OK, I just sent a rant about right wing radio - how about a rant about public radio - which wingers love to portray as "pinko commie" lefty nonsense - yes, various wingnuts from Michael Savage to my friend use these outdated insults. Don't they know those insults are, like, so five minutes ago? You have to keep current with the slander if you want people to take you seriously. You get nowhere calling somebody a Christian, or a Jew, or a Hun, or a Visigoth, or a pinko commie. "Terrorist" or "Child Molester" still work. If there are any wingnuts lurking on this list, a little helpful advice.
But anyway, public radio, here in Canada as in the US, only looks left because there's no real left to expose it for what it is - center right. It used to be center left, but I've heard the CBC chasing NPR to the right. There's still some good programming (and I recommend it from time to time, but it's like the prize in crackerjacks, you have to look for it.
OK, so there was this local program, and the guest was advocating all children should participate in compulsory public service. The Orwellian aspect was they were calling it "Mandatory Volunteering."
Now you can debate whether its a good idea to force kids to do this (my wife reports it was a big part of the program in her highly idealistic progressive high school, and it didn't seem to leave any lasting impact on the students who participated) but to introduce the oxymoronic phrase "mandatory volunteering" into the debate frankly stupefied me. Can people really not understand that it's not voluntary if it's mandatory?
There was almost total consensus from caller after caller - what a great idea this was. Then one caller suggested that it should be called "slavery." After all, if working for a living is wage slavery, this is the same thing without the wage, so until somebody can convince him he's wrong, that's what he's going to call it.
The program host openly laughed at him, in a manner that made it clear that we're dealing with the mentally ill fringe element here, and they went right back into the discussion as if he'd never called. Because it was impossible for them to respond to what he said, so just ignore it.
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