Leftist radio talk host
Barsamian draws laughs

He started the night with a vaudevillian-like performance of Almighty God calling a press conference to announce that she had not told President George Bush to invade Iraq.

"Isn't it great to laugh?" he asked at the end to the cheers of the crowd.

The founder of Alternative Radio described how lucky the Mendocino Coast is to have KZYX, which features local public radio. He said residents of progressive cities like Boston, Baltimore and Democratic Chicago have no such privilege, instead getting "wall-to-wall NPR" on public radio stations.

"There are many cities in the United States that would give their eyeteeth for a station like KZYX."

He targeted the corporate news media, getting laughs about brainless coverage of celebrity gossip while he told of important story lines missed by the United States news media, then showed how complex world stories were covered even by state-run media in other countries.

He presented New York Times headline from Saturday that said "Iraq has become a dangerous place."

"Apparently, this just happened, without a cause. This is another deadly use of the passive voice," he said, showing how the media's failure to define issues with clear and proper language use is key to its failure to create accountability.

"There is no naming of names and that is crucial to propaganda," he said.

He quoted Hitler's minister of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda, Josef Goebbels, to explain how the diversity of ideas can decrease even as the number of television channels and slick magazines increases. He said the song line "57 channels and nothing on" needs to be updated to 570 channels and nothing on and described a scene of hundreds of different magazine titles wowing people into thinking choice has increased.

"The purpose of Nazi propaganda is to present an ostensible diversity behind which lies an actual uniformity," he quoted Goebells as saying.

He described how the media's old mantra of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable has been reversed in recent years.

"That has to do with corporatization," he said.

His criticism was no less strident than usual. He dwelled on why U.S.
corporate media never does stories on why there were terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. He described the invasion of Iraq as an "Al-Queda dream."

"Bin Laden could not have imagined a better scenario than to have the United States attack a Muslim country and occupy it."

But along with sharp criticism of U.S. policy, Barsamian described the Armenian Army occupying Mendocino and kept the night mostly light and upbeat. He invoked fellow Armenian and leading journalism critic, Ben Bagdikian, the former head of the U.C. Berkeley Journalism School, who is the father of criticism of corporate journalism.

Barsamian's humor was often self-effacing, calling himself the "New Yaarker."

Like on his radio show, Alternative Radio, Barsamian spoke in a scratchy staccato that bordered on shouting, with exacting word choice, enunciation and pronunciation. The force, volume and sheer speed of both his voice and intellect kept the crowd a beat behind the pace, but they seemed mostly in agreement.

His message of hope was focused on local action and community involvement. He said that thanks to KZYX and groups like the host Alliance for Democracy the Mendocino Coast has a good start on the antidote to propaganda communications within the community and the courage to say what one thinks.

"Throughout history it has always been a small group of people that have changed things," he said. He went on to compare Rosa Parks, who died Monday, with Cindy Sheehan and to thus show how one ideological person can inspire many.

"There is a long history of Americans who have opposed Imperialism," he said, invoking Mark Twain and his opposition to America's occupation of the Philippines.

Janet DeSipio of Albion didn't agree with his view of a conspiratorial control of the news media.

"I think if a person will sit down and watch Fox News and then watch CNN they will see a difference. They would see this is not a monolithic corporate media country," De Sipio said.

She liked his focus on community and individual action. She said the left, which she is a part of, can be as polarizing as the right at times.

"It's not that he is a great guy and I support the work he is doing. I'm as radical a person as I know. I just don't see it as black and white. I see more shades of gray," she said.

Original story: Mendocino Beacon, Oct. 27, 2005


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