If you think that I’m spending too much time writing about what happened to Don Imus, you’re wrong.
This is a long editorial, but one that I hope you’ll see fit to read in its entirety.
What happened to Imus is going to impact upon all of us in North America, especially upon conventional (terrestrial) radio.
When we need more freedom of speech, we will now have less.
Imus was the first serious shot that was fired at freedom of speech by people who do not want to be exposed. And I’m not just writing about scum like Jackson and Sharpton.
People in political power are those who most of all do not want to be exposed. They don’t want a light shone upon their backroom deals, their brown envelopes, their abuses of power, their abuses of expense accounts and their incompetence.
When I was on the air in Montreal, my radio show drew a huge audience with an across the board demography.
Doctors, lawyers, accountants, teachers, social leaders, business people, sales people and stay at home people, to name just a few, were amongst the many who tuned in to hear what I had to say.
My radio show was very much like this Blog. I said it just as I saw it. I was never hesitant to call someone a schmuck on-air, and to expose people for what and who they were.
And I didn’t give a damn about the CRTC (Canada’s FCC). I cared only about the truth, and what good my radio show could do.
Even though I had never seen nor heard Imus’ show before, or while I was on-air from 1997 to 1999, my show was very similar to Don Imus’ show without the humor and gratuitous insults.
I did my show from our horse farm on broadcasting equipment I co-owned with the radio station. And my contract with the station was simple.
1 – I was free to say whatever I wanted.
2 – I, and only I chose my guests and topics.
3 – There was no delay between what was said on my show, and what the audience heard.
4 – I could use my show to promote whatever cause I supported.
5 – The station allowed me to broadcast from wherever I happened to be, including on my cell-phone.
As a result of this show, I raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for issues I felt were important, such as: Sheltering the homeless, feeding hungry children and supporting the SPCA to name but a few.
In addition to raising all of this money, my show also gave unbelievable exposure to important social services that were otherwise very much ignored.
But I also used the show to mercilessly attack ethnocentric nationalism within Quebec.
And I had a scorched earth policy when it came to appeasers of any stripe, but mostly against the conventional media that wrote or broadcast only what was safe and politically expedient.
There are no greater kiss-asses in Montreal than the English speaking media. And I outed them for it without pity. I even took the print media to the Advertising Standards Council for publishing ads from the Quebec government that were outright lies and propaganda.
And when I won, the Advertising Standards Council told me that their ruling was for internal use only, and that I could not make their decision public.
That lasted about 2 seconds.
In another instance, a French woman who supported ethnocentric nationalism in Quebec recorded my shows verbatim (by hand), and sent her stenography to the CRTC, demanding an on-air apology for me calling Quebec Separatists Bastards, and pointing out the racism of their language laws.
The CRTC ruled that the station must make an apology, and that her name never be mentioned on-air. Unfortunately for the station and the CRTC, a copy of her complaint (with her name) was forwarded to me.
I’m sure you can guess what happened from there.
As a result of this condemnation from the CRTC, I received hundreds of letters by mail (not email) from my listeners (to be sent to the CRTC), telling them to keep their hands off my show.
At another time, while flying back from a speaking tour in Western Canada, I was live on-air via sky-phone with my fill-in host, when he told me that the Radio Broadcasting Council (or whatever they called themselves) admonished me for being disrespectful on-air.
And from 35,000 feet, my on-air response was: “What part of they can kiss my ass don’t they understand”? That didn’t go over well with them.
It took time for the elitists and federal and provincial governments to figure out how to get me off the air without seeming to be getting me off the air. But they did.
Doesn’t it seem strange that my show, which was “the” show in town, that went from a measly 7,000 listeners when I first went on air, and grew to far more than 30,000 listeners in just one and a half years, went off the air?
Doesn’t it seem even stranger that more than 2,000 people (absolutely unbeknownst to me) including a police commander, a Priest who was Montreal’s Irishman of the Year, a noted city politician, the publisher of Quebec’s largest English language weekly, and two of Montreal’s best known charity providers, to name but a few, signed a petition to keep me on-air – all to no avail?
Plenty of recipients of my on-air wrath threatened to sue me. Some actually sent lawyers’ letters, but none ever followed through, simply because I was always right.
I never targeted anyone who didn’t deserve it. And I never made allegations that weren’t entirely true. Nonetheless, I made a great many people very uncomfortable, and as a result, this Blog is now my only way to vent.
And no one’s going to stop me from writing what I believe to be true. The only one who can end this Blog is me. And if anyone wants to sue me, they should know that I’ll sue back.
My unique advantage while I was on-air, was that it was not my day job.
As a matter of simple economics, doing the show was costing me money, considering how much I was losing by not tending to our national advertising agency, as I should have.
In terms of revenue, not renewing my show was a financial plus for me. But how many on-air people have that advantage, where they can afford not to be on-air?
This means they have to toe the politically correct line?
Now that the precedent was set with the firing of Don Imus, the piss-ants who don’t want to be outed any longer can do to anyone who is on-air, what they did to Imus and myself.
Who’s there to stop them? Neither the government nor the FCC and CRTC want to have a bright light shone upon them?
In Canada, where I live, the CRTC, with the compliance of a lily-livered broadcasting industry, has just about fully emasculated talk-radio, which is why I listen to American talk.
But, with this vile precedent set by the firing of Imus, all of that will probably change sooner rather that later, so that American talk will soon enough sound like the crap Canadians are subjected to every day on virtually every station.
I also want to mention my utter disgust at the US television media, including FOX News, that not one of them has come to Imus’ defense. Instead, they’re piling-on.
On FOX television this morning, one of the Saturday morning hosts, who just happens to be Black, was very quick to lump Imus in with Paris Hilton and others as a bad role model.
What a fucking idiot! How does he explain the millions of dollars Imus raises every year to tend to the needs of the sick and disadvantaged? Including the money Imus takes out of his own pocket?
Maybe this FOX jerk would like to get sued for calling Paris Hilton a bad role model. Who is he to sit in “PUBLIC” judgment on the people’s airwaves of Paris Hilton, who is in her own right a mega super-star?
Who is he to defame this unbelievably successful and hardworking woman?
Because of the precedent set by the firing of Imus, this FOX prick with the big judgmental mouth is now just as vulnerable to be tarred and feathered for what he said about Hilton as Imus was for what he said about the women’s Rutgers basketball team.
Imus said what he did in jest about a whole team. The FOX holier-than-thou big mouth singled out specific people. In my mind’s eye, that makes his insult far more egregious than what Imus was pilloried for.
You think I’m pissed? YOU HAVE NO IDEA!
Given the consequences of this dumb decision by NBC and CBS, everyone on the air is now a target for the likes of Sharpton, Jackson, Islamo-Fascist supporters and an army of schmucks.
The American media are proving themselves to be dummies of the most exceptional kind. Wait till the rest of these cowards get the heavy knock on their door.
To whom will they turn?
They should read what Pastor Martin Niemoller who died in Auschwitz wrote:
“First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew”.
“Then they came for the communists and I did not speak out because I was not a communist”.
“Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist”.
“Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me”.
That’s how serious the Imus firing really is.
![Parler_-_Logo_(2020)[1]](https://galganov.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Parler_-_Logo_20201.svg "Parler_-_Logo_(2020)[1]"){kind=logo}
One Comment
Howard—–Your character displays: the “bravery” of a HAWK; the “serenity” of a DOVE; and the “acuity” of an OWL. You and Anne are excellent role models for today’s “modern society” which has lost its way regarding how to live a MORAL way of life. Wishing you the very best of luck in your future endeavors.
Comments are closed.