Thought Police And The Death Of Improvisation

By now this Imus stuff has been covered to excess and the details don’t need to be rehashed. I am going to go over a few things that bug me.

A bunch of these people that support Imus being fired refer to him as a “wrinkled up, old, white man”. Why is that OK if, at least part of, the issue is insensitivity?

NBC news president Steve Capus: In an effort to imply that NBC has integrity, this guy has said that the decision to drop Imus was based on feedback from employees rather than the fact that sponsors were pulling out. That just defies logic.

Al Sharpton: I have been hearing some stuff regarding his past foibles and his apparent inability to apologize for his own mistakes but what interests me is this business of the F.C.C. and the public airwaves or “airways” he keeps talking about.

If what Sharpton wanted was Imus to get fired then, the system worked. The public reacted, the sponsors balked and the show was cancelled. What Sharpton wants is to change the system. What he wants is censorship.

All of this stuff about “public airways” is nebulous. How can anybody own an airwave? Broadcasting (radio and T.V.), exists and developed as a business. From the start, people spent money building radio stations, towers etc., in order to sell stuff. Broadcasting is, a bunch of ads with content placed in between the ads to keep you tuned in. If the content offends the public, they won’t tune in, won’t be exposed to the ads and won’t buy the stuff. So, we the public, control the content. Evidently, we are not offended enough by rap lyrics to stop buying. When we are, the evil lyrics will only be heard by those who seek them out.

If there is an entity governing content, you have taken power out of the people’s hands. At that point, it is the regulation of ideas. You can’t regulate ideas, you can’t control thoughts.

As it is, the F.C.C. regulates who can have a license to broadcast and because of their stewardship, the vast majority of licenses are owned by huge corporations. Personallly, I think that is enough thought control already.

One reason that I listened to Imus was that there was an element of improvisation. I am a huge fan of improv. There is nothing more American than improv. Jazz/blues/Rock and Roll were borne of improv. When I was a kid, going to a lot of concerts, if I saw a band that played exactly the same thing that was on the record, I felt like I was getting ripped off. You see, music is a form of communication and I wanted the band to communicate, in some way, where they were at, in the moment. I already bought the record. As an adult, I find myself listening to talk radio when I am in the car, hoping to hear somebody speak their mind in the moment, rather than some script. Even if I disagree, especially if I disagree, I prefer to get someones real thoughts. That is a stretch though, because most of it is scripted as well.

We are moving forward, at light speed, to a world where everything we consume, food, art, music, TV, radio, movies, books is homoginized, perfected, cleaned up and precisely chosen for us and if we are demanding increased regulation, we are clamoring for more of the same.