This is Citizen Radio

JAMIE KILSTEIN, the left-wing comedian, came through Champaign-Urbana, Ill., last semester to do his comedy routine at the University of Illinois for an event hosted by the Student Secular Alliance, as a part of "International Blasphemy Day."

For those who don't know him, Kilstein co-hosts Citizen Radio with political blogger/journalist Allison Kilkenny. His comedy is just what it should be: parodies of the right wing, anecdotes about what it is to be a genuine progressive in the U.S., and so on.

Citizen Radio is an important and often humorous resource for progressive news and analysis. The radio podcast is probably a more interesting story than Kilstein's comedy itself, as it has hosted names such as Bill Ayers, Noam Chomsky, Jeremy Scahill, Matt Taibbi, Chris Hayes, Amy Goodman and Glenn Greenwald, plus musicians such as Talib Kweli and members of bands like Anti-Flag, System of a Down and Bad Religion.

The podcast also serves as a locus of activism by covering ongoing struggles and linking listeners to on-line petitions.

In the true spirit of the hipster/lifestyle politics generation, the hosts of Citizen Radio scream (as loud as they can, which isn't very loud) in favor of vegetarianism and veganism. But at the same time, they openly refuse to tell listeners to boycott stores like Wal-Mart because they're aware that it isn't realistic for working-class people to do so in this increasingly low-wage economy.

The constant plugs for vegetarianism and veganism can be annoying, and they're often moralistic about it, but they also highlight the detrimental effects of meat production on the environment, instead of simply trying to pull the heartstrings of people's sympathy for animals.

And, of course, as all hipsters do, they make fun of hipsters--presuming, incorrectly, that they themselves are not. But if one of the main objectives of the show is to get as many "apathetic hipster douchebags" as they can to get off the couch and into the streets, then it's probably one of the best platforms to do that at the moment.

Support for working-class causes, like the Chicago Teachers Union strike, and sympathy for working-class concerns also factor into the show.

WHAT'S INTERESTING about Kilstein's quirky comedy isn't just that he does a fairly good job of using this medium in a way that makes progressive politics accessible. More importantly, college atheist groups request him to speak on their campuses, and his views on the relationship between atheists, religion and the left are often more politically advanced than the groups that ask him to speak.

While admittedly influenced by the self-styled "four horsemen of the New Atheism"--Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and the late Christopher Hitchens--the hosts of Citizen Radio openly reject the Islamophobia that is characteristic of many of the statements "the horsemen" make about the Muslim world.

Embracing the attitudes of the "four horsemen" has led some atheists and atheist groups in the West to celebrate what they call "Draw Mohammed Day," in which participants draw stick figures labeled with the prophet's name in front of local mosques and Islamic centers throughout the U.S.

It's obviously backward in a country like the U.S. where Muslims are the targets of discrimination, repression and, all too often, violence for a group of mostly white kids to commit such an act of blasphemy. It looks like a provocation to violence and even an encouragement to the racists. Atheist groups more recently changed the name of "Draw Mohammed Day" to "International Blasphemy Day," presumably to deflect attention from their Islamophobia or to style themselves as "equal opportunity offenders."

At the moment, Citizen Radio seems to be one of the few left-wing outlets that is more or less criticizing the abysmal Islamophobic trend in the politics of atheism. Others include Richard Seymour in his latest Unhitched: The Trial of Christopher Hitchens, Deepa Kumar in her book Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, independent journalist Austin Mackell, Terry Eagleton, and Amarnath Amarasingam, et al., in Religion and the New Atheism.

Citizen Radio is an increasingly important forum for discussion and debate on the left. While it mostly serves as a news commentary outlet, the discussion often reaches theoretical debates, with important implications for the left. These, among others, are reasons why Citizen Radio provides a much-needed venue for the left.