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Sen. Feingold Reintroduces Radio Competition Bill
jonerik writes "Billboard is reporting that Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) has reintroduced his Competition in Radio and Concert Industries Act, which is aimed at limiting the concentration of radio stations and concert promoters in the hands of a few large companies, such as Clear Channel. In addition, the bill would close loopholes in payola laws which currently permit 'pay-for-play' deals between record companies and radio stations 'unless an appropriate sponsorship identification announcement is made.' The bill's introduction comes as the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation prepares to hold a hearing Thursday on the problems of radio consolidation, and the committee's chairman, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), is expected to sign on soon as the bill's co-sponsor."
With the loss of Paul Wellstone, Russ Feingold is one of the strongest supporters of liberal ideals and causes left in the Senate. It's good to see him getting support from the Republicans in the form of McCain. Democrats certainly can't afford to go it alone in their current minority status, so to get any decent laws passed, we're going to need to have Republicans crossing party lines to support bills whose bottom line is not aimed at increasing the wealth of the wealthy for once.
Every now and again, after the cynicism and the corruption and the payola and the lobbying... our government comes through.
I get so depressed, reading about DMCA suits & SLAPPs, reading about corporate (*cough* Coble) whores. You get to thinking that the government is just trying to screw us all.
And yet, there are good guys. There are champions of the common man.
I feel pretty good.
Looking for a Rails developer in Chapel Hill?
I disagree, to be certain, but understand that I'm not going to try to change your mind. I recognize this as one of the fundamental differences people have in politics and I still don't believe there's one right way to do things.
My perspective is that the Constitution, as with the rest of law, is not immutable, and that utmost respect must be given to both the wishes of the founders as well as to the world we're trying to live in today and the wishes of the people living in the country. The Constitution was a good start, but we've amended it in the past to fit better the ideals of the nation while stripping away parts that did not (examples of both aren't hard to think of).
Campaign finance reform, in my opinion, is more about restoring the speech of the people than it is about silencing them. The majority are heard on very little anymore because money speaks louder than words, and while this has made pretty good business sense it's made attention to non-profit-bearing issues pretty minimal over the last fifty years, not to mention creating (or continuing in some peoples' opinion) a government that largely favors the moneyed. Sen. Feingold sticks out not because he is a maverick but because the system itself has forgotten its duty to serve citizens instead of stockholders and CEOs.
Corporations.
Aren't.
Really.
People.
Radio station have the right to free speech, not the obligation to play music without compensation.
This bill doesn't ask them to play music without compensation if they don't want to. It asks them to be honest with us, the listeners, when they do so, to encourage them to choose to play music that's good, rather than music that's being promoted in expensive ways.
What happened to freedom in this country.
As far as I can tell, companies like CCC bought it.
Rhetorical questions like that are not an effective way to convince people. Keep in mind that since not everyone agrees with you, the answer someone else gives to such a question may be different from what you expected. For instance:
Why does the govt. feel they need to regulate everything?
You're expecting an answer along the lines of "Because we're control freaks, because we want to institute a totalitarian regime, muahahaha!" But the fact is that for many people, the answer is "Because we do have to regulate everything." The way to convince people--or better yet, mutually arrive at a truth that may be different from anyone's initial views--is to ask, without sarcasm, why we would be better off this way.
In case you care, my answer to that question is that the government should regulate cases such as this because it benefits the consumer, whose rights should always outweigh the rights of corporations. This is because, simply, people are people, and real, whereas corporations are simply groups of people. Situations that benefit corporations benefit the individuals who are members of those corporations, whereas situations that benefit individuals in general benefit all the same people, and many more.
Now somebody will respond saying that I've oversimplified this, and my preemptive response to that is that to do this subject justice would be to write volumes on it. I think what I've said above captures the essence of the liberal view.
I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.