Mr. Moderate

There is no doubt that right-wing conservatives own the medium of talk radio. The strategy has been quite simple: 1) Elect a Republican President; 2) Get the FCC to gut any remaining ownership limits not already gutted during the Reagan administration; and 3) Buy every radio station possible, while creating advertising boycotts of as many radio stations as possible that are not owned by right-wing conservatives. That last part came to light during the Air America bankruptcy proceeding when a list was made public of those companies which had forbidden their advertising agencies to buy any advertisements on Air America. The list read like a “Who’s Who” of corporate America. They didn’t like any left wing views being expressed anywhere on the airwaves, so they strove to starve the liberals off the air and ultimately purchase all of the stations who dared to run Air America.

The number of allowable radio stations is an extremely limited number, reflecting the fact that the design of radios means that radio frequencies allocated to use by radio stations are very scarce indeed. Most markets have their full allotment of radio stations, and most stations in each market are owned by right-wing conservatives affiliated in some way with one of the main right-wing radio networks like Clear Channel.
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The politicians in Washington are now preaching that, because the American people persuaded their elected representatives to kill the “grand compromise” bill (which was neither grand nor a broad compromise, having been hammered out in secret by a small group of senators) we must now accept that nothing will be done about illegal immigration until 2009.

Says who?

Secretary Chertoff said that “some necessary tools … were left on the floor of the Senate” when the Senate killed that bill. Who says that those tools cannot be enacted one by one? Who declares that it is “all or nothing” with respect to the bill that was just killed (for the second time)? Can’t the people demand that Secretary Chertoff receive all of the “necessary tools” without enacting any of the highly-objectionable aspects of this huge piece of legislation?
Continue reading ‘Immigration - What Next?’ »