There is a fuss going on in the USA over something called Air America Radio, a pro-Democrat talk-radio project. The shows have been taken off the air in Chicago and Los Angeles last week amidst a row over payments arrears.
This review published before the furore of Air America Radio is from Press Action, a bunch of US libertarians of the leftist sort. It had me in stitches.
It seems that the predominently white radio presenters have shoved off the air the black presenters in New York, when the majority of the audience is black. As a result the cricket scores and news from the Caribbean are being shunted off to slots between midnight and 5am, to the dismay of many Jamaican listeners.
Also one show involved the presenter screaming and ranting at Ralph Nader, who promptly dubbed the radio station “Hot Air America Radio”. Great job of unifying the comrades, Comrade.
I also noted that the Press Action crowd would elect Noam Chomsky for president on their site poll. The funny bit is that Bush gets 13 per cent and Kerry gets 19 per cent. If Bush gets 13 per cent of the goofy left vote, I must call my bookie.
As I recall, Air America was the name of a CIA spook job in South East Asia during the Viewnam War. Anyone thinking what I’m thinking?
Well perhaps President Bush should get the leftist vote. After all he has vastly increased government spending (including Welfare State spending).
Also President Bush has involved the United States in wars to spread representative democracy in various parts of the world – and this was the policy of the main stream (non Marxist) American left (Wilson, F.D.R., Truman, Kennedy, Johnson) in the past.
The “neoconservatives” tend to have quite a lot in common with the supporters of L.B.J. back in the 1960’s. If government can solve problems at home (such as poverty) why not try and solve problems abroad as well? [Of course a libertarian might say “government can not solve problems at home”].
It was American Conservatives who did not wish to go abroad “seeking monsters to destroy”. And it was American Conservatives who had doubts about representative democracy (as opposed to a Constitutional Republic).
Some people have told me that the reason for the war in Iraq was that the government of Iraq had a hand in the mass murder of September the 11th 2001 – but if that is the case (and I agree that would be reason for war that a Conservative would support) I would have expected to hear more stress being put on it.
If the idea is to simply “spread democracy” (with all the New Deal – Great Society style “public services”) to Iraq then no Conservative (let alone a libertarian) should support President Bush.
After all would Mr Kerry be so terrible? Mr Carter and Mr Clinton did not dramatically expand the size and scope of government – indeed Mr Nixon and Mr Bush, the first, and (argueably) Mr Bush, the second, have proved much worse (from the free market point of view) than Mr Carter and Mr Clinton.
One reason why governmental spending was forced upon the current Bush adminstration was due to the Clinton adminstration’s lack of governmental spending in the military and intelligence arena. This massive neglict on behalf of Clinton is obvious.
Also, remember that throughout the 1990’s wages and earning had been overly bloated in order to appear that our economy was healthy, we all saw that bubble burst in 1999.
Also, the economy was in a recession that began in 1999 then was almost devastated by the attacks on 2001, consumer spending was not going to be enough to drive our trillion dollar economy, it needed help and the government provided that help.
Despite the bogus hyping of prosperity in the 90’s, the recession that followed and a devastating attack the American economy is still the strongest in the world.
AAhhh … the elevating power of Hot Air; unless you insist on keeping your feet anchored to the ground.
The gubmint under Carter (and the tax burden) was the largest in our nations history (except WW2 times). He was a hog, and it damn near ruined this country.
Clinton inherited a national trend in downsizing the government, and the conservative-controlled Congress was pushing for it to happen. (It actually didn’t shrink so much as NOT grow).
Bush is wrong in expanding this gubmint, but unchecked, Kerry would be much worse. Ted “Boozeboi” Kennedy is just about to explode at the seams that he didn’t to enact the Medicaid drug coverage that Bush did.
Am I thinking what you’re thinking? Gee, I don’t know… but what you pointed out definitely has me thinking what I’m thinking. LOL. Maybe you should make this clear for those of us who are actually working today and not concentrating on our “little light reading?” Mean that in the best possible way…
President Carter was a very silly man in many ways – but government spending did not take up a higher percentage of economy in 1980 than it had in 1976. It was INFLATION that was Mr Carter’s great failure (he encouraged a very loose money supply – unlike President Ford and William Simon, although what the Fed does not always do what the President and his people want).
As for President Bush – “No Child Left Behind”, the Medicare extention, the trade restrictions (and so on and so on). The man may be defenable in the legal sense than a clever lawyer can create a defence for any client, but that does not alter the fact that he has not been a good President (from a free market point of view).
Of course from a 20th century Democratic Party point of view he has been a fine President. Even Teddy Kennedy (who denouces Mr Bush all the time now) was happy to work with him on “No Child Left Behind”.
Of course the first President Bush was worse – tax increases as well as spending increases. And endless new regulations (such as the Americans with Disabilities antidiscrimiation act – telling people who they must employ or trade with). Bush (the first) took the great opportunity of the end of the Cold War and pissed it down the toilet. If he had wanted to be the “Education President” he should have run for a local School Board, and if had wanted to be “Environment President” he should have gone and picked up bits of garbage somewhere (say in some of the decayed areas near Yale), not brought in new spending and regulations.
As for Mr Carter – some deregulation of natural gas, and of trucking and airlines.
Of course lots of new regulations came under him also. But what deregulation did Mr Bush achieve?
The increase in regulations under Mr Bush (the first) was almost as bad as under Richard Nixon.
And if you anyone is talking about defence cuts (to change the subject from the Welfare State and regualtions).
Here is your big defence cutter – Richard M. Nixon (at the very time of a massive arms build up by the Soviets). Of course Congress in his time was made of mostly useless people – but he was no better.
What people “know” about the past is often not very close to what actually happened.
Of course most (although not all) Democrats are ardent statists. But do not put any faith in President Bush – he has not earned it.
Perhaps if he had a clear margin of victory at the next election (unlike the very close 2000 result) he might act differently – but I doubt it.
By the way “Air America” and C.I.A. plots. The C.I.A. is full of liberals (in the modern sense) and has been all my life. The C.I.A. will plot to discredit liberals (in the modern sense) about the same time Hell freezes over.
Of course the C.I.A. has been happy to fight Communists and their allies (just as it happy to fight the radical Muslims now), but that does not make it Conservative.
And not only black stations, asian stations, too, have been taken off the air.
The November election will be interesting. Kerry will be worse, look at his economic plan. Many econ bloggers are going over it like a fly over flypaper.
I think America should adopt an isolationist stance, as there is clearly no point in trying to spread Democracy if you end up being hated for it.
I dislike Kerry, but I don’t like Bush much either, because both seem to regard their Special Interest backers as more important than the US public. Bush has displayed a distinctly Leftish instinct for meddling (gay marriage, education, etc)
America can’t adopt an isolationist policy when our embassies are bombed and our buildings used as airliner parking lots.
Our experience has been that the longer we stay away, the worse the situation eventually becomes. Had FDR in 1936 told Hitler to get out of the Rhineland or the doughboys would start getting into ships, perhaps much of the slight disturbances in the early 40s would have been averted.
Nowadays, the choice is more simple: we either don’t allow terrorist-sponsoring states to enable yet more terrorism, or we watch American buildings being blown up every week.
Not too difficult a choice.
Regardless of statements otherwise, the US and UK are in Iraq (and the region in general) for oil. This observation isn’t in the leftist “No Blood for Oil” sloganeering, it is from a pragmatic viewpoint that dovetails with reality, i.e. “We need oil for our economy to function and we don’t want some half-pint, petty thug getting his hands on the whole Mid East supply, thereby effecting the world market in general.”.
An angle that has apparently dried up in the intervening 12 years since the Gulf War is how the Saudi’s were soiling their turbans over the invasion of Kuwait, and the critical nature of what the consequences would be if Saddam were to gain positions in Saudi Arabia, above and beyond an absorbed Kuwait.
Everyone’s interest in the Middle East, disportionate to the rest of the world, can only be accounted for by the oil in the region and the effect that a hegemon will have on the supply. Spreading democracy and ending terrorism sound nice, and may be necessary to sell parts of the process to the street, but oil is the key. We aren’t all guns in other places that languish in tyranny, nor in places that are obvious enclaves for terrorism and its spread. Iraq was a huge problem in ’91 due to oil, and didn’t end its underlying threat to our satisfaction. Intervention was inevitable. I think the leadership in the intervening years wanted their cake and eat it too, make sure the oil supply moved according to some level of market force, while trying not to piss off the nut-job natives too much. But that has been the policy for 50 years or so. The difference? An expansionary Saddam/Iraq with a penchant for big guns and lying. A variable that could not be tolerated.
Toolkien
I love a man who tells it the way it is. The rest of the chatter since 9/11 is only good for the roots of the roses. And there has now been enough of it spread for all the roses of the world to flourish for as long as the planet survives probably.
Brava. We can always rely on you to squeeze the essence into no more than a nutshell.
Whatever your opinion of Air America, leftists, Democrats, etc., you should be accurate.
The population of New York City as of the 2000 census was 35% white, 24.5% black, 9.8% Asian, and 27% hispanic. Nobody has a majority, and white residents outnumber black residents.
The row in Chicago and LA has nothing to do with payment arrears but rather that the owner of both stations was attempting to leverage his position on the contract for one market by taking Air America off the air in another market, where the contract was already finalized. Air America Radio has won an injunction forcing the station owner to put the programming back on the air.
Michael Ditto,
thank you for the info about the census breakdown. I was quoting the article linked to in my posting, which concentrated on the bad feeling among cricket-loving Jamaicans.
I always thought Washington DC had a much higher black share of the population than New York City, but the reporter seemed to think otherwise.
On Bush versus Kerry, it makes sense for a supporter of free markets to find little to choose from between them, think NAFTA and steel tariffs for example.
You can’t always believe everything you read! 🙂
On Bush vs. Kerry it’s, once again, the choice of the lesser of two evils. Would you rather have an authoritarian conservative moron or an authoritarian liberal egg-head?
People in both parties with libertarian leanings do well in my part of the country (Colorado) but nationally, it’s a different story. Unfortunately, the sheer quantity of money it takes to win a national election can only come from corporations and lobbyist groups, none of which have free trade and individual rights at heart, no matter what they claim.
Air America: opium for the masses
What exactly, is a left-leaning Libertarian?
That’s the second oddest term I’ve ever seen, right next to Anarcho-Socialist.
A person can believe in a welfare state, and also strongly support individual freedoms (Roy Jenkins springs to mind).
I would want to protect people from being exploited or abused by those with power, but not impose on people’s individuality and freedom.
I tend to trust the individual over the group, as often the larger a lobby group, the greater the corruption. And “groupthink” seems to breed stupidity.
Hmmm.
I listened to Air America for a couple days instead of my usual routine. Frankly I wasn’t impressed. There was the inevitable invective and name-calling. The problem was that these shows weren’t all that informative. Worse yet they were extremely boring.
If anyone is really interested I could probably record a couple hours, if it’s not available online, and then throw them onto a webserver. Frankly I think that’s a waste of time.