Ted Stevens to Sanitize Life

From Reuters:

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens said on Tuesday he would push to apply broadcast decency standards to subscription television and radio services like cable and satellite.

"Cable is a much greater violator in the indecency area," the Alaska Republican told the National Association of Broadcasters, which represents most local television affiliates. "I think we have the same power to deal with cable as over-the-air" broadcasters.

"There has to be some standard of decency," he said.

Stevens went on to say that he would also seek to apply decency standards to Europe.  "They're a bunch of degenerates.  There have to be some standards."  Not quite, but what the fuck is he thinking.  Will this be the latest salvo in the culture war?

The notion that we can extend the sphere of "decency" to encompass more and more of American culture is absurd.  Life is not decent, and any art that ignores this fact is useless.  Instead of trying to smash the mirror that great art holds up to society, how about trying to improve society.  Instead of purifying television of unsightly images, how about dealing with the unsightly image of human suffering every day in this country.  Cutting medicaid is indecent.  Kicking the sick and mentally handicapped out onto the street is indecent.  Fuck Ted Stevens and his phony outrage.  Fuck him and his uselessness.  

Deadwood, possibly the most violent and graphic show ever on television, shows more humanity in one episode then Ted Stevens has probably ever shown in his life.  A doctor who has seen the horrors of the Civil War struggles to bring human dignity to a priest who is dying slowly and painfully of a brain tumor and to improve the ability of a crippled woman to walk.  The priest is later euthenised by the unofficial capo of the town in an act of brutal violence and deep compasion.  There is blood and there is violence and, heaven forbid, there is sex.  But there is decency too.  And that is life.

•  Deadwood

  1 more week until the season premier.

  by DaveS on Tue Mar 01, 2005 at 09:37:12 AM PDT

•  First Amendment, Ted

  The Supreme Court has declined to extend the Broadcast Indecency Rule to either cable TV or the Internet.

  by Dump Terry McAuliffe on Tue Mar 01, 2005 at 09:39:12 AM PDT

  •  That's Why They Call It "Broadcasting"

    A whole variety of statutes make a distinction between "broadcasters" who use licensed public frequencies for radio and television distribution and companies who distribute radio and television programs to subscribers over cable or satellite.  This distinction has been in the law for a long time.  

    by eafredel on Tue Mar 01, 2005 at 09:43:49 AM PDT

    •  asdf

      exactly. How on earth can the government regulate a completely private enterprise? He's about 60 years too late to use "interstate commerce" as a blanket justification.

      by Johnny Gentle Famous Crooner on Tue Mar 01, 2005 at 09:52:13 AM PDT

•  at long last, sir

  have you no sense of decency?

  this wasn't relevant, i just thought it might be funny. probably not. damn.

  by gracchus on Tue Mar 01, 2005 at 09:45:52 AM PDT

•  well

  Targetting "Deadwood" and "The Sopranos" is silly--they are creative shows that are challenging to some degree or another. But is it really a liberal or progressive value to defend the real garbage that is out there--the sex trade motif "reality" shows, for example?

  Censorship or sanction is not the way to go, but even if it's rhetorical support of consumer advocacy, we need to remind people that, you know what? we don't want this crap shoved in the faces of kids and families either.

  Of course, I'd rather make the argument that media consolidation homogenizes content and pushes content providers to cut costs, which gives us repetitive show themes and the McTitillation of "reality" porogramming. Boardroom Republicans do far more to enable this dreck than so-called Hollywood liberals, in other words.

  by KevStar on Tue Mar 01, 2005 at 09:48:02 AM PDT

•  I can see an exception for Cable and Internet

  As these mediums are not only pure choice as far as usage goes, but also because they do not use the public "airwaves" to get their message out.

  The same may not be true for Satelite Television and Radio.  I believe both Satelite Television and Satelite radio require the use of frequencies which are the property of the American Pubilc.  Should Congress wish to place restrictions on what people can do on these frequencies after they buy or lease them, the Government may have some arguement here.

  In a real strech, the Telephone and Cable companies which provide internet access, and Cable television are also heavily dependent on the government to grant them easments over my private property to allow them to give service to my neighbors who choose to purchase their services.

  IMHO, the First Ammendment should apply equally to Satelite Broadcasts and Traditional over the air broadcasts.  Additionally, in a pinch the cable companies reliance on Govenment to ensure their product is avaialable may subject them to the same rule.

  The big issue is who the hell are the FCC to tell me what I can't let my children watch.

  by jandrewmorrison on Tue Mar 01, 2005 at 09:50:06 AM PDT

  •  Other way around

    The "exception" to the First Amendment is media that use "public airwaves." That is the thin reed on which government control of their content is based.

    by Elwood Dowd on Tue Mar 01, 2005 at 11:02:34 AM PDT

•  grandstanding

  of course, this is not going to go anywhere - it might continue even deepen the 'freeze' of self-censorship on broadcast networks, but the megacorps make way too much money on the various forms of cable/satellite services to let this happen.

  but it will give Stevens and his fellow fundie-pandering rightists plenty to fill up Scaryborough Country shows for weeks to come.

  by NMRed on Tue Mar 01, 2005 at 09:50:47 AM PDT

  •  yup, you nailed it n/t

    by Johnny Gentle Famous Crooner on Tue Mar 01, 2005 at 09:52:50 AM PDT

  •  Agreed

    Throw a rhetorical bone to the base, then bait and switch and steal their health care/retirement security/candy.
    

    by DaveS on Tue Mar 01, 2005 at 09:56:32 AM PDT

•  These sorts of pronouncements...

  ...along with the legions of people who condemn "rap music" or whatever the outrage of the day is always remind me of something I heard about when I lived in New York.  Perhaps it was an urban myth, but supposedly the City (or State?) of New York spent millions creating and mounting fake interior scenes inside burnt out buildings in the South Bronx that were adjacent to the Cross-Bronx Expressway used by the affluent commuter crowd, among others.  In other words, a window of a charred tenement would be filled with a depiction of a happy family at home, maybe with a flower pot, or a kitty cat snoozing.  

  True or not, it's a useful allegory for what the Stevenses of the world want to do: deal with problems by hiding the symptoms.  Might as well spend an afternoon sweeping the water off the beach at high tide.

  by Gator Keyfitz on Tue Mar 01, 2005 at 09:52:41 AM PDT

•  "limited government" my ass

  this is state-sponsored proselytizing.

  it's not indecent to show someone being murdered, but it is indecent to show them getting making love.

  what a wack, wack, wack nazi shithole we live in!

  by essexblue on Tue Mar 01, 2005 at 10:14:05 AM PDT

•  Imposing Censorship Abroad

  How arrogant is it to seek to impose alleged American standards on us? Particularly as Republicans do not believe in accepting the international consensus on things like Kyoto and the International Criminal Court.

  Shows like The Sopranos are broadcast on terrestrial television in Britain. I do not believe they cause any significant problem or controversy.

  There were some British arguments about indecency on television, which took place a generation ago. These were largely caused by a lady called Mrs Mary Whitehouse, but since her death the whole issue has calmed down.

  by Gary J on Tue Mar 01, 2005 at 10:15:18 AM PDT

•  Infinite bandwidth

  
  This will all be rendered moot very soon:

  Infinite Bandwidth is coming...

  by jgkojak on Tue Mar 01, 2005 at 10:35:01 AM PDT