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06/07/2003 Archived Entry: "What is the Weiner lawsuit against TBTM really about?"
What is the Weiner lawsuit against TBTM really about?
This editorial is now live on Take Back The Media. To my fellow bloggers - I don't usually solicit linkage for my stuff, because most of the time it's stuff that you can find in a lot of places. But I feel this is important enough to ask. If you think it's content worthy of your bandwidth, I'd appreciate a link to the TBTM version if you could. Thanks.
As always, clicking the 'comments' link will give you the complete article.
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As many of you may know, I co-founded the web site Take Back The Media with Mike Stinson and Julie Sigwart in December of last year. We saw a void - a lack of calling the American Media on its acquiescence/complicity in pushing a hard-right agenda in return for the promise of relaxed FCC ownership rules, and we filled that void. TBTM has gone on to become a media watchdog and a valuable news source for others who view the corruption of the media in this country as a direct and imminent threat to democracy.
We feel that the media in this country is - either through ignorance, incompetence or malevolence - systematically silencing and/or marginalizing voices of dissent in this country. Look back at the run-up to the Iraq invasion, and you'll see a path littered with the bodies of dissenters of many different types. You've got informed insiders (Scott Ritter), entertainers with social conscience (Sean Penn, Jeanane Garafalo, Martin Sheen), recording artists who speak their minds (Dixie Chicks, Madonna), entire countries and cultures (France, Germany, 'Old Europe') and patriotic Americans with dissenting points of view (John Kerry). All spoke out aganist the occupation of Iraq, all had one manner or another of hammer fall on them.
Those who spoke out became fodder for shrieking heads on cable TV and hate radio. On a nightly basis, partisan hacks like Joe Scarborough and Bill O'Reilly vented their outrage that there were those in this country who didn't fall on their knees and pledge life-long fealty to an ex-drunk deserter who was placed in position to wage war on the world by a group of partisans in black robes. And talk radio, unbelievably, was even worse.
The Glenn Becks, Rush Limbaughs and Michael Savages of the world went even further, calling dissenters unpatriotic and Un-American. 'Pro-troop rallies' (which consisted mainly of complaining about those who dared criticize the government) were assembled by Clear Channel Communications, and there were calls from the most hateful fringe to try and imprison dissenters under the Sedition Act (never mind that it was repealed). Pretty perverse - but the festering sewer known as right-wing talk radio somehow found a way to pervert the situation even further.
While Limbaugh and Beck kept the rabble-rousing on a general level, Michael 'Michael Savage' Weiner took things to an absurdly personal level. Weiner's response to a boycott by GLAAD led him to spend hours on his marginally-rated droolfest threatening those who would try to boycott him. In the rush to war, Weiner somehow made the situation all about him, and made threats to go after those who criticized him and make them pay. A Goliath in search of a David, he railed against GLAAD - and then trained his sites on an entirely different target.
Weiner filed suit against 3 small web sites - SavageStupidity.com, MichaelSavageSucks.com, and Take Back The Media.
We should get something straight here - this isn't about any of the charges in the lawsuit. It's not about loss of revenue, it's not about trademark infringement or defamation or damage to Weiner's reputation. It's not about any of these things.
It's about a large corporation attempting to take away the free speech of regular Americans with a point of view. It's about people with deep pockets using money and influence to run roughshod over people who don't agree with them.
It's about a radio blowhard with pitifully thin skin, whose radio show is failing miserably, and whose TV show can't even finance itself through national advertising due to its toxic, stunted, hateful, pathetic content, taking out his failure on web sites who speak truth to power. It's about boosting ratings, and providing talking points, and throwing red meat to a tiny audience who can't raise themselves out of bed in the morning unless they have a target for their festering hate.
It's about a small-minded bully who has raised professional victimhood to obscene levels. It's about a loudmouth who regularly rants about the evils of 'trial lawyers' hiring batteries of those same evil trial lawyers to intimidate and silence people with a lot less money. It's about rendering the 'power of the purse' - the right to boycott products, services and media outlets you disagree with - a thing of the past. By equating criticism of hate speech with denying him his a right to make a living, Weiner wants to take your right to protest via boycott away from you.
And if he succeeds against these small web sites of limited resources, he will not stop.
There is a reason our sites have been targeted by this lawsuit. All three sites are tiny operations. TBTM, with a staff of four people, is the biggest of the three. SavageStupidity is run by a huband and wife, and MichaelSavageSucks is a one-man shop. By filing suit against 3 web sites where the principals barely have two dimes to rub together, the chances are better of a slam-dunk for the plaintiff.
There are many sites and organizations - the largest among them the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) - who have been much more aggressive in their actions against Weiner than any of the sites that were sued. GLAAD actually called for a boycott of Weiner's advertisers, and they have a full archive of Weiner's quotes and sound bites (one of the main contentions of the lawsuit) on their site. The difference between GLAAD and TBTM is this - GLAAD has the resources to mount a vigorous defense against a harassment suit such as this without bankrupting themselves, and Weiner is quite simply afraid to try and attack someone who might actually be able to fight back.
This frivolous lawsuit is only one rung on the food chain for Weiner, and if he silences us, he'll have a precedent with which to go after bigger sites, more well-known commentators, bigger organizations - in short, anyone he feels like going after. In typical bully fashion, he avoids picking a fight with someone his own size, opting instead to pick on sites that would run their bank accounts dry in their own defense. Says a lot about the man and how he thinks.
This lawsuit may seem like relatively small potatoes in the scheme of things, but it's not. This should send chills through anyone who values the right to speak their mind. Because no matter what the stated purposes are here, that is what they're truly after - they're seeking legal license to shut you up if they don't like what you're saying.
To quote the band Radiohead - 'Your alarm bells/They should be ringing.'
Replies: 2 people speak up
Maybe this has nothing to do with your post but....Perhaps the real irony here may be a recent court decision (in Florida I think) that said it was okay for FAux news to actually lie when it is reporting. They are in a weirded kind of way actually supporting free speech..even if it is blatantly false!
Anyhow I do empathize with you and understand your main point..suppressing dissenting voices is baaaaaaaaaaddddd! Please keep us updated if possible on how the suit is going!
Posted by no free speech for you! @ 06/08/2003 09:56 AM NY
The fear of intimidation or outright lawsuits such as this one targetting independent media, bloggers, etc. is very real. I've said so on my blog, briefly because I know it sounds like a "conspiracy theory." But this goes beyond Savage, even beyond politics. Web forums, bloggers, and other independents have been taken to court for criticizing corporations and posting their bad experiences with them (for example, Google pulled adwords for an anti-Dixon site).
I'll certainly link to this; please keep everyone updated.
Posted by Nasty Riffraff @ 06/08/2003 01:37 PM NY
