Freedom of Speech in America
Sorry for my delays on the blog but with the ever constant sleep deprivation while covering the morning show I thought it wasn’t wise to post. They say that someone driving tired is the same as someone who drives drunk. Hence posting a blog while tired would be the same as doing it while drunk. You don’t want to see a rambling from me like Rosanne Barr where she talked about peeing her pants and admitting that somewhere she has a sex tape! (God I hope that never sees the light of day! I think I would have to gouge my eye balls out with a spoon….as horrendous as that sounds it would be nothing like the pain you would feel from seeing Rosanne naked)
A troubling thing happened this past weekend. It involved Pearl Jam and freedom of speech in America. They were performing at a huge festival called LOLLAPALLOOZA. Their part of the show was available on the internet exclusivly through AT&T. Since they are a huge company it’s not surprising that they had a delay on the broadcast so that they could cut out any “offensive” material. Now I can understand to a certain extent editing out cursing, but what happened was totally inconceivable. During one of there songs they broke into a rendition of “Another Brick in the Wall” and for the lines “Teacher leave them kids alone” the band substituted “George Bush leave the world alone” and then “George Bush go find another home”…..while here in Canada anyone who’s reading these lines may think “ok…so what..George is A-Hole and the boys are right” or at the very least that people in a free world have the right to voice their opinion. AT&T decided that anyone listening to the webcast would find criticism of the President offensive. So they edited the entire section where he talks about Bush. Can you imagine…it’s scary to think that’s what it has come to in some people’s minds in America…you can say what you want but don’t criticize the President. Since the incident AT&T has said they were wrong for taking out that section…but the real piss off is that they didn’t say…”ok we were wrong” they try to play it off like “we thought he was going to curse” even though there was a delay on the song.
Anyway if this story has interested you in the least the boys of Pear Jam have posted the unedited video and their comments on the issue here: http://pearljam.com/news/index.php?what=News#197
One more reason I’m proud to be Canadian…free speech and beer with some bite to it!
August 17th, 2007 at 9:42 am
Of all the bands to try and edit, PJ was a poor, poor choice by AT & T…
Long live PJ!!!!