When Heaters Harm Democracy, Is Free Speech Enough?

Forget what you learned in civics about the Founding Fathers — we're the children of Barnum and Bailey, our founding con men. Their freak show was the forerunner of today's talk radio. - Bill Moyers

Henry Giroux, describes the growing domination of hate radio as one of the crucial elements in a "culture of cruelty" increasingly marked by overt racism, hostility and disdain for others, coupled with a simmering threat of mob violence.

Under the Bush administration, a seeping, sometimes galloping, authoritarianism began to reach into every vestige of the culture, giving free rein to those anti-democratic forces in which religious, market, military and political fundamentalism thrived, casting an ominous shadow over the fate of United States democracy. During the Bush-Cheney regime, power became an instrument of retribution and punishment was connected to and fueled by a repressive state. A bullying rhetoric of war, a ruthless consolidation of economic forces, and an all-embracing free-market apparatus and media driven pedagogy of fear supported and sustained a distinct culture of cruelty and inequality in the United States. - From "Living in a culture of cruelty" by Henry A. Giroux

In this deranged and dysfunctional democracy, where living in denial is the standard and truth-telling is deviant behavior, devious confidence men have developed weapons of mass distraction to destroy your sense of balance, Liberty One must re-define the media, or else become part of the problem.