Barack Obama has jumped on the fast-rolling Democratic bandwagon championing “family values” issues — and particularly, sex and violence in the media.

The U.S. senator from Illinois told the Kaiser Family Foundation, “Today, we need to make it clear that the free use of the public airwaves continues to come with certain specific obligations.”

He warned that the TV industry ignores parental concerns “at their own peril.” (Full speech here.)

Barack, let me tell you something you already know: the five companies that own 80 percent of what we hear, watch and read aren’t quaking in their boots.

Just talk to the finance manager for your next political campaign if you don’t believe me.

I’ve already said my piece on this issue, so I won’t belabor it any further. But I do want to republish some brilliant words on the topic of our children’s exposure to media sex and violence.

The author is Mary Pipher, who wrote:

In the last decades of our century, for the first time since the 1500s, children have access to the same information as adults. In our electronic village, the walls that protected children and elevated adulthood are coming down. In effect we are dismantling childhood…

Some argue that change is inevitable, but there are precedents for making conscious choices about which tools to accept and which to reject. The Amish make such choices. When the Japanese saw the havoc that guns wreaked on their samurai society, they threw their guns away and lived for hundreds of years without them. Before the Seneca tribe made changes, the elders would ask, “How will the change affect the next seven generations?” No new tools or customs were introduced without a thoughtful conversation about the future. We can all benefit from taking up this practice in our families, especially if we have young children…

I am often asked if I believe in censorship. In some ways I do. I don’t think we should advertise to children. I think shows that brutalize children should be off the air. Instead, we need decent children’s programs, as they have in Europe. But mainly I would argue for more stories, not fewer. I like to hear that extended family, neighbors, old people, people from different backgrounds, poets, teachers, and children are telling stories to each other. Everyone has stories to tell.

Now too few stories are being told by too few people with motives that are too narrow. I would prefer that children hear stories told by adults who care for them, rather than by multinational entertainment corporations. I would like more adults who care about children to have opportunities to tell their stories to children via films, tv shows, and books, and in person. For good stories can save us… We need stories that teach children empathy and accountability, how to act and how to be.

I love the line, “Now too few stories are being told by too few people with motives that are too narrow.”

That sums it up for me: we don’t need more media censorship. We need more media participants.

Some other views on Obama’s speech and the new television sex study by the Kaiser Family Foundation: Defamer, Seeing the Forest, Narcissistic Views, Catallarchy, PopPolitics, News for Parents, and NewsBusters.

Technorati tags: Barack Obama, Media, Sex, Kaiser Family Foundation, Illinois, Politics, Censorship, Democrats, Storytelling, FCC