Lapdogs For The Ruling Class - Talk Radio

Dave of The11thhour has an interesting, and revealing post on talk radio's role as Republican party booster. What was once a public resource is now completely controlled by corporations. Consolidation of ownership of radio stations into fewer hands has meant that fewer people chose which voices are allowed on air.

Almost anyone with some technical knowledge could take some wires, electrical components, and electricity and create a radio transmitter. Radio is a natural phenomena just like sunlight, or the wind. Radio waves don't belong to anyone. In the early days of radio regular people tinkered around and built their own radio stations. This is how radio began.

If you tried this today big daddy government would toss you into jail for doing so. Government enforces an oligopoly in radio broadcasting - and thus protects the interest of corporations which control those radio frequencies. For this special arrangement there was supposed to be a trade off. Broadcasters were supposed to in some way prove that they were proper stewards of the airwaves. In exchange for granting a license to make money using radio, and television, broadcasters were supposed to serve the community.

That changed as broadcasters bought off enough corrupt representatives to dismantle the broadcasting laws which had protected the rights of the people, and the community.

In the age of digital communications there is no reason why frequencies allocated in the FM, and AM bands can't be allocated in a more competitive, and community accessible manner. All broadcast should be digital. There is no need regional radio broadcasting. By reducing the range of radio broadcast we open up frequencies for local use. By converting to digital more frequencies will become available for local use. Radio as it is in the U.S. is obsolete.

Despite the conservative nature of talk radio you never hear those conservative voices complain that the radio spectrum should be thrown open to use by anyone who wants to start a local broadcast center. They are silent advocates of their own special arrangement - the protection racket which our corrupt government operates on behalf of broadcasters.

The last two weeks leading up to the election WMAY acted as an extended, and FREE advertisement for REPUBLICAN candidates (yes there were exceptions). There wasn't any attempt at objectivity, or fairness. It was repugnant to recognize how one group of people dictate "truth" to the public. WMAY, and other radio stations, enjoy the protection of the U.S. government, yet radio talk show hosts advocate less government. This is both ironic, and revealing.

Will there ever be a change?

Only when our representatives in Washington are no longer bought, and sold, like cheap crack whores on a Saturday night will anything change.

In the meantime we must recognize that the sorry state of talk radio is a direct reflection of greed, and corruption in Washington. Greed, and corruption has a voice - a voice that pretends to represent the common people, but instead is a tool used by the ruling class to seduce those ignorant enough to actually believe what they hear.