Today will be the last "Democracy’s Edge" Talk Radio Show in Bozeman, Montana. We have aired every Saturday for five years, but we are being replaced by three hours of Tea Bag Bonkerhood and right wingnuttia because of "programing changes". Eventually those locals will probably also be replaced by nationally syndicated bonker bars.

We broadcast from 2-3PM Mountain Time. You can live stream us at Democracy’s Edge

You can call in at 406 932-5165.

Our show was never about validating any political party’s ideas. We were always the feral cats of freedom coughing up hair balls of truth from the crap we have to digest each week from the Fat Cat News. We were always anti-corporatist and often at odds with so-called conservative Democrats and the business liberals. We are more in the tradition of the Farmer Labor Party that hatched Paul Wellstone.

From Aaron Glantz who was an unembedded reporter in Falujah to Francis Moore Lappe to Dean Baker and Glen Ford, we had on cutting edge people who you would rarely hear on NPR. We are proud of having on the rebels and were glad that our final interview was with the great muckraking journalist, Matt Taibbi.

Thera P on TPM talks about the rip in the social fabric. Women often talk in terms of fabric. They speak of weaving together a rich tapestry of beautifully colored thread to make something called democracy. They makes quilts of bits and pieces of used and new swatches of material. They create scrapbooks. They use these to tell the stories of their families’ and neighbors’ lives.

Except for the perennial nut bars with creamy crazy filling like Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin, We hear women talk more about recipe exchanges than we do about moose gutting. Although here in Montana, there is a greater likelihood that your sweet little blond waitress has just shot her deer and put it in her freezer to feed her family for the winter than your waitress in the big city. The difference between your Mother shooting a deer though and your father is that your Mother makes sure the blood doesn’t get all over the back of the Explorer.

But like Thera P, this self-reliance crap that I hear mostly from men, but also now more and more women often made me depressed. That’s why the radio show was a way to verbalize that funk and turn it into righteous anger. And anger, by the way, is a much better emotion for action. Because the opposite of despair is not hope, it is action.

But like Thera P said why does freedom mean hurting somebody else? Why does it mean that there are Americans who according to these rugged individualists are "undeserving"? Why can’t we have the three-legged stool of freedom, equality and fraternity? I have asked that every week for 5 years?

I’m not sure I have an answer. Maybe hope lies in the asking. You see, curiosity did not kill this Feral Cat.

Dave and I were trying to find replacements since both of us needed a deserved rest, but the show got the boot instead. We do have some tricks left up our sleeves, so this may not be the last you hear of us. I’ll also put up some more of our show up on my website montana maven

Thanks to all our listeners from the Teamster Talker and the Radio Rancher, especially Elizabeth Darrow who recruited me 5 years ago and who called in most weeks as "Betsy from Bozeman" Thanks also to our former host Lon Banderob, (Captain B) and Mike Fleshman who passed away last year and who was railing about Wall Street long before most people. And, of course, to our frequent guest host, Margot Kidder, the movie icon, amazing political powerhouse, and the most generous human being I have met.

Yes, this old jalopy called "Democracy" is broken down and stuck in the barrow pit. It’s time to get out the repair manual. Together we can make this deal work. Because without a community and without thinking of ourselves as citizens rather than consumers, we are just a bunch of people living next to each other.

A country is more than just its constitution or its laws. It is its people’s stories and their music. It is their individual but also their collective voices. It is their tall tales, their poems, and their dances. It is their movies and their posters and paintings. It is their imagination. So while they may try to further isolate us by automating and digitalizing and trying to silence our voices, don’t let them.

In Solidarity.
MM