…bitch.
All across the virtual land, people far, far better than I have commented (OK, mocked) the idiotic idea that a blog is not a protected entity, but an online magazine is.
So being a serious man, I sez to myself, I sez, “Is there still room for me to pile on too?”
Here’s a bit of the article from dKos that lays out the particulars…
At its essence, [the media exemption] allows a media corporation, through certain of its employees -- reporters, editorial writers, and cartoonists -- to spend an unlimited amount of corporate money communicating with candidates, asking them anything about their campaigns, with no question relating to money or strategy off limits, activities, in short, that would be considered "coordination" if the person doing the asking were not considered media.
…
This broad treatment is in keeping with the legislative history, and is consistent with the FEC's previous advisory opinions. Given these precedents, I expect that the members of the Commission will grant the exemption widely to bloggers, or you will send it back to Congress and they will specifically include bloggers.
But this broadly granted media exception contains within it an absolutely unavoidable consequence. And that is, there is no way to keep big money out of this picture.
My concern is not with the average citizen who chooses to publish a blog and share his or her viewpoints on the Internet, but with large corporations and unions who seek to unfairly influence campaigns by spending huge amounts of money under the guise of being a blog [...]
That is what I fear about the widely granted media exemption. Not that the old media will lose it power. They can take care of themselves. What I fear is that our fragile, very flawed system of campaign finance regulation will completely destroyed.
…
So the upshot is an argument for saying that the exemption for that one virtual entity that publishes opinion and analysis and news-y looking stuff should be as legal as seawater, while another, absolutely identical entity, should not be.
Which had led some people to joshingly (or not) retitle their Thingies Formerly Known as Blogs into “Magazines” to, uh, better serve YOU the customer.
Me? I started wondering what else is protected.
What other fig-leaf would allow responsible and funny and serious and acerbic adults to talk openly about issues of the day? And as an extra added bonus, would also allow dangerously unbalanced degenerates to run wild and free through the land, potshotting at everyone that looks at them funny?
Would let a deranged douchebag roam the country, peeing on the graves of the honored dead and telling children they’ll go to Hell if they don’t Hate Fags vigorously enough?
Would let a shambling, morally-bankrupt wingnut swine vomited up out the depths of the raw Fundamentalist sewage that runs hip-deep though the streets these days, spew his hateful dogma of blaming every bad thing in the Universe -- including 9/11 -– on gays, feminists, liberals and the ACLU?
Would let such monsters not only peddle their poison decade after decade, and not only let them get tax-exempt rich doing it, but, finally, actually turn over the keys to the entire country to them?
In any sane country, these Marauding Perverts For Christ would at best be kept in a kind of Colonial Lynchburg theme-park, where they could be properly ridiculed by school children on field trips. At worst, they would be driven into the sea and everything they ever touched would be fumigated or slagged.
Instead, we let them run the place and make Total War on the very Democratic Ideals that allow them to exist unmolested in the first place...from inside the Congress and the White House.
So this citizen has got to wonder how he might also cop a Magic Cloak of Ethical Invisibility that would not only let me opine freely, but also let me cash in on some of that sweet, sweet Faith Based sugar that the Evangelocrats are so anxious to cut from Evil Secular Programs and lavish on anyone with a Bible and a bad idea.
In other words, WWLRD?
What would L. Ron do?
So maybe this isn’t a blog at all.
Maybe this is my exegesis.
Need to give it some thought.
In the meantime, go in peace my friends and remember…blessed are the Cheesemakers.
Hey, what the Hell: blessed are any manufacturers of dairy products.
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