Monday, January 07, 2013

Let Free Enterprise Ring

I was somewhat taken aback by a report in the news that an NBC executive was continuing to monitor the acts and antics of Donald Trump and might “act” if he goes so over the top or crosses some sort of line.
 
And I don’t think he was talking about what Trump says or does on his TV show.
Now to me, that’s just not right and it runs up against my sense of fair play and, yes, constitutional rights. If a public celebrity has to worry about what he says or does off the show and face being sanctioned in some way by his boss for doing so, then I have a problem there, and I am no fan of Donald Trump.
In fact, I have written on this blog that I never thought that Trump was a serious presidential candidate and that things he said were meant solely to attract attention to him.
If anything, I believe that free enterprise, and not some media executive should trump Trump. Much like how we finally got rid of Glen Beck – get his sponsors to withhold support. Much like is currently underway by several groups whose sole purpose is to drive Rush Limbaugh off the airwaves in similar fashion, by contacting his sponsors.
If people want to utter outrageous lies, let them be sanctioned by the people who buy the products that he hawks.
Now there is a downside to this kind of action. At this writing it looks like somewhere around 2200 sponsors have stopped their ads on the Limbaugh radio show, and that’s a good thing. The problem is that the emptiness appears to be taken up by the SuperPacs who wreaked such havoc on our electoral process last year. FreedomWorks, it is reported, is sponsoring the Limbaugh show.
Now I think they can do this despite being a non-profit organization, but as an ultra-right political organization supporting a neo-conservative radio show it smacks of the very antithesis of free enterprise. It smacks of a plutocracy.

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