Moderating Political Correctness

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For years I have been regularly denounced at KPFK, both on the air and in meetings of the Local Station Board and at the station, as either a CIA agent or a dupe of the illuminati–Bilderberger-Trilateralist-Neocon conspiracy because until the “truthers” stop rehashing their tortured theories and actually come up with some real proof, I refuse to accept their 9/11 “truth”.

So until I see the light, the “truthers” tie up the phone lines during fund drives, make it impossible to have listeners call in on air, and heckle me at public events.  And if I’m not one of the aforementioned pariahs, I’m just a plain old racist, sexist white male heterosexual “oppressor” from the Westside.

What keeps me going, and KPFK for that matter, since I’ve raised millions for them over the years, is the feedback I get from the actual listeners I serve.  I regularly hear from a rainbow coalition of intelligent, engaged citizens who want to be informed, not pandered to with the patronizing assumption that minorities only care about their “oppression”. 

Unsurprisingly I’ve heard from a wide spectrum of Americans with a common interest in finding out about the activities and agendas of powerful political and economic interests stealing our country and endangering our world.  That is why I hate conspiracy mongers because they encourage despair and alienation from the government of “we the people” the Constitution empowers through citizen’s activism, thus making it easier for malignant interests to take over the government and steal the country. 

A republic, if you can keep it, the genius of the U.S. Constitution it that it leaves unresolved the tension between the individual and the state, protecting minority rights while respecting the will of the majority. 

That is not to say that originally only white men of property were to be in control and that America was set up to be the best place on earth in which to do business.  But the so-called activists who have given up on America forget that there is a revolutionary mandate built into the Constitution. 

Just after the safe part of the Declaration of Independence that is quoted by school children about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, comes the uncomfortable part that is rarely invoked…“That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”

Assuming that we are all part of some minority or other, and not a part of Sarah Palin’s tribe of “real Americans”, which I hope is the case, how do I as a broadcaster on radio powered by the people, navigate between the loud and unpleasant opinions of the few without disrupting the open-minded attention of the many?

In response to an interview I did on last Thursday’s program, I have been assailed by offended listeners who think it is my job to “stand up” to expressions and thoughts they don’t like.  They accuse me of not just appeasing what they find offensive, but agreeing with it.

In terms of my own First Amendment battle, how do you tolerate unpopular speech that provides accurate insight, without becoming an adjudicator of political correctness?  The case in point is Edward Luttwak who I interviewed Thursday because I wanted to follow up on an article of his in the L.A. Times about Libya, “It’s Not Our Fight”. 

Luttwak is clearly very pro-Israel and anti-Arab, but he is much more nuanced than neoconservatives and was against the Iraq war from the beginning.  He objected to “Operation Iraqi Freedom” on the grounds that getting rid of secular Arab leaders, no matter how unpleasant, would lead to a worse outcome with more dangerous fundamentalists taking over.  Since it is now clear the Iranian regime were the winners of the Iraq war, he was prescient. 

I thought that having a right-winger make a case against a war might be interesting, given that anti-war sentiments and arguments on KPFK and Pacifica appear to be the exclusive domain of Noam Chomsky and other voices on the Left.

But some angry listeners have accused me of a double standard, charging that I allowed Luttwak’s anti-Arab bias free reign, but would have never tolerated similar racist undertones directed at Jews.  My producer found that amusing since, whenever we cover the Middle East, he finds himself fielding one angry call from a listener calling me an Anti-Semite, followed by the next, calling me an Zionist.

At one point during the interview when Luttwak was going on about "fat Arabs" who represent the Arab League, I was about to say, "What about Sharon, wasn’t he a fat Israeli leader?"  But had I tried to “balance” the conversation with that quip, it would have become a very different interview and gone nowhere, even if it satisfied a few angry listeners.

I interviewed Luttwak because of his objections to the Libyan war, and his wider critique of U.S. foreign policy.  His glaring anti-Arab bias I assumed was clear for all to see.  Frankly a lot of Likud voters and hard line supporters of Israel I’ve talked to express similar sentiments.   And I suspect, although Netanyahu is too sophisticated to say the same in public as Luttwak does, in private I am sure he and his foreign minister Lieberman have uttered words of contempt for Arabs.

So while I take comfort in the fact that I mostly get praise and encouragement from listeners, those who feel I am a sellout because I do not make the arguments they want to hear can always complain about me to the Local Station Board, and the Pacifica National Board.  They will not be the first and they’ll find a lot of board members agree with them that “free speech” radio should be limited to KPFK’s comfort zone of approved speech.  Perhaps that is why the Pacifica network is going bankrupt, preaching to an ever-diminishing choir, and why the Left is not winning any converts lately.  They think they have the answers, but they don’t have an argument.