A Short Note on the Death of Air America (yeah, there’s a sports mention, too)
January 28, 2010 by dwil
Al Franken represented well Air America's 21st century self-absorbed liberal viewpoint.
Air America died. Upon hearing the news Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos asked sardonically, “Air America was still really on the air?”
The same could easily apply to the Kos. A.A. died for the same reason the Daily Kos is irrelevant, and the same reason The Huffington Post and The Daily Beast showed their true colors:
The truth and/or the telling of it will expose their own biases, prejudices, agendas, and negative “-isms.”
It’s that simple, folks.
Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck and their ilk are popular because they say what too many White people and the peoples of color who want to be White wish they had the guts to say. They hate anything not them, they are all deranged, wanna-be elitists who have no clue of what truly constitutes elitism but who, if they cannot use their race – i.e. Whiteness – as a reason to denigrate those not them, use whatever means they can manufacture to achieve the same end. And that “whatever means” as it stands today usually entails one’s proximity to perceived power. Moulitsas, not White, chose to approximate White, ally himself with Whiteness, and disseminate a White message better than White people can themselves just to prove to White people how White he was and is.
It’s like this: Markos Moulitses is a fan boy of White, male-dominated Western Culture. And all the Black Kos-alikes (and you know who you are) who claim to be part of a “progressive agenda” led by Kos and people like him, aren’t worth shit. The progressive agenda was derived by the same people who spawned Karl Marx and a Russia overrun by sociopaths and intelligence agents form other countries and who spawned the bogeyman named Fidel Castro and a Communist “threat” 90 miles of the shores of Florida.
Think I’m lying? Think I’m unaware of what Cuba represents?
Think about this: if Cuba is such a fucking threat how can Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, located in Guantanamo Bay, CUBA be America’s oldest off shore naval base?
That’s right, folks. It’s all a ruse. All this bullshit about left-right political leanings and progressive-conservative battlegrounds and a liberal media that is a stand-alone argument, is bullshit thrown in front of your and my face to keep us off the beaten path and in the fucking hinterlands so far away from reality and in the dark that we can’t see our assholes with klieg lights, mirrors and a video camera to record the view.
Air America died because it wasn’t worth a shit in the first place, just like the Daily Kos isn’t worth a shit, which is why HuffPo and the Beast glommed off them for a hot minute and now look more like Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post than they do anything resembling political websites that offer a counterpoint to Whiteness, that seek to pull down the veil put before our eyes to keep us deaf, dumb, and blind automatons cruising through our days not giving a flying snot about anything other than our own commercially fed to us creature comforts.
Air America died because the organization was the brainchild of and was populated by a bunch of sniveling, snarky fucks who would rather revel in their own perceived coolness and worry more about their “Q” ranking than give meaningful thought on how to enact real change in this country; the Daily Kos cannot be far behind.
The only problem with the death of Air America is that whoever endeavors to replace, and someone or some group of White people will surely take the shot, they will look at advertising procurement and the formatting mistakes, “talent” shortcomings, and programing deficiencies that led to potential advertisers staying away from A.A. in droves. Little or no thought will be given to message relevancy and less thought will be given to the potential impact such an endeavor can have on our society and how the ideals of “traditional” American stability can be melded with knowing that the country must move to change more than just its facade and pitched that to corporate sponsors.
That’s what Murdoch does. Hell, that’s what ESPN does. The Fox and ESPN honchos and their heinous cronies and myriad staffers create the message and the mood they want to present to the country and present it to sponsors-to-be and coerce them into seeing how their way is profitable; racism, posed machoism, jingoism, and misogyny; titties and beer and coons running fast and jumping high – the messages are really the same. That’s why Fox and ESPN win each and every day.
But when you’re too busy preening for any camera that might be turned your way and mugging for the world, you get what you put out there —– which is nothing at all and a blank spot on the radio waves.
So, so long and good riddance Air America. Here’s to hoping we never see anything like you again.
In the immortal words of that master of American pomp, dirt, and circumstance, Paris Hilton, “Bye bitches.”
ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh double snap, around the way twirl with a backflip into a split!!! YOU DID THAT. THANK YOU!
Keep telling the truth!
In the immortal words of Walter Cronkite, AND THAT’S THEY WAY IT IS!
****takes off mic, gets out of chair and leaves newsroom******
Most supposedly “liberal” or “progressive” forms of media aren’t — because many of the writers or talent who work for them are much, much more interested in using them as springboards to get in the regular, “respectable” media. As such, it’s easy to see why none of them are worth anything, because they aren’t interested in writing on topics that would endanger that better job down the line — and when you want to be part of the elite media power structure, it determines your priorities.
Air America is part of the current school of liberalism that involves more back-slapping about how modern, tolerant, and open they are. At least the troglodytes like Beck and Limbaugh are honest. It’s the school that talks plenty of game about “diverse viewpoints” and has none — from the race and gender make-up of its talent/writing/editing corps to the lines they tow — and you can see that kind of “liberalism” in the sniveling cowardice of the men and women who pollute the Democratic Party.
I’d give you a standing ovation on this one, D.
Although I will note that anyone is going to have a hard time pitching any sort of network, radio or otherwise, to corporate sponsors if much of your focus point for the audience will be putting targets on similar large corporations for economic chicanery and generally rocking the facade of white American consumer culture.
Well said, my friend. Well said.
This post tells it. If progressives are sincere about getting out a messgae, then they would have supported air America to the tune of millions of dollars and made sure that more communities had access. But they didn’t. You are absolutely right on about Markos. I saw him on a program talking up his white wife. It was funny because the other white panelists were not impressed. But Markos wants to out “white” everyone. Progressives aren’t interested in change. They just don’t want to be associated with conservatives, whom they consider mostly uneducated southerner. Progressives could give a damn about human rights or any other rights.
“That’s right, folks. It’s all a ruse. All this bullshit about left-right political leanings and progressive-conservative battlegrounds and a liberal media that is a stand-alone argument, is bullshit thrown in front of your and my face to keep us off the beaten path and in the fucking hinterlands so far away from reality and in the dark that we can’t see our assholes with klieg lights, mirrors and a video camera to record the view.”
Quoted for that T-R-U-T-H!
You got folks who can’t find many of the world’s countries on a map, but try to give some faux, ignorant opinion on world affairs…o_O
CDF-
….and that is some true shit….
And thanks everyone.
Great commentary on the failure of Air America and how it was irrelevant pretty much from the get-go. I listened it to it heavily when I ran my courier service in ATL when it first started and while I liked Randi Rhodes and Mike Malloy everything else was just background noise until I could get to ‘Democracy Now’ or The Stews because they other shows rarely offered anything coming from a grassroots perspective. Most of it just sounded like what it was the ramblings of wannabe Eastern elites who sounded a bit nicer than the Hannity, Bortz, and Limbaugh trash I had to choose from.
A concept like AA failed and will continue to fail because it approaches politics from the top down while political commentary has to be built from the bottom up with local broadcasters developing a firm base and expanding it. Ironically, these stations and radio shows were pre-empted when AA started most notably WLIB here in the NY/NJ area of which I was a fan. Also ironic or more like probable many of these radio programs were hosted by Black hosts like Coz Carson, Ike Newkirk, Brother Gary Walker, and Rob Redding (who always seemed suspect to me) who presented shows informed by a perspective of color but was not defined by it. In other words, they aired programs and topics that affected all people that happened to be presented by Blacks. Just like a Starbucks in the ‘hood though many of these shows were lost when AA came in and took up precious space on the dial and the telecoms were de-regulated and bought up by congloms like Clear Channel.
Resistance never dies though because it just evolves into different forms like podcasts and blogs like SOMM and BAR. As long as people seek truth and solutions they’ll always find others who share their views and a forum for a give and take like we do around here. That’s will always be as constant as death and taxes IMO.
Guess I’m in this ‘ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE’ mood because the author of the best book I read last year, ‘A People’s History of the United States’, Dr. Howard Zinn passed away today/yesterday. I’d been wanting to read his most known books for years and it didn’t disappoint and reminded me of what I had forgotten since college (Whaddup Drs. Rivers, Hemingway, and Inamete @ FAMU! Rattlas STRIKE!!) and that is history made by all political movements comes from the bottom up whether it’s for good or ill. Say what you want about the conservatives demagogues like Limbaugh and the Bushes but they never abandoned their base because just like football as long as the lines are stout many things can be accomplished. Liberals, Democrats, the Left whatever the hell you want to call them are destined to always fail for the forseeable future because they abandon their base as soon as they get elected by allowing themselves to be co-opted with lobbyist money. The twisted part of me is happy the USSC struck down campaign finance reform because the people can see how the sausage is made in American politics today and that is with money; large sums of it too. Seeing that stark reality will maybe rouse us further and remind us that having a Black president in office is not the goal, not even part of the goal, but just a tool to be used just as much by We, the People as They, the Elite.
Power to the people.
All power to all people.
RIP Dr. Zinn
Harvey-
This isn’t meant toward you. It is something about Zinn and his work that has always gnawed at me. Now I’ll say it as briefly as possible….
I know people all over are handing out condolences to Zinn.
I can’t. When I read and re-read Zinn’s “people’s history” and then his “reader,” I noticed two things: an over-reliance on pitting “socialism” against America’s form of government and the overall lack of of involvement of Black people in his writings. Maybe it’s enough for some people and especially for White liberals and “progressives” but, for me, every historical American mention has a direct Black correlate.
And people have to remember that during the last 50 years of government-sponsored slavery and the next 25 years the Black population of America was close to being equal with that of the White population at that time. Since that’s the case, there MUST be a Black side to any moment in our history, and certainly from 1810-1885
So, while Zinn’s history was a nice beginning, that there was never a follow-up and expansion to his historical perspective written by Black men and women, is unconscionable —————- but, sadly, to be expected.
Point noted, D, but I always look at history and education really as the starting line for my own research and legwork to expand on what I may have heard or read in a classroom. I learned only on that unless I dug deeper that I wouldn’t learn the whole story and since I’m a Black man I do come at that from the perspective of my experience and that of my people. History is truly subjective because while a socialist like Zinn would come at American history from one side informed by his working-class roots, a tory like Buckley would come from the side of the moneyed upper classes. Our own experiences and upbringings inform our views so while Dr. Zinn’s bottom up view of history appealed to my socialist leanings I’ve known since before high school if I wanted to know my story I had to seek out books by those who came from where I came from. John Hope Franklin, CLR James, Rayford Logan, WEB DuBois, Lerone Bennett and on and on were my teachers who helped fill in the blanks for me about our Black experience here in America. Their research resonated with me because of their authenticity spoke to me. Zinn’s book reinforced for me that true change in this country only comes from outside the government from the people.
With you on Zinn, dwil. He didn’t take up the challenges raised by his Black predecessors like Harold Cruse (eg, Crisis of the Negro Intellectual) or Robert Allen (Black Awakening in Capitalist America, Reluctant Reformers). White people (like myself) are raised to PREFER texts like Zinn’s to Cruse, Allen, James, DuBois, et al. Zinn’s historical framework INCLUDES black people as among the people without a deeper analysis of how the ‘people’ were created by the process of racialization. The idea of there being a United States of America is ‘naturalized’ by Zinn even as he gives it a Marxian deconstruction.
The best contemporary alternative to Zinn – that is, someone writing from the perspective of white labor to reconfigure historiography – is probably Steve Martinot. Most of his work can be found at http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~marto/ . Martinot started as a labor organizer and has worked as mostly an independent scholar with an occasional teaching gig, unlike Zinn who started at Spelman and moved on to BU. Zinn was a SNCC booster but if I am not mistaken he moved away from them during the Carmichael and H. Rap Brown periods. Martinot’s much more focused on whiteness as a constitutive factor of our entire cultural, economic, political, social system of colonialism/coloniality. So he focuses on the Fanonian strain of critical theory and its contemporary figures like Lewis Gordon, Enrique Dussel, Walter Mignolo, and so forth.
In terms of academic counterparts, Zinn ain’t got shit on Sylvia Wynter.
Harvey-
I’m with you on “their” or “that” history as being a starting place to gain an understanding of “mystory” (or the irony of words – there is history and mystery and my-our-story is that “mystery”).
As for political leanings, egalitarian-communalist. I feel it is more a way of life than a movement that can be separate from the manner in which a person lives. And because of the Western roots of all today’s socio-political leanings, I don’t trust them. And when I look at how Black people lived when we were brought here and torn from each other and reconstituted as communities, we, as far as I can tell, reformed our societies through egalitarian-communalism.
fifth-
You’re right about Zinn distancing himself from “Snick” at that crucial point in its life. Makes me wonder….
Fifth of,
Zinn’s real legacy was that of launch point for beginner historians in high school and early undergraduate history courses (which is not insignificant). “People’s History” was the book that made me challenge schoolteachers and profs. not many people who read it went on to grad school, and only some of those who did like myself graduated to a more fanonian interpretation. that said, the epistemological status quo itself was being challenged from within by the 1960s and 70s, and Zinn was part of that. It was being challenged from a variety of directions, and even HZ himself acknowledged that “People’s History” wasn’t complete. Its one thing to understand his limitations, and all books have them, but I wouldn’t dismiss him outright. As for him moving away from SNCC during the Carmichael/Brown period, he was fired from his job at Spellman around that time, and then moved to Boston U.
HD, you’re absolutely right that any real change has to come from outside the circles of power by interrupting business as usual for those in power. Zinn embodied that experience.
Forums for give and take is what I wrote and this is exactly what we have here.
Thanks for providing it, D.
Hi all,
Great article followed by great posts. I read better commentary here than on most anything else.