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KPFA (94.1 FM) vs. KSFO (560 AM):
A TALE OF TWO S.F. BAY AREA RADIO STATIONS AND THEIR CONTRASTING RESPONSES TO THE TERRORIST ATTACK ON THE U.S.
John H. Smihula 9-25-01
(the following information was gleaned from broadcasts of Sept. 14-17)
KSFO: Right-wing talk radio. "The one station with the courage to stand up for things that matter." Fully one-third of its air time is commercials, some of which are enthusiastically presented by the hosts themselves. They are proud of their corporate sponsorship (even if it's IBM). The ads (for testosterone, hair loss remedies, fertility help, etc.) target a predominately male audience, specifically angry white males with moderate incomes and little education (thus a quasi-educated host like Michael Savage says he will "educate" his listeners). A high % of ads concern strategies for making money, turning a profit, avoiding unnecessary taxes and expenses.
Shocking statements are common--i.e., "More suicide killers are waiting inside America!"--in the effort to hold on to listeners and keep ratings high.
The news is from ABC (which, I guess, means that ABC can't be denounced as liberal).
A host named Barbara (I forget her last name, but she appears to be one of only two female hosts) dared the TV newcasters to wear red, white, and blue. That they didn't is proof that the media are "liberal." Michael Savage, of "The Savage Nation" (a title that inadvertently says a lot), claimed that the media reveal their liberal bias by not telling us how many Americans died in the attacks and by not dwelling on the stories of everyone who was killed. The media refused to do this, according to Savage, because they don't want Americans to become "too patriotic."
Barbara found time to talk of the Chinese. She told her listeners to beware of them because for many years they have probably been planning an attack on the U.S. "Well, you know what they say about the Chinese and long-range planning." (No, I don't know.)
At one point I encountered the surreality of a host taking time out from the crucial issue of the terrorist attack to fulminate against those liberal do-gooder environmentalists who are "anti-SUV." He said Americans should have "the freedom to drive whatever they want," and anyone who would take away this freedom is anti-American.
While listening to "The Savage Nation," I was treated to a lot of patriotic music, most of it from mediocre war films of the 1950s (the decade to which Rightists fervently want to return). Savage, who claims to have coined the term "compassionate conservatism," kept calling the tragedy of Sept. 11 the "sneak attack of the century"--and kept saying, with an air of solemn self-importance, "You can quote me on that." OK, Michael, but which century are you referring to? If it's the 21st, you're not saying much except that it's the sneak attack of the last nine months. And was it a sneak attack? Why jump to the conclusion that it was a complete surprise?
Savage talked with "great" Republican Congressman Bob Barr, who complained that "We've tied the hands of our intelligence agencies." Fortunately, this attack will make us untie them. Both Barr and Savage don't want our military to be constrained by the Geneva Convention; they want us to declare war and to have the right to do anything to win it, human rights or the rules of engagement be damned. Barr wants America to be willing to have some of its soldiers killed in this war (but would Barr send his son into combat?).
Later Savage talked with former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (sp.?). I missed this, but every "expert" who came on the air was from the military or from the political Right.
Hosts and callers were upset that martial law wasn't declared on the 11th so that the FBI could have combed the countryside nabbing anyone who looked "suspicious." They wanted the suspension, therefore, of all civil liberties. I found it quite disconcerting to hear the government-hating radical Right calling for the complete repression of the population, a phenomenon found in dictatorships.
Savage is a hypocrite. He said "There has been a 1000-year jihad against the West" and he kept promising to give listeners a history lesson, but I never heard it. This war is between Islam and Western Civilization. Savage blamed Islam in general for the attack. But then a crazed woman from Las Vegas called in and breathlessly exclaimed: "The Arabs are trying to annihilate us and destroy Western civilization. They want to invade us and rape our women." Savage told her to calm down, and he said that not all Arabs are evil, that millions are outraged by the event.
So what does the man believe? My interpretation is this: The woman said basically the same thing that Savage had been saying, only in a frantic tone; when Savage, in essence, heard himself, some dormant kernel of humanity broke forth within him and impelled him to reject the woman's blanket condemnation of the Islamic world.
KPFA: Left-wing listener-sponsored community radio based in Berkeley (WBAI in N.Y. is its sister station; both belong to Pacifica Radio). Both are under seige by the Right, which has infiltrated Pacifica in an attempt to push a pro-corporate agenda. The Right's bête noire is Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now, now "in exile," for Goodman no longer has an office. She calls KPFA "resistance radio." It's aim? "Breaking the sound barrier." When I listened to the station, reception was variable--was someone interfering with transmission? Will the FBI eventually call the station terroristic and pull the plug?
World music fills most of the schedule. News and talk shows are on for a few hours each day. There is a "Peace and Social Justice Calendar" that informs listeners of upcoming talks, conferences, and demonstrations.
While the Right allegorizes the issue of the terrorist attack into the simple formula of Good vs. Evil, the Left problematizes it. The focus: Why was there an attack, how will the U.S. respond, and why are the corporate media not telling us the whole story? The media are, for example, ignoring the fact that the U.S. may use Generation 3 nuclear weapons (bunker busters, earth penetrators, mini-nukes) against Afghanistan and Iraq. We almost used them against Iraq in 1991.
Retired Admiral Eugene Carroll (now with the Center for Defense Information, a fine organization) said: 1) "There is no such thing as a surgical strike"--civilian deaths are inevitable if we fire missiles; 2) the U.S. must act multilaterally, or our behavior will only create more enemies; and 3) terrorism is caused by poverty and hopelessness, and the U.S. is largely to blame. Now we have to address the causes of terrorism or we'll never stop it.
The host aired a section of Rep. Barbara Lee's speech in which she was the only member of Congress to vote against immediate military action. She doesn't want bloodlust to determine our actions. She wants us to think before we act. Also, she has clearly not forgotten our nation's governing principle of checks & balances: She will not allow the executive branch to disempower the legislative branch.
The theme of Goodman's show was "How the U.S. Created a Terrorist." Bin Laden was trained by the CIA. In the 1980s, the U.S. fought a proxy war against the Soviet Union, using Afghanistan. 8 billion dollars was spent on this covert war (one of several the U.S. was involved in at the time). We armed and trained Islamic fundamentalists to form an international brigade; we encouraged them to come to Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight the Soviets. We wanted a Saudi prince to lead the brigade, for this would give our operation an air of legitimacy. Only Bin Laden answered our call (while other rich Saudis sent money). We celebrated him. He was with us from 1986 to 1989, when the war ended and the Soviet Union collapsed. Then he turned against the U.S. when the Persian Gulf crisis was heating up and when Saudi Arabia invited the U.S. to occupy it.
Goodman spoke with Pakistani scholar Ahmad Rasheed, author of Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Middle Asia. Rasheed was not surprised by the terrorist attack. He said the U.S. created these militants, these warriors, then set them loose, then, in 1989, abandoned them. He knew there'd be a "backlash." Rasheed also said that the U.S. supported the Taliban right into 1996 (and had Saudi Arabia and Pakistan send it money and arms) because it was anti-Iran and because the U.S. wanted to use Afghanistan as an oil pipeline from the Middle East. The U.S. had to sever ties with the Taliban because of the protests of women's groups here who pointed out that the Taliban routinely raped women and because of the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Goodman: 10 billion dollars a year are spent on counter-terrorism--this figure will now increase dramatically; hate crimes against Arab-Americans are increasing; the media are beating the war drums--all commentators are hawks; the U.S. is preparing to invade Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest countries, and one that is still going through a civil war; a Moscow correspondent noted that 35% of Russians polled said that the attack on the U.S. was justified because of U.S. actions in the world, but that Russia will support the U.S. in its war against terrorism so long as it doesn't bomb Afghanistan, Iraq, or Iran, since this would only escalate the violence.
Sept. 11: Is it coincidental that the attack came on the exact day, in 1973, when General Pinochet, with the full support of the U.S., toppled the democratically-elected government of Salvador Allende, who was murdered in the coup?
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