In early 2005, ProjectUSA sponsored a contest in which people who contributed to the cost of it, could vote for whichever slogan they preferred on a billboard that would target a member of Congress who supported amnesty.
John McCain “won” in a rout, drawing donations from Maine to San Diego.
A billboard in Phoenix was contracted for with Viacom Outdoor, a division of the global media giant, Viacom, Inc. It would read, “John McCain supports amnesty for illegal aliens,” with a reference to a particularly horrific AILA-authored perennial threat, the AgJOBS amnesty.
But, before the billboard could be printed and installed, Viacom Outdoor, which has a near monopoly on “30-sheet” billboards in the Phoenix area, the only kind we could use, broke the contract. The explanation given was that the billboard’s slogan was “bashing” John McCain.
We countered that our slogan was hardly “bashing.” It was simply an accurate statement. Furthermore, our billboard was an attempt to participate in the democratic process, a Constitutional right guaranteed even to us little guys.
Viacom wouldn’t budge.
A reporter for Arizona’s largest newspaper, the Arizona Republic, got wind of the impasse, and did a piece on it. [Billboard Owners Bar Ad Targetting McCain, The Arizona Republic, April 21, 2005] In response, Senator McCain denied he supports amnesty.
The challenge
With no other options, we offered to submit the slogan, “John McCain supports amnesty for illegal aliens,” to an independent panel of legal experts for a decision on its accuracy.
We offered to pay for the panel, and if the slogan were judged inaccurate, we would put up ten billboards apologizing to Senator McCain and averring he does not support amnesties. If the slogan were accurate, John McCain would put up ten billboards stating he supports amnesty. [the challenge]
McCain’s office refused our challenge. That tells me that not only is he wrong, he knows he’s wrong. And here’s something else he knows. By the very vehemence with which he denies his amnesties are amnesties, it is clear he knows his position is radically opposed to the wishes of his constituents.
He’s lying, and he knows he’s lying.
To this day, John McCain denies he supports amnesty for illegal aliens, secure in the knowledge that the corporate media will not fulfill the role the Founders envisioned for a free press in our republic.
Viacom squashed our little $2,000 billboard, our one small attempt to have our voices heard on an important issue in our democracy. The global multinational isn’t shy, however, about making sure its voice is heard.
Viacom (CBS) has lobbied for years to have the cap raised on the percentage of a single media market one corporation can own. Despite the obvious dangers to our democracy that media consolidation poses, it has achieved much success already. Viacom is one of the main beneficiaries of legislation that has tossed out decades-old caps.
Now they want more. In the effort to further concentrate ownership of the media, Viacom has become one of the top campaign contributors in the communications and electronics sector. Viacom gave nearly $1.5 million in individual, PAC, and soft money donations during the 2002 election cycle—89 percent to Democrats—and has been a particularly strong supporter of Senator John McCain.
And who was the chairman of the Senate’s Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, the committee with jurisdiction over media ownership in the United States, when Viacom yanked our billboard? Senator John McCain.
In fact, Viacom was John McCain’s fourth largest source of campaign contributions that year. And while Viacom would not permit our one small (legal and peaceful) attempt to convey in a democratic way important information (in our opinion) to our fellow citizens, the media conglomerate had no qualms about dumping millions of dollars directly in to Washington, DC to make sure its voice was heard.
The hundreds of people from all over the country who sent along ten or twenty dollars to help pay for the billboard in Phoenix, God bless them, were motivated by one thing: concern for their country. They had nothing otherwise to gain. Their donations were motivated by the kind of sentiment—civic-mindedness—a democracy must nourish in order to flourish.
Sumner Redstone and the other Viacom execs who dump millons of dollars into Washington year after year are motivated by another kind of sentiment: the desire to further bloat their already bloated wallets, i.e., greed.
But the people who sent along ten or twenty dollars got nothing. One simple accurate sentence, “John McCain supports amnesty for illegal aliens,” was too much for the Viacom execs.
Meanwhile, John McCain continues to take the corporate money. He continues, with the endorsement of the New York Times, to keep the American people in the dark about what he’s doing in their name in Washington, DC. And now, running for president, and looking directly into the TV cameras, cameras owned by his patrons at Viacom, he asks us to promote him to the office of the president of the United States.
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For more John McCain awfulness you’ll never read about in the NewYork Times, Michelle Malkin is a good place to start. Juan Hernandez.
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