The Guy James Show Blog

Well now, its an election year and maybe all hands should be on deck.  All we have to do is find some adaquate funding and we may answer the call.  But, it is the same old problem as before.  When searching for dollars to pay for a show its more of the old yada, yada, yada.  Unions?  Nope!  Democratic organizations?  Nope!  Everyone is bitching but no one wants to part with a very modest amount of money to pay good Democratic, Liberal broadcasters to put out the word.  As for getting our side of the story out to the public, we haven’t gained much at all in the past few years.  Oh yes, we have Kieth Olberman on the new whatchamacallit network.  And of course, we have Ed Schultz, the working man’s friend.  I was reading some old material from Ed’s past and all I can do is laugh when he is described in those terms.  Biggest phoney on the planet.  Well, I’m gonna give it a shot.  All everyone can do is say “no”……….again:)

I had the pleasure of being at a local Democratic Club meeting a week or so ago and although I thoroughly enjoyed the company I was more interested in the conversation. 

While discussing the problems associated with our massive losses during the recent election, not a single one of them brought up the subject of the media beating we took.  They talked about how to get better candidates locally (we have not one single Democrat holding any kind of office in Lee or Collier counties) , walking precincts, making telephone calls, maintaining a headquarters locally……but not a WORD about helping growth of a media presence.  Imagine, after months of distorted and false charges coming from the dominant Right-Wing media which convinced millions of voters that Obama and the Democratic House were responsible for all of the ills presently cast upon this nation.  The Democrats?  Nary a peep in their defense.  Day after day, month after month the Right-Wing radio talkers and Fox News lambasted Obama and the Democrats for everything from the Black Plague to massive loss of jobs and the Dems?   They just laid down and took the pounding seemingly oblivious to the huge media deficit facing the Party. 

They seem to want to live in the political past when footwork won elections.  We are well past that point and for the life of me I cannot understand why almost no one in the Party is willing to recognize the problem and make a decent effort to correct it.  Whoever wins the media contest wins the elections.  That is a fact and like it or not that will be the face of national elections from now on. 

I hope that in this new year the powers that be in the Democratic Party realize that maybe, just maybe, its time to build an effective Liberal machine.  Without it, we will continue to struggle.

Were any of you surprised at the outcome of the recent elections?  I certainly wasn’t.  You could see it coming for months.  We have a president who still thinks he can work with the snakes across the aisle and is not willing to offend them.  And in Harry Reid we have a leader who may as well head back to Searchlight Nevada and  and sit on his front porch.  He is useless.

 Meanwhile we have an almost nonexistant Liberal media presence and no plans to improve it any time soon.  We still have the usual cadre of comedians and phonies representing the left along with almost no effort on the part of so-called Liberal leaders to help rectify the situation.  We need a massive effort by the left to gain the funding needed to mount a serious threat against the right in the media.  Until that is accomplished we will be left with the pathetic presence we have today. 

We know the problems involved with raising money for the left.  We’ve tried in vain for years to bring attention to this problem but have been preaching to deaf ears.  We have the media we deserve. 

President Obama and the rest of those on the Left need to realize that we must fight fire with fire in the media.  The right is using a blow-torch and we have matches.

And its not gonna end anytime soon. The Right is getting ready for an all out seige this election year and the lies and distortions coming from their side will, once again, cause millions of idiot, ignorant Americans to suck up their swill and vote against Democrats. We could easily combat that but the Democratic leadership still has not wised up to the fact that we need to level the playing field so that Liberal Media can have a chance to gain a foothold in the media war. The Right has machine guns and we are throwing pebbles.

Oh, I forgot, the Left has Ed Schultz. How could I have forgotten. I was at an event recently where United Steel Workers President Leo Gerrard announced that Big Eddie is the best friend the Union movement has ever had. I wanted to throw up on his shoes. Evidently Leo knows nothing of Schultz’s background and hatred for unions before he “saw the light” and ran for the money. If Schultz is the best friend Unions ever had I’d hate to know who their real enemies are. If one of our top union leaders is willing to have a total fraud spreading the union message what does that say about the sincerity of the leadership? If you build your foundation on quicksand the structure isn’t going to last very long.

There are a half-dozen broadcasters I know who are far more qualified than Schultz both as broadcast professionals and as people who believe in unions in their gut. They are the real deal not someone pretending to be a believer. What a shame that union leadership is willing to settle for such blatantly insincere and false messenger.

Our Liberal politicans are no better. They show no interest in fighting the right-wing media machine. The only politician I’ve ever known who worked hard to get a Left radio presence established only did it because her husband got a good job out of it.

The ignorance and apathy about the importance of building a strong Liberal media is positively stunning. We have had may inquiries from parties asking us to resume production of “The Guy James Show”. As you know, we had to shut it down for lack of funding. No one who has asked us to resume the show has offered any such funding. For many years I paid for over 90% of the cost of the program from my own pocket. I cannot do so anymore. In fact I WOULD not do that again for if enough people don’t share my vision of a strong Liberal Media then why beat my head against the wall and drain my bank account? So, for now our studio will continue to be dark and gather dust.

I know many of my listeners think I speak too often about how lame the is when it comes to keeping our leadership in line.  They don’t fear us at all.  They eagerly grab the millions of dollars we contribute to them for their election campaigns and then give us a hearty “fuck you” when we ask them to truly represent us on Capitol Hill.  They don’t give the proverbial rat’s ass about what we think because we don’t put any bite behind our bark.  We’re paper tigers and they know it and go on their merry way bowing down to those who they are really afraid of, the special interest groups and their lobbying efforts. 

Oh sure, we have a few groups that exert pressure on our elected Democratic legislators but not enough to really bring them into line.  Its water off of a duck’s back.  They know we’ll moan and bitch about their actions in congress on this issue or that but, ultimately, we’ll come back and support them again or, more importantly, do nothing to get them voted out of office.  Yes, we get them elected and then turn them loose to do whatever they damned well please guided by big money special interest groups and we do very little to bring them to our way of thinking.  How nice for them. 

 Meanwhile, the Right’s media machine, think tanks and such are cranking out massive propaganda campaigns 24/7 while the Left sits idly by and says “aw shucks, we can’t do anything about it because people on the Left don’t follow radio big shots like Limbaugh and his friends the way the Right does.  I call BULLSHIT!!  BULLSHIT!!  We have no influencial think tank with the clout of the Heritage Foundation.  WHY NOT!!  Again we hear the excuse that folks on the Left “think for themselves” and are not influenced in the same manner as are the zombies on the left.  Again I call BULLSHIT!  Simply not true.  I’m tired of the fucking excuses coming from the Left that we can’t do this or we can’t do that because we’re different than the Right.  We could do EVERYTHING the Right does with the same results if we would only get off our asses and make the same sacrifices they have made.  If we would only direct our efforts in the right direction instead of jumping off cliffs like we have been doing while they get their people to march in a straight line toward a common goal. 

 Health Care?  What a laugh!  Baucus, Reid, Pelosi and yes, Obama should be ashamed of what has happened to their original goals.  Or, perhaps I should say OUR goals.  You see, you and I didn’t make deals with big Pharma and the Health care industry the way they did.  We wanted what is right not what would get us re-elected.  We were actually thinking of a good bill that would be good for our fellow citizens.  They never considered their fellow citizens.  Baucus, Pelosi and Reid are a disgrace to the Democratic Party and a huge disappointment to those who spent time and money to get them elected.  Even President Obama is a big disappointment to me on this issue.  He has barely made a whimper as important parts of the proposed legislation were removed one by one along the way.  His power to use the “Bully Pulpit” has not been effectively used at all.  I am profoundly disappointed in him for his lack of action on Health Care legislation.  This bill is an empty sack and anyone who studies it in detail will soon realize that they have accomplished nearly nothing with it. 

All of this has happened because we have no clout.  We have no media machine to counter that from the Right.  We have made some token efforts but have never come up with the backing necessary to have a successful program.  Until the Left gets serious about overcoming this deficit we will continue to have our asses handed to us like we did on this pitiful healthcare bill. 

I have had to suspend my broadcast operations because of lack of funding so, as you can easily tell, I am particularly burned on this subject.  We did The Guy James Show for 7 years paying for most of it out of pocket but when the few who did support us fell by the wayside we have had to shut down the studio for now.  What a shame that another Liberal voice has been silenced by apathy. 

Well, its been very quiet here for quite a while.  Due to fund raising troubles we have had to suspend operations for a time.  We hope to be back soon because we have much to talk about.  I’m sad that another Liberal voice has been silenced for lack of financial support.  It seems that we Liberal Democrats just cannot put our money behind anyone who will broadcast truth.  There are pretenders who try and ACT like Liberals but here at The Guy James Show we live and breathe Liberalism and always have  However, we have fallen way short of fundraising goals and have had to pay expenses out of pocket for some time now.  That cannot continue. 

 If any of you know a Liberal angel who might be willing to help please contact us and let us know.  There is so much I’m dying to broadcast.  I HATE the health care bill.  I’m ASHAMED of the Democratic leadership folks who are hailing this bill as something great when, in fact, it is a hollowed out shell of what Ted Kennedy wanted for our country.  It is completely gutted of anything meaningful toward helping the health care crisis we face now and in the future.  Once the public figures out all of the details there will be hell to pay.  Or, maybe more likely, the public will just lay down and allow the fat cat health care executives to keep running over us and picking our pockets. 

Hope to be back soon. 

I was absolutely correct in my last post concerning the apathy.  Another Liberal broadcaster is going to leave and what is the response?  Nothing….nada…zip…zilch….bupkus.  Those on the Right get things done.  Those on the Left just talk about it. 

We are living in a time when the Right is outnumbered, we own the Legislature and the White House by big numbers and yet we’re getting our asses handed to us on almost every issue.  Why?  Because we talk a good game but thats the end of it. 

We deserve what we are getting.  We could have elected Jesus Christ and we wouldn’t have different results than we are getting at the moment all because we are not making our elected officials stick to their promises.  It is OUR fault that things are not going right.  It is OUR fault that we won’t get the health care bill we really need.  It is OUR fault that we haven’t stood up to the corporate powers that own the government.  We’re getting shafted and we deserve it.

Let me apologize beforehand for seeming to sound defeated, but I admit to having never felt lower than at this moment. 

For nearly 8 years I have been on a mission to do all I could do to help take our country back to its Democratic ideals, ending the wars and attaining economic justice for all Americans.  I have given it my best effort.  I, mistakenly, believed that if I added my voice to the political wars that I could help level the playing field between the Right and the Left in the media competition.  I was wrong……terribly wrong for in those eight years we have gained not an inch in that battle.  The Right continues to run over us in the media and are even increasing their lead every single day.  Why?  Not because they have a message that is good for America.  Quite the contrary, their message is one of fear and destruction.  The real reason is that corporate America and average Americans on the Right are ready and willing to finance the Right-Wing media no matter what the cost.  They have proven, over and over again that they will pay anything necessary to dominate America’s airwaves.  I have to congratulate them for they have done a masterful job of leaving us in the dust. 

Democrats, on the other hand, have not taken the media competition seriously at all.  Oh yes, there was the anemic Air America venture and MSNBC is tilted heavily to the Left but Air America has been a huge failure and MSNBC hasn’t a tiny fraction of the viewership of Fox News.  We have LOST ground.  Why?  Because the Left is apathetic and not willing to bear the burden of the cost of establishing a real media presence, especially in talk radio.  Those of us on the Left who have been bringing  you honest, straightforward political truth day after day have had to beg and borrow just to keep going.  On my own show I have tried to solicit enough help to pay the bills but except for a small handful of loyal listeners, my pleas have gone unanswered.  I do want to emphasize my everlasting gratitude to those who have contributed to the program.  They know who they are and they know I appreciate their efforts so very much. Democrats and Lefties want a media presence but have not supported it in any meaningful way.  Oh sure, Lefties will put forth token efforts to try and fight back against the Right but, mostly their efforts are weak and meaningless.  Take the recent boycott of Glenn Beck’s sponsors.  Does anyone REALLY think that did anything but strengthen Beck and Fox?  All it did was get him more publicity and a bigger audience than before.  The sponsors will come back and he will rise to even greater ratings.  Of course, this didn’t cost any of those making noise against Beck a dime, just further evidence that those on the Left will bark but they won’t bite. 

 It appears that we have lost this battle.  It appears that even though we went to the polls and won the House, Senate and the White House that we don’t have what it takes to follow through.  We are in the majority yet we are losing almost everything we set out to win with this new administration.  The war?  Its getting bigger.  Healthcare?  Its becoming a joke.  All of this caused by the apathy of the Left and their unwillingness to put their money where their mouths are to support and build a media machine on the Left that will effectively combat the propaganda coming from the Right 24/7.

 Frankly, I’m weary of the battle.  I’ve been in it for almost 8 years and have yet to see any real success.  I’ve met with countless individuals, potential patrons, political groups on the Left all over this nation.  I’ve had promise after promise from some of those people that they would help us get our show into high gear.  Mostly all I have to claim from those meetings are a pile of broken promises and empty words of support.  I’ve spent what is to me a large amount of my personal money to try and keep the ship afloat but we are taking on water at a very rapid pace and cannot keep above water for much longer. 

 It is both disappointing and humiliating for me to have to write this post on the blog.  I’ve mentioned some of these same points many times before and to no avail.  It saddens me to think that these nearly 8 years have gone for naught but after much reflection I cannot at this point see the use in going on.  Most likely I will join the others from the Left who have tried and failed to convince even our own people that without an effective media presence our nation will be lost to the Right-Wing crazies who will have steam rolled us into submission simply by owning the airwaves of America.

I have been of a mind to give this up in the past but have never set a date to do it.  Now I am promising that if we don’t find some funding of some kind in the next few weeks we will do our last program on December 8th which will be our 8 year anniversary + one day. 

It is said that winners never quit and quitters never win.   However, in my opinion, if you never win and you never quit you are just plain stupid. 

Wednesday the 8th of July: We will have as our guest of honor, Shirley Phelps-Roper of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka Kansas. 

 I awoke this morning in a cold sweat.  I had been dreaming that my beloved Sarah Palin, the perfect example of all that is right and good about this nation had given a speech and resigned as Governor of Alaska.  While eating my Cheerios I heard the Fox News people saying it was true. (Did you ever have Cheerios coming out of your nose? Painful!)

 Oh Sarah, sweet, lovable Sarah!  Tell me you are only having fun with us.  Please say its was only a joke!

Sarah, how I love thee!  Your unmatched intellect and knowledge of all things…..your complete command of the Constitution, Bill of Rights, American History, Political strategy has impressed us all.  We adore you!  We kneel at your feet!  We kiss the ground you walk on!  We pledge our everlasting devotion to you and will do anything you ask to help elevate you to the office of President of The United States of America.  We are not even worthy to look upon your face and those of your beloved, wholesome, extremely bright family. 

If this is truly the path you have chosen we support your decision for we know it will lead to something much better in the future for you and all of us who have unending faith in you. 

The aforementioned is what I would say if I were one of her idiotic, brain dead lemmings who worship her.  My true feelings are:  Get lost and I pray to God I never see your smug-ass, “you betcha” winking face again.