This has escalated exponentially. Now it’s death threats going from the far-right nutosphere to podcasters. As you may have read here yesterday, Kanye West suddenly departed from the set of the Tim Pool podcast, simply because Pool did not readily assent to what West was saying.
In all truth, Pool’s rejoinder to West was innocuous. There was nothing that any reasonable person would have found abrasive but West is not reasonable and evidently his standards are totally concurrence or he cuts you off. Good luck in politics coming from that angle.
Now today, Ali Alexander is threatening to murder Tim Pool. Say whut? Yes, you heard me correctly.
After Kanye West stormed off of Tim Pool's show last night, Ali Alexander claimed to be in possession of information that "would get [Pool] investigated by the police": "If anyone treats Ye like a ni**er, I'm going to destroy your fucking life." https://t.co/ZJeMgv1Smf pic.twitter.com/tRpcvC14Vq
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) November 29, 2022
Jeez Louise. That got intense. And no, I don’t know why Alexander isn’t in jail for his part in the insurrection.
Maybe this is a good thing. Those of us who monitor these goings on look at this nuttiness every day. Now this is going mainstream.
Saint Reagan is responsible for this. This is the reasonably foreseeable outcome of Reagan’s elimination of the Fairness In Broadcasting Doctrine. That begat Rush Limbaugh and Rush Limbaugh begat this.
This is what’s wrong in America, right here. Restoring the Fairness Doctrine to law would go a long ways towards cleaning up the cesspool that our cultural narrative has fallen into.
The subtext is important to remember too. These fools are terrified of getting exactly the same kind of treatment they’re threatening. Given the rather shitty way they’ve been treating people who didn’t do shit back to them, such a kicking would be more than earned.
I wrote a grad paper on the Fairness Doctrine as it was being cancelled by the FCC. The Marketplace Model looked interesting/promising vs the Public Fiduciary Model, but we’ve learned after 33 years that it has only brought misinformation, disinformation, projection, lies, polarization, distrust, and hate mixed in with a little news.
There is a big difference between freedom of speech and the “freedom to lie and confuse”, which we’ve had in American radio & TV since the loss of the Doctrine. This “freedom” was capitalized upon to a dangerous political extreme by the 45th president and his imitators. Because of this, the US faces an existential threat from within. The situation throws a sledgehammer to America’s task and potential.
I’ve long favored a restoration of fairness rules to all radio & TV programs that report news and discuss issues of public importance. Cable TV is TV. Points deserve counterpoints in the same venue.
The internet is a different animal outside the scope of the Doctrine, but web content purveyors and operators tend to follow events, reporting, and discussions on radio & TV anyway. The various platforms can take a cue from fairness-refreshed broadcast & cable.
Maybe concerned citizens, not affiliated with government, should organize a Fairness advocacy.
so Alexander is confessing to misprision of a felony? Please proceed.