The Worst

Was listening to 90.7 around 9pm tonight on a segment about the middle east. They had a bunch of callers call in opining about the injustice of Israeli and the US and what they've done in the middle east and what the US is currently doing in Iraq. None of these callers had any qualifications, they just seemed like an angry bunch of hippy's enjoying the sound of their own voice, repeating the same old gripes about the thousands of Iraqi's that we are killing over there and so forth. Of course, no mention of Saddam or the War on Terror or alternative solutions other than to pull out all our troops from everywhere around the world and let people be. As if pre-United States the world was one big happy family dancing around in circles at a Phish concert.

Then a caller calls in and starts talking about the Baath party and his experience of living under the Baathists in Syria when he was 19. He described the horror of his best friend disappearing and being too scared to talk about it, for fear he would be abducted. His voice was shaking in his description of the horror of living under the Baath party, and although he was no fan of George Bush, that he was a hell of a lot better than the Baathists. It was one of the most compelling things I've EVER heard on radio, I was literally being moved in my car by just listening to this man speak from his own personal experience. So what happens? The host on the show CUTS him off and says, "I'm sorry sir, I wish you had called earlier, but we've run out of time." WHAT!?! Are you freaking kidding me? I had just spent 15 minutes of these retards blab on and on about something they know little about other than what they've read on communist leaflets or ANSWER mass emails....and I'm cut off from listening to someone with first hand experience pouring his heart out and nearly breaking down on the radio in the description of his own life and how it relates to the world situation we're in.

Now, this isn't a partisan thing. We all should listen to those with experience and access and hear those voices. Those are the voices that count and need to be heard. Not some angry Chomskyite who has nothing to do now that Jerry passed away, Vietnam is over, and now Trey and gang are embarcing on solo careers. If we just listened rather than rant, we might have a more civilized and reasonable discussion which might actually lead to a better alternative than the neo-con strategy of reshaping the middle east through Baghdad.

That's what people want to hear - a better solution. Not some pipe dream about America "pulling out." Come on, that's not only undesirable, but shows a fundamental lack of understanding about the interconnectedness of the world. It's a denial of the information age and globalization - it's protectionist, isolationist, nationalistic, and wishing for a world that not only doesn't exist, but has never existed.

And I can't believe this man got cut off from speaking. He wasn't saying what the host wanted to hear and he denied the rest of us a compelling bit. That was something worth listening to, worth holding off the advertisements for a few minutes, something meaningful. I mean, if you're gonna do that, what they hell are you in the business for in the first place? Did you get in to shove political rhetoric down people's throats? Cause if that's the case, they ought to be fired. It really saddens me. It's like there's these stories and people out there, everywhere waiting to he heard, that are compelling and interesting and relevant and we get all caught up hearing the political positions of freaking media people - reporters and talk show hosts and editors. I dunno, man.