There's this little radio station in Northwest Washington where I live. Its broadcast day starts off with an hour of a
libertarian male and conservative christian female hosttalking trash about Dems, moves to the rythmic lies of Rush Limbaugh, then sneaks into Paul Harvey. And that's all before noon. In the afternoon we get the pleasure of Bill O'Reilly; then previously aforemention conservative christian female and another equally inflexible conservative christian female co host talk about God for an hour.
Conservative christian female co host rounds out the day with 2 hours of liberal and gay bashing and local conservative candidate promoting (at least she used to, but we'll get to that in a minute). Then, at 6:00 pm, finally, the best part of the day on this particular radio station. One hour of local liberal talk radio.
This local host,
Joe Teehan, is an unabashed liberal, unafraid to say it out loud and proud, unafraid to give it right back to the cons. His show is the only,
only politically liberal radio available in the border town of Bellingham, WA. Unless you count CBC.
The broadcasting on this radio station during the 2004 elections incensed me to a degree that I have rarely been moved to. I was filled with righteous zeal by the words of Howard Dean and I wasn't about to let misinformation be spread with out a response. During the swiftboating of Kerry, the morning libertarian, who constantly entertained conservative ramblings about Kerry's "betrayal of his fellow soldiers." I convinced him to play Kerry's testimony before the Senate Foreign Affairs committee on air so that his audience would hear Kerry's exact words, not the lies his neo con callers were spreading about Kerry accusing his fellow soldiers of war crimes. It ceased to be a topic of discussion.
One time, the afternoon conservative christian female was crowing about how Condi was such a good role model for young girls, heck, she wouldn't mind if her own daughter turned out like Condi. I called her up and told her that I'd rather her daughter turn out like her mom, because her mom, unlike Condi, was not a pathological liar. Now, she rarely discusses national politics on her show, but the callers of both the morning and afternoon shows have no problem calling liberals names.
So, you can imagine the joy I felt when Joe started his show. A local, liberal radio presence is vital. The cons have such a death grip on the radio market its almost impossible for liberals and progressives not so well connected to the information superhighway to hear voices like their own. Too many times we are forced into defensive posture, sneaking our way into conservative talk shows and battling the host on an uneven battlefield. Trust me, this is not a criticism of liberals who call Rush and Sean and Bill. Godspeed to them (I do it on occasion), their resistance is vital. But we also need places on the radio that we can talk to others who are like minded, who need information that we can give them. Who can't get it on the internet because their work keeps them away from a computer, and have no time or access when they get home.
I force myself to not call Joe. I don't want to come off as some kind of kook, but I'm so happy to hear about things I read here broadcast on the radio, countering the pervasive auditory domestic violence that right wing radio has become. Tonight, I did call:
Joe:
Welcome to the show lapin.
Me:Hi Joe, look I just wanted to say tonight how proud I am of Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Charles Schummer and all the Senate Democrats for what they did this week. They shut down the Senate to show how serious they were about investigating the intelligence that was used to take us into Iraq.
We talked for 6 minutes, talked about how the Democrats in the Senate tried to stop drilling in ANWR, tried to stop the slashing of $35 billion from federal support of a wide range of social programs, how Maria Cantwell sponsored an amendment that would have spared ANWR and was narrowly defeated. I made sure to emphasize that Cantwell needs all Democrats' support in her upcoming race against Republican insurance salesman Mike McGavik. I hope our conversation reached at least one person's ear, let them know that Democrats are working to make things better, that the Republicans are doing wrong and we can't stand by. If it did, I'll feel as if I have done at least one good thing today, one good thing for this country I love, this country that feels like it's on the brink of a precipice.
