ALL HAIL THE THINKING VOTER - ER - TAXPAYER

Even after so many years away, people still ask me: “Would you go back into Talk Radio?” It is only then that, realizing I have no interest in returning to the scene that made me a household word so many years ago, I wonder. Is it because I am too old? Burned out? Bored? None of the above. It is because, when given a forum to air views, compare opinions and – most of all – perhaps actually learn from what is said – nothing changes. Every time I returned to the mike there were the same callers saying the same angry and empty things. They weren't the same people of course, but you get the point.

I made several returns to radio, mostly because nothing else was happening in my “career” and there were still broadcast executives who thought I would be good for the ratings. What appalled me was that twenty, thirty, forty years after the mind-numbing calls from people who wanted to talk about crosswalks while the world was in turmoil – nothing had changed. The final reminder of futility came today.

I’m at my computer at early morning to check local and international media for news, and editorial opinion. One of my stops is the Toronto Star. Not because I love the Star, but because it is local and expresses a local point of view. (I could say the same about the Sun, but that would be stooped.) This morning I went to the “comment” section to read what Torontonians were saying about Mayor Ford. A column had been written saying that he had already pushed through three of his campaign promises. Those, in my opinion, were a slam dunk, and like the writer of the article, I warned that he was about to come up against some of the really big stuff. (Even though he promised he would stop the "gravy train," he announced that he had staff working to find elements of that gravy train.) What colossal gall! What I found among the hundreds of responses to the article on Rob Ford’s future, was a replay of the same kind of comments I heard more than forty years ago!

Some were good, but most were expressions of distaste for the Toronto Star, and expressions of delight that Ford had “swept” to victory. What was missing, and it chronically was on the radio, was a real sense of “knowing.” Did these commenters have anything in their words but personal bile? Did they actually have any information? Neither of those two questions can be answered positively. The responses were simply vacuous rants against imagined enemies. The commenters were the very people Ford spoke to successfully when he elevated (?) them from voters to taxpayers. The latter word having the required emotional pull.

Let me pause here. In my radio years people would ask: “How do you keep listening to all those stupid people?” I would try to respond with something to redeem the medium, and in fact, there were always callers who had their wits about them, who contributed opinions based on information. But information doesn’t matter as long as you can persuade people that they are unhappy and voting for him would be a poultice for that unhappiness.

I had hoped, I guess, to be a small contributor to raising public awareness. Instead I became the receptor for some awful illiteracy. I suppose I still envy the Steve Paikens of this world who can do a profoundly intellectual job of dealing with current affairs. I did have my own moments when I could communicate at a decent level and make some small change. But I was, and still am today, haunted by the declaration: “That’s my opinion and I’m entitled to it.” The most mindless reading of democratic thought. The notion that whatever opinion you have, even though it is not backed by information, but is supported by prejudice, is a worthy opinion.

Do I want to re-visit it? You tell me.