Elphaba

Excellent point, Ms. Snowy.

dc_dux

The last I heard, the FCC regulates and licenses the AM spectrum. You cant just put up a tower and start broadcasting.

In recent years, the FCC has issues very few new licenses.

I may be wrong, but I believe the FCC is trying to reallocate the low end of the AM spectrum for emergency use by first responders (a recommendation of the 9/11 commission).

BTW, I was never a big fan of Air America myself, but I'm less of a fan of deregulation of the public airwaves to the benefit of a few national telecomm companies.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Seaver

No where did I say that you can simply start broadcasting. The FCC regulates according to stations in certain areas which are within certain frequency (or in AM the Amplitude) ranges. With fewer channels being used in AM (due to less demand), aquiring a liscence for it would in turn be much easier. It's not as if they failed to get liscenses for stations around the country, it's simply that said stations did not get listeners.

They got California, New York, and pretty much all the liberal states and it failed there. If they went bankrupt because they could not access said areas this argument would hold water. It would be as if you offered free UT/A&M game coverage in Pittsburg but not being able to offer it in Texas. Instead the opportunities were there but the demand was not.

__________________
"Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas

dc_dux

I dont think they acquired licences in NY, LA, SF, Wash, Philly, etc.....they offered their programming to existing station owners.

In many cases, they were limited to smaller stations with the weakest output because the largest stations in these (and most) markets are owned by the national (or regional) telcomm companies who already control the major ad revenue in the market with their existing national programming.

It makes for tough competition.

I agree the fact that they put out a lousy product made it even more doomed to fail, but they certainly werent playing on a level field with Clear Channel.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Ustwo

If Air America had less of a market share in their flagship station in NYC than the Caribbean talk/music station that it replaced, that doesn't say to me the problem had anything to do with regulations and everything to do with no one wanted to listen.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

dc_dux

Perhaps the NYC station is like the one in DC that carries Air America (along with Ed Schultz and Stephanie Miller). It has one of the weakest signals in the market. I can listen in my midtown condo, but I cant pick the station up in my downtown office unless I am working at night and my brother in the near suburbs cant hear it at all.

But now we're getting repetitive. You dont seem to think national ownership of multiple stations in a market is a problem or that it has a negative impact on revenue and programming.

I do....so we'll just have to leave it at that.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

smooth

The problem I always suspected with air america was threefold:

1) [Snowy alluded to this] "liberal" in so far as the definition implies are interested in diversity of opinion. Conservatives, by definition, are interested in encapsulation of ideas. While single persons might differ from these broader defintions, they are both definitionally and anecdotally true in my experience. I find more people on my "side" within this matrix as willing to at least be entertained by the other side, and even to listen to it on occasion. and this far more than I find the broad category identifying all over the place but mostly as "independent" as willing to listen to "those liberals." but at least the "conservatives" are entertaining (point 3 coming up)

That is, while I personally know people from all stripes of political affiliation willing to listen to one another and discuss ideas, they in no way comprise what I would consider the base. Since we have no firm definition of a cohesive liberal, I have to hinge my description on the classical usage of the term. And the only reason I feel more comfortable with stuffing "conservatives" into a descriptive category as a cohesive unit is due to the fact that they themselves constructed that category. It was, after all, their intention to set up a cohesive unit that would engage with "the enemy" of the cohesive liberal category (which may or may not exist as cohesively as is argued) which leads me to point 2)

2) [and roachboy alluded to this] that the right-wing radio personas were constructed around a reactive paradigm. And this reactionary politics feel empowering and increasingly so when the group represented feels disempowered. but when the "liberals" felt disempowered, they fantasized that they could muster a counter-counter-argument that was appealing to their own group...

3) however, the basic problem with this is that the conservative positions as evinced in the major media, are highly hyperbolic, outright disinformative, and generally entertaining rather than informative.

we can see the opposite of this in the likes of linktv (which I suspect "conservatives" of at least the academic kind and information seeking kind) and Charlie Rose watching, and New York Times/ LA Times reading or numerous international reportings/BBC products are informative without the ludicrous infotainment of staged "debates"/shoutfests, bloviating, pontificating, and etc. that the right employs in their programming but is so damn interesting to watch in the car wreck/survivor/BigBrother-esqe programming era we all operate within.

While those informative programs continue to plug away, I doubt they will gain market share on any magnitude since the slice they aim for is limited--from both liberals and conservatives. Information seeking peoples in our society seem to be a smaller share of the population than ready-to-consume types. and when these other types find themselves ready to consume, they want it to be sensational, tantilizing, and generally the opposite of their shadow cubicle lives they find themselves locked-into during the 9-5 before primetime entertainment they can't wait to sit in front of.


But if I were to say anything in a nutshell, it's quite late/early at this point, it's that I never thought the market would be realized because the format was wrong--not necessarily the material. The same as the rightwing talk infotainment. I do not find the notion of ideas problematic so much as I grow tiresome of he faux-presentation of ideas. And so air america fantasized that if they could only get enough people to listen to them, by reproducing a format that is popular in average society, then the ideas would be heard. whereas, the entire program of commerce has been to meld populism with commerce (and this apparent contradiction has been managed oh so well so far and been realied by the likes of limbaugh who is more skilled in hegemony than I think so many people who might consider themselves democratic party adherents) and being as this is a mere means to an ends to garner more revenue, no moral flex must be accomplished. whereas for a liberal to listen to the same blather from their own side, constitutes a compromise of Liberal values--to sully information with entertainment of the vlugar kind.

I haven't met a well-reasoned conservative repeating Coulterism or Oreillyisms. I haven't met a well-reasoned leftists who would repeat Frankenisms. But I have met a whole slew of people in the middle who fantasize the the hannity, oreillys, and coulter are in line with those in power--when in fact I think the old school conservatives find them as repugnant as the old school liberals find vulgar liberalism on air america antithetical to what occurs on BBC or linktv.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

Ustwo

Yes that its, lies sell but the TRUTH of left, not so much.



Whats ironic is that when lefty talkers like Franken get cornered by an untruth they retreat to the realm of 'its just comedy'.

What this all boils down to, as usual, is the left somehow assumes they fail because they are superior. What an odd concept but typical.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

NCB

The AA apologists and their supposedly "non interrested" ilk has made this thread pretty comedic. It never seems to occur to liberals that they're pushing a shit product that nobody wants.

I suppose it's more comfortable to suck each other off with bullshit polls and take refuge in moronic conspiracy theories than to pull their heads out of their asses and confront reality.

__________________

seretogis

So, who here is looking forward to Al Gore's liberal cable TV channel?

__________________
seretogis - sieg heil
perfect little dream the kind that hurts the most, forgot how it feels well almost
no one to blame always the same, open my eyes wake up in flames

FoolThemAll

Why post in a thread that you obviously haven't read?

__________________
I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

NCB

I was speaking in generalities, not specific people here.

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smooth

why I even bother to respond is beyond me...but perhaps it's more interesting to me the irony of what I posted: that conservatives regularly engage in bullshitting to make a point...and that ustwo feels compelled to replicate that point even here directly under my post......

for the simple fact is that the next sentence he quotes from me is thus:

so strange that I find linktv and charlie rose the opposite of the o'reilly, hannity&combes, and ann coulter in format....

and that I end my points with this:
(and perhaps I should have qualified this to indicate I'm speaking of people IRL so as not to offend other tfp members)


And that all of "our" collective leftists posts, which all pretty much summarily dismiss air america's attempt as juvenile at best, somehow can't be made consumable to NCB. It pretty much becomes obvious to me at least that a number of people who simply can't respect other people for whatever reason and apparently lack real world social skills to the point of not being able to even carry a virual conversation, and so operate in non-reality social groups such as these.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

Seaver

Sorry, even over the internet speaking such things does not lend itself to very good discussions.

I ignored it when you posted this the first time, but this whole idea you are putting out is rediculous. According to your theory liberals want to discuss ideas and feel the desire to know the whole story, while conservatives simply want to hear back-and-forth bickering and refuse to listen to facts. For every Coulter or O'Riley (sp?) out there, there are pleny of liberals who spew the same amount of crap.

The fact is Air America failed, it failed because not enough people listened to it. Debate all you want about what conservatives listen to all you want, but that does not aid itself in this discussion. In reality it ranks on the same level as those who proclaim only trailer trash and rednecks voted for Bush.

__________________
"Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas

Ustwo

Sorry smooth didn't have my coffee this morning and I only glanced at your post. I think its fundamentally flawed on many levels of course, but its deeper than my surface scan allowed for.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

roachboy

actually, seaver, it doesn't.

what smooth is talking about is a simple matter of respect at the interpersonal level....indications that folk on the right actually read what the rest of us post, a kind of minimal quid pro quo given the fact that "the left" in here does bother to read conservative posts.


second--the air america failure is more interesting than it is complex--at the simple level they didn't make enough money to cover their debts. this was apparently more an organizational problem from the outset than an advertising revenue problem generated by low listenership. but obviously low listenership didnt help.

and again for the record, i did not and do not listen to air america.
it does not interest me.
it is the mirror image of conservative radio, which also is not interesting at the level of content.

HOWEVER:
both are kinda interesting at the level of tactics.
because both are about trying to fashion and maintain what you could think of as a discursive space--they are adaptation machines that take the general political line of the moment and bend it around to encompass shifting information.
so listening to conservative radio--which at one point i did quite intensively (though i confess that i preferred the really whacked out conservative stuff like militia and/or christian identity programming you can hear still on shortwave, mostly because it was like watching a really bad horror film as opposed to watching a consistently mediocre film, which would be analogous to limbaugh--this despite the fact that limbaugh was much more important analytically) was interesting an an ongoing experiment in ideological adjustment.
a highly centralized type of ideological adjustment no less--within which it was required that reference be made to how indepedent minded everyone is. it was--and remains--kind of surreal.

you can listen to this stuff and think about it without bothering to try to figure out why individual conservatives listen--it almost doesn't matter why, simply because the relevant motivations were provided by the adjustment procedures themselves.
limbaugh would give you a good idea of what the assumed motives were. that he had a listenership indicated that some of these motives resonated somewhere.
but you can have complexity at the level of audience motives and real simplicity at the level of ideological claims without any contradiction.
it's kind of a routine feature of thinking about a mass media operation.

air america was set up on conservative ideological grounds, as a response that from the outset conceded the framing of its politics (liberal) as conservative radio/media outlined it and tried to "fight back" from within that framework.
to my mind, that is a big reason why it failed--the folk who got it up and running actually believed that conservative ideology was an accurate index for thinking about politics beyond its borders.
well, it isnt.
at one level the failure of air america proves that it isnt.

so what i think is that the failure of air america shows that conservative politics does not even provide an accurate description of the reality it is part of. "liberal" in conservativeland is a projection, a fantasy. "liberal" denotes a unified group in conservativeland, a discrete position. "liberal" is the reverse of conservative, which would mean that "liberals" are as centrally organized as conservatives are in ideological terms.

and that is nothing more than projection, and one way of seeing the failure of air america is as a confirmation of that.

i know this does not fit into the ultra-simplistic take that you would prefer to have of this, but frankly, it is not important to me that it does. in fact, i would obviously concede your point and would then argue that it is so obvious as to be thoroughly banal and from there i would ask you what makes you think that folk who oppose you politically are so stupid that they cannot see the obvious--particularly when you have post after post from them above that say air america is not interesting, i do not listen to it, it says nothing to or for me or anyone that i know.

and i would also ask you, seaver, why it is that you cannot seem to process what the actual arguments in the posts from "the left" in tfp land above really are about this.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

ubertuber

Sometimes I wonder if people indulge in vulgarity because they think it spares them the effort of expressing themselves eloquently. Or maybe it's just the best they can do? I can't tell the difference.

__________________
Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam

filtherton

That story is two years old. The channel has been on for a while.

Seaver

Roachboy thank you for more eliquently making that statement. I disagree with your assessment (popular as it is) that conservatives are more closely centralized while liberals have too many diversions in priorities.

I've NEVER listened to Limbaugh/Coulter, and I've only seen one or two episodes of O'Riley (out of curiosity). I dont find their discussions interesting, and if I hear "Culture War" I'm going to slap someone. There are MANY people like me who are socially liberal while governmentally and monetarily conservative. For me ensuring prosperity and military strength ranks higher than environmentalism and gay rights. While I support gay rights to marriage, it does not rank as highly to me therefore takes a back seat.

Liberals proclaim the same thing for themselves, while painting conservatives with one big goosestepping brush (not in Nazi terms, but as marching completely in step).

I agree that management and business model of Air America was completely botched. I disagree, though, that it was is because liberals do not like the yelling as on many conservative shows. I simply hope that this will signal the end to the bickering "conversational" news.

__________________
"Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas

roachboy

seaver:

you can have a highly coordinated political apparatus on the one hand and a huge diversity of positions amongst the population that is addresses at the same time.

it is not like politics/information routed through politics represents the totality of what anyone thinks or is.

it seems that at its most successful, a highly coordinated political apparatus can manage to shape discourse in particular regions--they can shape the terms of debate and/or interpretation--and people can pick up that discourse as if it was a kind of algorithm and effectively just run it.
what an apparatus can do to increase the uniformity of usage--not attitudes about usage, but usage of these frameworks/algorithms---is to create a separate media environment that folk can choose to enter into and which can (if it works) provide a fairly complete, mobile description of the world.

the american right has set up a version of such a system over the past 20 years or so, but it remains relatively open-ended--its borders are porous and people can shift in and out of it pretty easily because the american right does not dominate the media they work in, they simply have carved out a space within them--and frankly, they are pikers when compared with what the old school communist parties managed to do back when they were viable. i am not a fan of the american right---but i haven't seen anything quite as bizarre from them as the international celebration of stalin's 70th birthday (in 1949).
now *that* merited the "what the fuck?" response...

i might be drifting off point here: what i am arguing here is that to say there is a fairly centralized media apparatus that the right has set up==at great expense and as a function of considerable labor (it is quite an organizational accomplishment, no matter what you think of it) is not to say that everyone who finds what that apparatus says or shows to be compelling thinks in the same way.

on the other hand, when you find yourself in debates in a space like tfp (or any messageboard) on political matters, it often seems like all you see of more conservative people is the algorithms. but that's more the form, the boards, than anything else i think.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

smooth

you know, this is bullshit and I don't see any reason to be any more eloquent than that given you couldn't give me the simple respect of reading my post without projecting your own view of what liberals say/mean into what I actually wrote.

And no, roachboy, I'm not going to slough this off as format issues, because it's repetative and consistently pointed out enough that if it did matter, that is if these people we correspond with did care enough to actually discuss matters rationally, then they'd take the time--the same time we take to read their poorly worded and logically flawed arguments ad infinitum--to at least try and get the gist of what we type out. But they don't, pure and simple, instead preferring to mischaracterize much of what is laid out...that said, I don't spend my time here any longer in the same way as you so I can appreciate your attempt to mediate what you probably recognize with the pragmatic shift to just let shit lie and so write it off as function of the structure of internet discussion rather than some personal defecit


That said, being as I've not been here in a while, I forgot one of the most important lessons I gleaned from this forum: a lot of readers here can't/won't handle more than short sentences.

so grade school it is, seaver:


I know intelligent conservatives
I know intelligent liberals
Neither enjoy the infotainment that passes for news from bill oreilly, hannity, or coulter shows.
Neither enjoy the infotainment that passes for news from franken-esqe sources.

Both seem to drink beers while ENJOYING Bill Mahrer or Daily Show-esqe poltical commentary.
Both seem to derive their NEWS from major newspapers, BBC, Weekly Standard, international sources, and etc.
Both like to watch and discuss TOGETHER merits of topics brought up in Charlie Rose-esqe interview formats, or even Chris Matthews types. Not so much so the Hannity/Colmbes or Oreilly type interview/shoutfests.

These people seem to comprise the minority of TV watchers.

The majority of TV watchers seem to me to be interested in ENTERTAINMENT.
These TV watchers consume the infotainment that is passed off as news, and these same people don't seem to have the time or inclination to get outside corroberation of what they see passed off as news.


/gradeschool mode


Now, if you want to conflate the notion that conservative handlers and participants on these show seem to enjoy shouting at one another and the viewers who enjoy that kind of shit are the same people voting for Bush--well, that's pretty much where I can just figure your analysis is batshit and you didn't pay enough attention to what I wrote.

Because the closest thing I guess I could be accused of writing toward that end was the notion that CORPORATE values trump truth values when it comes to mainstream entertainment. That the corporate domain is dominated by conservatives is no secret to me, maybe to you, but also that other conservatives leeched into the corprorate domain purely with the notion that they could turn the tide of the so-called culture war. And so they did and it appears are succeeding due to gaining popularity with people who were feeling disenfranchised. But maybe you fantasize that outsourcing jobs and fucking people's hardearned money off in economic schemes are dandy and popular positions. I happen to disagree and so I'm left thinking that the resulting political platform that melds populism with corporatism is at its core contradictory and strange.

Basically all I was saying was that corporate values allow subordinating truth to profit, whereas liberal values don't. It so happens that conservatives are in charge of huge chunks of corporate media right now, and the definition of conservatism is to retain power whereas the definition of classical liberalism is to deconsolidate power so perhaps that explains why these people are willing to engage in what I see are vulgar politics. The air america crew thought it best to emulate that, and I suggest that their audience thinks its no good in the same way that we thought the other side's was no good.

Given the growing illiteracy, obesity, and poverty issues in our modern society, I don't see why any of this would be particularly shocking to anyone.
That is, it seems to me that a growing segment of our population is content to forget their shitty days while consuming goods and ideas from something like a TV that they can control with an on/off button. And that's the extent of the conclusions I'd draw from that statistical data--nothing about their voting habits (other than to state that more often than not they DONT vote, rather than attaching them to any particular party or Bush as you put it), nothing about their intelligence (although their time seems at this point to be better spent than mine repeating myself to people in this thread), and certainly nothing about where these people live (except that I would venture the grandaddy of them all, Jerry Springer from whom all this shit seemed to sprout and was realized its popularity from, seemed to be rooted in "trailer trash" exploitation).

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

Seaver

Ok, I read your post. I understand your post. I don't agree with said post or your aggressive and arrogant tones. Therefore I am stupid, family-ruining, money-grubbing, child who only takes up your precious time.



Hear me roar?

__________________
"Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas

xxSquirtxx

With all due respect, I have found the same in return. I have posted somewhat lengthy replies, and what I get is pretty much dismissal of what I had to say.

Two-way street, buddy. Climb down off of that horse.

Ustwo

smooth I'm glad I have your not so subtle arrogance to tell me what makes someone smart because they like the kind of things you do

You are quite eloquent is really saying nothing at all, congratulations, you would fit in nicely at any liberal dinner party where you can lament the poor state of the average american who only wants entertainment and doesn’t understand the refined things in life.

I find Bill Myer dull, the BBC biased, and Chris Matthews a hack, and in the past have enjoyed Limbaugh who I have found to be very insightful.

Oh no, I must not be intelligent!

Liberal values? What would those be exactly? I’ve never seen liberal values in the parties that claim to represent Liberals, they seem to enjoy playing with the truth, so what are these ‘liberal values’?

Why are you using classic definitions that have no bearing on the current usage? By the classic definitions many of todays conservatives are liberals, and liberals are conservative. It bears no meaning to ‘liberal’ radio as those are not liberals who wish to deconsolidate power. Do you use this to confuse the issue or are you trying to equate todays ‘liberal’ with the classic idea of liberal?

Translated, liberals are not going to listen to liberal ‘shock jocks’ like the stupid conservatives do.

I don’t know if Frank Herbert took this from somewhere else or not, but one line from his works always stood out in my mind because it seems to be true. It seems very fitting for your postings.

"The patterns, ahhh, the patterns. Liberal bigots are the ones who trouble me most. I distrust the extremes. Scratch a conservative and you find someone who prefers the past over any future. Scratch a liberal and find a closet aristocrat. It's true! Liberal governments always develop into aristocracies. The bureaucracies betray the true intent of people who form such governments. Right from the first, the little people who formed the governments which promised to equalize the social burdens found themselves suddenly in the hands of bureaucratic aristocracies. Of course, all bureaucracies follow this pattern. Ahhh, well, if patterns teach me anything it's that patterns are repeated."

Edit: and if I may add the Daily-show isn't really high commedy, its liberal commedy. I think what you really wanted to say was that 'conservatives who like my liberal sources of entertainment and news are smart.'.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

smooth

I wasn't going to respond to this thread anymore, but I ran a search on all posts of yours in politics since you joined. Now, unless you've been here under a different name, I'm trying to find where you've been participating in a thoughtful, polite, and constructive manner yet still being summarily dismissed by liberals or anyone else for that matter.

I am going to take the time to post every single one of your replies so people can judge for themselves if what I'm saying about conservatives on this board making things up to prove a point (which is what you just did to chastise my responses) and pretty much playing the victim when they called out on their shit (like the ludicrous assertion that I'm a trolll for pointing out that constructive participation on this board lacks in no small part due to unwillingness to engage with one anothers' posts, which would be the opposite of trolling).

Starting earliest first (ie, your first post in politics out of 27 total), here are your posts in their entirety:


-- http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/search.php?searchid=723022

Now, these are all of your posts and everyone curious can go to the link I provided to read them for one's self and make a decision.


That said, this is way off track and I apologize for that to people still interested in participating and other lurkers. BUT I saw it as necessary becaues the problem with trolls is that they drive away positive contributors and lurkers (who don't know the context within which arguments like this erupt). I would guess that if someone were reading this, he or she might be a bit baffled as to where I was coming from. And for that reader, I've been here for years...longer than my account reflects due to multiple crashes. I no longer post here frequently, and now you have some insight as to why that might be the case.

You mixed cause and effect.
I never wrote that someone is intelligent because of his or her entertainment/news sources, just that most TV watchers don't sit around the TV thinking about political affiliation or ideology. They just want to be entertained.

I think that smart people know the difference between entertainment and news.
Air america struck me as neither.

I'd like to go to one and I hope they're half the fun as the conservative dinner parties I've attended where we lamented the poor state of the average american who only wants entertainment and doesn't udnerstand the refined things in life (whatever those may be...I guess in this context substantive news is a refined thing in life...I don't feel ashamed for desiring it)

As stated, what you find interesting doesn't speak to me about your intelligence level.

I like your qualifier!
I've never seen a party claiming to represent Liberals hold liberal values either

Rather than speculate on what constitutes a monolithic value system, I'd have to say that one value corporate acculturated people possess is drive for profit. Seems straightforward there.
One value classical liberals have is positivism. I thought that was straightforward, too. But I guess I caught you off-guard with my notion that positivists would find people who play fast and loose with the truth to be counter-productive in a political domain.

And I hearkened to the classical term because a lot of people in academia (from both sides of the political spectrum) adhere or fashion they adhere to that standard.

But as I'm not a positivist, I can't speculate much more on their value system. I can only suspect that if they were to be true to the standard of finding fundamental Truth that shock jockeys stretching Truth for entertainment would turn them from listening to it as a serious news forum.

Well, I guess. But I'd think my position was more along the lines that intelligent people aren't going to derive their political opinions from shock jockeys whose sole purpose is to entertain.

I have no idea what stupid conservatives do in their spare time as I don't know any. Perhaps they bang out inane responses on internet forums.

If you find that interesting, you'd probably find Weber's notion of the Iron Cage and Michel's Iron Law of Oligarchy interesting, as well.


I find it absotlutely fucking hilarious that as soon as I put something in paragraph form, that's where ustwo's comprehension level falls to abysmal levels. I mean, I didn't call you stupid, ustwo, but your responses are illustrating an uncanny (and by that I suspect intentional) obtuseness...

I'll break it apart for you:

Here's what I wrote:

So despite your best attempts to the contrary, everyone can see plain as the text of my own I'm quoting, that I'm not remarking on anyone's political affiliation or intelligence level based on the entertainment they consume.

And rather than risking a problematic parapraph...

I know smart people who watch and laugh at dumb shit...

but they don't take it as news.


I guess people watch and laugh at dumb shit because it takes their mind off the hard shit they have to deal with day in, day out.


If you can't get that point by now, then I don't really have to comment on your intelligence level, I just have to make sure I find out your real name before I have any dental work done in the Chicago area.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

Willravel

Wait, didn't Roger Ailes and Rupert "deh debil" Murdoch lose an average of $90 million a year for about the first 5 years before Fox News became profitable? And the Washington Times STILL isn't turning a profit, meaning that RReverand Moon is shoveling wads of cash?

The reason Air America is failing is that Al Franken isn't a billionare.

Intense1

Sorry, Will, but I believe that the only reason that Air America didn't survive is that not enough people were willing to fork over the bucks to support it. I mean, aren't there enough celebs in Hollywood who are mega millionaires who could slip some bucks toward Air America to keep it viable? Why didn't they? Is it because they knew it was a lost cause?

The reason Air America went belly up wasn't because Al Franken wasn't a billionaire, but because he couldn't get enough of his friends to get on board.

There's enough money on the left - they just didn't want to support this outlet.

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(none yet, still thinkin')

host

smooth, probably because there are <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/search.php?searchid=724552">27 posts</a>, many of them recent, where I mentioned Brent Bozell and/or his CnsNews.com and mrc.org .....

.....my suspicion was that xxsquirtxx was merely posting links that were mocking my points about the unreliability of sites that solely appeal to conservatives.

Please do not post lengthy diatribes that threaten my belief systems, with regard to the sincereity of xxsquirtxx. It is much less work...dismissing xxsquirtxx's "efforts" here as mocking humor, than it would be to take them seriously and respond to them.

Elphaba

I read an article today that AAR's biggest challenge was going head-to-head with the extremely loyal and long tenured NPR listeners. That makes marketing sense to me, in that AAR was certainly not going to draw conservative listeners, and needed to draw progressives from NPR to succeed.

NPR depends upon public donations for the most part, and AAR depends upon advertising revenue.

I am starting to give more credit to the poster that suggested that progressives look for more depth in political discussions, rather than the drama performances of the conservative party, or liberal wannabe's.

Willravel

I belive that you're totally mistaken. Fox News and the Wash Times didn't survive because of celebrity donations, their corporate masters simply decided to pour money into them as an investment in control. Why would Goerge Cloony or Jessica Alba care about a liberal radio station? Answer? They wouldn't. It's not an investment for them at all. Their money goes into one of a few things: lifestyle, lifestyle, or lifestyle. Their ability to make money revolves around their ability to be bankable stars. I'm not sure where you get the idea that hollywood stars would fund a radiostation. What I was hinting at was that there are huge conservative pockets that fund conservative media, but there is no equilibrium at the liberal side of the spectrum. There is no liberal Murdoch pouring money into Olbermann or Stewart.

If Fox News would have been liberal, or if the conservatives didn't have the murdoch fortune, Fox News would have dies in a year or two, and Bush would have lost in 2004.