Chuck Harder

Chuck Harder (born Charles Edward Harder) was a former radio disk jockey turned talk show host in White Springs, Florida, USA. He is originally from Elgin, Illinois. He is on WPGS Local 840 Saturdays Noon-3PM playing oldies music as a disc jockey. (www.local840.com)

Early radio career
Harder's radio career began during high school as a DJ at a local AM radio station in his hometown of Elgin, Illinois. He later became a talk show host at stations in Tampa, and then New York City where he gained a reputation as a consumer advocate. Feeling that he was being forbidden from discussing controversial topics on the air, Harder would return to Tampa in 1987 with the idea of forming a radio network, The Sun Radio Network, to syndicate his show called "For The People", which was carried primarily by commercial rural AM radio stations and shortwave radio. Originally broadcasting from the garage of his Tampa home, Harder and his wife Dianne later purchased the historic Telford Hotel in the town of White Springs to serve as studios. In its early years Harder's show used an interpretation of the folk song "Way Down Upon The Suwannee River" as its theme music.

Peoples Radio Network
A move to acquire the Sun Radio Network in March 1988 by Florida businessman Jim McCotter and Rogers Kirven fell through in June when McCotter backed out of the deal. In December 1989 the network was acquired by Kayla Satellite Network which was approximately half owned by Liberty Lobby. Chuck Harder soon found his show dropped from Sun and founded a new radio network, the Peoples Radio Network.

The Peoples Radio Network was founded as a nonprofit organization, and Harder broadcast his show from studios in the Telford Hotel in White Springs, Florida. The Peoples Radio Network also published a newspaper, the National News Reporter, sold memberships, and sold books and other merchandise through a mail-order catalog. PRN members were sent a booklet of consumer advice by Harder, How to Squeeze Lemons and Make Lemonade, and a subscription to the Peoples Radio Network magazine.

At its peak in the early-to-mid 1990s, For The People radio show was carried on over 300 radio stations, second only to Rush Limbaugh and had a similar audience as Bruce Williams, then one of the biggest shows on radio.

The most frequent guests on his show during its heyday were Ralph Nader and Pat Choate. Choate would become a co-host of the show for a period in the mid-1990s. Other guests spanned the political spectrum and have included Alexander Cockburn, Lenora Fulani, Ross Perot, and Richard C. Hoagland. Baltimore radio personality Les Kinsolving was a regular commentator on his show. The appearance of Eustace Mullins at least a dozen times on his show in the early 1990s proved to be his most controversial guest ever, earning him a critical article in the left-leaning The Nation magazine, and Harder did not invite him back on the show and took steps to distance himself from Mullins' views in early 1994.

Network declines and goes silent
While still popular, the Peoples Radio Network declined during the mid-to-late-1990s because of several factors: radio consolidation, where big chains began buying radio stations and replaced programming with conservative, political-type talk programming; the expansion of the Rush Limbaugh show; and the move of Larry King's evening talk show into afternoons.

The Peoples Radio Network's nonprofit status became the subject of an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) audit in 1994. The audit followed the 1992 presidential elections, alleging that PRN had attempted to influence the election against then-president George H. W. Bush.

In 1992 PNI published a newspaper, the News Reporter, which had a circulation of about 40,000. In Harder's words it was a "feisty little independent paper" that was too feisty for the incoming administration. During this time period there was also half hour shows airing first on Main Street Television Network which was sold to become America One on LPTV stations around the country. Some of these shows, essentially videotaped radio shows, were sold in "packages" to listeners (or readers through the bookstore) like the "BIG 6 PACK" that also were bundled with items like a reprint of the declassified U.S. Air Force "Operation Garden Plot" program.

"We were doing a lot of muckraking, and I know we hit the radar screen at the DNC," Harder told WND. "We looked not only into George Bush's dirty laundry, but Bill Clinton's. We wrote a series of articles prior to the election about Whitewater and the strange deaths near Mena Airport. We also called attention to his sexual encounters."

Buried in paperwork by the audit, Harder eventually chose to seek investors to make PNI a for-profit organization and found the United Auto Workers, who agreed to buy PNI's assets and create a new company with Harder called the United Broadcasting Network.

The deal soon turned sour, adding a series of lawsuits on top of the audit. According to one suit, Hillary Clinton allegedly complained to the UAW over its partnership with Harder and the networks insensitivity "to the wishes of the president and Mrs. Clinton in conjunction with its on-air contents." The IRS audit continuing several years, Harder and his co-host Pat Choate searched for a funder for a new for-profit network which would not be subject to the restrictions on political advocacy of a nonprofit. The People's Radio Network included hosts such as Jack Ellery, Joel Vincent (Howard Hewes), Paul Gonzalez and Jerry Hughes.

In 1996, Harder and co-host Choate joined in a venture along with the United Auto Workers to start a new for-profit radio network, the United Broadcasting Network. Harder's Peoples Radio Network was subsumed into the new network. Within three months the deal turned sour, and Harder was forced off the air, with the UAW assuming control over the new network's content. Pat Choate would become H. Ross Perot's vice presidential nominee in his election campaign. Without its only well-known talk show host, the United Broadcasting Network soon declared bankruptcy. Harder and Choate would both become embroiled in lawsuits against the UAW over the debacle.

Harder would return to the airwaves within a few months, but with a much smaller number of stations, around 100. After an accident in 1999 that left Harder's legs paralysed, increasing consolidation in the radio industry, and shifting political winds after September 11, 2001 attacks, the number of affiliates began declining until the show was being heard almost exclusively on shortwave radio station WHRI. This too would end, and For The People was heard via satellite and the internet and a small number of AM radio stations.

After his accident, Chuck Harder planned to start a new television channel, New Abilities TV, with programming of interest to the handicapped community. This venture fell through and Harder was forced to offer the network for sale. 

In 2004 the TalkStar Radio Network began carrying Harder’s For the People program in the US. In 2006, Harder's show was available on shortwave via radio station WWCR (this ended in 2007). In early 2009, Harder announced the publication of his latest book on American political, social and economic trends entitled "Will We Ever Learn? The Man Who Sees Tomorrow." By late 2009, Harder's show could only be heard on the Internet through streaming audio; a few months later, this was discontinued and for the first time since around 1975, Harder was off the air completely. Reruns of Harder's show resumed on TalkStar's Web site in December 2010.

Harder's political and economic beliefs
His populist political views comprised elements of both conservative and liberal ideologies, but he was neither a libertarian nor a religious conservative. He tended toward a mix of fiscal liberalism and cultural conservatism although there were exceptions. On some issues, such as taxation and foreign policy, he took a mix of liberal and conservative views on the same issue.

Harder was opposed to free trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) as well as international organizations such as the United Nations (UN). He favored a moratorium on legal immigration and the deportation of all illegal immigrants.

In addition to his economic views, Harder also frequently discussed conspiracy theories during the 1990s. This was largely confined to the early and mid-1990s, a period when conspiracy theories were a hot topic on several talk radio shows (including Art Bell and others). In recent years, conspiracy theories had no longer been a major feature of his program.

A key economic doctrine of Harder's was that free trade with China and Mexico would cause so many Americans to lose jobs or get paid less that the American retail economy would collapse from a lack of middle-class consumers who could afford to be constant purchasers.

Harder's views on taxation were illustrative of his populist mixture of liberal and conservative views. He favored a heavily graduated income tax and increasing taxes on the wealthy, but also believed the Internal Revenue Service to be guilty of abuses in auditing taxpayers, and he supported the abolition of the business tax which he considered "double taxation".

Another area where Harder simultaneously promoted a mix of liberal and conservative views was environmental issues. Harder believed overpopulation was a threat to the environment and had guests from such groups as Negative Population Growth on the show. Harder was a strong supporter of alternative energy and building or rebuilding extensive mass transit systems in the United States, particularly passenger rail. He was critical of the Reagan administration for defunding alternative energy, Amtrak and mass transit, and critical of every president since for promoting free trade agreements and globalization to the detriment of American workers. A common theme discussed by Harder was how National City Lines bought out and closed urban mass transit systems in the United States. But Harder also supported oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and bringing back jobs in the timber industry by increasing the amount of logging, and had often featured guests from groups such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Heartland Institute who are skeptical of global warming.

Harder advocated a Swiss-style neutrality on all foreign policy, especially as it related to the Middle East. He did, however, believe that China was becoming increasingly powerful and posed an economic and military threat to the United States. Since 9/11 he had discussed U.S. foreign policy more. He took a hawkish view toward the War on Terror, supported the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, but opposed the U.S. war in Iraq which he believed was an unnecessary distraction from winning the War on Terror. He did say that militant Islam posed a major threat to U.S. and world security.

The For The People Catalog
Harder advocated buying only American-made products whenever possible. During the 1990s he distributed a catalog of made-in-the-USA products and a number of shortwave radio receivers as his show was being widely heard on the international broadcast bands despite being targeted exclusively towards a domestic audience. The PRN-1000 was made in the U.S. by R. L. Drake Company, and was basically a budget-version of their SW-1 shortwave receiver. Other lower-cost shortwave receivers sold by the Peoples Radio Network were made in China by Sangean. Harder acknowledged and lamented this fact, but stated that no low-cost (under US $100) receivers were being produced in the USA.

Also sold via For the People were antique pocket watches - a favorite collectible of Harder's - especially those made by the Elgin Watch Company. Harder remembered (and often cited) how the company's factory in Harder's hometown closed down and shifted production of its timepieces overseas.