Democracy Now ! – Village Voice

I’m back on the Democracy Now! tip. I first started listening to the Pacifica radio network show run by Amy Goodman back in 98 or 99 when I was living in Florida and listening to Tampa Bay's great community radio station WMNF. It purged me of my apoliticism and got me interested in the progressive topics of the day, such as globalization, Democratic Party centrism, military and prison industrial complexes, etc. When I moved to Cambridge in 00, it wasn’t being broadcast on any of the local media outlets, which was disappointing considering it's such a liberal area. I would check the website and follow along as best I could but my progressive hankerings soon found satisfaction in other sources. When I freed myself from the Nine to Five Gulag a few months ago I started listening to WZBC Boston College radio every morning and early afternoon to try to establish some regimentation to my days so that I would feel compelled to get some work done rather than let this spat of unemployment (or self-employment, as I’m trying to train myself to say) become an 8 month lazy party. And they play the hour long Democracy Now! show from Noon to 1. So I’ve been listening to it every day and it’s helping to purge me of my millennial liberal defeatism/apathy. I’m going to have to break out my “Exception to the Rulers” t-shirt again.

Today’s program was about the recent purchase/takeover of the Village Voice by libertarian/conservative media monopolists, New Times Media. They are apparently trying to strip the VV of its political editorialism and leftist spin. Isn’t that the point of the paper? Apparently the point of the merger was to try to suffocate the liberal Voice. According to this DN! Report, they own 17 local weekly alternative publications around the country, and their goal is to make them all in the same mold, the same voice as the libertarian Phoenix paper. While it’s sad that these people can buy up and strangle the liberalism out of lefty media, it’s encouraging to remember that papers like the Village Voice emerged to prominence out of a demand for alternative media in the first place. So, let them buy up and sterilize the lefty rags. We’ll just stop reading them. And start reading, listening to, watching, surfing, blogging, rss-ing, etceteraing the new forms of alternative media that fulfill our needs. The people, united, will never be divided.


(thanks to apfn.net and guerillanews.com for the photo)