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Soldiers' Mom's Letter to "Cowardly" Sinclair Broadcasting

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION

I just thought you might want to be copied on a letter that I e-mailed to Sinclair Broadasting Company this evening expressing my outrage at their blatant censorship.
 
By the way, your website is the voice of reason in this propaganda-filled political climate. I look forward to your e-mails every single day....Thank You!

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Dear Sir/Madam:
 
As a family member of two soldiers currently in Iraq, I am writing to express my outrage at your actions in refusing to air the soldier tribute this evening.
 
Your station's cowardly and biased censorship of the truth of what is really going on in Iraq is a perfect example of neo-con socialism.  In your rhetoric-strewn "open letter" on your homepage, you claim to love this country and our soldiers. Well, a basic tenet of this country is free speech - and you can't just love it when it suits your own political interests. Our soldiers have fought and died for this foolish President's redneck foreign policies, and no amount of censorship (or as you euphemistically like to call it - "preemption") on your part can change that.
 
This kind of partisan censorship is shameful from a major broadcaster. No matter how much you may be fooled by George Bush's Iraqi war rhetoric, that does not mean that the rest of the country must suffer your same uninformed viewpoints. Since when does the American public only get to view what your company deems "appropriate" for us?? Do you think so little of the American public's capabilities to form educated opinions?
 
If your general counsel had an ounce of common sense, he would realize that this blatant censorship is also perfect fodder for a major lawsuit, and I hope ABC, the ACLU or some other organization with the means to do so does just that. Just because George Bush's Patriot Act took away most of our basic civil liberties, does not mean you should add to that detriment by picking and choosing what we get to watch - this is eerily reminiscent of the book burnings in Nazi Germany!! (And the fact that your corporation has donated a great deal of money to the Bush campaign only further reinforces this very obvious political maneuvering)

I for one applaud Ted Koppel and ABC for taking a stand against The Bush Cartel and attempting to get the truth out to the American people. Whether you agree with the war in Iraq or not, it is not your company's place to water down the truth. As a broadcasting corporation, you have an inherent fiduciary responsibility to present the truth and let the public decide its own opinion regarding the Iraqi war. Not talking about it does not make it nonexistent, despite the hopes of our Boy Idiot King, George Bush. Yes, our soldiers are dying and, like it or not, hiding it from the public will not change that. Now if only partisan broadcasters like yourself would stop playing God and allow the American values of free speech and free thinking to occur.....after all, those are the very things these poor soldiers died to protect.
 
Thank you for your time.

A BuzzFlash Reader
 
"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear." -  Harry S. Truman
 
"The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is beside the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech." Justice Anthony Kennedy

cc: Board of Directors, Sinclair Broadcasting Group via U.S. Mail

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION