Tim Gatto, Uncut And Uncensored
By Timothy V. Gatto
13 August, 2012
Countercurrents.org
My radio show, Tim Gatto Uncut and Uncensored, is carried by Blog Talk Radio every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 9:00 PM EST. The show runs for two hours and brings listeners the best and brightest from the left side of the political spectrum. The show, originally called Liberalpro, has been on the air (off and on) for about five years. This year has been the most successful, garnering more listeners than all of the previous years combined.
The show has very few live listeners as 99% of the audience podcasts the show. Of all the left-wing radio shows currently broadcast in the US, Tim Gatto, Uncut and Uncensored maintains no political party affiliations, although I have endorsed Former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party for President. It has no corporate sponsors and is entirely written and produced by Tim Gatto, who also publishes the website Liberalpro.
The interview with Rocky Anderson was an interview that totally blew me away. I wasn’t expecting the kind of honesty and candor that came through. By the end of the show, I was firmly in the Anderson camp after listening to Rocky Anderson call for Barack Obama’s impeachment on the grounds that he committed war crimes by assassinating American citizens in clear violation of the Constitution when he ignored due process by eliminating Anwar al-Awlaki and three weeks later, killed his sixteen year-old son.
Yes, Anwar al-Awlaki was a radical Muslim cleric. Yes, his language and speeches were incendiary. He may even have engaged in plots against the United States – but we do not know that because he was never indicted for a crime.
This profile should not have made him a target for a killing without due process and without any effort to try him. The US government knew his location for purposes of a drone strike, so why was no effort made to arrest him in Yemen, a country that apparently was allied in the US efforts to track him down? (UK Guardian September 30, 2011)
Many times, TV and radio programs claim to be “liberal” or “left-wing”, more often than not, they turn out to be mouthpieces for the Democratic Party. Rachel Maddow’s show and Chris Matthew’s show on MSNBC are prime examples. Sometimes Dylan Rattigan and Ed Shultz can surprise, but more often than not, they could pass the DNC’s muster for being “politically correct”.
This is something that I find exceedingly problematic. I sit back and wonder if this is because I have become more radical. The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that the networks are to blame. One only has to examine the coverage of the violence in Syria to figure it out.
Since the trouble in Syria started, the opposition forces have been characterized as “Freedom Fighters” and the conflict characterized as part of a greater Middle-East “Democratic Awakening”, part of “The Arab Spring”.
While Libya, Egypt and Tunisia are considered successful democratic movements, the problems in Bahrain and the uprisings in Saudi Arabia aren’t widely reported. The fact that the “Gulf Cooperation Council (the GCC)” sent troops into Bahrain to quell the largely Shia uprising against the Sunni Monarchy is barely mentioned, the fact that the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others have been supplying weapons to the rebels in Syria since at least December of 2001 is also not well known.
The news is carefully managed. The idea that we enjoy “Freedom of the Press” here in the United States is pure propaganda. We have the illusion of a free press. In this capitalistic system of ours, even news programs require sponsors. Glen Beck was booted off FOX News after his sponsors pulled the plug on him for offending too many people. The same thing happened to Keith Olbermann. You can say what you wish on American media, but if you step over that line, you won’t stay on the air.
Most Americans think they understand how it all works. This is the most disturbing part of the situation. Many Americans believe they know the score in Syria, just as they thought they knew the score in Libya. If you ask a typical American about Libya, he or she can give you the basic facts about what happened there. If you really want to know just how informed they really are, ask them what the situation in Libya is like now. Odds are, they haven’t a clue. This just proves my point. The people in America only know what the government wants them to know.
This is why I publish Liberalpro and why I broadcast Tim Gatto Uncut and Uncensored. We have no real news in the United States. In the last four months, the statistics on how many people visit my website, and how many people listen to the radio show have gone up over 1000%. Today, over 10,000 people visit the site or listen to the radio show. This is with no real advertising except word of mouth. While the figures are small compared to the networks or syndicated radio, for a site with no real money behind it, or a radio show with no advertising, I believe the figures are impressive.
I also believe that Americans really do want the truth. I believe that the rise in listeners and readers are indicative of this. I will continue to write and broadcast as long as there are people that read and listen to me.
Tim Gatto is former Chairman of the Liberal Party of America, Tim is a retired Army Sergeant. He currently lives in South Carolina. He is the author of "Complicity to Contempt" and "Kimchee Days" available at Oliver Arts and Open Press.
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