Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Listen to Tim

You can listen to Tim Robbins' address to the National Association of Broadcasters, expletives undeleted. Here's how it begins:

I'd like to start with an apology to Rush and Sean and Bill and Savage and Laura whatshername. A few years ago they told America that because I had different opinions on the wisdom of going to war that I was a traitor ... I was a naive dupe of left-wing appeasement. And how right they were.

If I had known then what I know now, if I had seen the festive and appreciative faces on the streets of Baghdad today, if I had known then what a robust economy we would be in, the unity of our people, the wildfire of democracy that has spread across the Mid-East, I would never have said those traitorous, unfounded and irresponsible things.

I stand chastened in the face of the wisdom of the talk-radio geniuses, and I apologize for standing in the way of freedom.
But the really good stuff comes when he skewers the broadcast industry itself:
In the 80s and 90s, the FCC under pressure from the Reagan and Clinton administrations changed the rules limiting the number of radio and television stations a business entity could own, paving the way for large entertainment corporations to buy up local stations and put them under the umbrella of the larger corporations. Again the community benefited. Because of these conglomerates innovative approach, listeners no longer had to be subjected to perplexing controversial subjects, or confused varied opinion, or alternative rock.

2 comments:

  1. Last week I saw a live production of Tim Robbin's play Dead Man Walking.

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  2. Yes! I downloaded at listened to that last week, so good and harsh! Funny as hell too. The world definitely needs more Tim.

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