[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 118 (Thursday, July 20, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10438-S10439]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


            THE MEDIA, CENSORSHIP, AND PARENTAL EMPOWERMENT

 Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on how best 
to control the viewing habits of America's children.
  We are in a communication revolution. We have all heard about the 
information highway. We know that there is more and more information 
available to all of us. And more information available to children. 
Much of it is 

[[Page S10439]]
good, and some of it is bad. The information highway includes ever-
increasing numbers of television channels. These new and changing 
channels and the programs they broadcast are coming into our living 
rooms.
  There is a good side to this growing technology and information, but 
we also know there is a bad side. Studies tell us that by the time a 
child enters high school, that child will watch over 8,000 murders and 
100,000 acts of violence on television. How can parents know and 
control what their kids are watching. How can they control it when they 
are away from home working? How can they control what their kids see on 
the living room television when they are busy in the kitchen?
  For some the solution is simple, just censor the networks or 
moviemakers. I believe there is a better way. It is the approach I 
believe in, and that is the approach that uses technology and 
information.
  Mr. President, I am proud to cosponsor the Media Protection Act of 
1995. This is the V-chip bill. A television that has this V chip will 
allow parents to block out programming that they don't want their 
children to see when they are away or in another room. This automatic 
blocking device will be triggered by a rating system that the networks 
can develop themselves. This is not censorship. It is no more 
censorship than the current movie theater rating system that was 
created by the movie industry less than three decades ago.
  I am also pleased to cosponsor the Television Violence Report Card 
Act of 1995. This is the information part of what parents need. This 
legislation will encourage an evaluation of programming to let parents 
know just what to watch for or watch out for.
  Some call this legislation censorship, but it is not. It is parental 
empowerment and parental involvement, and maybe a way to stem the tide 
of violence that kids are exposed to every day and evening they watch 
television.
                   ``WHY NOT ATOM TESTS IN FRANCE?''

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, the Washington Post had an editorial 
titled, ``Why Not Atom Tests in France?''
  The policy of France is unwise, just as our earlier policy of 
continuing tests was unwise.
  France is not doing a favor to stability in the world with these 
tests.
  I hope that the French Government will reconsider this unwise course.
  At this point, I ask unanimous consent that this op-ed piece be 
printed in the Record.
  The material follows:

                     Why Not Atom Tests in France?

       France's unwise decision to resume nuclear testing was an 
     invitation to the kind of protests and denunciations being 
     generated by Greenpeace's skillful demonstration of political 
     theater. But even before Greenpeace set sail for the test 
     site, several Pacific countries had vehemently objected to 
     France's intention of carrying out the explosions at a 
     Pacific atoll. The most cutting comment came from Japan's 
     prime minister, Tomiichi Murayama. At a recent meeting in 
     Cannes the newly installed president of France, Jacques 
     Chirac, confidently explained to him that the tests will be 
     entirely safe. If they are so safe, Mr. Murayama replied, why 
     doesn't Mr. Chirac hold them in France?
       The dangers of these tests to France are, in fact, 
     substantial. The chances of physical damage and the release 
     of radioactivity to the atmosphere are very low. But the 
     symbolism of a European country holding its tests on the 
     other side of the earth, in a vestige of its former colonial 
     empire, is proving immensely damaging to France's standing 
     among its friends in Asia.
       France says that it needs to carry out the tests to ensure 
     the reliability of its nuclear weapons. Those weapons, like 
     most of the American nuclear armory, were developed to 
     counter a threat from a power that has collapsed. The great 
     threat now, to France and the rest of the world, is the 
     possibility of nuclear bombs in the hands of reckless and 
     aggressive governments elsewhere. North Korea, Iraq and Iran 
     head the list of possibilities. The tests will strengthen 
     France's international prestige, in the view of many French 
     politicians, by reminding others that it possesses these 
     weapons. But in less stable and non-democratic countries, 
     there are many dictators, juntas and nationalist fanatics who 
     similarly aspire to improve their countries' standing in the 
     world.
       The international effort to discourage the spread of 
     nuclear weapons is a fragile enterprise, depending mainly on 
     trust and goodwill. But over the past half-century, the 
     effort has been remarkably and unexpectedly successful. It 
     depends on a bargain in which the nuclear powers agree to 
     move toward nuclear disarmament at some indefinite point in 
     the future, and in the meantime to avoid flaunting these 
     portentous weapons or to use them merely for displays of one-
     upmanship. That's the understanding that France is now 
     undermining. The harassment by Greenpeace is the least of the 
     costs that these misguided tests will exact.

     

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