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nice to see that your claims regarding the 'liberal press" function for you without data, ustwo, and that no data can therefore falsify the claim. nice that you are able to so smoothly integrate your religious committments and your politics.
i used to listen to alot of rightradio because i thought it an interesting phenomenon--limbaugh in particular, as vile as he is, was pretty interesting as an ideological mouthpiece and his show was a nice little mirror of the construction of basic claims that underpinned conservative ideology under clinton in particular. at that point, limbaugh never had one callers who disagreed with him--i assumed this had a function, which was to reinforce the claims--that limbaugh made continually--that his positions reflected those of a wider movement and that this wider movement was somehow "america"----while i dont think any one of these claims made any difference--cumulatively, i think this was an effective strategy for framing infotainment. most of the folk i know who were at the time shooting up conservative ideology (cooking it in a spoon, tying off their arm etc) tended to do so (that is to listen) in large consistent doses--limbaugh was wallpaper, liddy was wallpaper--6 hours a day every day.
as much as i detest limbaugh, i had to hand it to him--censoring opposition explicitly woudl never have worked so effectively--having people who views oppose him would not have worked as effectively--setting up a radio hall of mirrors worked.
but this was only really interesting to me while the extreme right was in opposition. i dont see how that approach could continue to operate in bushworld, and i lost interest in any event.
i think far right talk radio was an interesting phenomenon in general---it seemed to respond to a desire for the illusion of community---illusion in the sense of a radio community, a one-way street of communication that was confused with a dialogue. i think the right greatly benefitted from the illusion of unanimity it created---until bush got into power and the reality implied by the policies limbaugh et al endorsed became clear.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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