I WAS GOING TO LISTEN TO WINGNUT RADIO

but I found a link in an Alternet story, "Talk Radio and the Conspiracy to Kill" by Rory O'Connor, just as good. The link goes to an opinion piece by Don Feder and you can find it here. Feder is just as bad as any radio wingnut I can think of and here's a taste of his insanity.

The left will do anything to gag its opponents.

Conservative talk-show hosts tend to be the most outspoken defenders of Israel anywhere in the U.S. media, while their counterparts in the mainstream media are overwhelmingly anti-Israel.

Being anti-market, the left is incapable of understanding any exchange -- including the marketplace of ideas. The dominance of conservative talk-show hosts couldn't possibly have anything to do with the popularity of conservative ideas.

This is how the Fairness Doctrine would be applied to talk radio: If a station broadcast three hours of Rush Limbaugh -- or Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly or Dr. Dobson -- in the afternoon, it would have to provide equal time to The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Father Michael Pfleger or Osama bin Laden.

You're more likely to find diverse viewpoints in Beijing's People's Daily than you are on the average NPR or PBS station.

Feder thinks that making the world safe for Israel and the Likud Party is the only possible choice and anyone who disagrees must be anti-Israel. I don't think there are any "mainstream media counterparts" to the radio gasbags. The idea that the Left is "anti-market" is another bit of agit-prop that Limbaugh or Hannity have uttered in the past. For these devotees of the Free Market Fairy, any suggestion that the market doesn't always come up with the best solution is anathema. Finally, Feder doesn't understand what the Fairness Doctrine was all about - giving an fair shot to an opposing point of view. There's nothing in it that would require the Left to get the same amount of air time, only a shot at on-air rebuttal. This could be done during the last 10-15 minutes of the major wingnut radio shows and would have little impact on revenue, at least until more people wised up to the scam the wingnuts have been running on Americans.