Distracted, yet again.

[pecunium]

I made the mistake, as I was thinking of writing some food porn (Nero Wolfe novels will do that to you) of doing some sidebar reading.

CBS has refused to air an ad by a church (the United Church of Christ). It was an ad about inclusion. It wasn't shrill, it wasn't accusatory, if anything it was too subtle
.
The debut 30-second commercial features two muscle-bound "bouncers" standing guard outside a symbolic, picturesque church and selecting which persons are permitted to attend Sunday services. Written text interrupts the scene, announcing, "Jesus didn't turn people away. Neither do we." A narrator then proclaims the United Church of Christ's commitment to Jesus' extravagant welcome: "No matter who you are, or where you are on life's journey, you are welcome here."

Still Speaking

So why did CBS refuse to air the ad?

"Because this commercial touches on the exclusion of gay couples and other minority groups by other individuals and organizations," reads an explanation from CBS, "and the fact the Executive Branch has recently proposed a Constitutional Amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable for broadcast on the [CBS and UPN] networks."


UCC Press release

The exuctive branch is against gay marriage, so a church which is for inclusion, and makes a very quiet ad about it (if you blink the reference to gays will slip right past you) is told it's too controversial.

I am becoming more nervous every day.

Comments

[moropus.livejournal.com]

So Jesus was just a tad open-minded for the religion currently observed in his name?

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Thanks, again, for a valuable link. I'm going to repeat this one on my LJ, as our LJ-friends lists don't overlap greatly.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Feel free. Link if you want. I write this sort of thing because I'm pissed off and want to tell people, so they can become pissed off. I'm tired of getting pissed on.

Then I go, to and fro in the world, and find people who are making arguments for it, and challenge them (there's a guy apostate who is trying to tell me the US was a Christian Nation at its founding, and the guy in Cupertino is being unjustly persectuted).


It keeps me sharp.

TK

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

trying to tell me the US was a Christian Nation at its founding

Yeah, that's why Jesus (and/or Christ) is mentioned so many times in the Declaration and the Constitution and the founders' writings in general. Uh huh.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Hey, he hasn't responded yet to my riposte, but feel free to go and have a look.

I confess, I took his screen name as being more indicative of his mind than it proved to be, and had I read more of his thoughts, I might have given up ab initio


tk

This is what "political correctness" looks like

[bellatrys.livejournal.com]

This is, exactly and historically, what the real thing - not the erzatz use of it to disavow any social criticism of rudeness or selfishness, following the misappropriation of the term by right-wing pundits in the mid-eighties - as practiced in 18th century England and in 19th century Germany and under the Catholic censors in Spain and in the PRC and today and under tyrannies everywhere - has involved.

You dare not print the truth, because the government can send in troopers to smash up your presses - or just not renew your "copy-right" (the original meaning of that term, dating back to Tudor England, when people were unhappy with a regime many of them felt was illegitimate, and said so, using this new-fangled device from Germany) and drive you into bankruptcy.

It has always been here, too - only now it is more overt.

Or is it?

How would we know, if this had happened fifteen years ago?

How do we know it didn't?

Only the existence of a truly independent media - the Digital Pamphleteer - allows for this to be disseminated around the block of the official gatekeepers. (Who have, indeed, gotten in trouble for releasing things and speaking out against the government this year; before anyone starts hating on CBS remember what they first told that no one wanted to hear, in April.)

Not since we outgrew thirteen colonies and the whole population of Anglo-America little more than that of the state of NH today, when privately printed handbills had a real chance of being read by enough people to make a difference, has this been possible. Not even in the 1960s, in the days of protest and sit-in and Kent State was this available, when mimeo was the technology of cheap free speech.

But the PTB still have the guns, as ever.

Re: This is what "political correctness" looks like

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Only the existence of a truly independent media - the Digital Pamphleteer - allows for this to be disseminated around the block of the official gatekeepers. (Who have, indeed, gotten in trouble for releasing things and speaking out against the government this year; before anyone starts hating on CBS remember what they first told that no one wanted to hear, in April.)

I don't hate them. I am dissapointed in them.

But the PTB still have the guns, as ever.

Here, less than in some places (and before one starts to argue tanks and planes versus rifles, look at Iraq; where the adjusted numbers are more in line with Vietnam than most want to admit [ratio of troops to casualties; and factoring changes in injury/fatality ratios] and that with a far inferior level of outside support and weaponry... 60mm mortars and RPGs are far less than the VC and the NVA were fielding).

What the PTB also need to impose their will on an unwilling, and armed, populace is the active support of the troops, and (as yet) we don't have that kind of Army. In fact, the way the Guard is being used, about 1/3rd of the forces we have, are more likely to be disaffected, and make Lee's decision, than will stick with the Union.

If that, God forbid, should come to pass, the experiment is over.

TK

Re: This is what "political correctness" looks like

[bellatrys.livejournal.com]

I mean more in terms of general police state enforcement. This is a worrying problem, more so for me as a student of history, because I see several common patterns repeating themselves.

Police/enforcers/muscle are usually drawn from local, labor class, and enforce against their "own" kind - except that within the working class there is other stratification, ethno-religious, and thus you have the stereotypical "corrupt Irish cop" turning a blind eye to some sins and overpunishing others and making the most of having clawed up to the curb from the gutter. (One of my relatives two generations back was a corrupt Irish cop in Baltimore, so I know something whereof I speak here.

This has always - almost always - been able to be exploited against rebels. Though there is always the risk that they might self-identify more with the people on the other side of the barricades, particularly if it is their own families and not the people in the ghetto next door. But generally there has never been a problem in finding people willing to break their poorer neighbor's heads in return for the [generally-illusory] chance of making it to the big leagues.

Only when this is not enough, does the question of bringing in Auxiliaries from other parts of the Empire - as was done at Tiannamen Square, btw, and as they could not do in Manila - become an issue. And there is a strong element of Janissaries in the post-WWII military: an alienated, culturally-isolated elite that does not self-identify with the populace at all, regardless of ethnic extraction or mixed religious heritage. (Using religious here in an extremely broad sense, including everything from Capitalism to Hockey.)

The SWAT teams in NYC brought this home very powerfully to me, reminding me of scenes from 19th century Parisian etchings and early 20th century newspapers of laborers rioting in London (when you see a double-decker bus flipped sideways to block a train line, you do a double-take) as did the information - which I had not come across in my eclectic survey of the 60s - that tanks were sent into rioting or flashpoint slums, our equivalent of The Shades, during some of the worst times.

Tanks, in US cities, to keep down the sorts of "aux barricades" stuff that used to happen regularly in Europe, and for which they would send out the cavalry. It's come that close to an Amritsar here already.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Oh, for fuck's sake. There's no point in writing science fiction anymore.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I was on a panel on Friday at Loscon where I'd dropped a bomb of similar proportions -- I think I discomfited people by pointing out that "First Contact" issues don't have to be about aliens.

Keep writing science fiction. I want something to read that takes me away from this world for a while.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

*g* Unfortunately, my science fiction tends to be somewha political and closely tied to this world.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I re-read Interface on a more than once-yearly basis. I think I'll survive your themes. -grin-

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Um. A commercial news organization, a supposed upholder and defender of free speech, isn't going to air an ad because the executive branch of the government holds a contrary position?

Right. This country is fux0r3d.

[texaslawchick.livejournal.com]

Seems to me that the United Church of Christ, while getting in a dig at the competition, is simply soliciting members. Television ad spots have traditionally been a place to solicit. It also seems to me that neither the government, nor NBC and CBS have any business telling the UCC (I feel like I'm back in Contracts class...) what is an appropriate message from the church. For whatever reason, we've made the decision that the government has to sanction unions before they're legitimate in this country, but that doesn't mean that the government has any business at all telling a Church how to preach.

I don't have a problem with the Lutherans kicking out that lesbian minister.* It's up to them what they believe and if her actions are inconsistent with their beliefs, than they shouldn't be forced to admit someone who they feel is unqualified for the job. It should go the other way, too.

And CBS's press release response was asinine. The ad says nothing about marriage. It says simply (and very subtlely) that gays and lesbians are welcome in the UCC pews. While the only reason I step foot in a church these days is to attend a wedding, there are a hell of a lot of other things that go on in those buildings than marriage ceremonies. It's ridiculous to suggest that the recruitment of a whole segment of the population to a congregation is inappropriate because Bush pushed an amendment of the constitution to exclude those people.

*Though I think the practicing/non-practicing distinction is rather silly, though I guess the Lutherans don't like it when you practice and you preach. Ha. ha. I kill me.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

bellatrys has the right of it, this is Political Correctness. CBS is saying they can't air it because the Powers That Be, disagree.

No argument that it violates some policy of the station (and with Equal Time dead, no compelling regulation to force them to let all churches advertise if one does). Nope, The Executive Branch has other ideas, and we won't be disloyal to that (liberal media my ass).

Which is sad, for us, because this is a topic which needs public debate. It's a policy issue being bruited about. One would think the justification for their license (to serve the public) would require them to air such a thing, were it so compellingly about the issue they say it is.

But they don't.

Fox is airing it, but not CBS.

TK

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

I'm ashamed to admit how confused I was for a minute by this. You see, here in Nashville, when one hears the name "Church of Christ", one tends not to think of these people, but instead, of these people, who aren't really noted for the warmth and open-mindedness they greet diversity with. I mean, when you'll split the church over whether it's cool to have instrumental music during the service, or actually own church buildings, you tend to be pretty narrow about a lot of other things as well.

However, once I'd sorted out the two different groups, all I could say was "Chickenshite cowards!" in the general direction of CBS/UPN. Yeah, we can and will show all kinds of things on television, which aren't in the least family-values oriented, but we have to draw the line somewhere. So bring on prime-time adultery, murder, rape and so forth, and sell all the ad time you can for anti-impotence drugs, but let's not do anything controversial like exercise charity for all and malice towards none. No siree.

[kynn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the UCC has a real problem with being confused with other groups, sadly.

It'd be ironic if it weren't so sad how the "church of Christ" is splintered.

--K

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

It's worse than that. Josh Marshall has gotten the text of the CBS/UPN refusal, and the only words which come to mind are blatant hypocrisy.

CBS/UPN Network policy precludes accepting advertising that touches on and/or takes a position on one side of a current controversial issue of public importance."

As he points out, this means they don't adhere to this. They ran political ads, as recently as last month. Which points back to kissing up to those in power. Toadying for the Government.

Betraying a trust.

TK

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

I notice their news bulletin has no contact information for, say, the CBS in Cleveland so we can, say, tell the CBS what we think of them.

Anyone willing to find out? I'm in Boston, so I'm not really the appropriate person...

incidentally...

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

I've put what contact information I could easily find up here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/moominmolly/235612.html) -- it's a bit incoherent, but hey, this makes my blood boil. I strongly believe in telling them that this sort of shit doesn't go unnoticed.

Re: incidentally...

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

I followed that link information and sent them this comment. Followng my comment is Leslie Moonves's statement on diversity, featured on the same page. I quoted that statement in full in my comment; I imagine that a number of other people have done so as well.

I'm writing about something I have not yet seen on CBS television.

Please accept the United Church of Christ's advertisement and demonstrate to the world that your statement about diversity is not just window-dressing. Now, as ever, we need a free and vigorous press, supported by the widest and most diverse body of advertisers. The marketplace of ideas isn't a true free market if certain ideas are excluded before they ever come before buyers.

Thank you.

"As broadcasters, we aim to ensure that our national viewing audience is reflected in our programming and our people.

"We recognize that a work force comprised of a wide variety of perspectives, viewpoints and backgrounds is integral to our continued success.

"This is not a campaign, but rather a fundamental way of doing business at CBS, and we continue to be steadfast in our goal to become more diverse and more representative of the public we serve."

-Leslie Moonves
Co-President & Co-Chief Operating Officer of Viacom
and Chairman, Chief Executive Officer of CBS