CENSORING POLITICS ON LCTV

It seems it doesn’t take much rumbling among the pundits in Niagara County for the local politicos, that is, bureaucratic servants of the status quo, to start tightening the reins on democracy. After having read several posts over the past couple months on the Niagara Times blog attacking Tom Christy and calling for a letter writing campaign for his removal for various crimes against political correctness, it did begin to look like there was some attempt underway to oust Christy from Legislative Journal.

As it turns out, through some tortured interpretation of apparent state regulations, LCTV Board of Directors felt “obligated” because of “some complaints,” yet undisclosed, to enforce certain restrictions as to format. The “reasoning” is that a Government channel should only be about “government.” That means to the Board that only elected officials of government are permitted to be on the show. Moreover the Legislative Journal is now limited to non-political discourse and Christy is limited to being only a facilitator of “discussion.” Christy is not permitted any editorializing. READ: No new thoughts that might embarrass the politicians! Lastly, alternate guests who are not elected officials and alternative guest hosts are also barred from the hallowed halls of LCTV.

This not so subtle, yet unabashed and really very embarrassing power play, the motivation for which may be varied, surely is partly about local political sycophants unwilling to displease their bosses, whether in Albany or locally, and defend the principles of democracy not to mention the first Amendment.

At worst, such cleansing is proto-fascist. At best it continues a historical process of modernity in which the realm of the political is forcibly displaced from the public sphere to institutions of government and then finally removed from government itself. What this means is that the kind of discourse and ethos of openness and inquiry that constitutes democratic culture, is now even being expunged from within the realm of the governmental. In terms of the censorship at LCTV, it is happening by trying to control who gets to talk such that what gets talked about is in effect safe, propagandistic and thereby depoliticized. Only the interests and issues of those in power may be articulated and argued. Only the questions that limit discussion to institutionally circumscribed means and ends are permitted—especially the ends of the local party machine, in this case probably Republican.

The ideologues at LCTV do not want the talk show to become “politicized.’ The same “reasoning” continues that such “talk” belongs on the public access or possibly educational channel. This is such utter faux-analytical non-sense, I don’t know where to begin to critique this sophistry. The only reason that they might get away with this, other than that they have the power and can prevent any information from surfacing as to how and why this is really being done, is because our political consciousness and language is so completely hypostatized, that most of us may actually believe that government officials once purged of nasty questions and commentators that might ask them some real questions regarding who and what they really serve, can talk about what they do in a non-political language. They want us to believe that such reportage regarding what the politicians are doing is not really political. They want us to believe that there is this isolable thing called “government” that doesn’t include, imply and require political analysis. And, they want us to believe that there is another thing, equally hypostatized, called “politics” that can be safely placed on another channel. I guess then on that other channel it means you can talk all the “politics” you want without embarrassing or implicating any government officials, government policies, government actions, well, you get the idea. Do they really believe we are that stupid?

But the actual fact of the matter in social reality is that everything that government officials do in session, on talk shows and probably even at home is wholly and essentially political. One blogger on the Niagara Times site who would like to see Christy deep-sixed said he would just like the Legislative Journal show to “give him the facts” of what’s happening in government session. The naivete of such a wish is incomprehensible. Unless of course you wake up to the fact that the degree of reification of our world allows people to believe that there is this thing out there called a “fact.” And this innocent fact innocently imparted by our innocent government servants will be like an aspirin that we can take when we have a headache. Or, such a wishful thinker may argue that he just wants the bald, unadulterated “facts” such that he can bravely make up his mind himself as to what they mean. Of course our wishful thinker can imagine that such thought is possible without being troubled by the opinions, questions and interests of others in his world, because he lives in a politically alienated fantasy land of so-called “facts,” partisan formulas and supposed leaders who will show him and his party the way back to “Kansas.” In short his de-politicized thought is really a de-democratized thought and discourse. “Facts” don’t come with their meaning and historical context written on their face. They must be examined from many perspectives, people and points of view.

So what we might need to understand here is that all the flack that Christy has taken regarding his loud voice, impulsive interruptions, oh so very vulgar and offensive language and bad haircut is really simply the excuse and cover for not wanting to suffer the openness, honesty, passion and unpredictability of the democratic process that he represents. It is an attempt, seemingly successful, to artificially squeeze the politics out of the government and the separate the politician from the people. The tactic is common: get people worked up with some politically correct hot button issue, usually “bad speech,” and then transfer that angry, indignant energy to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Where have we seen this before? Well, we’ve seen it all over America from the President who can’t hear the press shouting at him as he walks to his helicopter; to the White House Press conference where a nicely trained and polite press corp can ask as many insipid questions as openly as they like; to a news media that progressively becomes more entertainment than investigative journalism; to an educational system that no longer teaches Civics and a secondary/higher education establishment that worships abstract, pseudo-objectivity as learning drifts further and further from any relevance to the lives we lead and the passionate self-interest that generates inquiry, research and questioning is stigmatized as irrationalistic and biased.

It is incumbent upon LCTV to stop relying upon the coercive and manipulative distortion of language and democracy and stop pretending that politics can be separated safely from the words and actions of legislators. Stop pretending that the “facts” can be alienated from their examination, interpretation and critique from the standpoint of ordinary everyday people. This bureaucratic maneuver is repressive, oppressive and, very simply anti-American.

The censorship of Legislative Journal on the part of an obviously partisan Board of Directors is blatantly political but egregiously anti-democratic. But who still believes that the partisan parties are still interested in defending democracy and promoting such education, whether in the schools or media, that furthers democratic culture and action? Let speech be fairly and robustly freed by freeing the airways from such bureaucratic “reasoning” and regulations that serve the well-placed and powerful. Stop repressing and oppressing passionate participation in the creative dynamics of democracy.