Conspiracy theory
SCENE: Radio host and caller
HOST: You’re on the air.
CALLER: Hello, am I on the air?
HOST: I said you were. Now do you have something to say or what?
CALLER: Well, sort of.
HOST: Well out with it, man. Do you think I can keep you on all night. I have hundred calls waiting.
CALLER: Okay. I’m sorry. It’s just hard for me to say. First thing I want to say is how much I admire what you’re doing for our country.
HOST: That’s refreshing. Most people call me up to take my head off. We have a lot of liberals who would love to make me look foolish because they don’t want me to tell the truth as I see it.
CALLER: I’m not one of THEM believe me. I remember what it was like when all these talk shows were liberal, and how angry I got when all they told was a pack of lies.
HOST: You won’t get lies here.
CALLER: I know. That’s why I admire you so much. I used to call and try to set the record straight with those liberals. They used to hand me that line about free speech and tell me they had a right to air their opinion.
HOST: Free speech is one thing, you can’t go yelling fire in a crowded theater.
CALLER: That’s what I told them, too. And I asked them how they could use their free speech to undermine the morale of our troops when our soldiers were fighting so hard in Vietnam so we could have free speech in the first place.
HOST: What did those liberals say to that?
CALLER: That’s when they tried to confuse the issue by asking me what the point was of having free speech if they couldn’t use it.
HOST: Leave it to liberals to twist the truth on you.
CALLER: Don’t you worry. We didn’t let them get away with it.
HOST: We?
CALLER: My department. We all felt someone ought to do something about how the liberals controlled the media – especially my boss. So he got something in the budget so some of us could monitor the stations these liberals broadcast from, calling up just to make sure we could counter their lies.
HOST: Are you trying to tell me that the government assigned someone to each station?
CALLER: Not all of them. Only those stations that leaned that way.
HOST: You mean liberal stations?
CALLER: That’s right.
HOST: And that worked?
CALLER: Not as well as we would have liked. My boss realized that as long as the liberals controlled those shows, they would always find a way to make us sound like a bunch of cranks – the way you make liberal callers sound like cranks now.
HOST: And I suppose your boss found a way to deal with that?
CALLER: I should say he did. We took over the stations.
HOST: Pardon?
CALLER: My boss got more money to start getting our people on the air.
HOST: That sounds like a big chore even for the government.
CALLER: It sure what. And it took a long time. We started by petitioning stations to hire more right wing DJs. Some did. A lot didn’t. So we bought the stations.
HOST: You bought the stations? That’s seems hard to believe.
CALLER: Well, my department didn’t do it directly. We had friends – rich sympathizers who didn’t stop with one station or two, but bought whole networks, fired the liberals and hired DJs like you.
HOST: Are you trying to tell me that I’m part of some vast right wing conspiracy?
CALLER: I wouldn’t put it that way.
HOST: How would you put it?
CALLER: Let’s just say you don’t have anything to worry about as long as you say the right things.
HOST: That’s enough. Next caller. You’re on the air…