I have been a big supporter and avid listener to WCPT since its inception. I love that it has a broad reach across the Chicagoland area during the daytime and early evening hours. I love the unabashedly liberal local sponsors that advertise during their shows. However, I have really had it with their early evening host Richard Greene's anti-Muslim bigotry.
His "Hollywood Clout" posits itself as an eclectic mix of left-leaning politics, spiritualism and culture. I would occasionally listen, and once in awhile found the topics interesting, if somewhat more in the area of "Coast-to-coast" than politics. I found his uncritical support of the Israeli statement annoying. But before last night's program, I was willing to chalk up his support of anti-Palestinian, pro-Likud party violence and crimes to his upbringing, to his narrow, selective knowlege of history, to his circle of friends, etc.
However, his rant last night (Friday's show) crossed the line. He was taking calls on the issue of the Muslim cultural center near "ground zero". He, naturally, wanted to suspend the 1st amendment specifically regarding Islam, and was asking why regular Muslims didn't do anything about extremists like Al Qaeda. He didn't mention what Muslim Americans should do specifically. Most all have vocally condemned the 911 attacks, and Taliban extremism in general. What should Catholic Americans have done about the bombings in Northern Ireland? Join a "counter-insurgency" in Belfast?
At one point, in the middle of a caller's remark, Greene went off on a tear against the Islamic faith in general: That Islam is behind all of the political problems and violence in this world, that there is something wrong with that religion, etc. Are you kidding? Massive exploitation of the Third World poor, the U.S.'s enormous and indiscriminant sales of arms to everywhere and anyone, the propping up of brutal dictators at the behest of Big Oil and other corporate interests, the repression of nascent, populist democracies everyewhere, throughout the 20th century has NOTHING to do with state of the planet? Ziggy Brzezinski himself admitted to arming extremist Islamic groups in an effort to bring down the Soviet Union... does this man know NOTHING about recent history, outside of a highly selective, Zionist version of the glory of the state of Israel?
This guy has no place on a progressive talk radio station. His blanket and ignorant discriminatory remarks make him a better fit for a Fox News channel outlet. I've written the management of WCPT, and would invite every progressive who finds bigotry repulsive, whether on the right or the left to do the same.
Urge the WCPT management to fire him. Bring back Mike Malloy, who still has an enormous following in the Chicago area. What a waste of the LIBERAL public airwaves.