Canada bans Dire Straights song, ‘Money for Nothing’

Not even George Orwell would have imagined this. I highly doubt any gay people are actually offended by this song or the use of the word ‘faggot’ in it but if they are, I suggest they grow the fuck up.

This is not a slippery slope. This is a well greased elevator shaft to totalitarianism. I suggest Canadians from Newfoundland to Victoria blast this tune from every window and radio stations play this song every day till this preposterous ban is lifted and the mechanism for making such bans is destroyed.

Yet it remains. The Canadian left bans a dire straights hit for saying “faggot’ while siding with Muslims who openly murder people for being homosexual.

H/T to Fred at Gay and right for telling me about this.

From Yahoo News:

Dire Straits’ ‘Money for Nothing’ should be censored, broadcast panel rules

The Canadian PressBy The Canadian Press | The Canadian Press – Wed, 12 Jan 8:54 PM EST

  • Guitarist Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits, plays his Gibson Les Paul guitar while performing during Live Aid concert for famine relief at Wembley Stadium in London, England July 13,1985. The 1980s song "Money for Nothing" by the British rock band Dire Straits has been deemed unacceptable for play on Canadian radio.In a ruling released Wednesday, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council says the song contravenes the human rights clauses of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters' Code of Ethics and Equitable Portrayal Code. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, filesThu, 13 Jan 12:56 PM EST
OTTAWA – The 1980s song “Money for Nothing” by the British rock band Dire Straits has been deemed unacceptable for play on Canadian radio.In a ruling released Wednesday, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council says the song contravenes the human rights clauses of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ Code of Ethics and Equitable Portrayal Code.

A listener to radio station CHOZ-FM in St. John’s, N.L., complained last year that the song includes the word “faggot” in its lyrics and is discriminatory to gays.

The broadcaster argued that the song had been played countless times since its release decades ago and has won music industry awards.

A CBSC panel concluded that the word “faggot,” even if once acceptable, has evolved to become unacceptable in most circumstances.

The panel noted that “Money for Nothing” would be acceptable for broadcast if suitably edited.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

25 Replies to “Canada bans Dire Straights song, ‘Money for Nothing’”

  1. “This is not a slippery slope. This is a well greased elevator shaft to totalitarianism.”

    Great line! Made me chuckle.

  2. As long as they play Frank Zappa’s “Bobby Brown” there’s nothing to worry about.

    What’d you say? they wouldn’t play that in a hundred years?

    Well, in that case…….

  3. Wow, Canada is run by dicks! But you know some dhimbulb in the US will attempt to get our stupid government to follow suit.

  4. Have people who want to ban or censor things not got anything better to do with their lives? This is totally ridiculous. As a long term music fan, I think this kind of creeping fascism is the enemy of artistic freedom. What’s most ridiculous is that Dire Straits were hardly the most radical, outspoken group or a threat to world peace. Personally I find nasty corrupt governments that ban things to stop people exposing their corruption more offensive.

  5. I’ve just been told by a friend an interesting story about the “faggot” line in the song “Money For Nothing”. I can’t verify if this is true, but my friend said Mark Knopfler overheard a person talking about the “faggot” in the song in some public place, and wrote the lyrics based on what he had heard, so it’s a second hand story based on personal observation, nothing to do with Knopfler’s own personal feelings. He could be construed as poking fun at the person who made the comment. Do PMRC types not understand that musicians are storytellers who write from experience, not all lyrics mean what they literally say, and one can interpret lyrics and indeed language in many different ways. But then again the type of people who want to burn books have a limited understanding of poetry, allegory, irony, myth etc, they take everything literally. Hardly surprising when your worldview teaches you to think in a fascist, rigid manner.

  6. By carrying the concept of “human rights” to the extreme, we soon will not be able to do or say ANYTHING. Terminal paralyzing Western neurosis, fear of ourselves.

    Meanwhile it’s OK for whole groups to say “death to Israel, death to the Jews” and it’s perfectly OK.

    This makes me so damned angry I just want to go out and… offend someone!

  7. Bobsy in this case, it isnt a fascist government, its a fascist civil service, entrenched, entitled and who loath the existing Conservative government of Stephen Harper, who would, if he had a bit more courage, destroy the Human Rights Commissions if he could. Sadly, as he has a minority government and does not want to risk losing to a Liberal majority, he is allowing this leftist civil service to act.

    I do blame Harper for lack of courage of his convictions but not his convictions which I think are actually very good.

  8. Excerpt from The Lyrics of The Song “They Don’t Care About Us” by Michael Jackson:

    Beat me, hate me
    You can never break me
    Will me, thrill me
    You can never kill me
    Jew me, sue me
    Everybody do me
    Kick me, kike me
    Don’t you black or white me

    All I wanna say is that
    They don’t really care about us
    All I wanna say is that
    They don’t really care about us

    (Several of Michael Jackson’s family members converted to Islam, and Michael Jackson, at one time, fled the United States to live in The United Arab Emirates.)

    What was the response by the societies of, and by the media institutions of, and by the governmental institutions of, the United States and other Western countries to those lyrics? Was there outrage? Was there denouncement? Was there discussion? Was there acknowledgment? No. Of course not.

    Approximately 70 years ago, the Western world, in some cases directly, and in other cases indirectly, murdered almost all of the Jewish people in Europe.

    Now, 70 years later, the Western world, including the members of Gay groups, is colluding with a genocidally anti-Jewish, genocidally anti-Gay, totalitarian supremacist religious political movement to commit genocide against the Jewish people in Israel.

    And members of the government of a Western country, to show how beneficent and tolerant they are, ban a rock song that uses a hurtful offensive anti-Gay word.

    The Western world is rotten with, and self-destructively insane with, Jew-hatred.

  9. Anyone who conflates those who are colluding with a genocidally anti-Jewish political movement with someone who is pointing out the hypocrisy of people who are colluding with a genocidally anti-Jewish political movement is an arse.

  10. Grace,

    Were you addressing me when you wrote the following?

    “Anyone who takes offence at lyrics in a song is an arse.”

    If you were not, then I apologize.

    If you were addressing me, you were doing so dishonestly without addressing me directly, and it was yourself who you were indicting with the perverse content of your insult.

    I wasn’t sure whether or not that comment which you made was addressed to me.

    I addressed that comment indirectly, in the same way that I thought that it was addressed to me if it was addressed to me.

    In any case, you followed that comment with another insulting comment which you definitely did address to me indirectly and dishonestly.

  11. I don’t think political correctness is the exclusive domain of the liberal left. The neo-conservative right has its own form of PC, disguised as being unfashionable and distincly unPC., more of the religious fundamentalist kind. It’s an ugly alliance when zealots of the both the left and right get together to ban art. I think fundamentalism of the right is actually just as bad as left fundamentalism, funnily, neither neoconservatives nor PC types realise just how similar their ideological thinking is, underneath the assumed political differences. And this shows when you look at how many of the antiPC brigade were former Trotskyites, New Left types etc. The fundamentalism is the same, just the colour of their clothes has changed. And plenty of zealots on the right would like to ban, say, gangster music if they could, just as much as feminists or the PC brigade. My take on Money For Nothing is that left zealots are more likely to take offense at a word like “faggot” than religious fundies, but some fundies on the right would probably take equal offense at a number of derogatory terms to describe them. I think derogatory language in music should not, on the whole, be banned but challenged or ignored. I think it’s fair for someone to say they find lyrics offensive, but they have the human right not to listen to it do they. However, I agree with the libertarian right that if one’s human rights contravenes another’s this is a matter for sanction. However, the word “faggot” mentioned 2 times in a song does not fit that criteria. The pathetic reality about Money For Nothing being banned, in the end, is that there are far worse things going on in the world that deserve our attention more than a Dire Straits song, but I don’t know Canadian politics very well, maybe the civil service is using this whole thing as a sideshow and a distraction, it wouldn’t surprise me, bureaucrats can be pretty devious and cunning.

  12. And, by the way,

    I was not advocating banning anything, or censoring anything in any other way.

    Bobsy,

    Exactly who were you referring to when you wrote: “the neo-conservative right”?

    What censorship were you referring to when you referred to censorship that you claimed that whoever you were referring to as “the neo-conservative right” had engaged in?

  13. This isn’t a greased elevator, this is free fall without a chute, at least elevator you have a small chance that it will jam no matter who well greased.

  14. Richard,

    You wrote:

    “This isn’t a greased elevator, this is free fall without a chute, at least elevator you have a small chance that it will jam no matter who well greased.”

    Please explain that which you wrote.

    I have an idea of what you meant by what you wrote, but I don’t know for sure what you meant by what you wrote because what you wrote was indirect and vague and unclear.

    Several indirect vague unclear antipathetic derogatory comments, including your indirect and vague and unclear, and seemingly somewhat derogatory comment, appeared after I wrote my venting comment about the situation that those of us who are Jewish are in, and all of these indirect vague unclear derogatory comments seemed to me to be addressed to me, or, rather, directed toward me.

    I would appreciate it if people would be honest and direct and clear.

    These comments feel to me to be a mild manifestation of the antipathetic anti-Jewish bigoted prejudice that is a deeply engrained, normal, part of Western culture.

    If you knew how I feel, you would be kind.

  15. Grace meant no offence to anyone but did think she herself was being insulted. There is for some reason, a kind of bacteria of misunderstanding circulating in this thread.

    I am pretty confident that all here who have posted on this thread at least so far, are on the same page exactly on all these matters. So no need to apologize to anyone I don’t think. Its just some odd interpretations.

  16. Eeyore,

    Thank you for clearing that up for me.

    I am not feeling well – mentally and emotionally – and I am sleep deprived. I apologize if I misunderstood or insulted anyone. I’ll not write anymore in my current distressed state, and, from now on, I’ll restrain myself from commenting when I am distressed and not well.

  17. Daniel:

    Take good care of yourself man. We can’t afford to lose even one good person at this juncture. Get some rest. Eat right. Meditation is really good.
    All who post to this site are typically really good people. Come here for comradeship.

  18. Daniel Bielak I was revering to parachuting, there are two ways to do it, the first is to tie a static line to the plane and your ripcord (what causes the chute to open) when you reach the end of the line the chute is opened. The second is to jump from the plane and fall (called free fall) until you decide you are close enough to the ground and then you manually pull the cord. To answer your next question, no I don’t jump, I consider it to be a form of insanity something I have told paratroops and Green Berets, about half of both groups agree with me. The others think I am the insane one.

  19. Eeyore,

    Thank you for your kindness. Your kindness means a lot to me. I’ll rest, and I’ll go to sleep, and I’ll feel better after I sleep, and I’ll strive to take good care of myself.

    Your kindness is a support for me.

    Sincerely,
    Dan

  20. i just imagine, if i lived in canada… well, orwell could not have made this one up hehe

  21. Have all the people in the world gone mad or what? better axe The Flintstones theme song aswell

  22. Eminem, Black Sabbath, NWA and many more songs that i could mention of the top of my head (but am too lazy) sholuld also be banned. I am not a Christian so please can Canada ban Gospel Music too, as i find it offensive