My Complicated Relationship With NPR

I confess. I am an NPR junkie. I listen to it in the car, while I cook, while other people are watching the Super Bowl. I use ideas I get from NPR in my teaching. I drop NPR nuggets in conversation with friends. It's the best thing going in terms of intellectual stimulation and reliable news. And, yet, I get irritable with its liberal leaning, romantic meritocracy. When I say liberal, it's not because I am a conservative who sees "liberal bias" of the media everywhere. I say liberal because NPR is not radical enough for me. Coverage of issues on NPR stops short of calling it like it is, that corporations have high-jacked democracy, the the top 1 percenters control the lion's share of the wealth (and the means to get their message out to the masses), that we're going to hell in a hand basket environmentally, that we are a hair-trigger's millisecond from nuclear annihilation. I want NPR to get off its polite, liberal ass and take a stand for the social overhaul that I think is necessary for our survival rather than placate the very corporations that continue to fleece the rest of us, that will suck the last bit of living breath out of the planet to keep from giving their gold to those who most need it. It's time, NPR. It's the eleventh hour.