This, while a sad development, was neither unexpected nor unwelcome.
The death of Air America Radio is a little like watching an older more sophisticated sibling die. It served its purpose, tho.
For me, I met a whole slew of new friends and made a few enemies on the blogs there. No problem. I'm a rare jewel, and was happy to make the acquaintances I did.
More to the point, however, AAR forced me to blog.
When I heard, over and over, from people at AirAmerica that they thought they were alone in the wilderness, that AAR gave them a place where they realized they weren't weird or odd or unique, or worse, outcast, that meant a lot to me, and after much arm twisting by a certain co-blogger of mine, I started this humble little place.
I owe it to Al Franken, Rachel Maddow, Lizz Winstead, Randi Rhoades, Marc Maron, Sam Seder, Janeane Garafolo, Mark Riley, Laura Flanders, and Steve Earle. AM talk radio helped people find their voice, and I was one of them.
We liberals don't take our marching orders from on high, which is why AAR was doomed from the get-go. We argue and quibble, and come to a consensus. We are not the sheep of the right, listening to Beck or Rush or O'Reilly and bleating "MEGADITTOES!"
What Air America did for us was inform us.
In the midst of a Bush administration bent on disinformation and warped lying, this was vital. And we started to do our own research and learn our own truths. AAR was never going to make money so it was never going to survive. All it had to do was light a fire.
So to my friends, like not_over_it and Mr. Doggity and Lestat de Lioncourt, and CathCatz and Elderta and Ham Jenkins III and Stewardess...my fellow denizens of those days...like Crunchy Knee and Britisher, and the hundreds of others whose names escape me at the moment but who I met and loved and argued with and informed and kidded around with...thank you and I share your pain in this.
But think of all the good that's come out of it, folks! AAR may be gone, but forgotten?
Never!
Posts
