(TV) Good or Bad? I dunno, yet

["Mark G. Ryan" <mgryan@cruzio.com>]

"eRacerX" <eracerx@adelphia.net> wrote:
> 
> http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/02/07/2240240&mode=thread&tid=141
> 
> Clear Channel already controls the minds of millions, so now they are trying
> to get me, too ?

Well, I suppose the root of the problem is the US Constitution, isn't it?
It protects us from the government controlling speech,  but not from one 
corporation buying every radio station or newspaper in America.
(Of course FCC regulation govern how many radio stations one company can 
own in a given market, but they've been largely "deregulated").  

Likewise, the cops can't kick in your door in the middle of the night 
without a warrant, but a bounty hunter can.  And a shopping mall can post
rules prohibiting assemblies.  And nothing would prevent someone from buying 
up the mortgages on every church in America and telling them what kind of 
services they can perform--as long as it wasn't the government doing the
buying.

The crowning glory of this came when the Supreme court decided that
corporate advertising--such as TV commericals selling expensive sneakers 
to inner city kids--was protected free speech.  Corporations now are
not only legal "persons", they now have human rights.

"Land of the free" means "free free government--serfs to corporations".
We can blame the founders.  They'd already seen what the East India 
and Hudson's Bay Company could do (e.g., the East India company had a
private navy and made private arrests) and should have been more careful.
At least Franklin, who published a newspaper, should have known that you
can't have a free press if one guy owns all the presses (but I believe
by that time he owned all of the newspapers in Pennsylvania).

Expect to see more private companies controlling whole aspects of American 
life in the future: media, elections, schools, prisons, medicine, etc.
ClearChannel is just a harbinger of things to come.

Mark
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