I was recently listening to David Marsh on satellite radio – I really like the guy, as I rarely leave his show without having heard something new and different. Marsh is the sole extent of the sourcing that I will do for this post. I’m just putting it up because it has explanatory power.
NPR was founded in 1970, and has from time-to-time over the years offered independent news and views. But it’s independence was untenable for two reasons: One, congressional oversight, and two, corporate funding. These are enough to keep it bland and unoffensive.
And this, according to Dave Marsh, is the purpose of NPR. The year 1970 is significant because there was an outbreak of democracy going on, and local radio played a significant role in spreading information for organizing purposes. All large cities had independent channels, and many mid-sized ones as well. Since 1970, even with rocky early years, NPR has sucked up all of the bandwidth oxygen from radio. We now have Pacifica, with three outlets, left out of the hundreds of local stations that existed in 1970. It’s flagship show, Democracy Now!, which started in 1996, now broadcasts over 900 outlets, but most of them are insignificant, and its audience reach is limited.
Piece of Mindful 
A “Louie Louie” expert, eh?
Well, the guy cannot be a totally brain-dead liberal on that account alone, since there are several hundred versions of “Louie Louie” extant. It would take an assiduous intellect to work through that mountain of material.
My post-graduate research is focused on “Little Latin Lupe Lu.” So far, I have identified just over 30 versions. I hope to publish my findings this summer if my government grant comes through.
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We get “Democracy Now!” every day on our local NPR affiliate station. As do many places in the country. It’s the only place I hear it.
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Yeah – we tried and tried to get Marvin Granger and the Yellowstone Public Radio people to carry DN! in Billings. He said, I heard second hand, that it would not set well with the contributor base (affluent liberals – my words). He ended up allowing it to go on the public access channel at 6AM. That may still be one of those 900 outlets.
You might want to tune into Link TV when you can. It carries DN along with Al Jazeera. If you want a different view of things, that is where to go. AJ last night ran a segment on the victims of American bombs in Afghanistan.
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Was there a lot of women crying on AJ?
http://www.kerenmalki.org/why_is_this_woman_crying.htm
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Game changer!
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I think the staging of American news is far superior to what the ragheads put out. It is the difference between listening to a full symphony orchestra and street musicians.
Although, doing diversity by the numbers in American news does get somewhat predictable after a while, I still like all the crying guys and the gulp-talking girls on the verge of nervous breakdowns.
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Rachel Maddow did a piece recently on Muqtada al-Sadr, the Iraqi resistance leader, speaking of staging events. (he’s baaaaaaaaaack!) When the statue of Saddam was pulled down with the American flag over his head, there was a throng of people chanting. As presented here, they were cheering the American triumph. According to Maddow, they were chanting the name of Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr, Muqtada’s father. While they were glad to see Saddam go, they were not cheering the Americans.
The whole thing was a media spectacle staged for the benefit of the ever- gullible American public.
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Maybe. But who knows? And who cares?
In that same film, I wonder what they paid that guy to beat Saddam’s statue with a shoe. That was pretty funny. What girlie men the ragheads are!
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No, it matters. It is part of perception management. Screw reality.
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Oh yes, Link TV. I watch it when I can. One must make the effort to become properly indoctrinated.
On Directv, Link and BYU are on adjacent channels. Toggling between the two is revelatory, between the sneering arrogance and underlying personal unhappiness of a Norman Finkelstein and Amy Goodman versus the quiet contentment of older ladies scrap-booking, and earnest men discussing minutia of Mormon doctrine. If one was charged with choosing a life path for a young person, I would find it hard to advocate the Link TV path.
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Balance, my man. By watching, you are exposed to the views of the other side. You can either sneer in moron fashion, or deal with those views in their intellectual content. If these people are loony, you’ll quickly expose them.
Finkelstein, by the way, is scrupulous in detail and citation. That does not guarantee accuracy, as it is often noted that weak cases are documented by a flood of footnotes. Your casual dismissal, however, indicates you’ve not read him.
Good for you.
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I didn’t mean to dismiss Finkelstein et al. I was making a point about the tone of the two camps.
The committed left-wingers I cross seem to have a core of unhappiness, while right wingers are a bit happier in their bitterness, clinging to their guns and religion.
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You find that tone in us idealists. We are unable to behave in the manner of people who want power for themselves and do whatever it takes to achieve that power.
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Again the power thing.
Idealists don’t want power? Doesn’t being an idealist mean, by definition, one wants the power to make the changes?
I can see where an idealist does not want the responsibility when things go wrong. I have an image now of an idealist seeking an audience with the King, so his ideas can be laid out and then implemented by those in power.
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It’s a personality trait, kind of like Keirsey temperament sorting and all of that. We have no desire to have power over other people. It makes us uncomfortable. For that reason, you will find that your bosses over time have not been idealists, we have never had an idealist president, etc etc etc.
I am referring to a specific set of personality traits when I say “idealist”. Keirsey, which is Jungian in origin, separates us into artisans, guardians, idealists and rationals, the latter two being minority forces in society. Here’s how he defines the idealist temperament:
Idealists drive rationals buggy.
If you’ve never taken the Keirsey or Myers Briggs temperament sorting test, look it up and give it a try, you … you guardian, you.
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I’ll put it on the list of things to do.
I can see right away that what Keirsey calls an Idealist is not what I had in mind. He’s got a big system mapped out, so I suppose I should make an effort to absorb the jargon and organization to see where he is coming from.
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It’s fascinating stuff, but remember, in our hands it is pop psychology. And again, I don’t reflect on being an “idealist” as having any kind of superior nature or anything. It’s a drag.
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The King of Kings was an embodiment of idealism by this definition, you know. And JC never obliged any one to do anything. This despite having the power.
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When I first saw AJ, I was shocked. I couldn’t believe how it’s almost cnn or bbc, and is likewise broadcast in English (all three are also broadcast in arabic, too). It was so main-streamed. I haven’t spent much time watching it, in my new place I don’t have satellite, but it seemed about as far-out as NPR. A real disappointment, I admit. My first choice for tv news is TVE (Spain). Even though it is somehow fake news just like cnn, bbc, it has slightly more bite. You see all the blood and dismemberment unabashed as well. I realized how censored anglo news is in that manner. France 40 is not bad, either. German programs I find, are boring, preachy, melodramatic and patronizing. I prefer the hard-hitting Spanish realism.
As far as the press, the best news I find are in Latin America, EL Univaersal (Vzla) is my fave. Maybe it’s a combination of not having many big corporate interests down their back and having to fight every day to really bring you the news. In fact, Venezuelan tv news reporting is journalism at it’s most harrowing (best? maybe), but it’s mostly of local interest and harder to get internationally. Globovision is available as a live stream on the internet however.
One of the things I dislike most about cnn, besides its bland, narrow programming, is the banter and jocularity. It trivializes the content of the news. ALso us news outlets often show too much emotion on their faces, visually judging the news as its read. Again, I prefer the straight-faced news readers on Latin and European news who give you the facts and leave the conclusions up to the viewers. Very refreshing.
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