Blogswarm - Online Political News Magazine

Viacom, the media mega-corp with a monopoly on youth-culture channels and a CEO who's backing Bush is refusing to air political advertisements that go beyond simply encouraging voting "just because" and step up to address the issues.

Wanna do something about it?

It's a moment to take a stand against media consolidation and against corporate elites who patronize and dumb-down our generation by trying to screen them from real political content.

Here's the story. There's this little venture that wants to do youth-oriented political advertisements. They're called Compare, Decide, Vote. The ads are a little cheeky, but they're certainly no more offensive than any candidate ads, and a damn sight less creepy than any of that Swift Boat nonsense. They point out where Kerry and Bush differ on issues that might matter to younger voters -- college costs, minimum wage, Iraq -- and urge the viewer to compare, decide, and vote.

The idea was to run them during the Daily Show, TRL, Chapelle, etc; get some good issue-based content out there to remind us tykes there are real choices at stake on Nov 2nd. Pretty simple, right? Well, Viacom, with it's near-monopoly on young-adult oriented programming (MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, BET) is refusing to allow the ads to air.

Let me explain exactly why this is TOTAL BULLSHIT. First of all, Sumner Redstone (the tycoon in charge) is a Bush supporter by virtue of W's pro-consolidation platform. Suspect.

Secondly, they've given no real reason why they're not going to air the ads. They probably believe they have a right to refuse to run political content because they give space to 501c(3) orgs like Rock The Vote and Declare Yourself, which urge people to vote more or less "just because."

But here's the thing: becoming an engaged participant in civic life and the political process isn't something you do "just because." It's about formulating and acting upon opinions, and that's about information. Participation starts with making choices based on your (hopefully informed) judgement as to which candidate(s) will best protect and advance your interests, not printing a voter reg form off the internet because a celebrity implied that it was cool. While I'm glad (super glad!) that Rock the Vote and Declare Yourself exist and are registering gobs and gobs of people to vote, they do not in and of themselves express or constitute an informed political consciousness.

Viacom apparently believes that their channels, which reach millions of potential young participants, are not an appropriate forum for additional data which might set their viewers down the path towards forming such a consciousness for themselves.

On the other hand, if an ad promotes getting drunk (Bass, Guiness, Baileys, Coors Light), flashing your tits (Girls Gone Wild), getting regular boners (Enzite), or even just staying in and playing video games it's all good.

So, yeah. The message is clear. Consumerism, intoxication and sex are great, but don't try and spread the raw materials from which people might form some political opinions. We oppose that. We will not take your money to run ads which do this.

Can you think of anything more condescending than that? Anything more patronizing? Anything more un-American? Our future is on the line -- our jobs, our education, our health, the looming spectre of widening warfare and compulsatory military service -- and the corporate masters of our media universe want to keep us in a happy haze. Viacom really wants to be the opiate of the masses.

That and they want to hide the fact that Bush's record and agenda sucks ass from the youth perspective. Sumner Redstone is clearly trying to help his man out by keeping Bush's record on education and the minimum wage off the airwaves. My response? Fuck you, Sumner. I will burn you down.

So lets make a stink. I'm tired of the anesthetization of our generation by the broadcast giants. This is bullshit, and we shouldn't stand for it. If we can put the screws to Sumner and his Viacom cronies, maybe we can get them to re-think their position.