Rock Out Censorship

As you can probably tell, I've been having a hard time coming up with posts lately. That's not to say that censorship isn't that big of a problem-- it still is and always will be a big problem (unless all of human kind miraculously learns and demonstrates the values of tolerance and respect). The problem I have been having is keeping my posts diverse. With that in mind, I want to look at censorship in music.

The way our society is now, music is much more far-reaching than literature. Most teenagers and many children don't read books outside of what they are assigned in school (and many figure out ways to pass their classes without even reading those). Few adults read, whether it's because they don't have time, they don't feel the need to or because they don't enjoy it.

Music, however, is a part of nearly everyone's life. I have met very few people who don't listen to the radio while the drive, work, clean, etc. I can't name a single person who doesn't like music of some kind. While it may be harder to find dedicated opposers to censorship of literature, the younger generations are adamant about being able to listen to what they like.

While perusing the 'net, I came across Rock Out Censorship, a liberal grass-roots organization that was founded in 1989 to oppose music censorship. Their website includes a zine and an activism section with guidelines for getting involved in the fight against music censorship. The news section hasn't had any new posts since 2001 and its hard to tell when it was most recently updated, but it's a great starting point. You can read more about the organization and its founder John Woods, who died in 2002.

More music censorship info to come...