Liberal totalitarianismCommentary by Jeffrey T. Kuhner
Liberal Democrats are attempting to muzzle conservative talk radio: they are assaulting free speech. Like the communists in the former Soviet Union, America?s liberals seek to crush dissent by consolidating control over the media?especially talk radio, which has emerged as the dominant medium for conservative opinion.
Allies close to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are promoting legislation, which if passed, will take off the air prominent conservative radio hosts such as Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Bill O?Reilly?along with thousands of smaller conservative broadcasters. The bill, entitled the "Media Ownership Reform Act," is sponsored by Rep. Maurice Hinchey, a leftist Democrat from New York. The legislation aims to revive the so-called ?Fairness Doctrine? of the 1940?s: ?all views? are to be given equal time on radio. In particular, the Federal Communications Commission would have the power to oversee and change radio and television content. The goal is to tilt the ideological balance of power away from the right on the nation?s air waves.
The real force behind the effort to censor conservative talk radio is the progressive?philanthropist, George Soros. The radical leftist billionaire has made no secret of his hatred for conservatives. He says President Bush has transformed America into a militaristic, ?fascist? empire. Moreover, Soros champions many of liberalism?s chic causes: abortion on demand, legalization of drugs, homosexual marriage, euthanasia, unlimited Third World immigration, open borders, and one-world government anchored in the United Nations. He advocates all the issues that are anathema to popular radio talk-show hosts like Savage, Limbaugh and Hannity. Hence, he wants these commentators to be exiled to the political wilderness.
At a recent National Conference for Media Reform, sponsored by Free Press, a Massachusetts-based group heavily subsidized by Soros, Hinchey laid bare his plan to silence conservative voices on television and radio. The anti-war McGovernite attacked Savage, Limbaugh and other conservative radio hosts, saying they were ?responsible? for leading the U.S. into the Iraq war, as well as for preparing the ground for future military invasions of Iran and Syria. According to Hinchey, these men pose a ?threat? to American national security. Hence, under his bill, they would be fired.
"All of that stuff will end," Hinchey said.
In the Senate, the legislation is being supported by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. A self-styled ?social democrat,? Sanders is forming a media caucus with the explicit goal of ending conservative hegemony on talk radio.
"Now is the time to begin asking that if networks provide their listeners with 99 percent of talk shows being with right-wing extremists, whether that really is what public trust is about," Sanders said in an address in January. "Now is the time to open the question of the Fairness Doctrine again."
However, this begs the question of why do radio networks have most of their shows hosted by conservatives? The answer is a simple one: They?re popular with listeners. Talk radio is overwhelmingly right-leaning because it satisfies the public?s growing appetite for alternative news and commentary to the liberal media establishment. If the Democrats don?t like the opinions of Savage, Limbaugh or Hannity, then all they need to do is go to CNN, MSNBC, NPR, The New York Times or The Washington Post. There are countless outlets peddling the anti-war, anti-Bush mantras of the left.
The liberal media and political class have tried to marginalize conservative talk radio for years?first by ignoring it, then by demonizing it, and finally by attempting to compete with it. Air America, with hosts such as Al Franken, was supposed to be the great liberal alternative to conservative talk radio. But, in spite of all the puff stories in The Times, The Post and CNN, Air America failed dismally to attract a large audience. When Hinchey, Sanders, Soros and their liberal Democratic allies complain about the need to ?give equal time? to left-leaning views on radio, they forget one important fact: The radio audience is not interested. Now, after the failure of Air America, the Democrats are attempting to implement the final solution to their conservative problem: censorship.
Eastern European conservatives have faced similar oppression for the last 15 years. From Georgia to Croatia, Serbia to Slovakia, Soros? media empire has relentlessly sought to marginalize patriotic and conservative journalists. In many countries in the former communist bloc, there are hardly any conservative voices left in the mainstream media. In fact, the billionaire activist openly brags that the former Soviet empire has become ?the Soros empire.? He is now bent on destroying his ideological enemies in the belly of the beast?America.
What Soros understands?like all ambitious leftists before him, such as Lenin, Trotsky, FDR?is that attaining cultural power is the necessary precondition to achieving political power. The brilliant Italian Leninist revolutionary, Antonio Gramsci, outlined this strategy in his theory of cultural hegemony. Gramsci argued that once the left captures the commanding organs of culture and the media, the ?state will simply fall into our hands.? He understood that, by dominating culture and stifling all voices of opposition, the left would be free to manipulate and mold public opinion, thereby paving the way to permanent political dominance. This is why Soros and his Democratic allies are determined to smash talk radio, the main bastion of cultural/media resistance to the liberal regime.
The attempt to revive the ?Fairness Doctrine? represents a direct assault on freedom of speech. It is a concession by liberals that they are losing the battle in the marketplace of ideas. Unable to compete with conservatives in the arena of rhetoric, facts and reasoned argument, Democrats are resorting to the Stalinist method of stifling all dissenting points of view. Unable to out-argue and out-debate Savage, Limbaugh and Hannity, liberals are hoping to silence them?once and for all.
More importantly, the war on talk radio reveals the totalitarian impulse at the heart of modern liberalism. Above all, liberalism is an ideology based on radical social engineering. Its ultimate goal is to transform America into a society characterized by economic collectivism, personal?and especially, sexual?liberation and multilateral globalism. To accomplish these goals, the left must fundamentally restructure the economy, the family unit, traditional bourgeois values, and even the nation itself.
This is why liberals ultimately rely on coercion to pass much of their agenda. They must raise taxes and propose new entitlement programs (like universal health care) to keep expanding the power of the state; they must push for homosexual marriage and abortion to keep undermining the nuclear family; they must expunge religion and the Ten Commandments from the public square to keep rolling back traditional morality; and they must insist on amnesty for illegal immigrants and subordinating foreign policy to the United Nations to keep subverting America?s national sovereignty and distinct cultural identity. Their favorite tools of coercion are usually judicial activism and bureaucratic decrees. Now, however, riding high after the November midterm elections, they are going for the jugular?the outright silencing of their ideological opponents.
Conservatives must form a united front to prevent this blatant power grab by the Soros Democrats. If not, the return of the ?Fairness Doctrine? will not only be a great victory for the forces of censorship, but a watershed moment in the continuing march of liberalism against everything that is good, decent and virtuous in America.
- Jeffrey T. Kuhner is the editor of Insight (
http://www.insightmag.com).
