Comin’ ‘Round Full Circle Music and politics are on the bill at the annual WERU fair

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If you’re going to have a keynote speaker at an event, make sure he or she has an opinion. That’s not a problem for David Barsamian, who will be speaking at WERU’s Full Circle Fair this Saturday and Sunday at the Blue Hill Fairgrounds. Barsamian’s address is set for 2-3 p.m. Sunday on the Infield Stage. There will also be 45 musical acts featured, headlined by Christine Lavin, Devonsquare and Billy Jonas.

In a media landscape peopled with such conservative commentators as Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly, Barsamian is an iconoclast of the truest sort, presenting progressive ideas on his weekly show “Alternative Radio,” which airs on around 125 public and community radio stations nationwide.

H.L. Mencken once observed “No one in this world … has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people,” a dictum upon which politics and advertising are built. But Barsamian (pronounced Bar-saam-yaan) has turned that idea on its head, presenting hour-long discussions with liberal thinkers.

So why has “Alternative Radio,” which airs at 10 a.m. Mondays on WERU (89.9, 102.9 FM), succeeded?

“Because of the deplorable job that the corporate media and public broadcasting have done,” said Barsamian in a phone interview from his home base at KGNU FM in Boulder, Colo. “The interests of who is behind U.S. policies are never explored there. Just look at the propaganda campaign to support the Iraqi war as an example. We’re presenting thinkers that the other media ignore.”

Barsamian said that his hundreds of thousands of listeners “share concerns about Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the increasing militarization and bellicose postures of the United States, because they’re the ones that are paying for these imperialistic campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. Due to the particularly aggressive nature of the Bush administration, there’s been a sharp increase in the number of alternative views.”

So how does one become an outspoken liberal broadcaster? In Barsamian’s case, it was rather circuitously.

A New Yorker born of Middle Eastern parents, Barsamian has little formal training in the media. Rather he spent more than a decade figuring out what he wanted to do, first studying music in India, then returning to his home city, surviving by giving sitar lessons and teaching English to immigrants.

It was after moving to Boulder, where his sister was living, that he found his calling. KGNU was just starting, and he sold the station on an international music show, “Ganges to the Nile.”

About the time of the Iranian hostage crisis in the mid-’80s, Barsamian began adding political information to his show, to counter the anti-Islam propaganda that was again at that time prevalent in the country. Such material resonated in liberal Boulder, and, thus encouraged, Barsamian began bringing on reformist ideologues to his show.

He began disseminating “Alternative Radio” nationally via satellite in 1986. He has also published six books based on his interviews with such thinkers as Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Eqbal Ahmad and Edward Said. (Common Courage Press in Monroe is one of his publishers.)

Barsamian is in a position to gauge the national mood based on the demands for his message.

“I’ve been traveling nonstop since 9-11,” he said. “People are very, very worried. They’re hearing that by invading Iraq, we’re safer, and yet that we’re under greater and greater threat from terrorists, and it doesn’t add up. The Bush administration is speaking out of both sides of their mouths. Americans are so sharp that they’ve figured out that the government is lying, and they want the truth. That’s why they’re turning to shows like mine. There’s a huge amount of interest in independent analysis.”

Despite “Alternative Radio” having been on the air nationally for 18 years, Barsamian still sees individual episodes not being aired, depending on the topic, especially by public-radio stations. (The show airs irregularly on Maine Public Radio.)

“If you scratch beneath the surface on public-radio program directors, you’ll find that they’re timid, skittish, and won’t air anything that will rock the boat,” he said. “Most controversial is anything on the Israeli-Palestinian situation. I get the most grief about that, for not presenting the Israeli point of view. I figure there’s enough among the corporate media doing that already.”

Barsamian doesn’t want any of the strings attached to government or corporate money. So “Alternative Radio” is entirely supported by listeners’ purchases of show tapes and transcripts and money from Barsamian’s speeches and writings.

“The most gratifying support is from listeners of alternative radio,” he said. “It allows me to present radical, progressive views without interference from underwriters.”

Barsamian especially appreciates community radio stations such as WERU.

“They’re one of the islands of audio independence in a sea of corporate control,” he said. “It’s important, especially in a time of war. We need to have a clear explanation from the media of why these wars are necessary. When the evidence was completely distorted, as a result of government lying being repeated by corporate media, community radio is the oxygen of democracy, where listeners can turn for independently verified information.”

For more information on the Full Circle Fair, contact WERU at 469-6600 or access www.weru.org.

Full Circle Summer Fair performances

Saturday

. Infield Stage: 2-2:30 p.m., contradance introduction; 2:30-3:30, WestBay String Band; 3:30-4, Angeline the Baker; 4-5, Laurie Jones; 5-6, Devonsquare; 6-7, Christine Lavin; 7-8, David Dodson and the Bunny Gods; 8-10, community jam.

. Acoustic Stage: 2-3 p.m., Everard Dodge & Rosanna Rogers; 3-4:30, Harvey Reid & Joyce Andersen; 4:30-5:30, Akire Bubar; 5:30-6:30, Billy Jonas; 6:30-7:30, Jay & Bjorn Peterson.

. Voices Stage: 2-3 p.m., Billy Jonas, songwriting workshop; 3-4, Billy Jonas, children’s performance; 4-5:30, poetry block; 5:30-6:30, Chellie and Hannah Pingree; 6:30-7, Mainers for the Utah Wilderness slideshow; 7-8, Old Grey Goose.

. Rhythm Section: 3:30-4:30 p.m., knitting circle with Christine Lavin.

Sunday

. Infield Stage: 10-11 a.m., community drum session; 11-noon, Big Top Vertigo; noon-1 p.m., Ian Parker and Rumble Strip; 1-2, David Mallett; 2-3, speaker David Barsamian; 3-4, SONiA; 4-5, Pushing Zero; 5-6, Brain Surgeons.

. Acoustic Stage: 10:30-11:30 a.m., Louise Taylor; 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.; Jud Caswell & Alfred Lund; 12:30-1:30, Emma’s Revolution; 1:30-2:30, St. Huckleberry; 2:30-3:30, Bobbi Lane; 3:30-4, Kate Wegner with Chuck Donnelly; 4-4:30, Evan Greer; 4:30-5:30, David Rovics.

. Voices Stage: 11 a.m.-noon, Billy Jonas; noon-1 p.m., Sorcha; 1-2, Juliane Gardner; 2-3, Sonya Heller; 3-4, shape note singing workshop; 4-5, Phil Worden; 5-6, Pete Tridish.

. Rhythm Section: 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Kwabena Owusu; 2-3, Jordan Bennisan; 3-4, Alfred Lund.