Lookin' for hate on talk radio - Democratic Underground

Breeze54

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Wed Mar-12-08 07:54 PM
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Lookin' for hate on talk radio

Edited on Wed Mar-12-08 08:18 PM by Breeze54

Lookin' for hate on talk radio

By Jaime O'Neill
Article Launched: 03/08/2008 01:00:00 AM PST

http://www.paradisepost.com/opinion/ci_8494728

In a recent column, the editor of this paper wrote a defense of right wing talk radio. That's a bit redundant since almost all talk radio is right wing. According to the editor, talk radio is misunderstood by what he calls "the media." Except for him, apparently.

According to him, "the media," especially the dreaded "liberal media," find lots of hate speech when they tune in to Rush, or Sean Hannity, or Michael Savage, or the armies of right wing clones of those guys on local radio stations from coast to coast. But all the editor can find on those radio shows is simple disagreement with fashionable liberal orthodoxy.

However, ever since the Fairness Doctrine was eliminated by the FCC during the Reagan years, right wing voices have served as the propaganda arm of the conservative wing of the Republican Party with no requirement that their commentary be civil, fair, balanced, or factual. Mostly those radio blatherer's have maintained popularity by being provocative, by being willing to say almost anything, and by spreading hate, much as guys like Father Coughlin did back in the 1930s when that precursor to Rush-style hatemongering was spewing anti-Semitism and anti-liberal viciousness from coast to coast.

But, though the editor of this paper is a news gatherer, and though he listens to talk radio quite a bit, he just can't seem to find any hate on those programs at all, try as he might. Instead, he sees the hate being directed toward those talk radio hosts by those who "hate it with a passion," because such people think that "simply disagreeing is a sign of hate."

Disagreement is one thing, however, and hate is another. How the editor of this paper can miss the daily outpouring of hate for fellow Americans who don't share the views of those talk show "hosts" is a bit of a mystery. But, since he can't find that hate, I thought I'd help him out with just a few examples of it. I think most people would agree that these comments go beyond mere disagreement on ideas or policy.

Here's Randall Terry, the anti-abortion demagogue, offering his tempered view of things on talk radio: "I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good" he said. Terry, incidentally, claims the God of love as his source of inspiration.

Here's Rush Limbaugh, expressing similar "opinions" of his fellow Americans. "I tell people don't kill all the liberals. Leave enough around so we can have two on every campus - living fossils - so we will never forget what these people stood for."

Want more love and compassion from talk radio? Here's Rush's love and compassion for a fellow drug abuser, Kurt Cobain. Immediately after Cobain's drug-fueled suicide, Limbaugh, the Oxycontin junkie, said that Cobain was "just a worthless shred of human debris." No hate there, I guess, just an honest difference of opinion.

Here's that master of reasoned discourse, Michael Savage, disagreeing with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, calling her "a radical left-wing buck-toothed hag." And when a gay caller disagreed with Mr. Savage, he responded by saying: "You should only get AIDS and die, you pig. How's that? Why don't you see if you can sue me, you pig. You got nothing better than to put me down, you piece of garbage. You have got nothing to do today, go eat a sausage and choke on it."

Here's KSFO radio's Michelle Morgan, welcoming Nancy Pelosi as the first woman Speaker of the House of Representatives. "We've got a bull's-eye painted on her big, wide, laughing eyes."

And here's that same Michelle Morgan, offering her way of disagreeing with editors at the New York Times: "Hang 'em," she said, in June of 2006, echoing the sentiments of the lovely Ann Coulter, who said: My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building." McVeigh, you'll recall, was the guy who blew up that big federal office building in Oklahoma a few years back, killing 149 adults and 19 children. KSFO radio listeners have also heard talk show hosts speak of "lynching a few liberals" and encouraging their audience to "shoot illegal immigrants who come across the border.'"

They're awfully loose with talk of violence against people they don't like. Here's Michael Savage, calling for bombing of world leaders at the United Nations: "I don't know why we don't use a bunker-buster bomb when he comes to the U.N. and just take (Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadine-jad) out with everyone in there."

And here's nationally syndicated talk show host Neal Boortz describing Cynthia McKinney, an African-American congresswoman from Georgia: "She looks like a ghetto slut. It looks like an explosion in a Brillo pad factory. ... She looks like Tina Turner peeing on an electric fence. She looks like a shih tzu!"

And here's Glenn Beck talking about Cindy Sheehan: "That's a pretty big prostitute there, you know what I mean." However one might feel about Cindy Sheehan's politics, she is the mother of a soldier lost in George Bush's war. These talk show hosts often proclaim their support for the troops, and the families of fallen soldiers, but that support and compassion tends to dry up right quick when those troops or those families don't share the opinions of these blowhards, all of whom avoided military service themselves, most notably Rush Limbaugh, an armchair patriot if ever there was one. His own reluctance to serve didn't stop Limbaugh from referring to Iraq War vets who opposed the war as "phony soldiers." Many of those "phony soldiers" had sustained serious and life-changing injuries while wearing the nation's uniform, and while fighting for their own right to disagree with guys like Rush Limbaugh.

If you can't find hate on talk radio, you probably couldn't find chicken at KFC.