Wired News has a reasonable article examining the potentials for an FCC crackdown on indecency, given how emboldened the Christian right apparently feels after W’s narrow victory, and how much the FCC and Congress seem to want to suck up to the moral mornonity.
I have to throw my lot in with Chicago Media Action‘s Mitchell Szczepanczyk, who tells Wired News:
What’s encouraging is that a lot more people know about these issues than had just two years ago. That gives me hope more than anything.
And when we say “a lot more people,” we mean the general public. The people who are affected either way and we hope begin to see this not as an issue of so-called morals, but as an issue of democracy. It’s all about ownership and control — that’s what the true fight is over.
Of course, from a principled point of view, I’m generally against content regulation, indecency or otherwise. But the world of law and policy is not an arena of principle.
From the standpoint of someone who equally despises the mainstream media industry and the FCC, I have to enjoy the spectacle and watching the free-for-all. ABC/Disney vs. FCC vs. Religious Right vs. Congressional Democrats vs. Congressional Republicans vs. Infinity/CBS/Viacom vs. the Bush administration. The whole indecency “debate” cuts across all these lines and makes for absurd alliances and enemies.
Seems like everyone wants to take a hit off the indecency pipe. But the high is fleeting, the political gains are slight and short-lived, and then you’re scrambling for the next few rocks.