Beat That (Sirius) Dog!

Corpus Juris, who is one of the many talented bloggers at Watching Those We Chose, has a post up on Sirius radio, describing Rick Perlstein's interview on Sirius, and the fact that their political channels are called "Sirius Patriot" and "Sirius Left"; Patriot is described (by Sirius) thusly:

Coast-to-coast conservative -- SIRIUS Patriot celebrates the red, white and blue with patriotic conservatives who aren’t afraid to tell you what they think.

... while "Left" has this description:

Liberal talk radio at SIRIUS. Liberal radio with entertaining hosts only on SIRIUS.

CJ makes the point abundantly clear:

They might as well have said that only manly men are tough enough to listen to SIRIUS PATRIOT, but SIRIUS LEFT is carefully designed for latte drinking sissies.

CJ and others -- including KagroX at the Great Orange Satan (Kos) and Blue Girl -- urge readers to let Sirius Radio know what they think of Sirius' dissing us.

Here's my letter.

Dear Ms. Schupf:

I had been considering Sirius Radio, both for my three vehicles, and for two owned by my parents. I HAD been. After reading about Rick Perlstein's interview on Mike Feder's program, with its clear implication that Sirius believes liberals are not patriotic, and its emphasis on "patriotic conservatives" versus "entertaining [liberal] hosts", I changed my mind.

Liberals are, in many ways, MORE patriotic than the flag-waving conservatives and neocons, who cower at home sporting "support Our Troops" stickers on their SUV's. For instance, we think that providing our troops with the training, equipment, armor, medical treatments and time off they need is more supportive than some silly sticker.

We insist on doing our own thinking, instead of letting the administration think for us. We approach life with an open mind. We are willing to consider the other side of an argument, without lapsing immediately into hysterical shrieking of "the 'terrists' will win", "you hate 'Murka" and "you hate the sweet baby Jesus." We do not believe that gay marriage, abortion, or gun control will destroy the very fabric of our society. We do not cry piously about the morality of others while we ourselves visit prostitutes who dress us up in diapers. Nor, for that matter, do we smoke meth while patronizing gay male prostitutes.

If behaviors like those are what Sirius considers "patriotic", I see no need to purchase your products or services, and I will urge those I know to do the same (note I said "urge", not demand, as your "patriot" buddies would).

As the blogger Corpus Juris put it at Watching Those We Chose:

They might as well have said that only manly men are tough enough to listen to SIRIUS PATRIOT, but SIRIUS LEFT is carefully designed for latte drinking sissies.

Since I am neither an oil billionaire nor a war profiteer -- I work for my money -- I think I'll go with another provider.

Obviously, the only other realistic alternative to Sirius is XM Satellite. Just to sweeten the pot, XM has a dedicated emergency channel -- XM 247 -- that is available 24-7 (hence the channel number) to provide emergency information in a disaster.