Mideast Madness

Host, Lawrence "Ren" Tawil first invited me to call in to debate on his show, I didn't jump at the opportunity. But I did tune in on Monday afternoons to listen to his show, "Mideast Madness." I heard him calling for "Betsy" to call in on more than one show. But I didn't call in. I just listened.

On February 25th, under cold, windy skies, I joined a vigil calling attention to the ongoing deaths of civilians under the US Drone program. While I do not call for the complete elimination of the use of drones in warfare (versus say carpet bombing.....drones have FAR fewer civilian casualties), none of us have any assurance a system of checks & balances are in place to prevent the abuse of such deadly weapons which can deliver death from the sky virtually anywhere on earth. But I didn't organize the protest. Mike and Maureen Smith did. They chose to emphasize the deaths of children from US drones. A moving exhibit was displayed, and musician Mark Levy sang anti-war songs.

I left the protest and returned to the relative warmth of my parked vehicle. I turned the radio on and listened for Ren and his Mideast Madness show. I was determined that THIS time, I would call in and have that debate on the air, as he had asked and to which I was quite prepared to engage in. You can hear me in the last half hour of his 2-hour show. After he cut me off the air for "dominating" the discussion, I listened to him trash me on the air for the next 10 minutes.

---- Becky Johnson, former producer of "Bathrobespierre's Broadsides: Civil Rights for the Poor" from 1997 - 2006, Free Radio Santa Cruz 101.3 FM