Sheldon's new book, blasting "elites" and "phonies" in Dem Party who were too cheap to help start Air America
Believe it or not, I am not trying to offend anyone with my posts.
... many criticisms have been directed at me for the “problems” that Air America has had during its “birth pangs.” Almost 5 years ago I started the Air America project and invested over $3 Million on the start of a liberal radio network. In fact, Arianna invited me to her house in November, 2002 to present some of my ideas with a group of Hollywood elites trying to save Salon.com. At the time, I was a big donor to the Democratic Party and had personal contacts with Bill and Hillary Clinton as well as Al and Tipper Gore. They opened the door for me to meet with everyone on both coasts to try to raise some follow-on money for our project.
We had hundreds of meetings with the kind of people and organizations that collectively were worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Not a single one made an investment with us although many promises were made. The reason that happened is something I wrote about in my book, Road To Air America. I also had introductions to public and union pension funds with promises made to me that never came to pass. The reason was simple. I was not a part of any inner circle in the political or entertainment world. The cronyism is so horrible in the Democratic elite that they have no time for new faces or new ideas. So they continually talk to the same people over and over again with the same result. Nothing ever happens.
My new book is scheduled to be published in the fall and is pictured in this article. My last book was tame in comparison to my new book. The details will be much more informative to the people who look up to these power elites. You will all be shocked at the cronyism and incompetence in that world. Because of the lack of financial support we were obligated to turn over the project to another group that was totally responsible for the early problems of AAR. When we came back to help save AAR, I was the first to give almost $800,000 to save what I thought was a worthwhile project. While there have been substantial investments in AAR since that time, without my business skills and financial contribution in the summer of 2004, AAR would have been out of business.
The money that I put up for AAR was all that I could afford. I am not a mega millionaire nor do I need any handouts from the phonies in the elite to survive. I am doing fine in my business. I was misguided in the belief that these people really cared enough to support a noble project. AAR is going to be successful despite its shortcomings. I am no longer a part of management nor do I have anything to do with programming. I agree with many of the criticisms of AAR, but I am only a minority owner. As a result, my wife and I started a company to acquire radio stations to support the liberal talk format. We have stations in Phoenix and Little Rock and we saved Air America in Phoenix after a Christian radio company bought the AAR affiliate in Phoenix. With the help of the community and our resources, we paid $500,000 to get AAR back on the air in Phoenix. We handle our own programming in Phoenix and Little Rock and some of it is the best that Air America offers.
I do know how to run a business well and syndicated talk radio is not difficult. The program managers on most broadcast media are followers rather than leaders. They are not visionaries and generally look in the rear view mirror for programming ideas. If I were to have had control of AAR with the help of a little backing, things would be much different for AAR’s performance. I do think they are now going in the right direction and our radio company will do a lot to help the cause. The lack of financial support was a major disappointment for me and another example of the fact that “there is no good deed that goes unpunished.” I did not need to do AAR to make a livelihood. I did it because I was frightened about what was happening to our country.
As to Bill Maher and the other Hollywood phonies, please don’t count on them to help. They only care about themselves. It is interesting that shortly after I wrote my book about AAR, my publisher hired the finest PR firm to get some guest appearances for me. One of the firm’s contacts was to the Maher show. At that time, AAR was one of the biggest media stories in the country. And it was mostly positive and well supported. I watched with great interest that season the Ann Coulter premiere interview on the Maher show promoting her new book about how all liberals are insane perverts. That took precedence over a book about AAR, which could have helped publicize the network for the greater good. I did not write the book to make money and in fact I have spent close to $100,000 to get the AAR story publicized for the sake of some balance.
If anyone has any complaints about AAR, please direct them to the phonies in Hollywood and in broadcast journalism who grease each other’s palm instead of doing the right thing. Yes, I am angry with these people for their selfishness and disregard of the struggling constituency that they pretend to support. I actually was a true believer before this all happened. And for those of you who criticize me for my lack of tolerance of these crazy hateful people and their enablers, keep on watching these shows and make them all rich while your life goes down the drain.
Economics is a zero sum game. That is a fact and whatever share of the economic pot the wealthy elites have comes right out of your pocket. It is time for everyone to open up their windows and scream out, “I’m as mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore.”