Doug, I'm sure you know that the predominance of particular views on the mass media is not commensurate with people's voting patterns, among other things. Listener/viewer numbers are important to the decision makers, but they generally care more about how you vote at Wal-Mart than how you vote at the polls. They also care mostly about certain "demographics," wherein they believe people's buying habits are most malleable. Moreover, you can bet that people like Rupert Murdock have their own political views and to some extent will promote those views via the media that they own, rather than always going with what the majority want.

I understand, BTW, that when Americans were polled, quite a substantial majority wanted both Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader to be included in the 2000 Presidential debates. Were "the people's wishes" catered to? No, because the two major parties didn't want third parties to be given such a big microphone.

Further, Doug, I was not aware that there was such a thing as "the conservative point of view" in the sense of a set of beliefs and attitudes that "conservatives" share on all issues. It may be that more people call themselves "conservative" than "liberal" right now (partly because there's continuous "conservative" propaganda presented about 80% of the time on the radio [while TV is much more likely to present debates], but that does not mean that most Americans agree with Rush Limbaugh and his cronies on most issues. (And Donohue is nowhere near as far to the left as Alan Keys and others are to the right. You're not likely to see Angela Davis having a talk show on a big cable network any time soon.)

But your point about starting a radio station on the net is well taken. The internet may yet be Joe and Jane Public's salvation from the tyranny of corporate ownership of everything. It's already helping folks find music that the big corporations wouldn't promote, and it does allow people to self publish, etc. Not a bad idea to break the "Disney-Time/Warner-AOL-etc." habit.

As for holding foreign nationals without due process in a time of national emergency, in limited circumstances that might be justified, but this "emergency" is much too nebulous in the definition of its scope and duration to be good justification for such.

Genie