EYE Want My Free Press Back

America’s first printing press was built by two English-born colonists who came to the colonies with a specific agenda in mind on 25 September 1639.

The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances.

Regular readers know I started RedEye's FrontPage when I was banned from Left in Alabama, and, that I've asked for reinstatement to no avail. Well, one of my fellow liberal bloggers joined me in the banishment box when they were banned from another "progressive" blog last week because they posted a diary the "owners" didn't like, prompting them to ask "what kind of progressive blog is this?" Names redacted.

For the record, I agree with XXX that XXXXX XXX has the right to ban me or anyone else they so choose. Those of us on the outside have the right to ask: "What is this Web site really all about? Is it about progressive ideas or something else?'

And this:

Again, XXX has every right to do that, but I question what kind of agenda they really have. Questioning authority, and reporting on misconduct, are fundamentals of liberalism and an aggressive press--as I see it. If XXX does not support such activities, I don't think liberals should look to that site to spearhead any meaningful change that will benefit regular folks.

This Blogger believes Blog owners have the right to ban people, just like ESPN had the right to fire Hank Williams, Jr. after his comparison of President Obama to Hitler on Fox and Friends. I vehemently disagree with both premises. I believe to ban people because they express a point of view owners and editors don't agree with is a violation of the First Amendment. If you can lose your job, or be banned from publishing because of something you write, do you have freedom of speech? I submit the answer is NO.

This is how another fellow Blogger interprets the First Amendment

Freedom of the press belongs to the owner of the press. Don't ask me, ask the SCOTUS. I put it on my business card because a keyboard and a camera are my press.

Oh really? Think about that first sentence. Freedom of the press belongs to the owner of the press. Are owners of the press free to suppress the opinions of those who aren't owners? Are owners of the press the only ones with freedom of speech? I HOPE not.

As for asking SCOTUS, need I remind readers of the Citizens United Ruling?

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. _ (2010), was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court holding that the First Amendment protects corporate and union funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections. The 5–4 decision originated in a dispute over whether the non-profit corporation Citizens United could air a film critical of Hillary Clinton, and whether the group could advertise the film in broadcast ads featuring Clinton's image, in apparent violation of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, commonly known as the McCain–Feingold Act, in reference to its primary Senate sponsors.[2]

I guess it's hard for people who haven't had to fight for basic civil and human rights to understand what is at stake here, but this freedom of the press belongs to the owner of the press meme is beginning to sound like the private businesses don't have to serve blacks meme.

The press is not a private business.

Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the freedom of communication and expression through vehicles including various electronic media and published materials. While such freedom mostly implies the absence of interference from an overreaching state, its preservation may be sought through constitutional or other legal protections.

I want my free press back.

Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burned women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.~Justice Louis D. Brandeis

Words to live by after a week of loss

I don't believe it is a coincidence three great Americans made their transition this week. In addition to Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and Steve Jobs, esteemed professor and civil rights advocate Derrick Bell died on October 6, 2011.

Not afraid of being seen as a controversial figure, even though he described himself as not “confrontational by nature”, he always led by example and on his own terms. While in his 20′s, when working at the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, he was told to relinquish his ties with the N.A.A.C.P., instead of holding on to his Justice Department position, he opted to quit.

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition."~Steve Jobs~

“After reading hundreds of e-mails, I have made MY decision. By pulling my opening Oct 3rd, You (ESPN) stepped on the Toes of The First Amendment
Freedom of Speech, so therefore Me, My Song, and All My Rowdy Friends are OUT OF HERE. It’s been a great run.” -- Hank Williams Jr

And all we've got to do is to keep marching. Do tomorrow what we did today and do it the next day and then the next day, we won't have to do it at all because the day before yesterday, we filled up the jails. And then today, we filled up the jail yard. Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth

Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burned women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.~Justice Louis D. Brandeis

In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Update~Remembering Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, An American Hero

"The Lord knew I lived in a hard town, so he gave me a hard head."~Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth
Click here to see a photo I snapped of Reverend Shuttlesworth being pushed in his wheelchair across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama by the future President of the United States of America.

The legendary Birmingham, Alabama Civil Rights hero Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth made his transition from labor to reward on Wednesday in his beloved Bombingham.

He was the soul and heart of the Birmingham movement," Georgia Rep. John Lewis said. It was Birmingham, he said, that brought the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"Fred Shuttlesworth had the vision, the determination never to give up, never to give in," Lewis said. "He led an unbelievable children's crusade. It was the children who faced dogs, fire hoses, police billy clubs that moved and shook the nation."

A decade before that infamous standoff between authorities and young protesters in Kelly Ingram Park, Shuttlesworth was already pushing for change in what had come to be called "Bombingham." Dozens of black homes and churches were bombed, the cases rarely investigated by the city's all-white police force. In 1955, the charismatic young pastor of Bethel Baptist Church led a delegation of ministers who petitioned for black police officers.

Reverend Shuttlesworth was known as the racist worst enemy because he was fearless.

In his 1963 book "Why We Can't Wait," King called Shuttlesworth "one of the nation's the most courageous freedom fighters ... a wiry, energetic and indomitable man."

He survived a 1956 bombing, an assault during a 1957 demonstration, chest injuries when Birmingham authorities turned fire hoses on demonstrators in 1963, and countless arrests.

"I went to jail 30 or 40 times, not for fighting or stealing or drugs," Shuttlesworth told grade school students in 1997. "I went to jail for a good thing, trying to make a difference."

Diane McWhorter, the author of “Carry Me Home,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning 2001 book about the struggle in Birmingham, wrote in an e-mail that Mr. Shuttlesworth was known among some civil rights activists as “the Wild Man from Birmingham.”

“Among the youthful ‘elders’ of the movement,” she added, “he was Martin Luther King’s most effective and insistent foil: blunt where King was soothing, driven where King was leisurely, and most important, confrontational where King was conciliatory — meaning, critically, that he was more upsetting than King in the eyes of the white public.”

Mr. Shuttlesworth was temperamental, even obstinate, and championed action and confrontation over words. He could antagonize segregationists and allies alike, quarreling with his allies behind closed doors.

Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth in his own words. Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years 1954-1965; Episode 101-36

You must remember that since uh, I had been building up a lot of momentum and I was known all over. So that, we say that if you don't rescind the law, we're going to ride the buses anyway, which was an implied threat. Uh, they didn't do it, the Ku Klux Klan uh, saw to it that I wouldn't be around to ride the buses, so we were going to ride the buses, I believe it was the night after Christmas, but on Christmas Night in '56 the Klan set about uh, 16 sticks of dynamite right at the head of my bed, the corner of the church, the corner of the house and I was in the bed at the point of the blast. And this dynamite went off about 9:15. It blew the wall between my head and the dynamite away, it blew the floor out from under my bed, space of I guess, 15 feet. The springs that I was lying on we never found them.

There I was lying on the mattress. I knew the relevance of Moses' statement when he said, "Underneath the everlasting arm." The roof uh, came down, all that dust, the house was about 60 years old, dynamite dust and blast was, smoke, other things were there. This is a strange thing, I, I knew that the bomb was meant for me, I knew what it was, and instantaneously, at the same time I had a sense of presence that I wouldn't get hurt. I knew that. You can know something you never read. And I, I might say to you at that moment all fear was taken from me. I never feared anything since that time.

Reverend Shuttlesworth is equally important to American history as Steve Jobs. They were two great Americans, one revolutionized Civil Rights and the other revolutionized consumer products. But in the end it can be said they helped others more than they helped themselves.

Well done thy good and faithful servants.

Rest in peace.

Don't Pull the Plug on Hank Williams Jr.

Since when is expressing your point of view about the President of the United States of America a firing offense? I mean, I thought we had this little thingy called the First Amendment to the Constitution which allowed Americans to express their point of view without reprisal. And, didn't we have a Revolutionary War to fight for liberty and justice for all? Aren't our troops currently in Iraq and Afghanistan losing life and limb fighting for our freedoms? Okay, that last line was a snark, but you get my drift.

Before the Hank Williams Jr. has the right to say whatever he wants and ESPN has the right to fire him chorus kicks in full gear, think about it...if expressing your beliefs get you fired do you really have freedom of expression? No.

ESPN is sliding down the slippery slope of censorship.

Censorship is the suppression of speech or other public communication which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the general body of people as determined by a government, media outlet, or other controlling body.

Do I agree with William's comparison of President Obama to Hitler? Hell no I don't.

Do I respect his right to compare President Obama to Hitler? Hell yes, I do.

"Freedom isn't Free", remember?

Are you ready for some football?