Jun 21 2007
Liberalism’s Dying Gasp
In a laughable attempt to salvage a dying political movement liberals are trying to make it the law of the land for America to stop turning its back on them and force us to listen to their tired and failed policy views. In the free market of ideas they have realized their last hope is to go Soviet style and force their message on the masses:
The Center for American Progress and Free Press today released the first-of-its-kind statistical analysis of the political make-up of talk radio in the United States. It confirms that talk radio, one of the most widely used media formats in America, is dominated almost exclusively by conservatives.
…
Ultimately, these results suggest that increasing ownership diversity, both in terms of the race/ethnicity and gender of owners, as well as the number of independent local owners, will lead to more diverse programming, more choices for listeners, and more owners who are responsive to their local communities and serve the public interest.
The idea is to make it illegal to win the debate of ideas. This will not fly. The reason liberal talk radio fails time and time again is not the ownership. I don’t listen to a radio station based on who owns it. Heck, with shell corporations and subsidiaries and stockholders knowing who ‘owns’ something is impossible. What sells are ideas.
The truth of the matter is conservative ideas were very popular after nearly a half decade of stale, failed policies coming out of an unending line of Democrat run congresses. But the pendulum is swinging back as the GOP has now also run out of gas and has stopped trying to build coalitions but is brow beating their idealogically impure allies. Talk radio will see a change in demographics as the Ingrahams and Hannitys lose their luster. But it will not create a return to liberalism. That is really dead end. It will create a market for moderates who are not wedded to either pole of the political spectrum but who like to bridge the gaps and get things done. “Progressives” are just liberals in costume. But progress through the middle will be the next political wave.
You should get the book:
Great Moderates in American History.
You would enjoy it.
AM radio signals propagate better over distance, meaning that for good rural coverage, AM is the way to go. Possibly the rural audience, being more conservative, is driving this.
I don’t think it’s fair to call it “liberalism’s dying gasp”, though. The number of respected, widely read liberal blogs far, far overshadows the number of conservative blogs. Conservatism’s dying gasp?
I think this just reflects a choice of medium (internet vs. air) that is correlated with urban vs. rural or liberal vs. conservative.
Today: Liberalism is dying.
Yesterday: Demacrates beeting All GOP Candidates.
I’m confused, are the Dem’s Moderates?
Stevevvs,
Of course your confused…..
Some info on Center for American Progress.
Robert Dreyfuss reports in the March 1, 2004 edition of The Nation: “The idea for the Center began with discussions in 2002 between [Morton] Halperin and George Soros, the billionaire investor. … Halperin, who heads the office of Soros’ Open Society Institute, brought [former Clinton chief of staff John] Podesta into the discussion, and beginning in late 2002 Halperin and Podesta circulated a series of papers to funders.”
Soros and Halperin recruited Harold Ickes — chief fundraiser and former deputy chief of staff for the Clinton White House — to help organize the Center. It was launched on July 7, 2003 as the American Majority Institute. The name was changed to Center for American Progress (CAP) on September 1, 2003. The official purpose of the Center was to provide the left with something it supposedly lacked — a think tank of its own.
___________
Based on all that, it is an agenda driven orginanization and this is their effort with or without resurrecting the Fairness Doctrine to scream about their percieved weakness in talk radio, but glosses over their much more overarching support in the physical media such as newpapers and magazines and Broadcast media.
Good take a look at Free Press here.
Especially look at all the people listed who addressed all there conferences like Code Pink,
Air America , Media Matters and so forth.
Read the entry I linked and you will see this is a very left wing group and there is no way they could by any standard be considered moderate.
Actually, Democrat and Liberal don’t have to go hand in hand and often don’t. I know some pretty conservative folks who vote Democrat just because they always have. But I also know many of those who will never vote Democrat again after the party’s position on Iraq and because of people like Murtha.
There are “blue dog” Democrats.
But they don’t want to force us to listen to Liberal radio, they want to prevent us from listening to Conservative radio. The effect will be to only allow conservative talk radio in markets that will support a liberal talk radio show and judging from the results of Air America, that means that conservative radio would be banned in all but two markets.
Oh, and I forgot to mention, they will probably never see conservative talk radio as equal time against NPR or network news which are about as liberal leaning as you can possibly get.
I don’t think liberalism is dying. I honestly think if Liberals had better talent they would do better. For instance I am sure there is segment of liberals that tune into Rush to get their blood pressure up. Its works on the other side too. Also, I do think we reacha overrall saturation point as to politcs. At some point the markets can’t handle anymore because frankly not many people care to listen to it.
As to conservative radio, I agree with you AJ. As Cowherd just said conservative radio(as well as liberal) is affirmation radio. It really doesnt bring new voters in. However, talk radio has lately become even more affirmation radio to the extreme.
Everyone should go read this column at the Politico. Savage decided to declare war on BRiam Lamb of all people. Bad person to go after. Read the whole thing it is hilarious. Lamb clears the room with him.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0607/4576.html
HEre are some excerpts after Lamb declared War on C-Span and Lamb
“”Rather than sit back and take it, Lamb decided to make the skewering public on the June 15 episode of “Washington Journal.”
Lamb’s weaponry was both brilliant and simple: the e-mails themselves. He quoted the outraged masses, sparing none of their vitriol.
Here’s some of what Lamb read on air, according to closed captioning:
“Here’s one from Col. Tom Haggerty. He says, ‘The little man Lamb’ — me, he is talking about — ‘the dry, stone-faced little man.’ Signed, Col. Tom Haggerty. This one from, let’s see, Argulario, it says, ‘Did you really turn off the free speech award when he was to talk? How dare you? Are you a Nazi and a Stalinist and probably a homosexual, and I don’t appreciate your agenda.’ This is from a fellow named Jim Lewis: ‘As a taxpayer, I’m demanding that you air the freedom speech by Dr. Savage. I pay your salary, and you have no right censoring programs based on your political beliefs. When can I see the time slots and promos for airing of his speech. I will await your responding. I would hate to lead the effort of the removal of you people who have offended not only me but many other Americans.'”
“Hardly a coward, Lamb did respond — by calmly stating facts:
“We are not a taxpayer organization,” said Lamb. “We have told our audience that many, many times. We get no federal funds, state funds, local funds. We get our money from you. You give us a nickel a month when you pay your bills, and that’s how we operate here”
“Lamb said Wednesday that he continues to receive hate mail from Savage supporters and is considering doing another show about the fight this Friday.
“On almost every count, they’re wrong. That’s why I did this. … To have every single one of them say ‘you must be defunded’ is totally devoid of fact,” Lamb said. “I just want our audience to know what people are saying in their e-mails and their vitriol, and everyone who reads the blogs knows the vitriol.”
It is nice that the thinking people showed up the extremes.
And I got that way from…reading here!
But your fun to read. It’s very entertaining.
I guess the only hope for the GOP is to be more like the DNC. We truely need tree parties:
Liberal, Moderate, Conservative.
Take Care, Aj, catch ya tomorrow.
Aj I think my comment got caught up in the spam filter so I shall not repeat my full opus
However look at theis.There is hope for the thinking man conservative yet
Brain Lamb vs Savage and Lamb mopps the floor with him
Notice his last paragraph especially
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0607/4576.html
Total rubbish.
In 1776 – liberals fomented the American revolution. Conservatives supported the monarch.
In 1860 – liberals supported abolition. Conservatives liked slavery just fine.
In 1900 – liberals voted for women’s suffrage; conservatives wanted women barefoot in winter, pregnant in summer.
In 1940 – liberals prepared to fight WWII; conservatives aligned with Hitler.
In 1950 liberals voted for Civil Rights; conservatives supported Jim Crow.
In 2000, liberals advocated for civil unions for gays and lesbians; conservatives supported bible-thumping and creationism.
There is not a single intellectual or moral issue on which the conservative position has prevailed. Liberalism is not dead – it’s merely under attack from the usual fascist suspects.
Sooth, you are mistaking classical liberalism with neo-liberalism. Republicans are classical liberals in that they believe in individual freedom. Democrats are neo-liberals that believe in nanny government to “take care” of everyone.
Crosspatch:
excellent post (re: definition of liberalism)
Bull-bleep. Plain and simple. When did this miraculous transubstantiation of “liberal” occur? Republicans were once progressive – Abraham Lincoln. Then there was Teddy Roosevelt. Since then – fascists – each and every one. The only individual freedom Republicans believe in is the freedom for fat while males – and their minions – to cheat, steal and lie.
Exempla gratia: Dick Cheney and the fraudulent Halliburton. George Bush and the fraudulent Harken. Kenny Lay and the fraudulent Enron. Jack Abramoff and the fraudulent lobbyists. Alberto Gonzales, the fraudulent AG. Scooter Libbby – the convicted liar, perjurer, obstructor of justice and traitor. Monica Goodling. Duke Cunningham. Tom DeLay. Newt Gingrich. Rush Limbaugh.
let’s throw Barney in there too
Sooth … do your self a favor and get some education.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism
FDR was pretty much the father of “new” (or neo) liberalism.
“In 1950 liberals voted for Civil Rights; conservatives supported Jim Crow.”
Whoa there. In the 60 and 70’s Republicans were fighting for Civil rights. The 1964 Civil rights acts was passed because of a lot of Republican support.
Also as a Southerner, let me tell you that Richard Nixon who had to implement much of the legislation did much. A very big forgotten part of contributions sadly
George Wallace was a Democrat