The Creeping Hand of Socialism

[Daveparts]

The Creeping Hand of Socialism
By David Glenn Cox
http://theservantsofpilate.com





When we have all been thoroughly indoctrinated in truth, justice and the American way, the very word socialism evokes flickering black and white images of Winston Smith. His empty, loveless life controlled by the stern-faced Big Brother. Or we hear the clicking sounds of jackbooted policemen, and even worse, of the secret policemen.

Who told you these things? Who put these images before your eyes? Why, the very people who benefit from capitalism. We look through a view master at fairy tales of capitalism, stereo images of happy populations dancing and singing in front of their slave cabins at sundown while pictures of the ill, the dispossessed and the unemployed are pushed back to page six below the fold. Those stories are too depressing, after all, and it was probably their own fault they ended up that way.

The free-for-profit press tells us horror stories of socialized medicine’s waiting lists, but forgets to mention that when a patient dies under socialized medicine, the doctors give their condolences. Under our for-profit medical system, the doctors pass on their condolences along with in many cases a six-figure bill. We praise our system and bury its mistakes and pay no mind that medical bills are the number one reason for bankruptcy here in this capitalist utopia.

We forget, or fail to notice, that socialism is all around us. Our military is one giant socialist organization. Centralized planning by one central authority, collective living, collective clothing. Medals and ribbons issued to commemorate service to the state. We cheer and wave the flag for our freedom, unaware of undercover policemen or the labyrinth of security cameras watching us at intersections and in every parking lot. Ah, but that’s for your protection. But then, when isn’t it?

Here in Atlanta we have an enclave of socialists, a community radio station; not a public station but a community station. It doesn’t belong to the public but to the community. Financed by the listeners along with a grant from the Atlanta arts council, WRFG broadcasts 24 hours a day, not to please stockholders or program managers but its community. Their slogan is "The right place to be on the left-hand side of your dial."

Very quickly you can hear the difference; you can feel the difference. No one is shouting at you. No one is trying to sell you a car muffler or playing annoying jingles over and over about cell phone plans. Unlike the sterile dryness of many NPR stations, you can feel the warmth. The air shifters, as they choose to call themselves, are volunteers, getting up at 3:30 AM to do a drive-time program, and then it's off to their day job.

But to only look at the diversity of the music without the standard forty-song play lists is to misunderstand all that can be done with a radio station detached from the capitalist system. Since going on the air in 1973, WRFG has featured live musical performances of jazz, bluegrass and blues. As Atlanta has grown WRFG has reached out to new communities, African, Latin, Asian and Caribbean, as well as to the communities which are under-represented on commercial radio, labor and alternative life styles. It is all a part of their mission.

1. Those who continue to be denied free and open access to the broadcast media,

2. Those who suffer oppression or exploitation based upon class, race, sex, age or creed or sexual orientation.

Why would anyone be under-represented in our free press media? Oh yeah, right, because they’re either politically unpopular or their views are. WRFG has broadcasts of live speakers from the Hungry Club, Atlanta’s famous interracial forum. WRFG has received national acclaim for its public affairs programming. In 2007 WRFG was awarded the W.C. Handy Keeping the Blues Alive Award for its 20 hours of blues programming every week.

Recently the long-time air shifter and producer, Joe Shifalo, aka Pig Iron, retired. Not just a paper-shuffler disk jockey, Pig Iron told stories of a young Bob Dylan sleeping on his couch in the Village, or of the time the record company paid him to fly out to California to teach the Eagles how to finger pick guitars. You just don’t get that on commercial radio.

Just as you don’t get live interviews with John Mayall, Gary Moore, Leo Lyons, or live performances by Fiona Boise, Dave Sutherland and the best of Atlanta’s local music talent. This goes against all the stereotypes, but blues musicians will rise early in the morning to play live, and not just play but astound. They do it not for the money but for the community.

Then suddenly you find yourself indoctrinated; suddenly commercial, capitalist radio with its screaming, repetitive commercials becomes intolerable. You find yourself listening to the Zydeco show and tapping your feet as the thought enters your head, “Why isn’t this kind of music on commercial radio?” Because somebody doesn’t think it’s popular enough. Before you know it, you’re listening to the Celtic Show or Soul Rhapsody.

Weekly shows include Just Peace, Second Opinion, Sista’s Time and Youth Views. At five o’clock each day is Amy Goodman and “Democracy Now,” the perfect program for the commute home. In the evenings there is the Peach State Festival, featuring the best of Americana, folk, country and bluegrass. You just thought you didn’t like country music. This is the good stuff, not the top forty crap that you hear over and over again.

But as you listen you begin to ask yourself, what is it that makes commercial radio so awful and WRFG so good? The answer is capitalism, it’s the profit motive that forces program directors to pare down play lists to please the most and offend the least. Until all that is left is a homogenized, vanilla mess of nothing. No flavor, no excitement, just noise.

Without the profit motive to drive a station, you have room for passion for the music; a love of the music and the human desire to share that love. It can offer a diversity of tastes that drives new interests and builds new understandings.

They have Blues Fests where the community brings food for all, covered-dish suppers, and Zydeco dances with free dance lessons if you get there an hour early. They want you to participate; they want you to be a part of their community. Not because they want your money but just because they want to share what they have with you. Suddenly, while the world is turning upside down, you find you’re listening to a radio station that wants to give to you and not take from you. If this is the creeping hand of socialism, sign me up.



http://www.wrfg.org/

[rocktots]

1. WHAT is your VALUE?

LOL, even alot of 'right wing' talk radio now talks about 'corporate globalism', at least as long as Obama is in.

Q: What can YOU do that some clown in India, China, or Mexico CAN'T do?

A: NOTHING.

Who will buy all the crap if America goes in the toilet?

No-one.

What are YOU going to do in the NEW WORLD ORDER?

Cause 'trouble'? Rock the boat?

I don't think so.

It is comming, you want to be a third world country, YOU WILL BE.

[ret5hd]

2. ????

huh?

[The Traveler]

5. You win the prize

If there is a coherent thought in this post, you have hidden it with such skill that I cannot possibly extract meaning from the noise.

Trav

[tavalon]

9. Let me guess

Your point is if we go towards Democratic Socialism (that has worked in so many first world countries) that we will become a third world country for daring to try a new way.

Did I get that right?

If I did, you are not very educated and either need to sit back and listen or eat your pizza.

[Robbie88]

10. Hahahah WTF?

Great OP, though.

Regarding 1984, it always fascinates me how the capitalist class enjoys using the works of George Orwell to make the people scared of "socialism" when in fact it is well-known that Orwell was an ardent supporter of Democratic Socialism. Animal Farm, for example, is not much different from Trotsky's criticism of Stalin-era Soviet Union as a "degenerated workers' state" which had been imposed upon with a bureaucracy which no longer shared a common interest with the proletariat, and yet, we are made to believe that this piece of literature was written to prove why socialism could never work.

[Blue_Tires]

3. k+r

[Demeter]

4. Trying to confuse Americans with the Facts, AGAIN?

Good!

[8 track mind]

6. I have said it before, and i will say it again

There has been a huge rise in pirate FM stations. Go to this site and have a look at the FCC's enforcement actions and see how many of these are on the FM band.

http://www.diymedia.net/fccwatch/eadtable08.htm

The common folk do not have access to the airwaves. It's all capitalist noise on the airwaves now, just like the OP said.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. There are similar radio stations in

the Twin Cities (KFAI) and Portland (KBOO).

Lots of non-commercial music, lots of ethnic programming, lots of non-mainstream politics.

[The Traveler]

8. Atlanta used to be so cool

Another excellent post, Dave. Random thoughts follow in response ...

This place, my home, has changed so much. Most of these changes are not particularly for the good. It has lost so many of the qualities that made it one of the best cities in America back in the 70s. The innovative and creative impulses still work here ... but they are largely lost in the sea of suburbs and strip malls. Even Little 5 Points has become just another not-too-out-of-the-ordinary shopping district, and of course that process has been going on for a long time.

The forces of marketing in the service of sales profits leave nothing worthwhile unsullied. It is just the way of things.

I think part of the problem with free market capitalist ideologues is that they dwell a lot on the Friedman ian model of "Economic Man". Economic Man is a theoretical construct, much like the frictionless inclined plane one encounters in high school physics. The problem, of course, is that real humans come bundled with a huge repertoire of motivations, of which the profit motive is but one.

And not all of those motives are noble. Those for whom no amount of money is enough, for whom no luxury is excess enough ... these people are indulging other motives as well, and not merely a profit motive. Both their methods of acquisition and their indulgences tend to become exploitative. People, acting from other, healthier motives like concern for loved ones and their fellow citizens in general, will not tolerate this indefinitely unless there is also widespread general progress produced thereby.

The republicans are right. The paper economy grew under George Bush, and their financial elites prospered magnificently. The rest of us struggled on, really not getting a whole lot out of it. So for a long time, general progress was not widely experienced in the land. And now, with the bursting of multiple bubbles, were are left holding the bag, and we are expected to pass tissues to bankers who weep because they cannot survive on half a million dollars a year.

We have been here before, historically. I cannot say I expect different results. Will we have a Marie Antoinette moment at some point? I truly hope not ... so messy. But we average citizen types seem to be pushed by Republican political leadership into making a choice between a corporatist state (fascism) or what they claim to be socialism. They present a false dichotomy, and they do it in a way that places their stated values at great risk.

For most Americans, as the economy degrades, that will become an ever easier choice, and the Republicans won't like the decision.

Trav

[Joe Chi Minh]

11. K&R with bells on.

[TBF]

12. K&R :) n/t

[readmoreoften]

13. Our military is NOT socialist. Socialism means a dictatorship of the proletariat against the

capitalist class for the purpose of creating an equal society. The military is an arm of the totalitarian capitalist state. We live in a dictatorship of the capitalist class. Socialism is not any more or less authoritarian than capitalism. Some socialisms are authoritarian, some are democratic.

Socialism and uniformity have zero to do with one another. Capitalism just means that a parasite class sucks off those who build, create, and maintain the world. All the creativity and value of the world is created by working people, scientists, and artists, not stock brokers and bank presidents.