Radio reactionaries

November 14, 1995
Issue 

Demons at Drivetime
Directed by Kerry Brewster
To be screened on SBS Television's Cutting Edge
Tuesday, November 21, 8.30pm (8pm South Australia)
Previewed by Peter Boyle
If you have been telling yourself that we are lucky in Australia do not face the sort of right-wing populism now on the rise in the USA, take a look at Demons at Drivetime. Every day and night, a professional squad of right-wing propagandists — including Alan Jones, Ron Casey, Brian Wilshire, Stan Zemanek, Howard Sattler and Bob Francis — spew their bigoted and reactionary poison to a nation-wide audience that probably numbers more than a million. Each of these reactionary radio "talk-back hosts" has his favourite obsession. Ron Casey loves attacking Asians ("slant-eyed slopeheads"), Stan Zemanek goes for the "socialist criminals in Canberra", and Brian Wilshire loves loony right conspiracy theories. In Perth, the capital of the last frontier of Australian colonisation, Howard Sattler's pet bogey is juvenile Aboriginal crime. But all share a technique: 1. Pick an issue that can frighten, shock or anger the masses; 2. Stir emotions; 3. Like Adolph Hitler, pose a simplistic reactionary solution in the righteous voice of the "small man"; 4. Abuse, intimidate, talk over or cut off anyone who disagrees with you. For instance, it is easy to turn the fear of crime into public hysteria. Demons at Drivetime demonstrates how far this can go with the several thousand strong "lynch mob" organised by 6PR's Howard Sattler in Perth, in 1991, against Aboriginal juvenile offenders. Aboriginal activist Mingglin Wanjurn-Nungala, who bravely checked out the nearly all-white "Rally for Justice", says that it could have been a Ku-Klux Klan mobilisation except that the people were not wearing white hoods. "They didn't feel that they needed to wear hoods in WA!" Demons at Drivetime is a cinema verite-style documentary. Brewster lets her subjects expose themselves. "These extremely influential and very opinionated men were very relaxed in front of the camera", she says. "They reveal themselves in a light that's not exactly flattering." The camera also captures the uncomfortable looks that flash across the faces of the mainly young and female staff of these talk-back reactionaries as they arrogantly display their bigotry. It also catches the embarrassed discomfit of senior executives of large corporations which advertise on these reactionary programs. A senior Air New Zealand executive excuses his contact with Ron Casey: "He delivers our market". But the camera obscures the real relationship between these crude but effective propagandists and the ruling class. More than good advertisers, these talk-back hosts are doing some of the necessary filthy political work that keeps advanced capitalism working. Bronwyn Bishop might be one of the few politicians who dared to publicly support the reactionary radio squad in Demons at Drivetime but many others, Labor and Liberal, trade on the same reactionary propaganda. Phillip Adams and Tickner are interviewed as critics of Casey and Co. but their arguments are timid. Characteristically Adams sneers that these are Philistines. Tickner tries to muster outrage at the offence the radio reactionaries cause to Aborigines and other racial minorities. The reactionaries respond by mocking "comfortable but naive do-gooders", and by claiming to be victims of censorship and political correctness. The offence caused by the radio reactionaries is real, but this is only a nasty side-effect of their right-wing propaganda offensive which few in the liberal intelligentsia or in the Labor "left" are actively contesting. You have to look to the alternative media and the progressive street campaigners to find the beginnings of a real response.

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