‘Free Speech Is Under Assault’

In response to Mobil Corp’s quarter-page, paid advertisement (Dec. 25), “Free Speech Is Under Assault,” I would like to expand Jesse Unruh’s maxim, “Money is the mother’s milk of politics” to include “Money is the mother’s milk of political and commercial ‘freedom of speech’ advertising.”

What individual citizens as myself must realize is that, although the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in First National Bank of Boston vs. Bellotti (1978) that “corporations were felt to have as much right as individuals to advertise their views on public issues,” we as individuals cannot even begin to compete in debate against the well-financed, slick-media political and advertising campaigns of the wealthy corporate giants such as Mobil, et al. As a result, due to severe economic disparities (hence, inequalities) between the citizen individual and the corporation individual, our freedom of speech on public issues (through inequitable access to media and advertising) is muted and excluded, and thereby weakened for all of us average individual citizens.

Neither the government, the corporation, nor the media (except in the forum of “Letters to the Editor,” if the editorial board chooses to print such a letter) provides equal access of freedom of speech to citizen individuals comparable to that of the corporate “economic elite individuals.” Ultimately, what the citizen individual (as opposed to the corporate individual) has experienced is the erosion of a fundamental right of freedom of speech through media access that has been as impossible “to stop as a truck racing downhill without brakes.”

Yes, I vehemently agree with Mobil that our system must provide a marketplace in which even unpopular views may be espoused and considered. Therefore, in the event this “letter of dissent” is printed, I extend my thanks to both Mobil Corp. and The Times for affording me the reason to respond and the opportunity to speak out on behalf of myself and others as individual citizens and freedom-of-speech advocates.

BERNADETTE JONES

PALOMBO

Claremont