Radio Killed the Hip-Hop Star, and Other Monopolistic Tales

The discussion at Steve Gilliard's about this article can be roughly summarized as follows: No matter what you listen to, the version of it they play on the radio sucks. The wave of radio consolidation that concentrated most radio stations in the country into the hands of a few owners hasn't just made them politically reprehensible, it's made them downright unlistenable. For now there's Pandora and independent stations like WFMU.

But this brings up a broader point. One thing not mentioned on the Ezra Klein "What Makes a Liberal" list I linked earlier is a belief in trustbusting: the government must make sure no corporation gets too powerful or else democracy suffers. Read, for example, Barry Lynn's argument that Wal-mart must be broken up not because it mistreats its workers, breaks union drives, and has shitty benefits, but simply because it is too big and powerful for the good of the nation as a whole. This is exactly the sort of activist government conservatives hate the most, but it is more important than ever that liberals reconnect with this 100-year-old legacy of the original Progressives.