Free Speech and The Smothers Brothers

On April 4 1969, William Paley, then president of CBS Television, announced that The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour had been canceled. The comedic folk-singers had been taking an ever firmer stance against the war in Vietnam, and CBS had demanded that they turn in finished shows ten day before airing. So that CBS censors could edit as needed.

The brothers took a hard pass on that, and the show was cut from the lineup.

Wednesday morning, when I heard that Tommy Smothers had died, I posted this to Facebook.

But that was just me being glib, wasn’t it? And maybe poking a stick at my liberal friends as well. Let’s see if we can be a little bit more nuanced.

This won’t take long.

’Freedom Of Speech’ has always been a charged issue in this country. From pamphleteers igniting the revolution that birthed a nation, to the battle over Twitter in the wake of 2020’s chaotic pandemic and election.

For most of human history, speech has been controlled by those in power. But in modern society, ‘power’ doesn’t always reside where we think it does.

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In April of ‘69, I was just finishing up 8th grade - my first year of public school. The Catholic school where my folks had sent me, had decided not to renew my contract. They were tired of me pointing out contradictions in the dogma that the nuns were required to teach.

I’d grown my hair long too, and was spending a lot of time in the principal’s office. This was a German nun named Sister Verona. I actually liked that woman a lot, and she was fond of me as well. But a private parochial school reserves the right to choose its students. My speech became a problem that she had to solve. So out I went.

CBS had advertisers and stock-holders, and did not want to be in the business of political commentary. Especially with a show billed as a ‘comedy hour’.

I was way too young to vote in ‘69, but my older brother was prime age for the draft. So I was mad when the Smothers Brothers got canceled. Antiwar sentiment was a given among the older kids I looked up to - friends of my older siblings.

The war had been engaged by JFK and escalated by LBJ. It was the 1968 Democratic convention that was the target of antiwar hostility incited by The Chicago 7. With speech.

Of course Nixon had been elected in ‘68. And just like that, Vietnam became a Republican war. And I became a default Democrat, like most idealistic young people do.

40 years later I became disillusioned with the identity politics of The Democratic Party. In my eyes it harms those who it purports to defend. But as something of a folk singer myself, I was NOT encouraged to say so.

My earliest political fights on Facebook were about the constant mocking of conservatives on the late-night comedy shows.

I insisted that what Jon Stewart was doing, was classic propaganda. He wasn’t illuminating the issues; he was throwing shade for the self-affirming entertainment of his liberal audience. Sort of a meaner, less courageous, less war-focused update on what the Smothers Brothers had done. Without the musical talent.

And the advertisers were absolutely fine with that. Because by that time, sponsors themselves were targeting ads according to political affiliation.

In recent years, cancelation really did blossom into a culture. In the ramp-up to the 2016 election, a decade-old audio tape of two celebs that was never intended to be published, was published. And Donald Trump’s crude remarks sparked a mass cancellation all across the entertainment industry.

This was light-years more intense than what Tommy and Dick had gone through. It became a sin to even question what any woman had said about any media figure. And dozens of highly placed entertainers, news anchors, and executives were terminated without ever being allowed to face their accusers.

The power, you see, had shifted. Where once it was held by rich white men, it was now in the hands of online ‘activists’ who liked to target rich white men. And because Trump, the ultimate rich white man, had become a real factor … all bets were off.

The freedom to speak suggestively was now sharply curtailed. While the freedom to speak accusatorily, became the freedom to destroy. Meanwhile, the freedom granted by an assumption of innocence was revoked as if it had never existed.

Later, Trump’s political enemies spent years spinning fantastical tales about him, hoping to guarantee his defeat in 2020.

When they succeeded, Donald Trump - always loose with the truth - came into the game with gusto. He got busy convincing roughly half of his party, that Democrats had not won by slander, but by outright theft at the ballot box. This caused Twitter to expel Trump, which caused an uproar on The Right about censorship.

Twitter is now owned by a troll-industrialist named Musk, and he’s not only invited Trump back, but also such free-speech profiteers as Alex Jones.

”Where are you going with this, Dave?”

A fair question. What I am attempting to say, is that freedom of speech is at least as much a privilege as it is a right. And like all rights and privileges held by free people, it comes with responsibilities.

Do we agree that my rights end where they take yours away? That your right to safely watch a movie, prohibits me from screaming FIRE in the crowded theater?

So too, our elected officials ought to be prohibited from taking public positions that put innocent lives in danger. Whether the result of that be the storming of the Capitol, or the riots triggered by politicians jumping to conclusions when Black Americans die in police custody. Incitement to lawlessness is an abuse of free speech. Full stop.

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Way back in 1969, The Smothers Brothers had every right to say what they wanted, without government control. And CBS had the right, as a private corporation, to choose the content of its entertainment programming.

Tom and Dick Smothers went from playing coffee houses to being very famous, and right to the brink of serious riches as well. But they could not, in good conscience, stay silent on the war.

It seems that Freedom Of Speech was, to them, both a right and a responsibility. They understood the risks, but they stepped up and took the consequences. I can respect that in any human being.

Tommy Smothers … February 2, 1937 - December 26, 2023

Rest In Peace.