Paying Protection to the Christian Fedayeen

Have you noticed how the media, even the so-called "liberal media," has been giving more fawning attention to the Christian Right lately? There's a reason: the government has been threatening crackdowns on "decency" in the media which, some hope, might be averted if "news" organizations can placate the Christian extremists.

Billmon writes:

Given the money at stake -- both in potentially lost ad revenues and the costs of buying GOP congressmen by the freight car load -- it wouldn't surprise me if the corporate suits started pushing the editorial hacks to come up with more pro-conservative, pro-"family values" content.

I mean, it doesn't cost the suits anything -- just as it doesn't really put a pimp out of pocket to pay off a cop by having one of his girls blow him in the back of his patrol car. Even less so, actually, since while the whore could have been out blowing a paying customer instead of the cop, the media whores would just be giving it away for free to somebody else if they weren't servicing conservatives.

As an aficionado of organized crime, I have to admire the way the Rovians design their scams to do double or even triple duty. And this is a classic example: By threatening a morals crackdown in the media's red light district, the gang not only extorts political cash and fawning coverage from the corporate news pimps, it also earns brownie points with the Bible fedayeen at the same time.

Even better: The Rovians don't really have to crack down very hard on the news pimps -- who are, after all, members in good standing of the corporate oligarchy. Where else are the fedayeen going to go? The Godless Democrats?

It's not necessary to engage in active censorship of the media, it's only necessary to take the steps that will get the media to censor itself. If the media also turns out "news" and "entertainment" pieces which reinforce the ideology of the Christian Right, even better.

Of course, too much censorship would be bad for the Christian Right. They need things to continue complaining about. They need Hollywood to keep producing immoral and indecent material, otherwise they won't be able to easily argue that America's secular culture is oppressing them.

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