From: karish@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Chuck Karish)
Newsgroups: rec.music.gdead
Subject: Re: Deadheads...(NO DEAD CONTENT) yawn, more Tipper
Date: 24 Nov 1992 02:39:46 GMT
Organization: Stanford University
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: pangea.stanford.edu

In article <1992Nov23.174001.2164@ucbeh.san.uc.edu>
rademaew@ucbeh.san.uc.edu writes:
>In article <1ei51cINNpgu@morrow.stanford.edu>, karish@pangea.Stanford.EDU
(Chuck Karish) writes:
>> 
>> Tipper was wrong.  Zappa was right.  Censorship sucks, whatever
>> you call it.
>
> Isnt this thread dead yet? It has already been stated, quite
>correctly by others, that Tipper was not about censorship. Some folks have
>really worked up an entirely new defintion of the word.

So long as what's happening doesn't match your dictionary's
definition of "censorship", it's OK?  I hope you like
listening to Mantovani and Wayne Newton while you read your
dictionary.

What Tipper was about was creating the tools that some
extremists will use to enforce censorship in the strict
sense: "you can't play that on the radio" and "you can't
sell that in this town".  Labeling movies made it easy for
the puritans to identify the movies they didn't want other
people to see in their towns, and Tipper's labels would do
the same for recordings.

The self-appointed brain police aren't kidding, either;
they're convinced that the devil can enter childrens' minds
through cryptic messages played backwards in the
backgrounds of songs, and anything more explicit is an even
more obvious and vulnerable target.

>I don't particularly like the idea of playing music for
>little kids that says "FU*K OFF" either, to be perfectly
>honest.

Then don't play it for them.  But don't tell me that
ideas have to be pre-screened before they can be
disseminated.

>Labels, that's what she wanted. That's what the
>testimony she gave asked for as I recall, and little else
>(of course, you could look it up and prove my 'ol memory
>wrong........ maybe)

And the Nazis said the Jews had to wear distinguishing
badges for their own protection.  And gun registration has
nothing to do with gun control.  And Prop. 9 in Oregon was
intended to keep Oregon from assuring gays the "special
privilege" of being allowed to lead normal lives.

> Ooooh labels. Next thing you know, they'll be labels warning pregnant women 
>that consumption of alcohol may lead to heath risks to their baby. Or that 
>smoking may cause lung cancer. Or that food contains certain ingredients.   
>How about some talk about the censorship of cigs, or beer, or Oreo cookies?
>Now that, my friends, would be an interesting thread. (Yet not appropriate
>necessarily for a rm.gdead)

And your daily newspaper needs a label to tell you that the
editorial staff is three steps to the left of Rush
Limbaugh, so you might want to keep it away from your
kids.

>Ho hum. Back to my boredom.
>
>fight censorship WHEN IT OCCURS
>                 ==== == ======

Like right now.  The FCC has twisted the "community
standards" obscenity criterion defined by the Supreme Court
to the point where broadcasters are required to make sure
that their programming is acceptable for listening by
middle-class children, 24 hours a day, every day, in every
community in the US, regardless of the prevailing standards
in the local community.  The rules are applied
selectively against broadcasters that are out of the
political mainstream.

This is a deliberate encumbrance of free speech.  If
labelling of records were in effect now, the FCC would be
using it to define classes of records that must not be
broadcast.

"Hey, live and let live.  So they want me to wear this
yellow medallion?  Worse things could happen."
--

    Chuck Karish          karish@mindcraft.com
    (415) 323-9000 x117   karish@pangea.stanford.edu