CBS/Viacom Steps Up for Bush

It looks like CBS/Viacom has decided to publicly step up for the Bush Administration by refusing to run MoveOn.org's anti-Bush campaign ads during the Super Bowl...one of the most watched shows of the year. They claim that they have a long standing policy of not running "advocacy advertisements" but that they do run "political advertising" for or against candidates.

Ummm...what?!?!? CBS and affiliates have a LONG history of running "issue advertisements" that are thinly veiled attacks against specific candidates...one of the targets of McCain-Feingold. Plus they run anti-smoking and other advocacy ads all the time.

Even if you accept this crap about not running "advocacy advertisements," look at the MoveOn.org ad...it specifically attacks President Bush. If that's not a political advertisement against a candidate, I don't know what is!!!

Check out the full story, then give CBS a piece of your mind:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040116/tv_nm/media_superbowl_dc_1

http://www.cbs.com (Use Feedback link at bottom of page)

Sam

P.S. For those of you paying attention...THIS is why we need a Green Party. The Greens have been yelling about the dangers of corporate media consolidation for years and Nader made it a major campaign issue while Gore and the corporate-owned/DLC wing of the Democrats stayed silent. Now that it's gone so far that the corporate media is censoring the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, do you think the DLC will stand up for YOU? I'm not holding my breath.

Once again, by saying they are the opposition party but then not opposing and attacking the people who do, the DLC Democrats prevent any real progressive opposition from coming together.

And those "if you smoke a joint, you support terrorism" ads aren't?

...you can't work with them anymore. Remember, our media were in the business of brainwashing the public into accepting a war... just as they brainwashed the public into accepting the 2000 election results so that FL could discard prior interpretation of voting regulations and allow overseas ballots that were not postmarked or nor on time; they told us that voters worried about whether the voting machines operated correctly and wrote-in the same candidate they had punched were over-voting (normally, over-voting is defined as a vote for more than one candidate running the same office). This "clear voter intent" was not good enough The USSC case was political, and widespread public knowledge of these points would probably have swayed at least one justice to the other side.

So they made this presidency to do their bidding.

What do we do with these bastards? I have a suggestion:




Least of all should we incessantly repeat everything they say; we're not just passing their links around and increasing their ad revenues, we're spreading all the more subtle assumptions that their "news" engenders. We don't need them, we don't need to watch them, we can get what we need online and in print from other parties; find an appealing way to spread this sentiment and we'll be off to the right start.