American Renaissance There is not a truth existing which I fear or would wish unknown to the whole world. — Thomas Jefferson Vol 10, No. 1 January 1999 Straight Talk on the Airways? What talk-radio hosts ture? AR asked seven well-known talk- ber of dissident magazines and Internet think about race and immi- radio hosts about their views on race and sites and says that “talk radio is only a immigration: David Brudnoy, Larry El- part of the move away from liberal domi- gration. der, Bob Grant, Ken Hamblin, Michael nance of the media.” Medved, Al Rantel and Michael Reagan Mr. Grant, however, discovered the by James P. Lubinskas (see page 4 for how to get information limits of talk radio’s openness in 1996 about their broadcasts).They are all on when he mentioned the AR conference n a culture dominated by liberal as- the right but range from standard that was to be held later that year in sumptions, Americans have to look “Reaganite” conservative, to libertarian, Louisville. “These are outstanding Ihard for the truth about race and im- speakers,” he said, “and if I can, I’m migration. They can find it on the going to take my microphone down there Internet, on some cable-access channels, and tune in.” This infuriated a lefty occasionally on C-Span, and sometimes group called Fairness & Accuracy In Re- on talk radio. Of these, radio is by far porting (FAIR), which took out an ad in the most popular medium and has the the New York Times accusing Mr. Grant greatest impact. of “bigotry” and of promoting “white su- The current reach of talk radio is rela- premacy.” WABC, which had just been tively recent. Although some hosts, like bought by the Walt Disney Company, David Brudnoy in Boston, have had de- soon fired Mr. Grant even though he had voted followings for years, talk radio the highest ratings at the station. He began in earnest in the late 1980s, and quickly landed a job at another New by 1993 Rush Limbaugh could claim York broadcaster, WOR, and his pro- over 20 million listeners. Mr. Lim- gram is as popular as ever. baugh’s success drew many imitators, All the hosts criticize affirmative ac- and by the mid-90s other conservatives tion and most get hate mail when they like Oliver North and Gordon Liddy had do so. David Brudnoy, for example, is a programs. Talk radio reflects America. favorite target of Harvard’s white liber- Although broadcasters are constrained als, but Mr. Elder has had what may be to some degree by liberal taboos, they David Brudnoy the worst experience with hate mail– hire hosts who can win audiences, so to views close to those of AR. Mr. probably because he is black. A Los programming is generally conservative. Hamblin and Mr. Elder are black. We Angeles group called Talking Drum National Public Radio, which goes to asked to interview Rush Limbaugh and Community Forum stirred up an intense Congress and its listeners rather than the Gordon Liddy but they declined. campaign against him and distributed market for support, is relentlessly leftist scurrilous fliers to sponsors. The fliers but in commercial radio, liberals like Talk radio is a good claimed, among other things, that Mr. Jerry Brown and Mario Cuomo have Elder thinks it appropriate to refer to failed to develop sizable audiences. guage of what Americans blacks as “niggers.” At the height of the Because there is so little straight talk think about race. campaign he even got death threats. Mr. about race in the mainstream media, talk Elder invited representatives of the radio is a good gauge of how Americans All the hosts agree that talk radio is group to appear on his program to de- feel about it. And since hosts reflect their important because it is so open to dis- bate the fliers, but they refused. Several listeners, they themselves are consider- sent. Ken Hamblin calls it “the unfiltered sponsors withdrew support and the ably more representative of popular voice of the American people,” who are broadcaster cut his air-time from four to opinion than are the editorial pages of tired of writing letters to their local two hours a day. However, replacements the New York Times or even the New York newspapers that are altered or ignored. failed to match Mr. Elder’s ratings, and Post. Al Rantel says radio offers “the most he is now back to four hours. What do some of the major person- opportunity to the average person who All of these program hosts are criti- alities in the business think about the cannot get on television or in the news- cal of American immigration policy. Mr. issues that most affect the country’s fu- papers.” Larry Elder points to the num- Continued on page 3 American Renaissance - 1 - January 1999 Sir – Last month you wrote that a hate crime against a homosexual in Wyoming received much more press than similar anti-white crimes. On ABC’s Nightline, a homosexual filmmaker said the way to stop anti-homosexual crime is to dis- card “outmoded” notions of sexual iden- tity. He wants to start in the schools, where all “dysfunctional” identities will be rooted out. This is a good thing! If trying to turn our children into homo- sexuals doesn’t wake us up, nothing will. Thomas Oleson, Gig Harbor, Wash. Sir – The way Thomas Jackson writes about the European partition of Africa essentially disappeared until Lincoln would make one believe it was a great, Letters from Readers fished it out again for the Gettysburg romantic expression of the white man’s Sir – Samuel Francis, in Part I of his Address in a fraudulent attempt to give dynamism. This is an odd position for article on “Race and the American Iden- his war upon the Confederacy the ap- AR to take. Even if the civilization Eu- tity,” says many true and important pearance of a campaign for democracy ropeans brought to Africa was vastly things. Yet he seems to have overlooked and freedom. superior to anything indigenous, what that in the Declaration of Independence The purposes to which the liberals put justification was there in forcing it on the phrase “all men are created equal” is the equality clause are just as fraudulent. anyone? In his speech to the 1994 AR followed not by a full stop but a comma, We should therefore expose the fraud conference, Jared Taylor points out that and it goes on to declare the respect in rather than criticize Jefferson for writ- white Americans have the right–he calls which they are equal; namely in their ing what was a perfectly useful statement it the obligation–to resist displacement rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of designed to tweak the nose of a mon- even by people who may be superior to happiness. arch to which he no longer wished to be us in every way. Didn’t the Africans have These rights are option rights (not to bound. the same rights and obligations? And be injured by others) rather than welfare Alexander Selkirk, Groton, Mass. weren’t the Europeans just as blamewor- rights (to be supplied with goods at the thy as the Third World invaders AR is expense of other people.) It would be always on about? even more wrong to suggest that the Sir – Regarding your O Tempora item Although one might debate the eth- founders declared that all men or all sets in the November issue titled “Not Inter- ics of it, a pragmatic case could be made of men are equal in their abilities. marrying,” I don’t believe it. My eyes for colonizing Africa if it had been like Prof. Anthony Flew, Reading, En- aren’t lying to me. I grew up here in the colonizing North America, where na- gland 1950s. One never saw an interracial tives were displaced in order to extend couple back then–never. Now it is im- the reach and power of whites. But aside possible to go out without seeing many from Algeria and a few parts of South- Sir – Let us not forget that the equal- such couples. ern Africa, it was never even that. Colo- ity clause appears in the Declaration, not Dax Crockett Stewart, McGregor, nies were prestige projects for politicians in the Constitution. It was addressed to Tex. and bargaining chips in European diplo- King George III to explain to him that macy. They were administrative head- the authors of the Declaration consid- aches that then became springboards for ered themselves his political equals and Sir – The December issue reports that non-white immigration to Europe. Eu- entitled to independence. The Declara- liberal whites are leaving South Africa ropean involvement in Africa–aside tion severed ties with England; it did not because they no longer feel appreciated from the dubious achievement of giv- establish a new government. In the Con- by their former black comrades. Now it ing Africans a taste for a way of life they stitution one finds no chatter about appears that the widow of Alan Patton, can never achieve–has therefore been di- equality because that was the document whose book Cry, the Beloved Country sastrous. It is all very well to write the founders were going to have to live did so much to ruin South Africa, is also admiringly of patriotic Germans bound- by. In fact, as Dr. Francis points out, the leaving. Apparently she is tired of ing through the jungle in the name of Constitution is steeped in inequality.