Updates of Censored Foreign Policy Stories of 2004

Haiti: The Untold Story

Conservative Talk Radio

from the book

Censored 2005

Project Censored

Seven Stories Press, 2004, paper

p134
... by Pentagon figures, more Iraqis were killed in Baghdad on Saturday, April 5, than Americans killed at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. What was also never mentioned was that the total number of Iraqis killed in three weeks of war exceeded the 50,000 Americans killed over 12 years in Vietnam.

p135

THE NEOCONSERVATIVE PLAN FOR GLOBAL DOMINANCE

The corporate media have made much of Saddam Hussein and his stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. Rarely have the press addressed the possibility that larger strategies might also have driven the decision to invade Iraq. Broad political strategies regarding foreign policy do indeed exist and are part of public record.

In the 1970s, American military presence in the Gulf was minimal, so gaining control of Arab oil fields by force was unattainable. Still, the idea of full domination was very attractive to a group of hard-line, pro-military Washington insiders that included both Democrats and Republicans. Eventually labeled "neoconservatives," this circle of influential strategists played important roles in the Defense Departments of Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and George Bush Sr., and in conservative think tanks throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Today this same circle occupies several key posts in the White House, Pentagon, and State Department. The principals among them are:

* Vice President Dick Cheney, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who have been closely aligned since they served with the Ford Administration in the 1970s;

*. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the key architect of the postwar construction of Iraq;

* Richard Perle, former chairman and current member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, which has great influence over foreign military policies;

* and William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard and founder of Project for the New American Century, the powerful, neoconservative think tank.

Since the first Gulf War, the U.S. has built a network of military bases that now almost completely encircle the oil fields of the Persian Gulf.

In 1989, following the end of the Cold War and just prior to the Gulf War, Dick Cheney, Cohn Powell, and Paul Wolfowitz produced the Defense Planning Guidance Report advocating U.S. military dominance around the globe. The plan called for the United States to maintain and grow in military superiority and prevent new rivals from raising up to challenge us on the world stage. Using words like "preemptive" and military "forward presence," the plan called for the U.S. to be dominant over friends and foes alike. It concluded with the assertion that the U.S. can best attain this position by making itself "absolutely powerful."

On August 2, 1990, President Bush called a press conference. He explained that the threat of global war had significantly receded, but in its wake, a new danger arose. This unforeseen threat to national security could come from any angle and from any power.

Iraq, by a remarkable coincidence, invaded Northern Kuwait later the same day.

Cheney et al. were out of political power for the eight years of Bill Clinton's presidency. During this time, the neoconservatives founded the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). The most influential product of the PNAC was a report entitled "Rebuilding America's Defense," <www.newamericancentury.org>, which called for U.S. military dominance and control of global economic markets.

With the election of George W. Bush, the authors of the plan were returned to power: Cheney as vice president, Powell as secretary of state, and Wolfowitz in the number-two spot at the Pentagon. With the old Defense Planning Guidance as the skeleton, the three went back to the drawing board. When their new plan was complete, it included contributions from Wolfowitz's boss Donald Rumsfeld. The old "preemptive" attacks have now become "unwarned attacks." The Powell-Cheney doctrine of military "forward presence" has been replaced by "forward deterrence." The U.S. stands ready to invade any country deemed a possible threat to our economic interests.

p143

TREATY BUSTING BY THE UNITED STATES

The U.S. is a signatory to nine multilateral treaties that it has either blatantly violated or gradually subverted. The Bush Administration is now outright rejecting a number of those treaties, and in doing so, places global security in jeopardy, as other nations feel entitled to do the same. The rejected treaties include: The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Treaty Banning Antipersonnel Mines, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a protocol to create a compliance regime for the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM). The U.S. is also not complying with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Chemical Weapons Commission (CWC), the BWC, and the U.N. framework Convention on Climate Change.

This unprecedented rejection of and rapid retreat from global treaties that have in effect kept the peace through the decades will not only continue to isolate U.S. policy, but will also render these treaties and conventions invalid without the sup- port and participation of the world's foremost superpower.

*
UPDATE BY BRITTANY ROELAND:

Current U.S. trends concerning foreign policy represent a lack of acknowledgment and violations of nine international treaties. This truth may be a crucial explanation for the way the rest of the world considers the United States.

... The International Criminal Court (ICC) has recently come into full operation with the selection of its chief prosecutor, Oscar Moreno-Ocampo of Argentina. Most of the 199 nations of the U.N. are celebrating this long sought accomplishment. Of the 134 signatories of the Rome statute, 92 have already ratified their commitment to the ICC. The U.S. surprised the world by un-signing the ICC. Ambassador David Scheffer, the U.S. representative, declared that he worried the document would hinder U.S. military duties and that the U.S. service personnel might be vulnerable. Of the first 499 communications from 66 countries that were received by the new court, more than 100 of them were allegations against the U.S., 16 related to acts allegedly committed by U.S. troops in Iraq, but neither Iraq nor the U.S. had become a party to the Rome statute, so the court has no jurisdiction over either of them at this time. As the court struggles with difficult decisions, nations, groups, and individuals are saluting it as a hope for a peaceful, nonviolent world.

The Kyoto Protocol was catapulted back onto the global agenda as Russia committed to signing the climate treaty in the spring of 2004, at the same time as Hollywood released a blockbuster in which rising temperatures trigger an ice age that freeze-dries New York. Europe, Canada, and Japan have ratified the Kyoto Protocol. While it now appears that Russia will sign, the Bush Administration has ruled out U.S. participation. "Even if Russia joins and the Kyoto Protocol takes effect, the absence of the world's largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitters, the U.S. and China, means that Kyoto will have little impact on future climate change," explains Richard B. Stewart and Richard B. Weiner in their Science and Technology article "The Practical Climate Change." China will not act without the U.S. both because of perceived unfairness if the U.S. does not adopt limitations and because its major incentive for joining the climate management agreement is selling pollution allowances to U.S. companies. Though it may be in our planet's best interest for the Kyoto Protocol to be ratified, it appears that the capitalistic priorities of the U.S. are standing in the way of long-term survival.

p148

IN AFGHANISTAN: POVERTY, WOMEN'S RIGHTS AND CIVIL DISRUPTION WORSE THAN EVER

While all eyes have turned to Iraq, the people of Afghanistan continue to silently suffer what is considered their worst poverty in decades. The promised democratic government is too concerned with assassination attempts to worry about the suffering of the people. They still have no new constitution, no new laws, and little food. Ethnic and political rivalries plague the country and the military power of the warlords has increased. While the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the 4,500-strong foreign peacekeeping unit, is assigned to defend only the capital, private armies of an estimated 700,000 people roam the country continuing a traditional system of fiefdoms.

Despite the fanfare (stripping the burqa and the signing of the new Declaration of Essential Rights of Afghan Women), little has changed for the average Afghani. The new Interior Ministry still requires women to receive permission from their male relatives before they travel. As for the future loya jirga, or grand council, that will help determine governmental policies, only 160 seats out of 1,450 have been guaranteed to women.

As of July 2002, the average life expectancy for the people of Afghanistan is 46 years. The average yearly income per capita is $280. As for the children, 90 percent are not in school. More than one out of every four children in Afghanistan will die before the age of five. A UNICEF study found that the majority of children are highly traumatized and expect to die before reaching adulthood. Beyond this, the region is just overcoming a three-year drought, which killed half the crops and 80 percent of livestock in some areas.

UPDATE BY PATRICK CARLSON:
The United States invasion of Afghanistan ousted the Taliban but instead of aiding the country, U.S. resources were turned to Iraq. In place of the Taliban, the U.S. placed "friendlier" President Hamid Karzai in charge along with the mujahideen warlords who helped the U.S. fight against the Taliban. "The problem with the mujahideen warlords is that they are just as bad if not worse than the Taliban. Thieves in their own right, these men loot, extort money, and have little care for the people of Afghanistan," said John Sifton, the Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch, in an interview with Terry Gross. The country is in disarray as corrupt warlords sit idle as chaos reigns. There is no justice, no laws, and no help as the looting, raping, and overall poverty continues on. No real progress on the reconstruction of cities has been made. Many buildings and cities are still completely devastated. Part of it is that the country's economy is barely existent, so the weakened country has become a wasteland. The only accomplishment being a road constructed from Kabul to Kandahar. On top of all this is the pollution from the uranium bullets."

High numbers of the population are exposed to uranium dust and debris from the fighting. Scientists found medically significant levels of non-depleted uranium in the urine of 100 percent of civilians tested, who live near bombsites, 400 percent to 2,000 percent higher than the normal population baseline. Eight million people face food shortages. People are starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, and suffering. There are at least 500,000 disabled orphans and hundreds of thousands of widows. Shells in the major cities have hit many walls, buildings, and landmarks. One in every 10 land mines in the world is littered in Afghanistan, claiming an average of 25 victims a day. Children are forced to help their families by working horrific jobs for little to no pay.

Life for Afghan women has not improved. Fear for safety still plagues their lives, as they get harassed by men for not wearing the burqa, and parents, afraid their daughters will be kidnapped or sexually assaulted if not supervised at all times, refuse to allow them to attend school. Afghan women have little to no access to obstetric or postnatal care in the postwar chaos. Reproductive health care is completely unavailable in two-thirds of the country's provinces. Many clinics have been closed or bombed.

Afghanistan's hopes lie in a constitutional draft written by President Karzai at the loya jirga convention. "The constitutional draft was finally approved in January of this year but the document is full of poorly crafted promises, missed opportunities, and does not address some key issues," explained Sifton. Vote buying, bullying, and even death threats by certain powerful criminals who are now the "appointed" leaders of the country overshadowed the entire process. These leaders are not recognizing women or the poor.

p150

AFRICA FACES THREAT OF NEW COLONIALISM

In June 2002, leaders from the eight most powerful countries in the world (the G8) met to form the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), an agency intended to get the countries of Africa "on track" with the global economy. Not one of the eight leaders, however, was from Africa. NEPAD's objective is to provide aid to African countries that embrace the required development model. The danger of NEPAD is that it fails to protect Africa from exploitation of its resources. If this game plan sounds familiar to the structural adjustment programs implemented by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), that is because they are essentially the same, and NEPAD is essentially controlled by the same neoliberal interests.

The African countries that have officially embraced NEPAD membership are Algeria, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Congo-Brazzaville, Cameroon, Ghana, Mauritius, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Gabon, Uganda, Burkina Faso and Mali. Angola also joined the group at the most recent summit meeting held in Kigali, Rwanda, in February of this year. This brings the membership total up to 17 African nations. Protests against NEPAD have, however, continued to erupt all over Africa. One exceptionally large demonstration took place at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg.

While the ongoing wars in the Middle East have lowered the new colonization of Africa on the list of U.S. priorities, disease, war, poverty, and political instability are still reeking havoc on the African continent. More than 5 million people have died in the Congo Wars since 1998, and Uganda has suffered over 11,400 deaths due to war, disease, and starvation.

*
UPDATE BY TIMOTHY ZOLEZZI
Little has transpired in terms of "progress" since our story on NEPAD was published in Censored 2004, and even less transpired in terms of media coverage. At the beginning of 2003, Canada was due to hand over a highly publicized $500 million in aid, but only $70 million ever materialized. What the Canadian government, along with the IMF, World Bank, and the G8, fail to address, is that a simple cancellation of Africa's imposed debt would go a long way to initiating recovery.

Most of the aid promised to Africa in 2001 has been withheld because of "unfavorable political, economic, and/or social conditions" in the participating countries. In March 2003, under the recommendation of the G8 countries, the members of NEPAD decided to erect the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). APRM was established as an internal watchdog, assessing the performance and progress of participating countries. At the NEPAD summit conference held in February 2004, it was decided that countries the APRM found to be in compliance with colonizer-friendly NEPAD standards should receive the bulk of the meager aid.

Currently, the only aid offered to Africa by the GB is $15 billion to establish the Rapid Development Force, which is essentially an army that enforces the policies established by NEPAD. Furthermore, the $15 billion in aid President Bush offered is conditional upon Africa's acceptance of genetically modified crops.

The fact that the main motive behind the GB's construction of NEPAD was to secure colonial-style commerce for Western profit is no secret; yet in a recent interview with the BBC, NEPAD secretary chairman Professor Wiseman Nkuhlu stated, "Through NEPAD, we now have a platform to tackle the GB countries on a level playing field. The number of African countries actively talking with GB countries has increased from 5 to 20. There has also been a rise in the number of international organizations funding NEPAD projects."

Many analysts, both those in favor of and those opposed to NEPAD, speculate that even in light of the newly instituted APRM, NEPAD is on its last legs. With or without NEPAD, however, one thing is certain; Africa is still being ravaged and exploited by the same foreign menaces that have been raping its landscape and people for the last three centuries.

p162

U.S. DOLLAR VS. THE EURO ANOTHER REASON FOR THE INVASION OF IRAQ

President Richard Nixon removed U.S. currency from the gold standard in 1971. Since then, the world's supply of oil has been traded in U.S. fiat dollars, making the dollar the dominant world reserve currency. Countries must provide the U.S. with goods and services for dollars-which the U.S. can freely print. To purchase energy and pay off any IMF debts, countries must hold vast dollar reserves. This means that in addition to controlling world trade, the United States is importing substantial quantities of goods and services for very low relative costs.

The euro has begun to emerge as a serious threat to dollar hegemony and U.S. economic dominance. The dollar may prevail throughout the Western Hemisphere, but the euro and dollar are clashing in the former Soviet Union, Central Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East.

In November 2000, Iraq became the first OPEC nation to begin selling its oil for euros. Since then, the value of the euro has increased 17 percent, and the dollar has declined. One important reason for the invasion and installation of a U.S. dominated government in Iraq was to force the country back onto the dollar. Another reason for the invasion was to dissuade further OPEC momentum toward the euro, especially from Iran, the second largest OPEC producer, which was actively discussing a switch to euros for its oil exports.

Because of huge trade deficits, it is estimated that the dollar is currently overvalued by at least 40 percent. Conversely, the euro-zone does not run huge deficits, uses higher interest rates, and has an increasingly larger share of world trade. As the euro establishes its durability and comes into wider use, the dollar will no longer be the world's only option. At that point, it would be easier for other countries to exercise financial leverage against the United States without damaging themselves or the global financial system as a whole.

Faced with waning international economic power, military superiority is the United States' only tool for world domination. Although the expense of this military control is unsustainable, says journalist William Clark, "one of the dirty little secrets of today's international order is that the rest of the globe could topple the United States from its hegemonic status whenever they so choose with a concerted abandonment of the dollar standard. This is America's preeminent, inescapable Achilles' heel." If American power is ever perceived globally as a greater liability than the dangers of toppling the international order, the U.S. systems of control can be eliminated and collapsed. When acting against world opinion-as in Iraq-an international consensus could brand the United States as a "rogue nation."

*
UPDATE BY AMBROSIA PARDUE
The U.S. is still battling OPEC and other countries that are considering using the euro as a payment for petrol. A trader at the Rothschild bank in London notes, "If the dollar loses its role as a currency of reference, the United States, the world's largest oil importer, will no longer be able to have outside countries finance its abyssal trade deficit." The dollar is in fact becoming less and less stable against the euro. On February 12, 2004, the euro was at $1.2804 versus the dollar.

As it stands, oil can only be bought from OPEC in dollars. Non-oil-producing countries sell their goods in order to earn dollars with which to purchase oil. If a country does not have enough dollars, they must borrow them from the World Bank/IMF, incurring debt to be paid back, with interest, in dollars. This increases the demand for dollars, which boosts the U.S. economy. Foreign deposited dollars strengthen the U.S. dollar and give the United States enormous power to manipulate the world economy, set rules, and prevail in the international market. Allowing the U.S. to act as the "world's central bank," the dollar becomes oil-backed, rather than gold-backed.

In December 2003, OPEC held a meeting in Vienna, in which its members voiced complaints that oil profits were down 25 to 30 percent due to primarily to attachment to the dollar. Several members are considering a move away from the dollar, including Venezuela, Russia, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Japan has shifted a modest amount of dollar bonds to euro bonds. China announced in July 2003 that it would switch part of its dollar reserves into the euro. After September 11, 2001, Islamic financiers repatriated their investments, which were worth billions of dollars, to Arab banks because there was worry of the possible seizure of assets under the USA Patriot Act. Much of Iran's reserve fund has also switched to the euro. Some suggest that European countries will pressure OPEC to trade in euros to reduce currency risks.

The Bush Administration presented the U.N. Security Council with "Resolution 1483" on May 9, 2003, which proposed dropping all sanctions against Iraq and giving the U.S./U.K. complete control of Iraq's oil production revenue. Iraq's oil was to remain under U.N. control under the "oil for food" program until the U.N. sanctions were lifted but Resolution 1483 establishes a U.S./U.K. administered "Iraqi Assistance Fund" instead. According to William Clark, the "Iraqi Assistance Fund provided the mechanism to quietly and legally reconvert Iraq's oil exports back to the dollar." With U.S. control over Iraq, the Bush Administration does not have to worry about that government switching to the euro.

Z Magazine reported in February 2004 that the "shock and awe" attack on Iraq served several economic purposes: "(1) Safeguard the U.S. economy by resecuring Iraqi oil in U.S. dollars, instead of the euro, to try to lock the World Bank into dollar oil trading so the U.S. would remain the dominant world power-militarily and economically. (2) Send a clear message to other oil producers as to what will happen to them if they abandon the dollar matrix. (3) Place the second largest oil reserve under direct U.S. control. (4) Create a state where the U.S. can maintain a huge force to dominate the Middle East and its oil. (5) Create a severe setback to the European Union and its euro, the only trading block and currency strong enough to attack U.S. dominance of the world through trade. (6) Free its forces (ultimately) so that it can begin operations against those countries that are trying to disengage themselves from the U.S. dollar imperialism such as Venezuela, where the U.S. has supported the attempted overthrow of a democratic government by a junta more friendly to U.S. business/oil interests."

The U.S. has been encouraging Nigeria with offers of expanded aid to withdraw from OPEC. The U.S. would like to create a new oil cartel in the Middle East and Africa in order to replace OPEC. The U.S. is also pressuring non-OPEC producers to flood the oil market in order to retain the domination in dollars in an attempt to weaken OPEC's market control.

*****

Haiti: The Untold Story by Lyn Duff and Dennis Bernstein

It's the 200-year anniversary of independence for the first black nation in the world and Haitians find themselves again under the oppressive thumb of foreign domination.

On February 29, 2004, the United States government completed its coup d'etat against Haiti's democratically elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Since Aristide's reelection to the Haitian presidency in 2000, the Bush Administration had led an effort to destabilize Haiti by initiating an economic aid embargo, providing massive funding and political support for both paramilitary forces and opposition groups led by Haitian elites, as well as spearheading a propaganda offensive against Aristide.

U.S. efforts to destabilize Haiti culminated in January as millions of Haitians celebrated the bicentennial. Right-wing opposition groups who reportedly received millions of dollars from both the European Union and the U.S.'s International Republican Institute, rallied for Aristide's removal. In the forefront of opposition protests was Andre Apaid, a well-connected Haitian-American businessman and Chalabi-like political operative who created the "Group of 184," which was organized specifically to call for an end to the democratic government in Haiti. Apaid, a U.S. citizen who owns numerous sweatshops in Haiti, led the unsuccessful fight to prevent Aristide from doubling the minimum wage and was known as a prominent supporter of the 1991 coup against Aristide.

While Apaid received a great deal of media play internationally, the Haitian poor, who marched to defend the government with the motto "we will not go into hiding again," were largely ignored. On February 7, 1 million people - over half of the population of the capital city-took to the streets vowing never to give in to anti-democracy violence. The march, which included an eighth of the population of the entire country, was described by The New York Times as a "small crowd."

Tragically, later that month, hundreds of former Haitian military and paramilitary forces-trained by U.S. military in the Dominican Republic and armed with U.S.-made M-16s and M-60s-came across the Dominican border and launched attacks throughout Northern Haiti. Targeting loyal police forces and the pro-democracy poor, they burned down homes, police stations, and government offices, murdering and terrorizing the population.

On February 28, echoing France's call three days earlier for Aristide to resign, President Bush publicly pushed for a regime change in Haiti. That night U.S. military forces took over key sites in Port-au-Prince including the National Palace and the airport. U.S. military forces entered Aristide's home and, in what he says was akin to a "kidnapping," took him against his will to the airport where he was put on a U.S.-chartered plane and flown to the Central African Republic.

Within hours the rebel forces were in Port-au-Prince hunting down Aristide supporters. Bodies of civilians, many with their hands still tied behind their backs, were dumped throughout the city. The head of the Portau-Prince morgue acknowledged to a National Lawyers Guild delegation that he oversaw the disposal of more than 1,000 bodies between March 7 and March 24.

According to international human rights organizations, the former military and reconstituted death squads have murdered hundreds and possibly thousands of people. In February, more than 2,000 U.S. Marines joined French, Chilean, and Canadian troops in an international invasion of Haiti. These troops have at best stood by and allowed the violence to continue and at worst openly collaborated with a witch hunt targeting the pro-democracy populace.

While the mainstream media focuses on atrocities in Iraq, most are silent about the hundreds of Haitians being brutalized each day under the eye of military forces ...

*****
p301

Death of a Nation: Conservative Talk Radio's Immigration & Race "Curriculum"

by Jose Padin, Portland State University, and shelley Smith, Portland, Oregon

Conservative political talk radio took the U.S. airwaves by storm in the 1990s. Today a handful of conservative talk radio (CTR) hosts are household names across the country, multimedia megastars plying their trade in cable television and routinely topping bestseller charts. CTR celebrities pose as populist "intellectuals" and command loyal mass audiences that are as highly mobilized politically as they are profitable. These are true "freelancers" wielding their spear without allegiance to any standard of integrity. Yet owing to its fabulous economic success, CTR has forced traditional news organizations into a "race to the bottom" that eviscerates professional journalism.

The CTR industry, and the fear mongering on which it thrives, deserves careful critical scrutiny for at least three reasons: (1) CTR packages and markets an essential public good, political information, but operates free from any standard of quality (Alterman 2003). (2) CTR presents itself as the face of angry populism, but is part and parcel of the momentum towards the corporate debasement of the media (McChesney 2004). (3) Far from being an automatic market response to consumer demand, CTR is the product of a deliberate three-decade conservative strategy, and a massive investment in information infrastructure, to define, capture, and colonize political "common sense" in the United States (Brock 2004)...

THE GROWTH AND REACH OF CTR

The reach of talk radio in general and CTR in particular is remarkable and has increased over the last decade. A 2003 Gallup survey found 31 percent of respondents receiving their news every day or several times a week from talk radio. This figure was up from 17 percent in 1995. The Pew organization found that 37 percent of respondents to a 2002 poll listened to talk radio regularly or sometimes, while a core of 17 percent used talk radio regularly as a source of news (Brock 2004, 279). In 1983, there were 59 talk show stations in the United States, but after the 1990s boom, the number of talk radio stations surpasses 1,200. The largest personality-centered shows are all conservative: Rush Limbaugh has 14.5 million regular listeners, followed by Sean Hannity (11.8 million), and Michael Savage (7 million) De la Vina 2004). These conservative talk radio hosts also dominate the cable and book market talk radio spin-offs (Brock 2004).( the mid-1990s, regular talk radio listeners constituted around 20 percent of U.S. voting adults (Barker and Knight 2000).

PROFILE OF THE CTR AUDIENCE

The portrait of the talk radio audience is somewhat surprising. Talk radio listeners are slightly better off than nonlisteners (Hoyt 1992; Hofstetter et al. 1994). Although there is a difference in distribution of listeners and nonlisteners into income classes, educational differences are more marked. A 1993 Times Mirror survey found that 60 percent of non-listeners had a high school degree or less, compared to 46 percent of listeners; only 17 percent of nonlisteners had college degrees, compared to 28 percent of listeners (Owen 1996).

Exit polls in the 1990s showed politically active CTR listeners were predominantly and disproportionately white and disproportionately male (Bolce and De Maio 1996). A clear gender gap exists in the world of CTR: the top rated hosts in the political talk circuit are men, and most of the callers are also men (Kohut and Parker 1997).

Talk radio listeners are predominantly conservative. While in the general electorate conservatives outnumber liberals two-to-one, among talk radio listeners the margin is much wider (Bolce and De Maio 1996). (It was four-to-one in the 1994 midterm elections.) Talk radio listeners are more likely to identify with a political party, and Republican Party affiliation is associated with more listening and calling (Owen 1996).

CTR audiences may be discontented, but they are not alienated or isolated. Starting with Hofstetter et al. (1994), most studies have found that, compared with nonlisteners, CTR listeners are more active in politics, and they tend to believe they are more effective in their political action. This is true along most dimensions of political engagement. CTR listeners are more active in voting, registering to vote, letter writing, attending public meetings, and making contributions to political campaigns (Owen 1996). CTR listeners are more issue-oriented and informed than nonlisteners, and they are more avid users of every form of media (Bolce and De Maio 1996; Owen 1996). A majority of listeners report turning to talk radio primarily for political information (Hofstetter et al. 1994; Owen 1996).

FEATURES OF THE TALK RADIO FORMAT THAT MAKE CTR EFFECTIVE

Research on talk radio in general, and CTR in particular, has tended to study its influence on attitudes, opinion, and political behavior. We review some key findings shortly. But what specifically about the CTR format accounts for its influence? Our knowledge here relies more on theory and speculative reflection because it is more difficult and costly to organize a controlled study of different radio formats. Nonetheless, it is useful to review key arguments.

A substantial percentage of U.S. adults turn to talk radio for news, which is odd because talk radio is not news. Facts are secondary in this format, and professional standards for the validation of "facts" are nonexistent. As the most influential Republican pollster, focus group guru, and slogansmith of the last decade puts it: "A compelling story, even if factually inaccurate, can be more emotionally compelling than a dry recitation of the truth" (Brock 2004, 252). Sober expert analysis is not only secondary, but even a liability. Contributions are entertaining, or they are nixed, and a basic rule is that the host always wins (Gimpel 1996). Baffling as it may seem, this is all part of a procedure that gives information obtained from talk radio its credibility.

Talk radio is not influential because it builds on expertise or relies on professional integrity to produce "facts." It is influential because the message is clear, consistent, and repetitive (Barker, "Rush to Action," 1998).

*****

p335
Noam Chomsky
"[The US] ... a state capitalist society with very close ties between state and corporate power, a very obedient intellectual class, and a narrow political spectrum primarily reflecting the interests of power and privilege."

p336
the ex-CEO of Intel, Andy Grove

"The goal of the new capitalism is to shoot the wounded."

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