Randi's Rant #2 on "Path": "You Can't Perpetrate A Fraud"

[orleans]

9/8/06 With caller Stephanie:

"Stephanie: You said at the beginning that airing this was not free speech.

Randi: It is not free speech.

Stephanie: Okay. If I air the Da Vinci Code and it was based on the Da Vinci Code but only 30% of the movie reflects the other 100% of the book..

Randi: But the DiVinci Code is fiction; that’s a work of fiction.

Stephanie: You could do the same thing on a work of nonfiction. And many people would contend that Fahrenheit 9-1-1 was full of inaccuracies…(rambles/overtalk)

Randi: I’m glad you brought that up. First of all, Fahrenheit 9/11 was rejected by Disney. Don’t you remember that Disney was supposed to distribute Fahrenheit 9/11..

Stephanie: Disney doesn’t have to take every project…

Randi: But the reason that they gave for not presenting Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 was because they said it was too politically charged. Now if Fahrenheit 9/11 was too politically charged why did they go down this road and go out of their way to get it wrong?

Stephanie: I doubt very seriously they went out of their way to get it wrong.

Randi: I just told you how many people, every 9/11 commissioner says that the scenes and the statements in this series are “not found in and indeed are contradicted by our findings” and yet ABC claims that this movie is based on their findings.

Stephanie: That’s my point. Based on, based on.

Randi: Alright. Then there is no helping you, really. However, the law is clear, the law is clear Stephanie. You cannot be negligent and fabricate evidence in order to mislead viewers on the public airwaves. It’s illegal--you can’t do it. It’s not a “crime” but it is defamatory and you can’t do that to the American people; you can’t perpetrate a fraud on the America people under civil law.

However, beyond that, just common sense should tell you nobody should be messing around with the most heinous, horrific day in the lives of every American, especially people in my (generation?). I’m sitting in New York, less than half a mile away from the world trade center, from where it used to stand.

You cannot perpetrate a fraud on the American people of this magnitude five years after we lost three thousand of our fellow New Yorkers, after you lost people at the Pentagon, and a plane full of people over Shanksville Pennsylvania--you can’t go out of your way to get it wrong. And this is exactly what the 9/11 commissioners are saying was done here; it’s exactly what all these historians are saying was done here; it’s what Madeline Albright who was in the Clinton administration was saying--she called it defamatory; it’s what Sandy Berger, the former national security advisor says is defamatory; it’s what Bill Clinton says is defamatory; it is what everybody who watched it, witnessed it says is wrong about it.

That should stop them--they should say it’s not worth it to us. But perhaps, in the larger realm of their business plan, when they can drum up some sort of pull-out-of-their-butt a mid-term election that puts the republicans back in power they will get the deregulation they desire for the profit of their company and perhaps it’s worth it to them to pay fines in a civil court over a fraud that was perpetrated on the America people with one of the most sacred memories we have because it will further their business interests. And you’re actually saying that’s fine with you.

Stephanie: No, I’m not saying that’s fine with me.

Randi: You’re saying let it air.

Stephanie: No. I’m saying if you’re going to stand up for free speech…

Randi: IT ISN’T FREE SPEECH! IT ISN’T FREE SPEECH IF YOU GO OUT OF YOUR way to put together something that you say is based on the commissioners findings and that the commissioners have said not only is it exaggerating, there are many scenes not found in our report that are in this movie and in fact, our report contradicts what Disney chose to put together.

The writer of this 9/11 docudrama is a very known right-winger who has gone out of his way before to get facts wrong. And they chose him, and they hired him, and the only commissioner that they asked anything about the factual veracity of this movie was Tom Kean and Tom Kean said yesterday he knows it’s not correct but he went along with it because they gave him free air time afterwards so that he could tell the American people something important and that was that none of the 9/11 Commission recommendations have ever been implemented. He thought that was a worthwhile bargain. I’m telling you, only a politician would make a bargain like that.

And this is not political. This is historical. This is something that happened to every American, something that happened to the whole of the country. It’s not a political event. And it should never be played out as a political event. It’s a disservice to our country to make this political. But it is indeed a two day republican commercial that smears and tarnishes Bill Clinton’s administration, even though Roger Cressey served both presidents, even though George Tenent served both presidents, even though Richard Clarke served both presidents. And they all say this is a FRAUD!

Stephanie: And they all have a political agenda.

Randi: They don’t. This is just a fraud. A fraud is a fraud is a fraud. What is Sandy Berger running for? What is Madeline Albright running for?

Stephanie: Why doesn’t Sandy Berger bring the papers out of his pants and prove that this docudrama is…

Randi: He absolutely did and wrote a letter to the C.E.O….

Stephanie: Oh please

Randi: Okay, there’s nothing I can tell you. Everything that you do is filtered through a partisan viewpoint and it’s all--it’s narrowed for you through your partisan opinion; there is no talking to you.

And you don’t understand that free speech has limits--you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater. You can’t perpetrate a fraud on the public airwaves. I work on public airwaves. A.M. radio is public airwaves. However, I also work on satellite (I’m on XM, channel 167). Do you know that I can say the F word on XM channel 167? But I can’t say it on whatever affiliate you’re listening to me on, because there are rules about how you use the public airwaves because nobody pays for the permission to use the public airwaves.

And there is no fairness doctrine in this country--Ronald Reagan took it away so there’s no equal time or even an opposing viewpoint that’s required anymore in American discourse. Used to be that way, not anymore, not since 1987.

This is my area, this is what I do for a living, I know the rules. You can’t perpetrate a fraud like…remember when Orson Wells did War of the Worlds? After that they changed the law of the land saying you can’t perpetrate a fraud on the American people; you cannot go on the air and claim America is under attack, you can’t lie about a public figure, you can’t knowingly disparage somebody if you know what you’re saying is false.

Well, ABC is doing exactly that. There are laws about free speech to protect the innocent and people who would serve the public, be criticized in public but I can’t say something about a publicly traded company, or a person, if I know it’s false, with the intent to harm them. I can’t, you can’t do that. "

(whew! commercial break)

“Randi: Some people just don’t understand that you can’t yell “Fire” in a crowded theater even though we have free speech in this country. Some people don’t understand that you can’t perpetrate a fraud on the airwaves--you can’t do a drama on the public airwaves insinuating that the United States is under attack, ala War of the Worlds, Orsen Wells, theater of the mind type radio.

There’s so many rules that govern the public airwaves, but rather than teach those to you let me tell you that you cannot propagandize the American people within the United States; that’s a federal law. That would be a crime, as opposed to a civil suit which defamation is--it’s a civil tort, defamation, meaning you’d go to a civil court and get money damages. But you could go to jail if you propagandize the American people.

That’s why I believe the commissioners felt the need to document this fraud before it aired, and the 9/11 commissioners were bipartisan obviously, handpicked by the president; they have come out and said this movie is complete fiction, that it is the opposite from what the 9/11 commission found--those are Richard Ben Veniste’s words. Jamie Gorelick said “the scenes and statements in the series are not found in, and indeed are contradicted by our findings”.

Tim Roemer (who is also a member of the 9/11 commission and picked by the president) says that members of the 9/11 commission are in agreement that none of this ever happened; Rhomer said there were plans, not operations in place with regard to Sandy Berger refusing to give the go-ahead.

They cite the pages, page 199, page 508, page 509 in the 9/11 commission report that clearly shows George Tenent had received from Bill Clinton a standing order--meaning an order that was in operation 24/7 every day of the week that said he did not have to ask permission to kill Osama Bin Laden. He had the go-ahead already in his pocket and that George Tenent was the person who called off certain operations because they were single-sourced pieces of information.

When they actually lobbed cruise missiles into Afghanistan and Sudan they had information that they thought was good, solid actionable information and still they missed him. And when he did that--when Bill Clinton did that-- the republicans said: Bill Clinton’s wagging the dog to get you to stop looking at Monica Lewinsky.

“We don’t know what he’s talking about…what is this Osama Bin Lay-den. What is an Al-Key-da?” Nobody knew in 1998. What you knew in 1998 was that “BILL CLINTON HAD SEX! AND HE LIED!” And he did. He had sex, and he lied. You’d be right about that. But that it so sidetracked YOU from paying attention to what Bill Clinton was doing which was FIGHTING OSAMA!"

(end of second hour)

[acmavm]

1. Stephanie is the type of brain-dead Kool Aid drinking moran that this

movie was made for.

Uncapable of thinking for herself. Too lazy to look for the reports on the Clinton administration in regard to bin Ladin. Won't believe it when it's spoon fed to her.

There is something really scary about people like this woman. I know a few. I'm related to one.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

2. The good news is these people were already lost

Their feelings or beliefs about this movie are, thankfully, irrelevant.

[orleans]

4. when she first called in she told randi that her son was listening

in his car, so randi even held her on the phone through a break and let the woman come back on -- and it seemed the more the woman talked the worse she got

[helderheid]

3. Kick

[orleans]

5. well, today's the day. fraud or no fraud? n/t