Why I Love Listening to Pacifica...

Those of you who know me know that I grew up in New York and when I was fifteen, I started attending the Fieldston School, the high school of the Society for Ethical Culture in New York. I'll reserve a discussion of ethical humanism for another time, suffice it to say that it's an ultra-progressive, ultra-statist philosophy - and while I was still formulating my pro-individual rights, small government views, I was definitely a heck of a lot more hawkish than my classmates. Let me put it to you this way: while we were being taught that the soviet flavor of socialism was still a viable societal enterprise, I knew that not only was it an evil force at work on this planet, but that I wanted to fight it.

But one of the things that I did learn while at Fieldston was that in order to make progress on a problem, you need hear as many sides to that problem as possible (this, of course, leads to meaningful dialogue. Dialogue, in turn, leads to understanding. And that, in turn, leads to solutions. At least in theory. I believe that dialogue is important - review many of my old posts on Usenet and you'll see [I ought to post some of those here...] - but sometimes there's simply no common ground to be found.).

What's more - it can be highly entertaining to hear those views that widely diverge from your own.

So, I've taken to listening to Pacifica Radio on WPFW in DC (89.3 FM) while I'm driving in in the mornings - especially "Community Comment". For the uninitiated, Pacifica makes NPR look like Limbaugh's EIB Network. Community Comment is a call-in show - and Ron Pinchback takes _ANY_ calls (even my own). They are AWESOME! You get all sorts of folks - from the kinda nutty local activists to the full-blown German-accented from-the-trenches elderly socialist (I'm serious here - this guy's called in a couple of times since I've listened to talk about the class struggle in light of Katrina).

Yesterday morning I'm listening, and they're talking about the Millions More Movement March - the successor to the decade-ago Million Man March - and what people hope it will accomplish. Well, first off we get a guy who calls in to say that while he isn't advocating for violence, that when the millions of people arrive in DC they ought to constitute a private army and do something revolutionary!!!

Then, another guy calls in to say that what they ought to be talking about is crime - and that communities ought to become crime fighters, to band together to fight crime in their neighborhoods and FORGET THE POLICE!!!

Armed insurrection and vigilante-ism. If I hadn't immediately heard a call afterwards bashing the administration's record on race relations, I would've thought it was 10 years ago and I was listening to some sort of Ted Nugent pro-militia show on the AM dial.

Yes, there are real gems - which is why I do listen. I didn't realize, for instance, that the Red Cross gets reiumbursed by the Federal Government for their disaster relief work, which really offends me (especially when they: a) raise a billion bucks on Katrina relief and can't seem to spend it efficiently; and b) carp about not getting enough to send relief abroad). Found that out a few weeks ago. Also got some great ideas about the exacerbation of post-Katrina problems due to organizational, bureaucratic, and regulatory red tape. You gotta love it when a super-progressive outlet does a story and one can come to the conclusion that union recalcitrance was preventing hurricaine victims from getting their much-needed relief.

So, tune in. Call in if you're so inclined. If you can handle a little frustration and aggravation, you're gonna love it!

- Andrew Langer