How The Terrorists Won and ESPN Lost

Bristol, Connecticut is a small town located 103 miles north of New York City.  It is known mostly for being the home of the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, a.k.a. ESPN.

The popular media outlet is owned by The Walt Disney Company which also controls ABC News.

John Athayde/Flickr

In Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales published the highlights of their five hundred interviews with people at the sports network.*

Chapter six delves into the events at ESPN in the days after the 9/11 attacks in New York and D.C.  One comment here jumps right off the page.

Anti-War Speech is Officially Censored in U.S.

Susan Rice with the President of Israel, Shimon Peres

It turns out that there is "Officially" Censored Speech in the U.S.  Phrases that should not be broadcast include:

"Stop the bombing, stop the killing".

Watch as U.S. National Security Advisor Susan Rice restricts freedom of speech in D.C...  

Video clip here.

U.S. & Iranian Interests Aligned Against the Taliban?

Interesting news item about the origins of the Taliban and their relationship with Iran and Pakistan, from CNN 1998:

Pakistan was the first of only three countries to recognize the Taliban government, and as many as 40 percent of the militia members studied in religious schools in Pakistan.

This would have been good to know when planning retaliation for the bombing of the USS Cole or the 9/11 attacks.  Do you think that Mr. Clinton or Mr. Bush read this story?  Could any of their dozens of advisers mention to them that the Taliban is largely composed of people from Pakistan?

On another note, it seems critical to understand that the Taliban and Iran were involved in a mini-war with each other.

from PBS, 1998

We were told that the U.S. bombed Afghanistan in the hope of killing bin Laden after his gang bombed U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998.  Would it not have been useful for 500,000 Iranian military members to help the U.S. government fight their war against the Taliban in Afghanistan?

Mr. Clinton, Mr. Bush & Mr. Blair had the chance to gain assistance from a powerful enemy of the Taliban and chose to go it alone instead.  Why did they turn against a potential partner in Iran and create further division between the Middle-East and the West?

Only a few people truly know the reasons for these actions.  Unfortunately, they are probably not going to let us in on the secret, leaving us to speculate about their behavior.

Censorship at MSNBC?

Cenk Uygur is a former on-air talk show host at MSNBC.  Listen to what he says to Joe Rogan about censorship at the "Team Democrats" network....    

The full interview can be heard here.

Check out Cenk at The Young Turks

The Speech Police in Pakistan and the U.S.

It's been nearly two years since the state of Pakistan banned it's subjects from visiting YouTube.  Finally the tide against the statute is gaining enough steam that lifting of the ban is now likely.

The PTA's Vision

Censorship is often the result of the people calling themselves "the state" feeling their authority being threatened.  Fortunately for them state run monopolies like the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority or the Federal Communications Commission provide the tools to prevent communication among it's subjects.

In these United States just five people claim to be the speech police.  These five people believe:

Obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution and cannot be broadcast at any time.

Regardless of the location or medium, should five human beings have the monopoly privilege to prevent 318,000,000 from sharing & accessing information?

Humpday Humor: Sex on the Radio

The U.S. government freaks out about sex on the radio.  From talk show host Howard Stern: