As Bill Gates would put it, what do you want to hear today?

Whether you turn on the TV and surf the channels, or switch on the radio and turn the dial, we seem to have close to an infinite number of sources that tell us what is going on in the world. Or do we? Many sources, yes, but just what are they telling us?

On television, we can choose from any number of different mainstream and "homogenized" news shows, the most popular being from the network owned by "Mickey Mouse." You can also listen to Bill O'Reilly twist the truth on the FOX News, his ultra right-wing diatribe available at almost any hour. If you are liberal, there is PBS with its own version of the truth brought to you by sponsors such as Exxon, Mobil, Microsoft, and other major corporations. Something for everyone? No, something seems to be missing - The truth. It is out there, but we, the listeners, are just not getting it.

A few years ago, on my way to work, I was tuning across the dial on my car radio and came across the show Democracy Now! What I have heard since I started listening that day has shocked me. Chevron having dissidents killed in Nigeria, chocolate companies turning a blind eye to the slavery of children in Western Africa in order to maximize profits, the truth about American involvement in the East Timor massacre, the fact that it was the United States that armed bin Laden and the Taliban. And many other stories that have never been covered by the mainstream media and, in some cases actually covered up by them. I listened, and I learned.

So what were we left with after Democracy Now! and other progressive programs were yanked off the air by Pacifica management. Warm and fuzzy reports from our President who sees accuracy as fuzzy math, reported by Mickey Mouse to an audience that has become intellectually enslaved to those making increasing demands for control of our lives and our minds.

The extent that Americans have come under control of the corporate and government message can be illustrated by the following ever-changing media message. When the students in Iran took control of the US embassy there, along with 444 hostages, every sector of the news media told us that Shiite Muslims were real villains because they supported terrorism, and had an agenda to destroy the United States. The same reporters also told us not to blame Islam, and pointed to Sunni Muslims as the peace loving part of Islam. But since the World Trade Center bombing, we have been told that it is the Sunni Muslims who are the extremists and that the Shiites are the moderates. To anyone who has read George Orwell, the manipulation of American minds by the corporate-owned and government-censored media is chilling in its implications.

In an era of secret tribunals, assaults on the US Constitution by an Attorney General who has made the statement what we "had better watch what we say", we need to realize that our precious Freedoms are in the process of being hijacked just as surely as Utrice Leid hijacked WBAI a little more than a year ago.

A new and free Pacifica has never been needed more than it is now, and it will take hard work by every dissident board member, by every station's LAB, and by every listener who cares about its mission to set the network back on its progressive course. As clearly demonstrated at the first meeting of the new interim Pacifica National Board (PNB), the old majority members remaining on the board are going to fight and resist the inevitable as long as they see a sliver of hope for their agenda. Their goal being to convert the network into just another mainstream corporation like Clear Channel Communications, the company that owns a majority of the radio stations in the Houston listener area and treats people merely as numbers; a commodity to be manipulated for its advertisers.

What do I, as a listener, want to hear today? Not the pabulum puke that Mickey and the government are trying to feed me. And certainly not the hate mongering of Bill O'Reilly on FOX. Neither do I want to listen to the dumbed-down reporting of PBS, whose content is controlled by the very corporations that donate to it. I want to hear the honest opinions of others, even if I don't always agree with them. I am an adult - I may learn something. I want to hear balanced news reports that don't pull punches. I am an adult - I can handle it. I want to hear the voice of the disenfranchised calling out for justice where there is no other voice willing to stand up and speak for them. I am an adult - I will add my voice to theirs. I want to hear a restored Pacifica Network speak the honest truth once more. I am an adult - I will listen and embrace freedom.