Talk Is Cheap, Free Speech is Priceless

This has been a rather sad and sorrowful beginning to the holiday season except for a brief moment of joy after the conclusion of the 2020 general elections.  What has filled this emotional void is anxiety over whether No. 45 will leave the White House, how No. 45 might steal the election he lost, or if what No. 45 has done thus far is anything short of a coup attempt on our democracy. It will be curious to see if he even attends President-elect Joe Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration or just goes golfing again.

We have not seen a year like this one in all the years I have been publishing Random Lengths News. The closest we have come to this in my lifetime is President Richard M. Nixon resigning after the Watergate scandal and the resistance to the Vietnam War and the legal battle over the Pentagon Papers. Before that though you’d have to go back to the 1950s McCarthy Era or perhaps the Influenza  pandemic of 1918 and the propaganda campaigns of World War I ( remember from your history books that was the “war to end all wars”). These times have all exposed the darker side of American exceptionalism. We haven’t always been “that shining light on the hill.”

We have not only witnessed unrelenting attacks on the media, science and other foundations of our democracy, but we have lived with the very real fear that this tyrant would wreck the whole mechanics of our democracy with ignorance, hate, vitriol and 20,000 lies. Curiously enough, many millions of our fellow citizens voted against all of the evidence to keep this corrupt reality TV brand name in power, but he lost by more than more than 6.8 million votes, fortunately.  It makes you wonder where those people get their ideas?

All across this nation, news deserts have formed. There are whole communities whose media markets only have access to rightwing cable news, conservative talk radio or worse, online fake news propaganda sites owned by hedgefund billionaires and run by their stooges. This is where the followers of Donald Trump get their QANON conspiracies and COVID-19 hoaxes. Most of these rightwing media are not even staffed by real journalists, but “personalities” like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity or other scoundrels like Stephen K. Bannon and a growing number of aspirants.

The growing number of rightwing platforms (it’s disingenuous to call them “news media” as they mostly regurgitate the daily conservative talking points or political spin) are spreading all across America’s heartland, just like the pandemic. The map of the spread of the coronavirus in the middle of the country looks a lot like the political map. If you take a look at the political divide in this country between the west coast, the northeast and the urban cities that voted blue, there is this great wide swath of rural red America. 

Most of them are dominated by conservative media held in a limited number of wealthy hands. And the great lie that is told is about the “liberal media’’ is just that — most of the media is not “liberal.” These are the places where protests to social distancing and mask wearing come as infringements to personal liberty — kind of like in Huntington Beach in Orange County.

As if dying of COVID-19 because of community disregard to health directives like wearing a mask, isn’t the ultimate “infringement” on your liberty, but in some places health directives are a cause for armed uprisings and death threats against public health officials.

However, here in Pedroville you have one of the last bastions of free and independent journalism; we have stood the test of time, 41 years this December. We have walked through the fires of conservative vitriol and hate speech, fought against injustice and bigotry, given voice to community activists defending our schools, the environment and unions and to cap it off this year we had the great privilege to defend free speech and the free press itself by fighting a phony libel lawsuit from Nick Tonsich. Which cost us a small $27,000 to defeat.

Telling the truth isn’t cheap these days. The satisfaction comes with vindication from a judge.

So through all of the chaos, coronavirus and corruptions I still have this cautious optimism and tenacious gratitude that at least in this small part of the vast Los Angeles cityscape a free press can still exist against all the odds. So thank you to all who continue to believe that what we publish matters, for standing with us and for taking the time to read or support this free press enterprise.  

In the final analysis, there are some things that are more important than money — family, friends that you trust, a community that cares about its future and a free independent press dedicated to speaking truth to power.