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During the later years of my civilian @DeptofDefense employment, I listened to @WTOP news radio on my way to and from work almost as assiduously as I would listen to my favorite alternative rock station @103WRNR. It was good to keep informed, but it was not without irritation.
@WTOP's news coverage was not irritating in itself; during changing parties' majorities in Washington, it was very good to keep informed, and @FederalNewsNet's Mike Causey was a useful and reassuring voice talking about issues of particular concern to me. That was not the bother.
What began concerning me was the frequent "tells" suggesting to me that the trend, which I was witnessing first-hand in reorganizations & dog-and-pony shows in the Federal agency to which had devoted my entire career, to run government "like a business": to depend on contractors.
I saw the particular way in which this was happening as a "tail wagging the dog" imbalance. I myself witnessed a workforce where one got promoted for being a loyalist or a sycophant with "corporate values" rather than a contributor to @DeptofDefense and my agency's mission.
That was inside my employer's walls. But now, as I despaired of promotion and thought about that sadly on the way to and from work, day after day (never got that raise in the entire last 20 years of my career), I noticed something on @WTOP that brought me up short as well.
What I noticed was ads - not journalistic content, but ads - that were suggestive of @WTOP's broadcast values embracing, as my workforce was appearing to do, an aggressively pro-private business, pro-corporate set of perspectives and strategies.
These advertisements - most notably for Defense Contractors like Northrup Grumman and in particular for their fighter planes, and for fossil fuel lobbyists like The American Petroleum Institute, made me feel like @WTOP wasn't a station designed for me, but rather for the "suits."
I'd been a bit outspoken in my later employment years, having changed my career field to find work that lit more of a fire under me, proving that career field change effective in increasing my productivity and creativity tenfold, & taking an actual promotion-prospect HIT for it.
I suspected corporate culture for advocating a work atmosphere where authoritarianism - not questioning the ideas and approaches of upper management - was favored over anybody who wanted to actually make work better for everyone but happened to make waves in the process.
And now, @WTOP, a station that I appreciated for giving me straight facts about much that was going on in Washington, including, especially, courageous reporting about corrupting forces within our government as well as in the business world it apparently so wanted to embrace ...
... seemed to need, or at least want, to boost its advertising revenue by running ads for strike fighters & against clean/renewabe energy initiatives. At least, that's how it seemed, right up to when I retired, again without getting a raise that would have helped retirement.
No conspiracy here, no "Deep State" or "Dark Money" forces of industry corruption, somehow affecting both @WTOP and my @DeptofDefense agency. Just the way the world, and American government and business, seemed to be going. And now that way has led us to the @realDonaldTrump era.
Does it seem deliberate? I don't know enough to say "yes" to that, at least not to answer any burden of proof of doing so.
Does it seem interconnected? As so many things in life, that's a much more definite "yes."
Does it seem unfortunate? Assuredly so, to me.
Does it seem interconnected? As so many things in life, that's a much more definite "yes."
Does it seem unfortunate? Assuredly so, to me.
This has been a little bit of the background into how I've come to sympathize with whistle blowers & culture jammers at least as much as with the "success stories" in business and government. I took my chances, having had poor money-saving habits, but I chose according to values.
The religion of my upbringing, which I still profess, though not in a way my parents may have fully endorsed, taught me to appreciate the outcast and to embrace the role of the non-violent troublemaker. As the central figure in that religion bore out, that comes with a price.
But, I think history has also borne out, conformism for the sake of business/commercial/wealth-preserving success comes with a bigger price: one which the whole nation is paying now. Let's adjust our culture ... before it kills us.
