Mesa Legend - ARCHIVES - Vol. 39, Issue 7


Volume 39, Issue 7. Today is .

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Volume 39, Issue 7
December 4, 2001

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Maher marred by modern McCarthyism?

BY Matt Reed
Mesa Legend

Does anyone else find it odd how a country can be so proud of its rights and yet heap the greatest punishments on the people who exercise the most basic of ones?

This is the question I keep asking myself in the wake of Bill Maher’s TV show, "Politically Incorrect," that is being pulled off prime-time around the country, as well as being stripped of major corporate funding.

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, I’ll explain. Maher has been the victim of a rather unfortunate bit of timing.

He made an un-American remark at a time when it was rather unpopular to make un-American remarks.

To wit—"It takes a lot more guts to sit in a 767 and lose a game of chicken with a giant building, than it does to sit in a guided missile boat, 500 miles removed from any danger, and launch cruise missiles at an unseen target."

If Maher had said this only a week earlier, no one would have cared, let alone the right wing, vocal minority who have never heard, or cared about Maher and his show. The same people who are now calling for his head.

Rather unfortunate.

Unfortunate because now it appears that ABC (under considerable pressure from the current Republican administration) will not be renewing Maher’s contract when it expires early next year.

Unfortunate, because in a time when it would be good to see multiple views, presented by all sorts of different people, of current events, we’re denied this, and forced to glean our information from the corporate owned, government sanctioned, network news reports.

All this, because of what? Because Bill Maher failed to tow the party line, because he offended some people. . . no, no; because he offended the wrong people. He said that the United States of America was cowardly!

Send the Thought Police after that man!

I was told that there was a time in this nation’s history that the press actually would hold the government in check when it tried to do stupid things (like attack certain Middle Eastern countries) to justify their even more stupid political schemes (like drilling for oil in certain places).

I find this hard to believe, what with the way the press just drools all over the place, bobbling their collective head like one of those dashboard dogs, every time the president comes out and says something.

Maher has the nerve to stand up and say something different and he gets shouted down, not only by the administration, but also by his own people, the press. Why? Because he’s exercising his right, he spoke what he thought, and he’s being punished.

If the American press corps has slipped this far in 20-some years, I’m afraid of what it will be in 20 more.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to abide by Voltaire’s words—"I may disagree with every word that comes out of your mouth, but will die for your right to say them."

But then again, I’ll probably be one of the first to get carted off to Room 101.

Until that time, support freedom of speech, and don’t believe anything that you hear on the news.

Matt Reed is an Art major at MCC and a guest columnist for the Mesa Legend.