It's no longer the world of fantasy. You know, we've been living in this world where we all trusted it was going to happen and, you know, we were wrong.

I watched Left of the Dial this week, which was a great documentary look at the creation of the national liberal talk radio network, Air America. Air America is an interesting idea. Talk radio is dominated by right wing sources, so a group of liberals banded together to create their own radio station. They wanted to energize the liberal base and help defeat President Bush.

The whole thing was fascinating to me. I've done a fair amount of activism work and the same problems I've seen show up here. You have a large number of very passionate people who still have to deal with the realities of business and cash flow. Unfortunately it appears that some of the people running the show at Air America weren't very good at running business, or more accurately they played chicken with bad circumstances and lost, badly. This sent the company into a free fall where they were literally operating day to day. It's quite amazing they survived until this day.

There are two key areas of interest here. First is the insanity of a start up of this magnitude. They tried to start a national radio network, on day one. That's insane and the first quarter of the movie deals with the hectic environment that actually got them on the air. It's a reminder to all of us that new endeavors are best started small, with a manageable goal.

Second was watching these people that believe so heavily that what they are doing is truth. They believe the republicans are just plain wrong, and can't believe that smart people don't agree. Seeing their reactions when Bush won the election was an insight into humanity. A truth they held to be infallible was crumbling before them (not that republicans are wrong, I'm with them on that one, but that smart people can believe in them. For the record, I think democrats are mostly wrong too.)

Air America is still running today, and you can listen to it whenever you like at their website. Overall it was well made and interesting to watch. I think it's a must see for you liberals out there, not so sure about the people on the other side of the fence.

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