PROHIBIDO EN PHOENIX

Last week, Viacom Outdoor of Phoenix rejected this billboard on the basis of content.

PROHIBIDO EN DETROIT

This billboard lasted just one day outside Detroit in September, 2000.

PROHIBIDO EN NY

In October 2000, this billboard at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge made it 13 days before the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey ordered it removed.

PERMITIDO EN L.A., NO PROBLEMA

Your City. Your Team.

He also wouldn't say whether the $66,000 the company's PAC and corporate execs (and their families) gave John McCain during the last election cycle had anything to do with its decision to reject our ad.

But surely Viacom has some interest in the careers of those in whom it spending over $100,000 per month lobbying on issues like media ownership rules and the Singapore and Chile free trade agreements (which included uncapped immigration provisions).

On top of the lobbyists, Viacom executives use corporate wealth to bend public policy in their favor through political action committees and direct contributions.

Viacom's Chairman and CEO, Sumner Redstone, for example, gave $30,000 to Senators Patrick Leahy, John Kerry, Orrin Hatch, Ted Kennedy, Tom Daschle, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte, the Viacom PAC, and the National Cable & Telecommunications Assn PAC.

In the last election cycle, records show Viacom execs shelled out $415,000 in personal contibutions to the Viacom PAC, related PACs like the Outdoor Advertising Assn of America PAC, and directly to members of Congress.

How much of that influence was used to produce media ownership rules that serve the best interests of the American people? And how much was used to serve the financial interests of Viacom?

With the Administration in bed with the very worst of the lobbyists, the average voter's only ally is a free press aggressively playing its traditional watchdog role. But even that last ally is being swallowed by the corporations as an increasing share of the media is owned by a decreasing number of multi-national corporations—among them, our friends at Viacom.

As the Viacoms and the Disneys and the News Corps and the Seagrams consolidate their power, their lobbyists are busy at work in Washington chipping away at 225 years of republican self rule, corrupting those we've elected to represent our interests, and removing any remaining obstacles to a full blown bacchanalia of greed.

The nation's editorial pages, unfortunately, are mostly willing to play along with the new masters, in some cases barely bothering to disguise the fact that their editorial pages have become vehicles for corporate press releases.

Voices of real dissent are forced to do things like put up billboards, one at a time.

But in Phoenix, even that option is gone.

The media conglomerate Viacom has cornered the market on 30-sheet billboards in Phoenix. If you want to exercise your right to speak your mind freely on a billboard in Phoenix, you'll first need to run your speech past Viacom for its corporate approval.