strange experience calling into 2 (supposedly) left-wing talk shows

[wli]

First I tried to call into Mike Malloy. He mentioned ALEC and their dirty dealings in Republican politics. I called in about the ties between ALEC's connection to the corruption in the prison industry, and was told it was not relevant. I figured it was an unusual event, and didn't see it as a big deal. My comments would have been brief, merely relating to corruption and political dealings of ALEC in the context of lobbying on behalf of the prison-industrial complex or whatever.

Then I called into Bernie Ward after he was talking about the joint Sino-Russian military exercises and the like, specifically about the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the whole "joining up" of those who might be oppose US economic or other hegemony (which he mentioned the joint exercises as a complement to). I was similarly told the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was "not relevant" and more or less hung up on without being put on hold or anything (granted, my comments would have been brief, merely pointing out the formality and breadth of the military alliance involved with those exercises).

I'll probably also call into Ray Taliaferro's show later on tonight, if for nothing else than to tell Ray how awesome he is. But who knows? I may have an issue to talk about.

The notion that calls were being screened this way struck me as strange, and it wasn't entirely clear to me that the "relevance filtering" was in fact serving its stated purpose. In both cases, my calls (it may be more a question of whether the call screeners could make the connections) developed more in depth what were already topics of ongoing discussions.

Anyhow, comments, interpretations, solidarity, criticism of my own "position" as it were, and the like, are all welcome. I think these points would be useful to bring up on DU in and of themselves, in addition to their being refused by liberal radio/webcasts. A general idea of "what the heck happened?" would be particularly useful for me.