How much more time, effort, and small donations will environmentalists, progressives, liberals, and Democrats waste because there is no organized opposition to the corporate right's best media weapon?
How many more good people and dedicated public servants and liberal supreme court nominees will get trashed because the Left continues to give RW radio a free speech free ride?
How many more compromises will progressives get pissed off about.
The Susan Rice withdrawal for Secretary of State, the Michigan Right To Work For Less legislation, and the debt ceiling obstruction are all tragic examples of why democracy-loving Americans have to get serious about destroying the talk radio monopoly.
Susan Rice was one of a long line of talk radio swiftboatings of good people (remember Anita Hill?) and dedicated public servants. So-called Right To Work legislation has been pushed by local and national radio liars for years all over the country so it was possible to completely distort its real purpose. The "Fiscal Cliff" is a direct result of talk radio blowhards, especially Limbaugh, egging on the teabaggers in congress and their constituents by assuring them defaulting would be no big deal, "we have to stop borrowing NOW!"
Fox played a part, but the heavy lifting was done by talk radio. None would have been possible without coordinated messaging from the national and local radio liars.
If you're waiting for right wing radio to fall apart because of the internet, don't hold your breath. Same goes for media reform, which is a catch 22- it won't happen with 1000 stations screaming about their loss of free speech and the teabaggers in congress.
The boycott action against Limbaugh is encouraging but it is limited to him for hate speech (Richard Myers and Stop Rush and Flush Rush ). Media Matters is similarly limited. It is encouraging to hear the references to Limbaugh, the fountain of Republican wit and wisdom, ramping up. But he is just the point man for a much larger effort. It's fun to watch Republicans blaming each other but they have no shame and an infinite capacity for hypocrisy. They could united again within months.
The monopoly remains intact and continues to limit progressive radio. It is still blasting the country with coordinated think tank bullshit campaigns. Susan Rice only took a couple of months. The Left could not get Rice's back because they have no response to those 1000 coordinated megaphones and don't even know what on them.
In terms of political messaging the talk radio monopoly has been worth trillions$ for the 1% the last 20 years. Will they find a way to get over the Limbaugh problem? Will the monopoly get passed on to other Republican owners and companies and continue to help the GOP obstruct and sabotage through the 2014 and 2016 elections? Will Mike Huckabee and others take over for Limbaugh? How many more flat Earthers will local talk radio stations help elect to congress and school boards? How many more years will the planet have to wait for a sane effort on global warming?
The talk radio monopoly makes it impossible for Americans to have national discussions based on fact. As soon as that appears to be happening the think tanks come up with a campaign lies and distortions to interrupt and distort, building on 20 years of talk radio alternate reality. Then the Dems get blind-sided by a high volume coordinated made-to-order constituency that the MSM calls popular opinion.
Possibly as many as 25% of those RW stations (28%, or 170 of Limbaugh's), and many of the loudest, are endorsed by our universities (from Universities for Rush Limbaugh - see my sig). Those stations pay those universities and schools so they can broadcast their sports, piggyback their community credibility as institutions of higher learning, and draw advertisers. I wrote here about 10 Limbaugh stations selling Right To Work For Less, attacking unions, and getting Governor Snyder's back while sporting University of Michigan Wolverines and Michigan State Spartans logos on their megaphones. While university management may argue they don't want to appear partisan by pulling their athletics from (dedicated partisan Republican) radio stations, they cannot defend the unanimous use of those stations for anti-science global warming denial.
There are many ways the Democratic Party, progressive organizations, and citizens can contribute to the destruction of that talk radio monopoly before the next election. To continue to pretend that it's Fox's little brother or that it's going to fade away soon is a big mistake. It impacts everything progressives want to do, negatively and significantly. And it continuously attacks the best and brightest in America.
Get a few universities to look for alternative broadcasters and others will follow. Add that to the anti Limbaugh boycott and the monopoly can't survive.
The monopoly also couldn't survive if researchers/media could read what the blowhards are saying/repeating for the think tanks and Koch Bros and the Chamber of Commerce. Politicians and media that repeat those lies and distortions need to be associated with talk radio.
And how many of their callers are paid callers? Are some of them sitting in RW think tanks? How closely are state and national GOP and the think tanks associated with local stations when it comes to local programming topics and guests?
For any real reform, Democrats must win the House and keep the Senate in 2014. The single best way to do that is to build on the Limbaugh boycott and challenge the RW radio monopoly. Make it impossible for global warming-denying radio stations to piggyback our universities. Open space for more progressive talkers to challenge the lies in their own medium and the RW propaganda machine will fall apart. That includes Fox.
The last 20 years were not some cyclical expression of the center moving right. They represent 20 years of ignoring talk radio.
(Note: the argument that I'm suggesting 'silencing' a legitimate expression of free speech is RW bullshit. So is the argument that the RW radio monopoly is an expression of market forces. Or that proggresive radio can't compete.)
PS and I just saw this diary on climatologist Michael Mann suing National Review for defamation. Mann is another victim of RW radio swiftboating which resulted in death threats. He once told Bobby Kennedy that the East Anglia "climate-gate" helped undermine the Copenhagen talks and set back US discourse on global warming by a couple of years. That was another RW radio success, mostly Limbaugh. I wrote as it was happening, Americans cannot ignore Limbaugh on climate.