From: Doug Henwood
That was a reference to an actual listener call (on one of the rare occasions I took listener calls). It went something like: "All that financial analysis is very nice, but aren't you overlooking the role of the Vatican Bank?"
^^^^
I have got to say, though, that in general call-in,talk radio is potentially the most democratic form there is. Here our talk-radio station , while it was the whole day's format, was like a daily town meeting. The progressive hosts shows were like a daily progressive party meeting. The more conservative hosts ( "conservative" here means liberal)over the course of talking to "the People" literally everyday got turned left on a number of issues. Some of the Mayor's former supporters among the show hosts got so active in opposing the Mayor, that they shut the whole station down for a while, got new owners, and came back with Gospel music except for one morning four hour talk show. The new callin talkshow host was clearly an agent of the Mayor. But over the course of several years arguing and dealing with the rank and file listeners, now this host is using the format to lead marches on the state capital to oppose rightwing and racist attacks on Detroit by the state government. She has been significantly moved to the left. She is a big opponent of the new , captialist, hip-hop Mayor.
You get callers like the one mentioned above, but when you open up the floor to the crowd , the "mob", the pit, you get a real wide variety. We had Black libertarians calling in here for a while. Let 'em talk. The debate with other callers like me made it clear who had the better arguments on issues. As long as you let the leftist debate the rightwingers, we will win. Democracy is not neat.
Bottomline, in Detroit, we see that the revolution will not be televised, but it will be on the radio.
Charles