America gives a shit: was Bush's open-mic gaffe a flaming sack of good news for free speech?AT July's G-8 summit meeting in Russia, as conflict heated up between Israel and the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, a microphone picked up a candid moment between George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair Noun 1. Tony Blair - British statesman who became prime minister in 1997 (born in 1953) Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, Blair . Syria, Bush told Blair, should tell Hezbollah to "stop doing this shit." Oh, if only every broadcast outlet in America had let that little s-bomb onto the air, unbleeped. The so-called Parents Television Council could have unleashed its barrage of computerized complaint. The Federal Communications Commission Federal Communications Commission (FCC), independent executive agency of the U.S. government established in 1934 to regulate interstate and foreign communications in the public interest. would have fined each station $325,000, per the legislation just signed by the Cusser in Chief. At last we would have had a meaty court challenge to indecency INDECENCY. An act against good behaviour and a just delicacy. 2 Serg. & R. 91. 2. The law, in general, will repress indecency as being contrary to good morals, but, when the public good requires it, the mere indecency of disclosures does not suffice to exclude law and the FCC's inconsistent enforcement of it--an opportunity to stand up for the First Amendment against the cynical political prudery Prudery Grundy, Mrs. Ashfields’ straitlaced neighbor whose propriety hinders them. [Br. Lit.: Speed the Plough] nice Nelly excessively modest or prudish woman. [Am. Usage: Misc. of both parties, the overblown o·ver·blown v. Past participle of overblow. adj. 1. a. Done to excess; overdone: overblown decorations. b. influence of religious pressure groups, and the censorship of the FCC (1) (Federal Communications Commission, Washington, DC, www.fcc.gov) The U.S. government agency that regulates interstate and international communications including wire, cable, radio, TV and satellite. The FCC was created under the U.S. . This spring, the FCC declared s-words, like f-words before them, to be a step beyond merely "indecent." Now they are "profane" That means that these "most offensive words in the English language English language, member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages). Spoken by about 470 million people throughout the world, English is the official language of about 45 nations. " will "provoke violent resentment," and that uttering them on the public airwaves is as good as guaranteed to be punished. The commissioners crossed a line there. For as the president himself demonstrated, shit and its variants are political speech. If Bush had told Tony Blair at the G-8 meeting that Syria needed to get Hezbollah to stop this "humbug" or this "no-no" it would have lost impact. How can you talk politics without these words? Isn't calling bullshit on politicians the essence of free speech and reason in a democracy? And so the FCC now censors and chills political speech--even that of the president, for most broadcast outlets did choose to bleep him for fear of fines. Mind you, the commission does recognize some constitutionally protected speech. That is why it has not ruled racial or religious epithets to be profane: because those words can be political. In the FCC's skewed skewed curve of a usually unimodal distribution with one tail drawn out more than the other and the median will lie above or below the mean. skewed Epidemiology adjective Referring to an asymmetrical distribution of a population or of data logic, then, the n-word is political speech but BS is not. So whose community standards Community standards are local norms bounding acceptable conduct. Sometimes these standards can itemized in a list that states the community's values and sets guidelines for participation in the community. is the FCC upholding? The FCC says all America is provoked to "violent resentment" over bullshit. Well, bullshit. Show me the man, woman, or, yes, child in a schoolyard who has not uttered the word. Search Google, and you will find 32 million bullshits. Bullshit is part of our language, culture, and politics. The FCC is not enforcing the nation's community standards. It is enforcing the taboos of a few religious pressure groups. Note well, then, the religious overtones of the FCC playing the profanity Irreverence towards sacred things; particularly, an irreverent or blasphemous use of the name of God. Vulgar, irreverent, or coarse language. The use of certain profane or obscene language on the radio or television is a federal offense, but in other situations, profanity card for the first time in its history. Profanity is by definition "contempt or irreverence for what is sacred." And so who is to say what is sacred? Politicians ? Preachers? The Parents Television Council? Or parents? The FCC is setting itself up not only as America's latter-day ecclesiastical court and nanny but also as our official cultural critic. This year, the commissioners penalized pe·nal·ize tr.v. pe·nal·ized, pe·nal·iz·ing, pe·nal·iz·es 1. To subject to a penalty, especially for infringement of a law or official regulation. See Synonyms at punish. 2. a public TV documentary, The Blues: Godfathers and Sons, for its subjects' language. Yet the commission earlier made exceptions for the Steven Spielberg films Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List. So when black musicians say bad words, it is a crime. When white people in war say them, it is art. It is not the government's role to decide what has social and artistic value and what does not. That is for the marketplace to decide. Even FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein acknowledged, on National Public Radio's On the Media, that if the FCC "oversteps in these cases and the court knocks us down ... it would actually take a constitutional amendment, amending the First Amendment, to get the FCC authority back "That sounds like a golden opportunity. Find one station that broadcast Bush's "shit" file a complaint, dare the FCC to levy its fine--and then dare broadcasters, journalists, artists, and anyone who believes in free speech to stand up and fight for bullshit. Jeff Jarvis (jeffarvis@gmail.com) is a blogger at Buzzmachine.com and professor at City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism. |
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