They just don't get it...we talked with people on last night's radio show about the new "banktapping" scandal run in the NYTimes and LAT.
I don't get it. Had a caller named "John" who dialed us up last night when we talked about the "banktapping" scandal. We played audio from Olbermann, from Tony Snow's little tantrum with Helen Thomas, and we talked about banktapping as more of the same -- a rapid erosion of civil rights in America on both the personal and corporate level. We talked about AT&T's wussy maneuver with personal information and the little notification the company gave customers that AT&T will freely give out personal information to the first FBI agent who decides to drop by corporate headquarters for tea. This guy John was one of the folks who say, "thank God for President Bush, whatever it takes" -- and of course, said he (John) had nothing to hide and would gladly have the government "protecting him." I'm never quite sure how to respond to people like that. He seemed a very earnest guy. However, it'd be like he was someone who grew up in Nazi Germany trying to have a conversation about democracy and civil rights with me. We're just so far apart on the basic concepts that I'm not sure we're speaking the same language. I'm not sure people like John are a) stupid (he didn't seem like it) b) evil (not that either) or c) unreasonably frightened about the world (high probability -- I'll guess, but I'd imagine hip-hop strikes him as being the devil's music.) Just to hear people say things like that makes me despair -- but then so does book banning, and that has had it's run in this area as well. Happy, though -- we had Kerri Rodrigues, a progressive talk host in Providence, RI join us for about 15 minutes, and she managed to whip some people up on both sides of the aisle. But, with "John" he just kind of left me dumbfounded - I didn't even feel like wasting my breath quoting Ben Franklin this time.