I had just left a three hour night class (grad work) studying International Conflict Theory, under a Phd. who was knighted by the Italian Crown. He is also a veteran of the Vietnam conflict, serving as a field medic. There is no class that a Master's student will find more enlightening and conversationally invigorating. It is however an hour drive home, so to keep me awake, and partially because my speakers are all blown and music doesn't sound good, I listen to the AM band where the voices clear and normal.
That first thing I heard from one Chris Krok of WBAP 820, along with a report that the President had ordered a Tomahawk missile strike on an Assad airfare base that Syria used in a chemical attack on its own citizens. The fifty-mile drive home serenaded by outright warmongering after leaving a place of peace and understanding reserved only for those who could qualify and afford the education, left me sad for the public's airwaves. Crowing about a unilateral attack on a country that in no way presents a strategic threat to the U.S., the host's stewardship of these good airwaves, had me moved to again call-in.
I am a progressive liberal, who makes better arguments, and as such my reception onto talk radio airwaves is usually short-lived. My call gets pushed right up against the break, so most often no real exchange occurs. The host is likely to put me on the air with less than sixty seconds before commercial and then interject by lowering my mic, as the host goes to the break and drops my call. Sometimes, I am kept on hold, until the break, or end of the show, when there isn't enough time to take my call. Last night, no such faux access was extended. Instead the call screener said that he wouldn't take my call "...because I am an asshole."
This same host rails incessantly about biased media, while at the same time demonstrating a level of intellectual cowardice that is truly astonishing. This is unchecked authority at its worst. TV shows, cable news, Internet and traditional news outlets alike, all have counterbalances. Talk radio however, is dominated, is not singularly ruled by 'conservatives.' Liberal views are silenced, subdued, and more often than not strangled into silence. Free speech, deliberations, honest debates do not occur there.
To which I can only say... "Shame on you Chris Krok, and others like you, who abuse the airways you have been granted use."
e-mail: chris@wbap.com
