Terrific! It's a good start. This will get hammered by fearful and vicious wingers, but Franken et al are up to the challenge. Let the games begin !
The key will be distribution, which will be problematic, but XM radio would be a good one. However, Clear Channel owns some part of them, so expect there to be mysterious delays.
Web streaming solves a lot of those problems, as does shortwave, which fundamentalists use, as well as alarmists in the patriot movement like Alex Jones, who can't get syndicated beyond a few dozen stations otherwise, but spends about $10k/mo. for national shortwave coverage. A pretty good deal, imo.
Speaking of Jones, the heat is starting to turn up as he hits more paydirt on Bush. Today on CSPAN was a "conspiracy theory debunker", who betrayed his bias by saying he only looks at unprovable conspiracy theories, and only ones involving world domination. Therefore, anything with uncomfortable facts can be dismissed by linking it to UFOs or other implausible global conspiracy. Then of course he links in Bush critics like Jones. Callers called him on it, since he didn't even know the details of some of the theories he talked about, and was instead analyzing the believers. Worse, his degree is in political science not sociology, and he's clearly creating a political agenda, in the guise of sociological commentary.
He didn't answer the question about why, if 'conspiracy theory' is a legal term there aren't legal issues discussed, such as actual facts and evidence in each matter. No one asked when the term became a perjorative. I believe it was in the aftermath of the JFK assassination.
He didn't answer the question of various conspiracies that turned out to be proven. His mission wasn't to separate fact from fiction, but to lay down propaganda to allow easy dismissal of specific avenues of discussion. |
