Saturday, January 16, 2010

POLITICS- Those Seven Deadly Words

As I’ve said before, in my opinion most of what comprises the political debate in this country is simply a smoke screen to hide the fact that the government and the rich have gone into the business of stealing the citizens blind while we argue over trivialities. Well, here’s a story that encapsulates much of the silliness in our culture (wars). Seems the FCC got schooled the other day when a trio of appellate court judges heard arguments in a case challenging the current rules for what can be broadcast on television. Of course we aren’t talking about showing images of violent brutality, grotesque dismemberment, or graphic sexual congress, we’re talking about somebody saying a dirty word during a live TV broadcast. This has been going on for the last few years, with the FCC all over the highway trying to decide if it can make a little scratch by fining broadcasters if some musician says “fuck” during a show giving out awards for music in which it is perhaps the most common lyric. Or even if some poor interviewee says “shit” about having just watched his house and family blown away in a hurricane during a news telecast.

The judges rightfully pointed out that there are worse things of television than impolite language already. That we seem to be letting little old ladies of both sexes and the most bluenosed self-righteous hypocrites in the country muzzle everyone else. And that the whole thing boils down to the FIRST FUCKING AMMENDMENT! (Ahem… excuse me.)

I’ve always been amused by our obsession with collections of sounds- most especially those nasty old Saxon words that most of us don’t even remember the origin of. And I’ve always been puzzled by the basic dishonesty inherent in getting all bent out of shape over the things that are the most common in human existence. Somehow we can talk about alcoholism, wife-beating, racism, war, famine, and Pat Robertson on television, but the two things every single adult in the world does as often as possible are off limits. As Red Foxx once joked, “I say shit and fuck because- people do. You don’t shit? Fuck! You don’t fuck? SHIT!”

I’m not offended by much. I don’t understand it and, frankly, I think it’s usually passive aggressive bullshit. I’m certainly not offended by any particular collection of phonemes, even if I might be offended by what they signify. That’s the crazy thing in all this juvenile “dirty words” hogwash. Some mental midget is offended by the SOUNDS. (No offence intended to little people- a term I personally find more degrading than midget.) If you don’t have problems with the act of defecating or making love, why do you care what sounds you use to identify them? And if you do have a problem with either act, then you have far bigger problems with what’s between your ears than you do with what’s entering them from the outside.

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