Scared To Be An American

HOT 97's "SMACKFEST" MORE IMPORTANT THAN POVERTY, WAR AND OTHER MINUTIA.

click photo for original nonsense courtesy of the NY Post

Wow. Things used to be so much easier when I was lost in a drug and alcohol induced haze. I mean what a pretty world it was...before I up and got myself clean. My newfound clarity however comes at a steep and frightening price.
First it was the porn industry (or what then passed as an "industry") in the early 70's. There was Richard Nixon plaguing our freedom with religious right rhetoric and a passion for censoring all things fun. Even when his "anti-smut" bill and pre-legislative investigation of the effect of porn on people as it related to criminal behavior flunked in congress, he disregarded the findings of his own appointed committee and passed the bill.
Fast forward thirty years to the present day’s horrific condemnation of free-thinkers like Howard Stern, and you have a government who has succeeded in all but pissing on the Constitutional rights of anyone whose feelings differ from that of the administrations. Even the sound of it -the administration- is so eerie and foreboding as to bring to life visions of your favorite John Grisham novel. This however is not a fictitious novel written in the tradition of Sam Spade. This is real life and the world, or at least country, in which we live.
Now, New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer has taken his cue from, who else, but the NY post. Egged on by an "investigative" piece written in last weeks paper, Spitzer has launched a formal investigation into "Smackfest", New York radio station Hot 97's contest in which two people trade face-slaps until one cries uncle. Of course all of the participants are willing and have signed consent forms. But why should a miniscule detail such as the signing of a LEGAL document drawn up by bigger and better men that Mr. Spitzer stop him from busting down the proverbial door of two consentual, tax paying citizens.
Hot 97, still reeling from a damaging series of wild west style shootouts outside their building, have promptly pulled the feature from the airwaves. In the midst of a public relations nightmare, the station surely wants to avoid any and all additional attention, particularly of the negative strain.
And as it would seem, this is all that the Gestapo-like republicans in the charge of this great city need to pounce. While the radio stations Achilles heel has been exposed by the "Fitties" and the appropriately named "Capones and Noriegas", the Spitzers, Bloombergs and Bushs' will indeed take full advantage and move in for the kill.
Short of a complete and total overhaul of the very thought process that makes people, on either side of the controversy, do the things that they do we can only sit and hope. Powerless as we are to change things, it gets frustrating enough to make me want a drink. Honestly though, is that not exactly how they would want it?
I think that I will pass on the booze this time. It seems that we might be in for the fight of, and for, our lives and I want to be prepared. Man, things were so much easier when I was living in that lovely pink haze.

-B.T. Hellenbach