Land Of The Free?

Filed September 24, 2001

Friends,

As you will see from today's column, we need your help if we are to stop ABC from canceling "Politically Incorrect." A small group of zealots have intentionally distorted comments made by Bill Maher, and succeeded in putting the show's future in jeopardy. If you agree that we can simultaneously rally around the flag and allow dissent and free speech to flourish, please email comments directly to ABC at netaudr@abc.com.

Also, if you know anybody in the ABC or Disney hierarchy, please give them a call. This is not just about one show -- it's about avoiding the first step on a really dangerous slippery slope. Thank you so much.

Arianna

LAND OF THE FREE?

Since Sept. 11, we've been told again and again that our failure to act in a certain way would be the moral equivalent of allowing the terrorists to win. As in: "If we don't get back to work, they win"; or "If we don't go ahead and play football this weekend, they win"; or "If this changes the way we think about Arab-Americans, they win."

And, in a way, it's true -- few us of are going to be fighting the battle on the ground in Afghanistan, but there are ways in which we can all do our part. Ways that include resolutely defending values that define our country. But just as this new military battleground is going to be complicated and risky, so, too, is the one at home. And in the last few days, there is one front where it appears that our enemies might be winning: the First Amendment. To the extent that we give up our fundamental freedoms of expression and dissent, then, yes, "they" have clearly won.

One of those battles is going on right now. It involves Bill Maher, who has been excoriated for what he said on "Politically Incorrect" last week. But excoriation -- a valuable form of free speech -- is not a problem. Censorship is.

Aren't "they" winning when three ABC affiliates, including the Washington, D.C., station, cancel the show?

Aren't "they" winning when networks cave in to rabble-rousing, self-promoting radio shock jocks like Dan Patrick from Houston who started this tempest in a teapot, and who midweek called the show to suggest himself as a guest?

And aren't "they" winning when major sponsors like Federal Express and Sears put a higher price on their corporate image than on the essential democratic ingredient of free speech by pulling their ads? These companies have no problems defending capitalism, but they shrink from defending the values that make it possible.

When the country just learned with such penetrating anguish what real terror is, how can the corporate logo polishers fear Bill Maher? Particularly when the point he was making was such an important one.

So what, exactly, was his point?

In response to guest Dinesh D'Souza's assertion that people who are willing to die in service to their cause, whatever else they may be, are not "cowards," Maher said: "We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly."

I was sitting next to Bill when he said this. And not only did I not object, I wholeheartedly agreed. In fact, in the past, I've made much the same criticism of a foreign policy that obliges our military to fight at great remove from the theater of battle. It was a mistake when we bombed a pharmaceutical factory in the Sudan, and it was a mistake when we killed the very Albanian refugees we were trying to protect with our indiscriminate carpet-bombing of Kosovo.

President Bush, himself, has been making much the same point that Bill Maher did: "It will not look like the air war above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops were used and not a single American was lost in combat."

Presumably, if Maher had made those same comments on Sept. 10, nobody would have batted an eyelid. But by uttering the same opinion seven days later, he put the very existence of his show at risk.

Have we all gone mad?

What becomes of a country when opinions considered perfectly legitimate -- and indeed uttered by hundreds of academics, journalists and members of Congress -- suddenly become a crime worthy of the media death penalty?

If the attacks on innocent American lives end up making us more like our attackers, don't they most spectacularly win? And don't the corporate sponsors, the affiliates and ABC itself see the inconsistency in the fact that, as a way of showing solidarity against the Taliban, they are using the Taliban's trademark weapon -- the stifling of dissent?

Isn't freedom what we're fighting for? And isn't lack of freedom -- including freedom of the press -- the hallmark of our enemies?

"Cowardly" was the injurious word uttered by Maher. Well, let me use it now where it really belongs -- to describe ABC if it decides to cancel a show that is, after all, called "Politically Incorrect."

The show in question was the first since the attack. At curtain time, the studio was electric with anxiety. "Politically Incorrect," though it deals with serious subjects, is, after all, a satirical program. So we all held our breath as Bill stepped onto the tightrope.

Maher's tone-setting opening comments, which took the place of his usual monologue, were nothing short of brilliant and -- in light of the media firestorm that followed -- remarkably prescient.

"I do not relinquish," he said, "nor should any of you, the right to criticize, even as we support, our government. This is still a democracy, and they're still politicians ... Political correctness itself is something we can no longer afford. Feelings are gonna get hurt so that actual people won't, and that will be a good thing." At the end of the show, the audience rose in a standing ovation -- something I had never seen before.

As well as being the host of the show, Bill is my friend. And, as his friend, I was really proud of him. Proud of how perfect a note he had struck between rallying around the flag, showing grief and expressing dissent. How he had shown that they are not mutually contradictory. And everything that has happened since has only made me prouder of him -- and more disgusted at the politically correct cowards who are trying to stifle him.

We cannot let them succeed, for, as Benjamin Franklin put it, "Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."

Link

-- Uncle Deedah (unkeed@yahoo.com), September 24, 2001

Answers

I've never seen the show, but I agree with the theme of this article. Hell, I consider it silly to not play the music that some have considered "insensitive" at this time. Life IS.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), September 24, 2001.

Hold on there sports fans. If you desire to champion the concepts of free speech, then you must include those who wish to voice their disapproval at the words of Bill Maher. He enjoys the exalted position of playing to a national TV audience on a major network. Free speech must also include those who are angered by his words and those who pay to sponsor his activities. Remember, free speech is a ‘one size fits all’ umbrella. I don’t see anyone rushing to defend Jerry Farwell, as nauseous as his comments may have been. Same umbrella folks.

Arriana certainly has the right to express her feelings and defend her friend. Those who consider Bill Maher to be an over paid smart- ass have those same rights and have apparently expressed themselves in copious quantities.

-- So (cr@t.es), September 24, 2001.

". If you desire to champion the concepts of free speech, then you must include those who wish to voice their disapproval at the words of Bill Maher."

Um, Socrates, guy, no one, but no one is suggesting that people who don't like Bill Maher should be gagged or jailed or forcibly shut up by the government, so they become unable to voice their disapproval.

That is exactly as far as free speech goes. I am really disappointed in you for even suggesting that free speech means anything but what is already at work here.

All I see here is the wonderful action of combatting the free speech of someone you don't agree with by indulging your own free speech to the hilt. Viva freedom! This is how it works. More free speech as the remedy for other free speech.

Buy a clue, Soc.

-- Miserable SOB (misery@misery.com), September 24, 2001.

TV isn't about the first ammendment. Maher's safe as long as the ad bucks keep flowing. If they don't he's toast. Ask Dr. Laura.

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), September 24, 2001.

Well Miserable, I have a large bag of clues and I’ll give you one free of charge. This piece by Arriana is nothing but classic spin and you appear to have been caught in the web. She is confusing the reactions of the sponsors and the network with good old censorship. Bullshit!

The sponsors are paying large to sell their goodies on Maher’s show. When the very people that they are trying to reach are expressing their anger, we call that free speech. If these same sponsors express their displeasure by redirecting advertising funds to a more positive venue, we call that free speech in another form.

When the networks have a show that garners massive complaints from all over the country (free speech again), then they have the right to exercise free speech in the form of canceling the show.

The action known as free speech comes in many forms and should not be confused with censorship. Funny thing, it seems that only the little guy gets to speak his mind freely…the corporate voice is always labeled as censorship.

Further clues will be priced according to free market value.

-- So (cr@t.es), September 24, 2001.

Socrates, you said: "If you desire to champion the concepts of free speech, then you must include those who wish to voice their disapproval at the words of Bill Maher."

I said that NO ONE was NOT including "those who wish to voice their disapproval at the words of Bill Maher."

I was right. Nothing you said proved me wrong. You set up a straw man. I just pointed it out. Thanks for your input. I love you, man.

-- Miserable SOB (misery@misery.com), September 24, 2001.

But sir, Arianna herself is trying to exclude these dissenting voices by labeling them as cowards, zealots, and the like. But then, this too is HER right of free speech.

(White Flag Waving)

-- So (cr@t.es), September 24, 2001.

I'm just playing devil's advocate here, so don't chop ME off at the knees:

What's fit to air and what isn't?

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), September 25, 2001.

I've heard Bill O'Reilly interview Maher. I still don't get the point he was trying to make. It's the term coward that's throwing me. I don't see us as cowards for using our military missiles. And I don't view these wackos as heros (the opposite of cowards) for flying into the WTC.

In any event, Bill can say whatever he chooses and the sponsors can support any programming they choose. Free speech and free markets. Isn't America great!

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), September 25, 2001.

I have always thought that suicide is a cowardly, self-indulgent, selfish act. And to take 7000 innocents with you is way beyond cowardice.

Would Adolph Eichmann have been lauded for bravery if he had jumped into the ovens with his victims?

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), September 26, 2001.

Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect is on ABC after Nightline.
He is NOT a liberal. He voted libertarian.
He does not bias his show one way or the other, he always has 4 guests from every political bent.
The discussions are usually "Politically Inncorrect", current events and subjects which are normally ignored in the regular media.
Lot's of opinions and assumptions from people who haven't even watched the show.


-- Cherri (jessam6@home.com), September 26, 2001.

I've not listened to him much but what I did hear from him leaned left in a big way. He said he supports our military. Kinda funny when he comments they are cowards, huh?

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), September 26, 2001.

He didn't say they were cowards. He was saying sending the military over to blow them into the stone age was cowardly. (Especially since they are already there and most of the population hates the Talibon).

-- Cherri (jessam6@home.com), September 26, 2001.