Category: Uncategorized

Putting on the best face

On February 7, Emma Epperly’s Spokesman article, “Church at Planned Parenthood [TCAPP] says insurance covered $850k in attorneys fees, plans future protests” added one more twist to a Spokane story that has dragged on for five years. TCAPP is the politico-religious product of self-appointed “Pastor” Ken Peters. The “Church’s”purpose is keep the cult’s followers whipped up and making news by harassing patients and staff of Planned Parenthood of Eastern Washington and North Idaho. Of course, the protests and harassment are all conducted under the camouflage of “Christian” worship and speech protected under the First Amendment. TCAPP is run by Covenant Church and Covenant Christian School, “Pastor” Ken Peters, former State Representative Matt Shea, Clay Roy, Gabriel Blomgren, and Seth Haberman. 

The gist of Ms. Epperly’s Spokesman article is Peters’ posturing to cast, in the best light possible, the recent nearly million dollar civil judgement rendered against him and the other defendants listed above. The legal details were covered in “What Happened to TCAPP?”, but a few points beg for further emphasis after reading Ms. Epperly’s article.

First, to their discredit, City of Spokane Mayor Woodward, Chief of Police Meidl, and the County Prosecutor’s Office under Larry Haskell failed to enforce state law (and municipal ordinance) against “Interference with health care facilities or providers” (referenced in the above post). The criminal provisions of the state law allow for prosecution of the crime as a misdemeanor with potential jail sentences and fines. By declining to enforce the criminal provisions of the law Woodward, Meidl, and Haskell were, in effect, siding with the protestors. Their refusal left the plaintiff to mount an expensive and time consuming civil suit as their only defense against the harassment. Remember that when you vote. Regardless of one’s personal opinion, not enforcing a clearly written law is a dereliction of duty in a country supposedly governed by the rule of law.

Second, in Ms. Epperly’s article “Pastor” Peters is allowed to whine and posture:

“It’s like I have no chance against this bazillion dollar organization [the law firm representing the plaintiff],” Peters said. “I got crushed by the steamroller, but that’s what they do to babies, so.”

On Facebook, Peters has continued to call Fennessy a “leftist judge” who misinterpreted the law.

“They just hated our righteous stand, pure and simple,” Peters wrote.

This is bull manure, and shame on the Spokesman for printing it without comment. The plain fact is that hours of depositions and testimony demonstrated that Peters’ TCAPP repeatedly broke state law by harassing patients and staff at Planned Parenthood. There was no actual question of “misinterpretation” of the law—Peters and company gave up that point by not pursuing an appeal of the ruling. For him to pretend to “misinterpretation” is to depend on ignorance of legal process of his Facebook followers. Furthermore, Peters’ claim of being crushed by a wealthy law firm is pure nonsense. The Pacific Justice Institute, the “non-profit” law firm that defended TCAPP, is considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. PJI is hardly a pushover to be “steamrolled” in the manner Peters suggests. Public filings in California reveal $4.3M in donations to the Pacific Justice Institute in 2020 (the most recent year for which data is available). Peters’ statement is an insult to his own legal representation. (One must also wonder if PJI conducted TCAPP’s defense pro bono or if Covenant’s insurance carrier noted below is covering defense costs.)

Finally, Peters struts and thumbs his nose at the civil suit judgment of $110,000 plus legal fees of $850,000, claiming that legal fees will be covered by Covenant Church’s insurance carrier, Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Co., and the remaining $110,000 judgment, if not covered, won’t bankrupt Covenant (Peters has changed Covenant’s name to “Patriot Church”). For all his bluster, Peters omits what should be obvious to anyone who has filed a large insurance claim: Brotherhood Mutual, for all that it supports right wing causes, is still an insurance company that retains the right to raise its premium, withdraw coverage, or adjust its policy terms so as not to cover legal fees or judgments resulting from further infractions.

The article goes on:

The Church at Planned Parenthood and Peters have planned five events this year called “Not Backing Down” with the first set for March 14.

The events will start at 7:15 p.m., more than an hour after Planned Parenthood closes, and will be held across the street from the clinic, Peters said.

So for all his bluster and posturing about “Not Backing Down”, with this announcement Peters acknowledges that TCAPP will abide by terms of the now permanent injunction prohibiting protests for an hour after Planned Parenthood’s 6PM closing time. The injunction also stipulates that the protests must be at least 35 feet from the building, essentially mandating that they be held on the block across Indiana Avenue from the Planned Parenthood Clinic. That entire block is owned by the Salvation Army, the same folks the City contracts with to run Woodward’s Warehouse, i.e. the Trent Shelter or TRAC. The Salvation Army’s Food Distribution Center on that block across from Planned Parenthood closes at 7PM. Even if the Salvation Army were inclined to object to the noise (and possible trespass), the protests will be after their business hours.

Planned Parenthood plans to closely monitor the protests, implying additional civil suits if TCAPP resumes the proscribed harassment. One might be permitted to hope that with changes in City of Spokane government this fall enforcement of criminal law will become possible.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

Time to pitch in

The Spokane County Democrats are rebuilding the party under the able leadership of Carmela Conroy. The need for a strong local Democratic Party is made glaringly obvious as the local and national Republican parties have shifted further and further toward ownership by its extreme right wing. It is a right wing characterized by Christian nationalism, white supremacy, and disdain for, anger over, and desire to control all other points of view; a right wing that shouts “Freedom!” even as it makes a mockery of the word by banning books, curtailing voting rights, banning medical care, restricting the right of women to control their own bodies, and destroying public education.

This March 11th, just three weeks from now, for the first time since 2019 (thanks to Covid), the Spokane County Democrats are holding their signature fundraising Tom Foley Legacy Dinner. The Dinner is an opportunity to celebrate the accomplishments of Democrats in the State of Washington and reassert freedom from the tyranny of the extreme right wing’s dreams of theocratic leadership.

The Tom Foley Legacy Dinner list of featured speakers has expanded (click the names for extended bios):

Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson, a brilliant man quietly responsible for much good that happens on the legal front in the State of Washington;

Washington State Treasurer Mike Pellicciotti, the only Democratic candidate for any statewide executive office in the United States to defeat a Republican incumbent in 2020, a man since responsible for saving the State of Washington $370 million dollars by refinancing state debt.

Shasti Conrad (she/her), the up-and-coming, newly-elected chair of the Washington State Democrats. She brings impressive skill to the chair and she is the youngest and first woman of color to be elected chair of the WA Dems. 

And underpinning it all, Heather Foley, Tom Foley’s wife and support for many decades. 

The Foley Dinner is a major fundraising event for the Spokane Dems. This fall we face municipal elections that will determine the makeup of the City of Spokane City Council, the Council Presidency, and the Mayorship. (And similar positions in many other municipalities.) Buying a ticket and attending the Foley Dinner is an opportunity to support the Dems in getting the word out about these important elections while helping to rebuild the local party.

Click here for more details and tickets. (Clicking in the ad below doesn’t work on account of the method I had to use to copy it.)

To close, a word from Carmela Conroy, chairperson of the Spokane County Dems:

This year is an “off year election,” but it’s an incredibly important year for the elections that most directly affect our daily lives.  Will our mayors be people who cruelly sweep from the public eye our neighbors who’ve been overwhelmed by overlapping pandemics and the housing shortage, or people who work across boundaries and disciplines to address suffering in our communities?  Will school boards be dominated by White Christian Nationalists, or people who believe that public education should include science, critical thinking, and history that accurately describes how our nation came to be, warts and all?  Will fire and water districts operate as though what we’ve always known will always be, or take into account the latest understanding of the climate crisis?

Keep to the high ground,
Jerry

Another Republican Preemptive–and Dangerous–Culture War Topic

Conservative media recently injected a new cause for fear and anger into the mix of culture war themes to rile their followers. Those evil Democrats are preparing jack-booted enforcers to stomp into your kitchen and remove your gas stove! Be angry. Stand up for your personal freedom in the face of this grave threat!

This flare-up of Republican culture war hysteria started with a January 9th headline in Bloomberg News, “US Safety Agency to Consider Ban on Gas Stoves Amid Health Fears”. All the Republican propaganda machine needed to see was the word “Ban”—and they leapt on it as the newest, shiniest outrage. Even pseudo-Democrat Joe Manchin got on board, issuing this tweet:

Does Manchin’s tweet remind you of the NRA’s “You can have my gun when you pry it out of my cold, dead hands”? It should. It’s the same framing—and for the same rhetorical purpose: be angry over something no one is proposing.

Fox News, on January 17, published “First, Biden came for your gas stove. Next, Democrats will come for your gas heater”. Look! It’s Joe Biden invading your kitchen! The first link in the Fox article (purporting to reference the origin of the outrage of the “ban”) takes the reader to an ever-growing list of articles on a Fox News web page with the heading “REGULATION”, a page clearly dedicated to the Republican mantra that all good things arise from a totally unfettered “free market”. The day I clicked on the link the article at the top of the REGULATION page was a Fox News video featuring Tucker Carlson, a video that offers the real source of the gas stove hysteria: fossil fuel company worries that regulation will restrict the market for natural gas. Tucker smirks his way through a misinformation-packed monologue in which he asserts that “Climate is now our state religion”. 

Despite the headline of the Bloomberg News article that triggered this latest frenzy, the article itself, more carefully read, is nuanced (in contrast to the Fox article). Even the subtitle of the Bloomberg article belies the word “Ban”: “The US Consumer Product Safety Commission will move to regulate gas stoves as new research links them to childhood asthma.” 

All this exaggeration and misrepresentation by Republican media and talking heads is meant to get out ahead of the narrative. Make an outrageous statement right out of the gate and force those with the truth to play catchup with refutations—negative statements that repeat the original accusation and thereby reinforce the original outrage. Remember the old saw, “A Lie Is Halfway Round the World Before the Truth Has Got Its Boots On”?

This lie of the gas stove Gestapo coming to get your appliances is ideal to feed the siege mentality of people trained to believe that the government under Democrats is out to get them, that they are about to have their autonomy and freedom taken away. And it’s a twofer: Importantly, the lie frames the continued burning of natural gas, a carbon-based fossil fuel, as a sacred right not to be violated. 

The broader narrative is the Republican sell-out to the fossil fuel companies defending profits those companies don’t want to lose. Remember the disinformation pumped out by the tobacco companies trying to counter incontrovertible evidence that tobacco causes a lot of cancer, lung and heart disease, and a myriad of other ailments? Sadly, it worked on some of us. I didn’t quit smoking for twenty years after the evidence was out. I won’t be fooled a second time by an industry trying to protect its profits. Incidentally, smirking Tucker is still busy framing pollution of other people’s air with cigar smoke as a freedom issue. (Ah, the good ‘ole days of smoke-filled rooms!) 

Libertarian/Republican framing of smoking as a “freedom” issue delayed adoption of rules that ultimately freed us from second hand smoke and reduced the societal temptation to use tobacco. Millions of people suffered and died thanks to the tobacco industry’s delaying propaganda. Today far fewer people smoke than in my youth and far fewer people suffer the consequences of smoking—thanks to regulation—and yet tobacco is still legally available and tobacco companies still exist. Was the engineering of the tobacco companies’ economic “soft landing” worth the death and disability the delay produced?

Future generations will look back on Republican, Fox News, and fossil fuel industry gas-stove hysteria through the same lens as most of us now see the delaying tactics of tobacco companies. How many will suffer dislocation, starvation, disability, and death as a result of this fossil fuel industry rear-guard battle for the minds of citizens and voters?

It’s not just words. It’s legislative action at the behest of fossil fuel companies—twenty states have enacted Republican sponsored legislation that preempts municipalities from prohibiting gas infrastructure piped to new construction. No municipality is proposing to come rip out existing infrastructure or remove your gas stove—but many have tried to take the logical step of NOT setting up new buildings to burn fossil fuels. When you realize you’re digging yourself into a hole, the first rule is to quit digging. Gas infrastructure is costly to install, costly to safely maintain, and, once installed, encourages continued use—the burning of ever more carbon fuels that exacerbate world weather events.

These battles over building codes, though fundamentally important, are “under the radar” for most of us—but not for the most ardent of climate deniers. In October, 2021, a proposal to limit new natural gas hookups in the City of Spokane was floated by the City’s volunteer Sustainability Action Subcommittee as part of their draft Sustainability Action Plan. The natural gas new hookup prohibition was stripped out before the rest of the plan came to a vote in the City Council, thanks to the concerted effort of a vocal few.

Fortunately, the prohibition of new gas hookups (under certain circumstances) is now, at least in Washington State, part of the state building code. One can nearly guarantee that if this were a state with a Republican trifecta (House, Senate, and Governor) this change wouldn’t have happened—or if it did it would have been legislated away by Republicans. 

Scratch the surface of any of the people dedicated to waging this new “save your appliances” culture war and you’ll find someone with a vested interest in keeping fossil fuels on the menu—or a person who, often based in Fundamentalist Christian doctrine, believes that burning carbon fuels is a non-problem—or both. For example, right on cue, the Spokesman, on January 23rd, published a “Guest Opinion” entitled “Federal gas stove ban fails, but appliances under threat in state,” penned by two men, Larry Andrews and Garth Selden, both with a vested interest in carbon fuels. Andrews is the owner of Andrews Mechanical Inc., a company of excellence in the installation and maintenance of natural gas powered heating equipment. Mr. Selden is the “third-generation owner/president of Country Homes Power.” Whether it was Andrews and Selden or the Spokesman editor who picked the title, that title frames the “they’re coming for your appliances” lie at the local level.

We need to understand this fossil fuel company tactic and call it out for the lie that it is. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

Musk, in his conceit, wants to dictate foreign policy

Yesterday I accidentally got ahead of my schedule again by publishing a post entitled “Hijacking Democracy Symposium”, a promotion of a regional event in response to the appearance of Marge Greene in Coeur d’Alene last Saturday. She was the keynote speaker at the Kootenai County Republicans Lincoln Day Dinner. Lincoln would be appalled, embarrassed, and angry. If that post slipped by your notice, click the title to read it.

Today I depart from my usual local and regional focus to point out something of national and international import, Elon Musk’s intrusion into the Russia/Ukraine conflict

I am strongly in favor of U.S. support of Ukraine in its defense against Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion. Putin’s expansionist invasion of Ukraine is directly parallel to Hitler’s invasion of the Sudetenland, the event that, seen in retrospect, heralded the beginning of World War II. If the rest of the world’s countries today capitulate to Putin in the way that the Europeans capitulated to Hitler’s invasion of the Sudetenland, we are inviting Putin to proceed exactly as Hitler did. Putin has laid the rhetorical groundwork for continued Russian imperial conquest.

High tech in the form of satellite communications has been used extensively by the Ukrainian armed forces in their efforts to stave off Russian aggression. In particular, satellite communications are innovatively and effectively used by Ukraine to guide drone attacks on Russian tanks. 

Last year it was briefly noted in the media that the satellites that Ukraine was using are those put in space and regulated by a private, California-based company, Starlink, a company owned and operated by SpaceX. The CEO and founder of privately owned SpaceX is none other that the private citizen, Twitter king, and (until recently) the richest man in the world, Elon Musk.

The private ownership of Starlink only came to public notice because last fall Mr. Musk threatened to cut off Ukrainian access to Starlink unless the United States subsidized Starlink in providing service to the Ukrainian military. Then he backed off on his threat. It certainly appeared that in October 2022 that Musk’s threat was motivated purely by monetary, not diplomatic consideration. 

Then, on Thursday, February 9th, CNN reported “SpaceX admits blocking Ukrainian troops from using satellite technology” [the bold in the quote below is mine]:

Last October, Musk angered Ukrainians, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, for proposing a peace plan on Twitter that argued Ukraine just give up efforts to reclaim Crimea and cede control of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

That same month, there were reports that the Starlink signal had been restricted and was not available past the front line as Ukrainian troops tried to advance, essentially hamstringing their efforts to retake territory from the Russians. Those reports of the outages fueled accusations that Musk was kowtowing to Russia.

SpaceX, Starlink, and all the rest of the Musk-owned companies may be based in the U.S., but they have multinational reach and, obviously, multinational effects. Selective withdrawal of satellite communicates to Ukraine by Starlink seems a clear example of a multinational company in the form of a single, highly opinionated autocratic CEO essentially dictating foreign policy to the coalition of countries led by the United States in supporting Ukraine. It seems clear that Musk has unilaterally decided that Putin’s Russia should be appeased by allowing it to keep the territories of Ukraine that it invaded in 2014—Crimea and the regions of Luhansk and Donetsk. Musk, a bloated private citizen, is playing the role of Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister instrumental in ceding the Sudetenland to Hitler’s expansionist Nazi Germany in 1938—appeasement that led directly to World War II. 

Musk got ahead of himself in buying and taking over management of Twitter. Now he is doing the same by meddling in foreign policy. Republican sympathizers with Putin, of whom there are many, would likely scream bloody murder if the Biden administration went ahead—but there is precedent for nationalizing companies in time of war…

I take note that Henry Ford continued to do profitable business with the Third Reich right up to WWII. He was also a prominent member of the Nazi-sympathizing America First Committee, so ably and ominously documented in Rachel Maddow’s Ultra podcast series. I will close with a question: What is it about plutocratic car company entrepreneurs that leads them to sympathizing with megalomaniacs like Hitler and Putin?

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

An Answer to Ms. Greene’s Appearance in the Neighborhood

Last Saturday Marge Greene, the Republican Representative from the northwest corner of the State of Georgia to the U.S. House of Representatives spoke at the Kootenai County Republicans’ Lincoln Day fundraising dinner at the Coeur d’Alene Resort. Greene’s place on the podium in our neighboring county was secured months before her juvenile heckling Joe Biden (unsuccessfully) at the State of the Union speech, but, surely, her antics only burnished her image for the right wing faithful who attended the event. Judging by the posted video clips, her speech was peppered with nonsense about the threat of immigrants taking over Kootenai County and how the good, God-fearing Republicans of Kootenai County need to stand up and repel them. 

Apparently, the organizers of the Kootenai Republican event wanted to keep at least some of what was said at the event on the quiet: the dominant news outlet in the area, The Spokesman-Review, was not allowed to attend on the hopelessly lame excuse that “press passes had already been allocated”. As a result Garrett Cabeza’s Spokesman article that appeared the next day wasn’t complimentary, but it lacked illustrative quotes from Greene’s speech. Spreading Greene’s themes beyond the dinner audience was left to clips that appeared on social media sites like Rumble, conveniently outside the consciousness of those not habitually sipping at those cesspools.

Greene is a far-right conspiracy theorist who has shown support for QAnon and says the 2020 election was stolen. That her vile rhetoric was featured by Kootenai County Republican Party should be a wakeup call—which brings me to serious efforts to defend democracy, the Hijacking Democracy Symposium a week from this Saturday put on by the Kootenai County Democrats (also mark your calendar for the Spokane County Democrats’ Tom Foley Legacy Dinner upcoming on March 11 in the evening—more later).

I am a great fan of Luke Mayville, one of the panelists at the Democracy Symposium. Luke led the huge—and successful—grassroots effort to bring the Medicaid expansion to Idaho using an Idaho State ballot initiative. He and countless volunteers succeeded over the howls of Republican legislators in the very red state of Idaho. Their success stimulated subsequent disingenuous efforts by Idaho State Republican legislators to make an already challenging ballot initiative process nearly impossible for the citizens for whom it was designed—another Republican power play.

February 25 11 AM – 3 PM at the Red Lion Hotel, Templin’s on the River in Post Falls, Idaho. (Just a half hour east from downtown City of Spokane.)

“This symposium features top local and national speakers addressing the issue of combating extremist ideology.  It is another response to Marjorie Taylor Greene’s planned visit to our area.” 

Panelists Include:
* Dr. David Adler — prize-winning professor, author, Constitutional scholar,
and international expert on economics.

* Luke Mayville from Reclaim Idaho.

* Dr. Sarah Lynch from North Idaho Pride Alliance.

*Representative Ilana Rubel from United Against Hate.

The afternoon panel session addresses the controversy swirling around North Idaho College and its impending loss of accreditation—another project linked to the Kootenai County Republican Party. Dr. Adler will also appear on that panel.

Check out the details and purchase tickets by visiting the Facebook event page: https://tinyurl.com/3wrcp7ak. 

Or by visiting the Act Blue tickets page. 

For those interested in attending who find the price tag for the event a deal breaker [$40 (including lunch), $15 for students (also including lunch]) I am told there are funds available. Inquire through the Contacts Page at kootenaidemocrats.org.

I plan to attend.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

No one is coming to save us

Note: There’s an “ask” at the end of this ramble.

Party politics never much appealed to me. The marching and banners of the national political party conventions seemed rather silly. Although I held a fundamental skepticism about their motives I was mostly content with the idea that people elected to government offices would do the right thing—and all would be well. I felt confidant that our involvement in the Second World War had saved the world for democracy and that both the Republican and Democratic Parties, being devoted to democratic principles and something called “the rule of law” would guide us into an ever better future without my having to get involved any more than casting a ballot when presented with one. I thought of myself as a social Democrat and a fiscal Republican, a concept I now see as nonsense. 

Small d democracy works only when we pay attention and get involved to a greater degree than reading the newspaper, listening to the (mostly) national news as presented by the media, and casting a ballot every four years. Functioning as an individual who was brought up on the idea that one did not raise the issue of politics in polite company, it was easy to succumb to a sense of despair as the Republican Party shed its roots as the party of Abraham Lincoln and became the party of implicit racism intertwined with a malignant streak of Fundamentalist Christianity. When that transformation culminated in the manifest cruelty of people like Donald Trump and (now) Ron DeSantis, to say nothing about local extremists like Matt Shea and Rob Chase, I decided that I needed to seek out strength in numbers and reassess my prior distaste for party politics. 

In March of 2018 I emailed a post entitled “A Political Journey–My Changing Impression of the Democratic Party”. It stands up well now as I re-read it. I have found solace and many like-minded friends among local Democrats. From a nadir in the mid 2010s I have seen the Spokane Democratic Party on a track to rebuild, galvanized, in part, by the extremism of local and national Republicans. The rebuilding is happening on account of the dedication of individuals with a variety of skills uniting in common purpose to preserve democracy that has felt like it was slipping away. This rebuilding is not happening, as I once imagined and as Republicans conveniently assert (think “George Soros”), because of infusions of cash from rich folk manipulating the naive. Instead, this rebuilding is from the previously complacent and now threat-perceiving grassroots on up—and it’s about time lest we see our country slip away from us. 

Two months ago Spokane County Republicans (aka the SpokaneGOP) was taken over by some of its most extreme elements. More traditional local Republicans, apparently asleep, were outflanked by the extremists deploying the “Precinct Strategy” popularized by Steve Bannon. The SpokaneGOP is now chaired by Pastor Brian Noble of the Valley Assembly of God Church, a man who challenged the more traditional incumbent County Commissioner, Mary Kuney, in last fall’s election—and lost badly. The rest of the local SpokaneGOP leadership is populated with similarly far right individuals. Next door in Kootenai County, Idaho, extremist Republicans, intent on destroying any lingering opposition, even attempted at takeover of the local Democratic Party using the “Precinct Strategy”. Let that be a lesson.

Meanwhile the Spokane County Democrats are rebuilding under the able leadership of Carmela Conroy, a retired U.S. Consul General and former Spokane County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney. Last December she was re-elected chairperson by the central committee, that is, the Democratic Precinct Committee Officers (PCOs). 

The Spokane County Democrats also elected Steve Kirby, CEO of Tikor Consulting, as Vice Chair and Giacobbe Byrd, a former U.S. Congressional Staffer who was born and raised in Spokane, as Second Vice Chair.  They elected two State Committee Members: Blair Anundson, a labor organizer, and Bernie Bank, an OB/GYN doctor.

Spokane County Auditor Vicky Dalton addressed the meeting, stressing the importance of citizens’ involvement in their communities so they choose competent leaders to carry out the work of local government.  The elected Party officials pledged to build on the organizing and fund-raising successes Democrats enjoyed in Spokane County in 2022.    

All shoulders to the wheel. There is no one coming to save us. It’s just us and all the individual skills and dedication we possess. Lest we succumb to what extremist Republicans wish us to become as a city, a county, a state, and a nation we need to join forces with like minded individuals and push back against Republican extremism and push forward with a positive agenda. Everyone has something they can volunteer. Among the roles are PCOs, election observers, event hosts, phone bankers, door-to-door canvassers. If you’re feeling anything like the same angst as I’ve been feeling, visit the website Spokane County Democrats and sign up. There’s a place for all skills and a welcoming community.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

The takeover of the Airwaves–and, with them, the minds of many

Leading up to last fall’s elections many of my friends and readers (and, I suspect, many hundreds or perhaps thousands of other locals) received in the mail a DVD of Dinesh D’Souza’s “2000 Mules”. Many (or all?) were sent from a non-existent Spokane northside address by an unidentified person or organization posing as a concerned citizen. “2000 Mules” presents supposed evidence of election fraud. One presumes these DVDs were sent in the hope of bolstering the prospects of election deniers like McCaslin Junior running in the then upcoming fall election. 

Watching the DVD is an education in confidence scams. In the film “evidence” of election fraud is presented to a panel of sober, initially skeptical men in a supposed effort to convince them of a scheme of unnamed nonprofit organizations associated with the Democratic Party to illegally collect and deposit ballots into drop boxes. Presented with supposedly incontrovertible evidence, these sober men eventually nod in agreement. This is a confidence game. Few viewers are equipped to question the hocus-pocus of computerized analysis of cell phone location records, so the acceptance of the presentation depends on each viewer’s trust in the ability of these suited men to critically evaluate the presented material. 

In my world, the panel of sober “experts” would need to demonstrate real expertise in analyzing the material of the type presented. Clearly, D’Souza chose this panel of sober, nodding men as people in whom many potential viewers of the film would be willing to place their confidence. Tellingly, D’Souza’s panel consists entirely of Salem Radio Network talk show hosts: Dennis Prager, Sebastian Gorka, Larry Elder, Eric Metaxas, and Charlie Kirk. One must ask how these men came to be seen as worthy of trust by a significant share of those who might bother to watch “2000 Mules”. 

The answer is presented in a fascinating five part podcast series, “The Divided Dial”, assembled and presented by Katie Thornton of “On the Media”. It is the story of origin, growth, and nationalization (monopolization?) of the AM/FM radio dial (along with the minds of its listeners) by in-your-face right wing radio personalities and “Christian” pastors. Along the way the series touches on the changes in regulation of the broadcast media that started with the Reagan administration and facilitated this takeover, raising the question of the underlying intent, especially considering the outcome. I first heard of the series by listening to Spokane Public Radio’s segment “On the Media”. If you are new to podcasts, this is your chance to learn. The simplest way to listen is to google search “The Divided Dial” and listen on your computer. If listening on a smartphone is more appealing: On an iPhone there’s a “Podcasts” app. Search for “On the Media” and scroll down through multiple episodes to catch “The Divided Dial: Episode 1 – The True Believers”. I expect there’s something similar on other smartphones. 

If your interest is piqued I encourage you to check out a post by Thom Hartmann entitled “A Media Ceiling is about to Fall In On Democrats”. Hartmann has considerable experience with fledgling liberal talk radio (anyone remember “Air America”?). His experience interlinks with “The Divided Dial”. 

I didn’t find any of this tour of the well-funded, moneymaking, nationalized, right wing propaganda machine uplifting—but it is certainly a wakeup call to us to redouble our efforts to offer the counter narrative to anyone who will listen or read.

Make it your business this weekend to check out “The Divided Dial”. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

Pl.S. In Episode 4 of “The Divided Dial” Katie Thornton reminds us of the murder of Alan Berg, the Denver-based liberal talk radio host who was gunned down in the early days of talk radio in 1984 by a member of “The Order”, a group founded by Robert Jay Mathews at his farm near Metaline, Washington. The Order was a group with multiple tendrils intertwined with Richard Butler’s Aryan Nations in Hayden, Idaho, and multiple successor organizations. This connection to our region made my skin crawl—and made me wonder about what might have been—if Alan Berg were still alive.