The High Cost of Free Speech

Anonymous Larry writes, "You should consider writing for a newspaper. Your stuff is good." Thanks for the praise, Larry (I know who you are!!!). But working for a newspaper is almost as tough as getting a college teaching job. I've been trying for months to get newspapers around Chicagoland to publish my articles, and they refuse to do so. Heck, they won't even acknowledge my queries. That's one of the reasons I started this blog - so I could get my ideas published, at least to a small audience. Which brings up the question of "free speech" in this country.

"Free speech" is really a misnomer. Oh, sure, anybody has the right to say whatever they feel like saying (at least we could before the grossly mis-titled Patriot Act made us all wary of saying anything that might tag us as possible "terrorists"). Getting people to hear what you have to say - getting a "venue," that is - is another matter altogether. The News (or the Press or what have you) would be the ideal place to publish ideas, because of the potential size of the audience. But, unfortunately, News - like everything else in this country - is a big business run to make a profit. And once one realizes that fact - I mean really realizes it - one must contemplate on what happens to an unbiased press who's main goal is to make money. The upshot of it is that the press prints only those stories that will guarantee readership and won't piss off the advertisers. In other words, the News Media determine what news the public will hear or read based on the economic gain the News Media will receive from publishing it. Nothing like an unbiased News Media, is there?

The Internet would be a good place to publish. Not a blog, but a real webite - BenRhodes.com or something like that. But websites cost money, and money is something that most of us don't have lots of. So, until the income exceeds the outflow by a considerable amount, a website is out of the question.

I could also publish my own broadsides and post them all over the city, but that also costs money, and - besides - we all know about those kind of people - you know, the ones who print and distribute their own informational fliers. Those are the radicals and kooks, the extremists and nut cases, the ones that no rational person listens to anyway, the ones the government keeps a close eye on. And while I may have some radical ideas (like not declaring war on countries that haven't attacked us), I'm not sure I'm ready to join this other group.

So, I guess I will go on publishing here. Perhaps, if folks keep spreading the word, and readership grows through that word-of-mouth advertising, my little blog will begin to make a little difference.

And remember, tomorrow is election day. As they used to say in Chicago, vote early and vote often.