Robo-calls

[Miles Davis, Budo, from Birth Of The Cool]

Rush's show came to an end, and I sighed before it came on. I was half-expecting him to pot down his intro song of Bruce Hornsby's That's Just The Way It Is, in order to come crashing through with impassioned pleading to rally the troops.

"Don't listen to the exit polls tomorrow" he implores. The man I used to call "The Skirt" came on as normal, without screaming over his intro mx, after all.

*sigh*

I was sad to see Rush go. He was as good as ever. The top of the hour local news from WINK/WNOG was full of election-eve buzz, but little else in the way of daily, hard news. It is as if south Florida was not suffering any more murders, home invasions, or canal-diving.

Seems like a while since someone has driven off the hardball to sail right into a
residential canal. We'll see. Maybe we'll get one after the election, here, when people go out to blow off steam, celebrate, or drink heavy like they normally do, while using the new president as a reason for their drunkenness.

It's all good. Nerves are a little fried, it seems. Someone wrote Rush during his show, saying, "Wow, Rush, you actually sound like you're in a good mood!" To which he replied that he was, he always is in a good mood, and there's no reason to feel glum. This election will come and go, the nation will stand, and we'll survive. "Ya' gotta keep the faith" is what he seemed to be saying.

And he's right.

Besides my many reasons for not wanting a President Obama (Supreme Court appointees,
industry-killer, nihilist), there is another, lesser-known reason: Obama would sign a
Fairness Doctrine if it passed through Congress. Can you imagine returning to the pre-1988 days, where all you might get is mind-numbing Larry King on Mutual Radio for your talk radio fix?

[Pharaoh's Dance, Miles Davis, Bitches Brew]

I remember when Jim Bohannon would pinch-hit for Larry on the King's off nights. It was one of those fill-in sessions that first attracted me to Jim. He was arguing with some caller over labor issues, and the caller was a union member. Jim made one clarion statement that still sticks with me: No one owes you a job.

That seemed to disarm the caller. He was previously clamoring on at 100 miles an hour, it seemed, and then Bohannon waits perfectly for the natural break in the caller's ramble, and with his rich, baritone, voice said, "Well, sir, I happen to be of the opinion that nowhere it is written that anyone owes you a job. It is a privelege, sir."

I still have a cassette recording of a show from Mutual Radio that I sent away for from 1989. Larry was interviewing and taking calls with a man from NORML.

So I get through with the top of the hour news, Hannity comes on, and I listen to him tell us that the big prediction he will make about tomorrow is that...he will NOT listen to exit polls!

Wow.

You really went out on a limb with that one, Captain Obvious. Who in the world does he think his audience is? We who listen to the AM band 24 hours a day are not people who are easily taken in, given to wild, emotional swings, ya' know, Sean? You don't need to go on and on about how the exit polls are gonna be wrong. Let not your heart be troubled, Sean, you can talk to us as if we're adults. Give it a try sometime.

I switch off Baby jesus (as Boortz, Royal, and Belinda call him), and switch over to
internet reading. I found an article on Ann Coulter's Get Drunk And Vote For McCain site, written by some communists, screeching and freaking that the "Far Right" were in danger of winning the white house, blah, blah, blah.

The writers were worried that, "The blatant appeals to racism, the coded appeals to ultra-nationalism and militarism, the increased desperation of the ultra-right, the scare tactics they are using and which they will intensify between now and November 4th, the voter suppression campaign and dirty tricks like the vicious robo-calls which have already started, to mention a few."

Yeah, right.

We live in a world where Russia's Left is still poisoning leaders, raiding countries, indiscriminantly killing, and intimidating law-abiding citizens as a regular course of action. Just where can ANY communist look past the atrocities of their making, in order to point a finger of "far" anything at Bush, McCain, or ANYONE on the American Right?

IT CAN'T BE DONE.

There is NO comparrison between the WORST America has ever been in its past, and any of the examples we have in the world of how the Left treated their own
citizens.

[Spanish Key, Miles Davis, Bitches Brew]

And no fair trying to pack the argument with quasi-commie European countries like Norway, Sweeden, Finland, Denmark,Switzerland, etc, as examples of what I'm talking about. If we're the big bad CAPITALIST America, the worst the world has to offer as far as greed and corruption goes, then it is only fair to pick examples of equally-worse examples from the left: U.S.S.R [60-80 million citizens killed during Stalin's reign alone]; Mao Tse Tung [estimates at 50 million people killed during his cultural revolution]; Pol Pot [3 million Cambodians murdered under his regime]

Frankly, there is no comparison. And you think it's obvious to everyone, even the guy next to you.

And yet, when you're thinking like us, like the typical AM radio listener, you're in danger of becoming a hermit. The things you talk about with others has a away of isolating you, and you don't get into a lot of conversations about Pol Pot, Mao, or Stalin. People don't hear these things enough, and the average American consumer out there, the (FM) music-listening person just hears the first two or three sentences out of your mouth, and either their eyes glaze over, or they are reduced to awkward stammering as they try to defend their position.

And so it is with me. I get into enough conversations that I can usually tell if a person can handle a quick reference to The Fall Of Rome or not, and maybe develop into a fun episode from there. I am always impressed by the person who isn't afraid to ask me what something means, as I am that way with everyone. From the child or dullest adults, to the learned doctorate with all of the best answers for whatever his or her science may be, I will many times stop a person with, "You just said this and that. What did you mean?"

I find that hardly anyone stops to ask anymore. They all have the answers, it seems. Some will say that we are in a very polarizing time. I can see that. I know that I am somewhat closed-off from society, so maybe there is some division going on.

For me, as a Libertarian at heart, voting Conservative has always been an off-putting thing for many people my age whom I've encountered. I came back from the war and the people I was surrounded with the most, radio dj's and their girlfriends, they usually acted like they were encountering some sheepherder from the mountains of Nepal, it seemed. They weren't used to someone who had been through my experiences, and came out a diffeent person, slightly.

They were afraid of the warrior side of us, yet always had some of the most cutting words.

[Sanctuary, Miles Davis, Bitches Brew]

"The vicious robo-calls which have already started, to mention a few." I guess I'm lucky. I'm one of those who has only a cell phone as both my home and mobile phone. I won't make the call logs of the "Vicious" robo-calls.

Those pussy communist writers woudn't know vicious if it bit them in their stockings.