Norman Lear's meltdown

[Plane]

....For example, 30 years ago we had something called the Fairness Doctrine. The Fairness Doctrine, enforced by the FCC, held that the media provide balance and objectivity in its news and discussion shows. So, for example, when People for the American Way saw Pat Robertson espousing only one point of view on a political matter -- and on a religious broadcast at that -- we notified the FCC and that ministry, often the entire Christian Broadcasting Network, was forced to provide us with equal time to respond. That sounds right, doesn't it? Fair and balanced news reporting? Where have we heard that before? People For used the Fairness Doctrine so effectively until it was repealed in 1987.

The fairness doctrine was not accidentaly repealed, the effect of garunteeing speech to all was to quash the speech of most.
How is the government supposed to be a fair arbiter of such speech?

   As it is speech that most agree with has a lot of advantage and speech that has few supporters struggles to be heard , but isn't that a good thing?

    Imagine that every rinkidink poorly thought out thought must be given equal time when ever any political or religious or fininchal opinion was aired?

[hnumpah]

Join the irrelevency H.  Glad to have you aboard.  You need your turn at a meltdown?   

No need. Reading your meltdown was enough hilarity to keep me going for a while.

Where's your outrage when Rush or any of the other right-wingers/Republicans make similar statements/claims?

Where's the outrage?

ROFLMAO

[BT]

It is ironic that Lear is accused of a meltdown for pointing out what he perceived as a a bias in the national media, by the same person whose mission is to point out bias in the media.

[Plane]

It is ironic that Lear is accused of a meltdown for pointing out what he perceived as a a bias in the national media, by the same person whose mission is to point out bias in the media.

  I thought Lear was admitting that the mission of his life was to engender a bias in the Media.

No?

[BT]

He saw a bias in the media, specifically from the religious right and formed an organization to counter that, primarily by misusing the Fairness Doctrine, and attempting to set the record straight as he sees it.

Our poster sees a bias in the media and makes it his mission to point it out, hopefully by setting the record straight as he sees it.

Not much difference other than taking direct action between the two.

So yeah both counter bias with bias.

[Plane]

What is the lesson we can take away?

That by spending a lot of money you can make a social tool out of the main part of the media?

[sirs]

Join the irrelevency H.  Glad to have you aboard.  You need your turn at a meltdown?   

Where's your outrage when Rush or any of the other right-wingers/Republicans make similar statements/claims?

Where's the outrage?

Outrage at what?  Give me an example

[BT]

What is the lesson we can take away?

That by spending a lot of money you can make a social tool out of the main part of the media?

I think the lesson learned is do your own research. if it doesn't sound like the whole story it probably isn't.

[hnumpah]

Join the irrelevency H.  Glad to have you aboard.  You need your turn at a meltdown?   

Where's your outrage when Rush or any of the other right-wingers/Republicans make similar statements/claims?

Where's the outrage?

Outrage at what?  Give me an example

Okay, let's start with Rush...http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2549.

The plain fact is, you have your opinions and biases and your agenda, just as Lear has his. It's really hilarious to see you rant on so much about his, when you and other nattering nabobs of the right wing are just as guilty. Both sides go out of their way to make 'their side' look good and the 'other side' look bad. Like you posted a snippet of an entire speech to try to make Lear look bad, but once one looked at the entire speech and saw it in context, well, a whole different story emerged. Watching you meltdown over it with BT provided me with enough chuckles, knee slappers and uproarious laughter to almost make me forget the troubles of the last year.

[sirs]

Everyone has opinions H.  I requested an example of something I should be outraged at, not a link.  I'm a frequent critique of the right, when it bears such.  Please provide quote (and context hopefully) similar to the outrage one should be aiming at Lear, for the quotes and context provided for him.  Time of quote would be helpful too

Ball in your court, or keep up with your meltdown.  Either works for me

[Plane]

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2549.[/url]

   I like Rush Limbaugh, but I don't listen to him often enough to have caught him in any blatant racism.
   What he complains about constantly tho, is being misquoted.

   This doesn't read like something an admierer wrote of him , can we be sure that the writer was carefully accurate?

[sirs]

I think the bigger point that H is missing, is that in all the years Rush has been broadcasting his opinion, as a talk show radio opinion producer, is that there may have been moments he did breech a level of decency, and made some completely irrational remarks.  If H could provide some examples of such, we could then look at them, in the context as to his articulating them, then proclaim, or not, any outrage that should be appointed to those that indeed should garner such. 

For some reason though, when someone on the left, makes completely asanine, or in this case, paranoid comments, just because they do it in front of an equally paranoid audience, that means its ok, is largely immune from criticism, unless it apparently comes from the left.  And any criticism that isn't from the left is tantamount to a "meltdown"?  Pretty bassackwards if you ask me, especially with Bt even agreeing with them        And no, it's not Lear claiming the right doesn't have its own noise machine, so we can dispense with that tact, as its not at issue

[Christians4LessGvt]

CBS Offers Fawning Profile of Left-Wing Activist Norman Lear

By Kyle Drennen
 
On Sunday, CBS's Bill Whitaker praised the liberal activism of former TV producer Norman Lear: "But in 1980, the king turned his back on his TV empire. He grew alarmed as evangelical Christian preachers grew more visibly and vocally involved in politics with views and tactics he found divisive. He responded the way he knew best, on TV."

Whitaker, reporting for CBS Sunday Morning, went on to describe Lear's efforts: "His ads spawned People For The American Way, his grass roots civics organization to keep Americans aware and protective of their rights." No liberal label was given for the left-wing "civics organization." Whitaker asked Lear: "What is it about the approach of the Religious Right that so rankles you?" Lear responded: "Politics and religion are not the American way. My contention is every individual's compact with God, with that, is different from every other individual's. So don't come to me with your compact and insist it must be mine. America is open to all of them."

Whitaker mentioned Lear's political leanings near the end of the story, but did so in the context of declaring Lear's non-partisan goals: "And while his own politics are decidedly liberal, he preaches that democracy only truly works when everyone is involved. His latest endeavor "Born Again American"...Using song to urge Americans to get off the side lines and get engaged in civic life...And this is bipartisan?" Lear explained: "It's totally bipartisan. I think of myself, by the way, as a bleeding heart conservative. You will not mess with my Bill of Rights." Whitaker concluded: "He defends everyone's rights. Those like him who support President Obama...And those who don't."

Earlier in the segment, Whitaker described Lear's work in television as having a major, predominantly liberal, influence on society: "Lear has been changing our world for decades...The topics, racism, rape, homosexuality, miscarriage. Never seen on TV before...Lear took our anxiety at the social upheaveal at the time, Vietnam, the women's movement, civil rights and invited us to face it with a laugh...Always pushing our buttons. Always pushing the envelope."

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drennen/2009/06/08/cbs-offers-fawning-profile-left-wing-activist-norman-lear

[Plane]

Earlier in the segment, Whitaker described Lear's work in television as having a major, predominantly liberal, influence on society: "Lear has been changing our world for decades...The topics, racism, rape, homosexuality, miscarriage. Never seen on TV before...Lear took our anxiety at the social upheaveal at the time, Vietnam, the women's movement, civil rights and invited us to face it with a laugh...Always pushing our buttons. Always pushing the envelope."

   Well, this is not all bad.
    If Women can fight rape better with the leagal system that is definately a good thing.
     Can Women also exercise their second admendment right for rape prevention?

       I don't really think that using the Draft for the fight in Vietnam was a good thing, but I do pity the plight of the Vietnameese who are unwilling communists ever since we stopped trying.

        Perhaps we need to have absoluteists to make the arguments , but we also need moderates to keep us out of the grass that is off the pavement on both sides of the road.

[Christians4LessGvt]

Will Free Speech-Champion Norman Lear
Speak Out Against the New Blacklist?

by Ben Shapiro

The spirit of the First Amendment is being violated every day in Hollywood.  Liberal faux-cognoscenti discriminate against conservatives, forcing them into the proverbial closet.  They do it socially by refusing to invite them to the parties where business happens; they do it professionally by refusing to work with them; they do it unconsciously by shying away from anyone with a differing opinion, assuming that conservatives are incapable of empathetic writing, producing, or acting.



So where are all those liberals who opposed McCarthyism now, when the evidence of such discrimination is out in the open?  Where are they, condemning those like Vin Di Bona (America's Funniest Home Videos), who celebrates discrimination, or Nicholas Meyer (Star Trek II, IV, and VI), who hopes discrimination takes place?  Where are they, following up on comments by David Shore (House) that conservatives have it rough in Hollywood, or responding to Leonard Goldberg's (Blue Bloods, Charlie's Angels) accusations of anti-conservative blacklisting in the industry?

Nowhere to be found.

And where is the Dean of First Amendment rights in Hollywood?

Missing.

I've put in two calls to Norman Lear (All in the Family), perhaps the most-respected show creator in Hollywood history.  Neither has been returned.  The Hollywood Reporter has called him.  No response.  This despite the fact that an organization he co-founded the Caucus for Producers, Writers and Directors, is being torn apart as a result of the comments made by Di Bona, and despite the fact that the same Caucus now refuses to pass an anti-discrimination resolution.

Where is this champion of First Amendment freedoms?  This is the same Norman Lear who railed against the Family Viewing Hour back in the 1980s, filing a lawsuit to prevent its implementation on First Amendment grounds.  This is the same Norman Lear who founded People for the American Way in order to preserve his liberal interpretation of the First Amendment.  This is the same Norman Lear who spent $8.1 million to buy an original copy of the Declaration of Independence so that he could tour the country and give Americans a first-hand look at their "birth certificate" firsthand.

Norman Lear says he "loves being associated with the First Amendment."  He explained at the Ford Hall Forum that literature, the vehicle of ideas, must be unrestricted by the political, religious, or moral dictates of the controlling group of the day.  There can be no freedom of expression in the full sense, Mill said, unless all facets of life can be portrayed, no matter how repulsive the disclosures may be to some people.  "Those who desire to suppress an opinion deny its truth," Mill continued, "but they are not infallible."

Lear constantly focuses on the "Moral Majority mind-set," which he says stifles freedom of speech. But today, it is the Hollywood left that violates freedom of speech.  Lear once stated, "if we agree that the American experiment is based on the conviction that a healthy society is best maintained not by an attempt to impose uniformity, but through a free and open interchange of differing opinions, then the dogma of the Religious New Right violates the spirit of the First Amendment and the spirit of liberty."

It is not the Religious New Right, as Lear terms them, but the Hollywood left that attempts to impose uniformity, violating the spirit of the First Amendment in the process.  Norman Lear must lead the charge against discrimination in Hollywood. If he does not, he is worse than a hypocrite, he is a partisan hack who uses the First Amendment as a club when it suits him and a discardable shibboleth when it does not.  Lear would then be emblematic of the entire Hollywood establishment, which whines about blacklisting when it targets communists but practices it regularly with regard to political conservatives.

It's time for Norman Lear to stand up and be counted, to speak truth to power.  If he leads, the Hollywood left will follow.  That would be a true act of heroism.


http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bshapiro/2011/06/13/will-free-speech-champion-norman-lear-stan-up-against-the-new-blacklist/