AMERICAN DREAM RADIO

AMERICAN DREAM RADIO
Political Awakening

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If you're in the midst of a political awakening, welcome to the club. That's how I came to start this station and this site. I was disgusted with politics and didn't see any chance of things getting better as long as Republicans and Democrats were taking money and selling favors. I had decided that paying attention to politics wasn't even worth the aggravation.

Then I started noticing that while I'd been keeping my head down, things had actually gotten worse for me and for most people I knew. It was harder to earn a living. It took more hours. It was a struggle to afford health care. It took two incomes to make ends meet. The 30-year trend was definitely downward. George Bush's election clearly accelerated the problem. But I don't have to tell you about that.

When I seriously started to suspect that all was not well in America, it wasn't easy for me to see why we weren't just working on these problems and solving them. Even 24-hour news channels almost never found time to discuss these issues; and when they did, not in a way where any meaningful change seemed possible.

For the past couple of years, I've been educating myself about how power works in America. I'm not an expert, but I've been amazed at some of the things I've learned about the difficulties in keeping a democratic government in a power stew of politicians, special interests, and religions. I'm sharing the voices here of courageous people who have taught me things that I didn't already know. Perhaps you'll find some of them interesting, too.

It's been painful for me to learn some of the lessons here. I've come to think of it as patriotic. Disappointment as an act of patriotism. Patriotism to endure the disappointment of seeing that American democracy is so tenuous under the influence of the sleep-inducing television. Patriotism to ask questions about why middle class citizens vote against their own interests.

What I've had to give up is my precious dream that beneath it all the American Dream is still fine. Time to find a new vision for our American Dream. I struggle not to go back to sleep. I don't want to lose myself ever again in the numbing realities that television and my own denial create. I am coming to like the feeling of being empowered by the information, too. In the terms of the movie The Matrix, this station is about the red pill.

I have come to believe that our most immediate problems have to do with money in politics. Our representatives can't hear us anymore over the roar of the largest special interests. Fewer and fewer citizens are bothering to participate in our democracy. In more ways than one, we might solve our energy problem if we could just harness the power of Thomas Jefferson rolling over in his grave.

The financial security and standard of living of U.S. workers' families are falling fast. We are mortgaging our children's futures with deficit spending; while our representatives in government aren't even talking seriously about solving it. We are borrowing huge amounts of money while giving tax money back to the rich and allowing corporations to avoid paying taxes by simply getting a P.O. box outside the U.S.

Even as we borrow to start foreign wars, we lose jobs and essential services in our communities. Our leaders' unquestioning belief in privatization and deregulation have failed over and over and yet Americans still seem to be buying it as a cure-all. It's not easy to watch. TV news frames issues in the ways we are all familiar with. Whether solutions can be found is often in how the questions are framed, so the way of power is to control the framing of the questions. The broadcast airwaves belong to the people and yet only a narrow range of voices can get a word in edgewise.

I don't know what any of us can do to make a difference. My first step with this station is to educate those who might not know yet, myself included. It will probably take a real crisis before Americans will risk making any significant changes, but I'm trying to prepare the ground for that day. I do the same thing in my tomato garden and every year the soil has been getting a bit better.

I realize, though, that if I disengage and go back to sleep, my retirement, health care, standard of living, quality of air and water, voice in our government, and my own children's futures are likely to be worse off. So, if you're out there, waking up to politics in America, please don't just go back to sleep just yet! You're not the only one who sees these problems. Stay awhile and listen to others who have been thinking about these matters longer than I. Stay awhile and ask your questions. Speak your truth. Grow our democracy.

A flow of accurate information and new ideas is the oxygen of democracy. Please make suggestions about shows that might help others to better understand some of the critical issues about democracy and power in the United States. Also, please write to me to tell me what you think of the station.

My personal e-mail is jerry@AmericanDreamRadio.org.

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Jerry Krantman
American Dream Radio
jerry@AmericanDreamRadio.org