radio airwaves or just silence Rush? Will it fix the flood of, what I feel is, intentional misinformation that many of the conservative talk shows spew out on a daily basis? The answer is a resounding NO!
The only way that talk radio will become anything more than a medium that spews out right-wing propaganda and serves as giant megaphone for mega-corporations that want to reduce us to mere servitude, is by each one of us putting the same effort into making our electeds re-regulate the broadcast media that we did in the current situation with Limbaugh. We need to make sure that our electeds restore the old regulatory standards that were decimated under the
Reagan and
Clinton administrations. We need to let them know that the airwaves are not bits of electronic real estate to be
auctioned off to the highest bidder, but are a natural resource that is owned by each and every one of us and assigned to those who can prove that they will use their licenses to operate in the public convenience, interest and necessity.
What that translates to is, to paraphrase the Occupy movement; WHOSE AIRWAVES? OUR AIRWAVES! Remember, whoever controls the broadcast media, controls the hearts and minds of most Americans. If we can get the airwaves back, we'll get our country back!
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