Essay: "Music Censorship", Part 3 of Several

Essay:  "Music Censorship", Part 3 of Several

   [Note: The original version of this essay first appeared in Eastern Connecticut State University's Campus Lantern student newspaper in the early '90s and as part of my unpublished manuscript  "In Mediocrity We Trust... In Debt We Die" And Other Essays before record labelling was imposed nationwide.]

       Tipper Gore, I must admit, seems sweeter and a lot less arrogant than most would-be censors, but I don't approve of what she has done nevertheless. Members of the PMRC desired warning labels on records indicating such  'offenses' as sexual innuendoes, profanity, violence, rape and murder, plus implicit or explicit attacks on religion, or alleged encouragement of evil or Satanism. I suppose certain subjects children ideally should not be exposed to, but in a supposedly free society that is up to parents and not the government or other busybodies. The members of the PMRC claim that record labeling is not a form of censorship, but what else can it be called? By the way, since ignorance is bliss, the blissfully ignorant will likely allow record labeling lead to censorship of lyrics and concert performances, pulling of certain music recordings from stores, blacklisting of certain artists who make their living in the music industry (many of which have already occurred),; plus further whittling away of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and freedom of choice in all of its forms. This whole situation seems to parallel McCarthyism and the resultant Hollywood blacklisting.  (to be cont'd)   

Essay: "Music Censorship", Part 2 of Several

Essay: "Music Censorship", Part 2 of Several

[Note: The original version of this essay first appeared in Eastern Connecticut State University's Campus Lantern student newspaper in the early '90s and in my unpublished manuscript  "In Mediocrity We Trust... In Debt We Die" And Other Essays before record labelling went into effect.]

        Until the last decade or so, no one even thought of labelling records, that is until some busy-body senator's wives started squawking about so-called  "morally offensive music videos and lyrics." About the time that Ronald Reagan came into power, Tipper Gore, wife of former Tennessee senator and later veep Albert Gore, formed the Parents Music Resource Center (the PMRC). The PMRC is mostly made up of the wives of Congressmen and other politically connected individuals; apparently with nothing better to do than to try to use their husbands' collective political influence to do their part in chipping away at our First Amendment rights by trying to impose the labelling of controversial or allegedly  'offensive' music.  By the way, Tipper Gore's involvement with the PMRC may have cost her husband, Al, the Democratic nomination for President in the 1988 election.  (to be cont'd) 

       

 

Essay: "Music Censorship", Part 1 of Several

Essay: "Music Censorship", Part 1 of Several

  [The original version of this essay first appeared in Eastern Connecticut State University's Campus Lantern  student newspaper in the early  '90s and as part of my unpublished manuscript  "In Mediocrity We Trust... In Debt We Die" And Other Essays before record label censorship was imposed.]

       There were bills (in the early '90s) in at least seven states to require warning labels on records which were deemed offensive or inappropriate for children. Alabama, for instance, already had laws promoting censorship of music, in which record store owners or employees could actually be arrested for selling records (usually to minors) deemed morally offensive by local authorities. Florida likewise had a nearly identical bill. Many of these bills advocating the enforcement of record labelling went into law nationwide. (to be cont'd)

Essay: "Dancing with Censorship", Part 5 of Several

Essay: "Dancing with Censorship", Part 5 of 5

       These alleged morality groups, who are anything but moral, are so persistent that bookstores and certain publishers filed a Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) lawsuit against one such group, and the American Publisher's Association paid for an ad urging American's to support First Amendment rights. The advertisement, which appeared in many newspapers nationwide read:

       "I agree. Americans have the right to buy, stores have the right to sell, authors have the right to write, and publishers have the right to publish Constitutionally protected material. Period."

 I couldn't say it better myself.  Please support that right. Heed the message. Don't allow a small minority of religious fanatics and prudes dictate what you can or cannot buy, sell, read, write, look at, listen to, think, do, etc.

       

Essay: "Dancing with Censorship", Part 4 of Several

Essay: "Dancing with Censorship", Part 4 of 5

       The so-called morality groups like to try to ban books from schools and libraries, try to expand the scope of laws promoting censorship, and incessantly harass stores that carry Sports Illustrated (due to the Swimsuit Edition), Playboy, and other periodicals that their ilk take offense to. Recently, moralists (the infamous PMRC) succeeded in labeling records deemed offensive, in addition to meddling with artists rights in other ways. 

       Count on it, this censorship will never stop and will only get worse, at least as long as we allow it to continue. In the moralists' eyes, censorship makes everyone better off because there are fewer things available to tempt anyone to do what is wrong. (from their narrow point of view) Instead, as most everyone else must come to realize before it's too late, censorship in any form makes America a blander, harsher and a less free society. Who elected these moralists to make these decisions for us anyway? (to be cont'd)

 [The original version of this essay first appeared in Eastern Connecticut State University's Campus Lantern student newspaper and in my unpublished manuscript  "In Mediocrity We Trust... In Debt We Die" And Other Essays.]

Essay: "Dancing with Censorship", Part 3 of Several

Essay: "Dancing with Censorship", Part 3 of Several

       Another example of how religion tends to cling to archaic and antiquated ideas is embodied by such a person as the Reverend Donald Wildmon, head of the so-called  American Family Association. Wildmon's alleged morality group epitomizes the concept of the Closing of the American Mind. For instance, they like to boycott television shows which depict subjects which are outside of their narrow ideology. They do likewise with books and magazines, only they sometimes use underhanded tactics and intimidation to try to get bookstores and other businesses to comply with their petty, old-fashioned, and out of date agenda. The tactics of the AFA are sleazy at best. They don't try to sway voters to their way of thinking, perhaps because they know that most people would never think in their narrow-minded way. Instead, these self-proclaimed moralists use constant harassment to try to bully politicians (some of whom are themselves supposed moralists), corporations, and others to see things their way by giving-in to the morality groups demands. To make matters worse, some of our elected officials are sympathetic to the so-called  "family values" which these alleged morality groups claim to practice. (Their underhanded  tactics expose them for the frauds they really are.).

       Appalling as it may sound, a small minority of vocal loudmouths can wreak a lot of havoc on individual, civil, and Constitutional rights and other liberties we all tend to take for granted, especially if the rest of us don't act or speak up for our rights; and let these bastards get away with what they are doing to this nation on a daily basis.  (to be cont'd)

 [The original version of this essay first appeared in Eastern Connecticut State University's Campus Lantern   student newspaper in the early '90s and in my unpublished manuscript  "In Mediocrity We Trust... In Debt We Die"  And Other Essays.]

Essay: "Dancing with Censorship", Part 2 of Several

Essay: "Dancing with Censorship", Part 2 of Several

       One of the typical features of the Puritans of the sixteenth century was that everyone was dressed in repressed black and white clothing, and anyone inclined to dance, for whatever reason; would be tried and probably burnt at the stake for  "consorting with the Devil". For at least three hundred years, we have hopefully progressed beyond the archaic and antiquated belief of associating dance with evil or as having anything to do with the influence of  "the Devil". At least to me, this idea is completely absurd and ludicrous. How these ridiculous religion-inspired fallacies persist is beyond all comprehension. (to be cont'd)

 [The original version of this essay first appeared in Eastern Connecticut State University's Campus Lantern student newspaper in the early '90s and as part of my unpublished manuscript "In Mediocrity We Trust... In Debt We Die" And Other Essays.]