Points to Ponder Index

Fahrenheit 451?

On October 21, 2010 respected journalist and media commentator Juan Williams was fired from National Public Radio for comments he made on a major cable news/opinion network where he was a part-time contributor, and possibly the most prominent example of a political perspective opposite of that of the Fox Network.

On February 16, 2011 Patrick Buchanan was permanently removed from a similar position on MSNBC where he was a regular commentator who generally held opposite political views from the majority on that Network. In both cases they served to balance out or at least offer alternate perspectives on the issues of the day.

Both men often spoke their minds in a strident manner backing up their ideological beliefs and social concerns, often against multiple voices in opposition. Williams has long served in his role of personal achievement in a world where minorities only recently have had success at his level. Williams supported the liberal perspective and his reputation extended beyond his regular NPR presence to guest appearances elsewhere on any number of other occasions over the years

Buchanan, a two time Presidential candidate with an unapologetic conservative view, has written 11 books with six of them New York Times best sellers. Even his detractors admit his world view and predictions over the years have accurately forecast more of the tragedies in recent world politics than any other single commentator at his level. He is a founder of several well renowned TV political discussion shows with balanced debate participation which laid the groundwork for today’s news commentary.

Both men have lost their positions, their contracts and are banned from networks in a manner that takes pages right out of some of the best known political futuristic fiction that may now be closer to reality than we are willing to admit. I will start with the classic Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury which should forever be required reading at the high school and college level.

Bradbury fantasizes the practical application of a world of government mind control and revisionist history as outlined in two of the greatest political works of fiction, 1984 and Brave New World. (It should be noted that Bradbury’s and these works by Orwell and Huxley were all banned in many socialist countries when they were written and long after).

Fahrenheit 451 is a firehouse, but the “firemen” are government employees who are trained to start fires, but only under certain conditions and for a specific purpose – burning of books, and the properties of their owners if they are discovered by government agents or citizens who turn in neighbors who may have them hidden; as government has forbidden book ownership. Serious intra-society political discussion has been outlawed and the elimination of books is the government control mechanism. A few in society keep the free exchange of ideas alive through verbal communication and hidden books, but the written word, discussion and opinion derived from it, are prohibited. A recalcitrant fireman who wants to know more about what he has to do is told that minority interests were protesting controversial content and the only remedy was the elimination of all books.

Orwell’s 1984 tells us of ministries in government dedicated to rewriting history to conform to the control from “Big Brother” where even thinking of alternatives is a “thought crime” and individuality and reason are excluded from society. Huxley’s Brave New World describes a world expunged of human emotion and any real discourse. A world where all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins.

Bradbury was heavily influenced by these intense treatments of societies that were by design top down, authoritarian and where the elimination of personal participation and opinion of the individual was controlled through the system of communication run by a one big government monolith with thought police.

The recent explanation for the expulsion of both Williams and Buchanan were that a few individuals within the organizations that kept alternate views alive for public consumption wanted them silenced, not only from individual shows, but from the networks — and silenced they were.

Repercussions of the Williams firing in October resulted in an expose of how the narrow views of some in leadership led to his dismissal, characterizing him as in need of psychiatrist in view of what he disclosed in discussions. A high-level NPR executive was fired when truth about the process behind the Williams dismissal became public.

The Buchanan issue is very recent, but it has led to his guest presence on many diverse news outlets as NBC has now confirmed his removal is permanent. Reportedly some influential types did not like Buchanan’s treatise in his latest best seller“ Suicide of a Superpower.” The larger question is the connection between those news outlets and influential partisan groups tied to government who see silencing of individuals at this level as justified and routine. Regardless of interpretations one may have about the perspectives of others, once we start to formally and selectively silence those who write and speak, we are at the beginning of the end of society as we know it.

To my knowledge there has only been one serious example of government officially silencing a well-known popular political individual. That was Father Coughlin, a Catholic priest who hosted his own Saturday night nationwide network radio show from 1932 to 1938. The most popular talk show in the nation at the time  time with 30 million listeners (when there were few radio talk shows) Coughlin , who strongly supported the Democrats in 1932, lost confidence in the Roosevelt Administration to lead us from the Depression, was clearly anti-Semitic and somewhat a supporter of Hitler’s methods to rebuild Germany. After Hitler’s aggressive internal polices of 1938, Roosevelt ordered the FCC to revoke the broadcast license of CBS unless it took Coughlin off he air. At first CBS balked but then complied. A few local stations still carried him, but when they were also threatened, he was removed completely. Undaunted, Coughlin continued sending his monthly newsletter until the administration ordered the U.S. Post Office to no longer deliver or pick up mail from his address in Royal Oak Michigan.

Jim Foster, Editor