That's just the tip of the iceberg and doesn't address the huge Constitutional crisis that we've managed to slip into - that being that somehow the rights of the individual such as free speech has been extended to groups and corporations to an extent I'm certain the framers of our system never intended.

A corporation (such as Clear Channel) is not a human being. The individuals within that corporation certainly fall under the Bill of Rights but the wording of our early laws clearly shows those rights were designed to remain at the personal level. Once huge numbers of those individuals band together, pool their enormous resources, and then demand the same rights of free speech and media access of a single citizen, it becomes a bastardization of the concept and in essence takes away the individual's rights by drowning them out. Our electronic media amplifies that effect.

No longer can the voice of a single person on a street corner standing on a soapbox be even faintly heard over the din of corporate media backed by billions of dollars. The whole concept of the corporation and the strict laws at the inception of that concept to prevent the very excess we see today have been mowed under through years of litigation and bullying by the rich and powerful.

I don't want a new Fairness Doctrine. I want a Constitutional amendment that clearly defines that the rights we enjoy as individual citizens are limited severely when we band together as a political or corporate entity. Our media landscape has so changed since the inception of our laws that only those with huge sums of money (on both sides of the aisle) get a political voice anymore. That very needed alteration of our Constitution would be a major step in changing that. No longer would the legal argument exist that we are limiting free speech or free enterprise when we stop huge monopolies from forming, or put restrictions on PAC's and lobbyists. Media dynasties could be controlled not by a single piece of legislation but by legal challenges by individuals of their voices being extinguished.

I hold very little hope of that ever happening though. As we've seen, the Constitution is extremely tough to amend and the concept I'm forwarding is probably beyond the realm of the thoughts of the average American.

Art