Thoughts on Current Events in the Life and Times of an Urbanite Residing on the Minnesota Prairie
About a month ago, my mentor Charlie Leck wrote a piece on the Agents of Hate who fill the airwaves with venomous rumor and innuendo as a means of influencing the electorate. Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, and O’Reilly have built careers on playing to the most basic instincts of the conservative public, whipping their listeners into a frenzy through fear mongering directed at Barack Obama and his supporters. This being America, the fear mongers are protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution and the incredible ratings they generate for their respective media hosts.(Charlie Leck's: McCain/Palin Backed Forcefully By Agents of Hate)
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
These jerks actually make me tremble for the America I love!
It is sad that guys like Shaun Hannity, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and Michael Savage, all of whom have huge listening audiences, are such advocates of absolute hate. One could actually name another half-dozen of these guys. They are not about discussion and dialogue. If a caller disagrees with them they are rude and cruel to that caller. They don’t promote reasonable debate and careful, conscientious thoughtfulness about selecting a President or other electoral choices. Instead they whip their audiences into frenzy by claiming that the opposition is awful, dangerous and mentally unbalanced.
You probably think I'm exaggerating. I am not. I recently listened, thanks to Bill Moyers, to some of their programming. Moyers introduced me to a video that left him in despair. He warned that the language is so hateful some people would have a difficult time dealing with it.
Imagine Glen Beck telling his audience that someone should kill Michael Moore, the liberal film documentary producer. You say it would never happen? Listen to the video I’ll reference in another two paragraphs. Listen to Beck say he’ll provide the gun. Now, these are guys who claim to be the ultimate loyalists. The talker, Neil Boortz, may be the most horrible. Listen to what he says about Muslims and the residents of New Orleans. These are sick guys and they are responsible for making our society sicker and sicker with hate.
I gulped and clicked the button that started the video. It was as Moyer’s described it – shear, unadulterated insanity. More frightening is the fact that millions of people listen to these guys and accept what they say as gospel (what an unfortunate word to use).
Gird your loins! Now make the big click and listen to the hate that these guys promote. It is such a bad thing for our nation because it divides completely and pits citizen against citizen. The video is called Rage on the Radio.
These promoters of hate would have their audiences believe that liberals are enemies of the country – that we are insane perverts. Again, I am not being hyperbolic! If you haven’t clicked and gone and watched the Moyers video, go on back up a paragraph and do it now.
This is what the far right is selling to gullible people who are anxious to have an enemy on whom they can blame all the troubles of the nation.
It frightens the living day-lights out of me. It makes me fear for the life of someone like Barack Obama and it makes me fear for the future of our country.
There are so many reasons for those of us, who truly love our land, to throw all our energies and recourses into winning this upcoming election.
Posted by Charles Leck at 3:23 P
Among the charges that are accepted as dogma among fans of the genre include (i) Senator Obama is a terrorist sympathizer, (ii) Senator Obama will sell out Israel to the Palestinians and Hamas, (iii) Senator Obama is a Muslim, (iv) Senator Obama gave $800,000 to ACORN to engage in voter registration fraud, (v) the Democrats are trying to stuff the ballot box in Ohio and steal the election using ACORN and its fraudulent voter registration tactics, (vi) Senator Obama will increase taxes on anyone making more than $42,000 a year, (vii) Senator Obama will push through a Canadian health care system where the government will dictate our medical care, (viii) Senator Obama will fine small businesses that do not provide health care for their employees, (ix) Michelle Obama is an unpatriotic angry Black bitch and (x) Senator Obama supports the anti-American “God Damn America” attitude of his long time pastor, Jeremiah Wright. There are many more core beliefs held by the Right; ten is a nice number to deal with and these rolled off my fingertips.
The problem, of course, is that fear mongering has a way of morphing into hate mongering and persons of little intellect, i.e., the audience in question, has a bad habit of wanting to act on their hate. I share Charlie’s sentiment express in his September 17th blog, “It frightens the living day-lights out of me. It makes me fear for the life of someone like Barack Obama and it makes me fear for the future of our country.”
I had already started working on this piece when I watched the third presidential debate tonight. As upset as I was beforehand, the cold reality of how far out of hand this has gotten hit home when the debate participants actually discussed before a national television audience the fact that attendees at McCain/Palin gatherings were chanting for the death of Senator Obama. Again, worked into a frenzy of hate by the blind acceptance of right wing propaganda, the Republican rallies have taken on a mob mentality that, if uttered publicly or privately on an individual basis would result in a visit from the Secret Service and possible criminal prosecution. Since Senator McCain would not disavow his running mate’s characterization of Senator Obama, allow me: Accusing Senator Obama of caring so little for his country that he pals around with terrorists as part of your campaign rhetoric is akin to shouting “fire” in a crowded theater. It goes beyond the pale of the First Amendment and one may not feign ignorance that the characterization may instigate a violent response and encourage extremely misguided vigilante behavior.
The contemporary impact of right wing hate mongering is bad enough. As Senator Obama suggested tonight, it eliminates the ability to have a meaningful discussion of the issues that must be addressed as this country slides toward third world status. Yes, we have a ways to go down that slide. But if you think in terms of not being able to provide adequate health care to our citizenry, of not being able to provide gainful employment opportunities to able-bodied workers, of not having a monetary system that serves as the world’s standard and, rather, is propped up by the lending whims of foreign investors, or of not being able to have any meaningful influence on world affairs because we have bankrupted ourselves in the eyes of other nations morally, militarily and monetarily, then you begin to realize what the stakes are. More than anytime in our history since, perhaps, the election of 1860, we stand on the brink as a nation. A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand.
The ten, “top of my head” characterizations of Senator Obama and his supporters itemized above are all nonsense, easily, and appropriately, dismissible with only a modicum of research accessible to anyone with a computer and an Internet connection. It is incumbent upon all of us who have something better to do than sit around listening to The Savage Nation or watching the “Fair and Balanced” Fox network to speak out against baseless character assassination and the politics of destruction.
Today, when a friend enamored with right wing conspiracy theories fretted over Senator Obama’s plan to steal the election using ACORN operatives, I sent him a link to an article quoting Ohio Republicans admitting that safeguards prevented any meaningful fraudulent influence on the Ohio polling. When he made the statement that Senator McCain had never had anything to do with ACORN, I sent him a link to an article describing Senator McCain’s past support for the work of ACORN, even delivering the keynote address at an ACORN sponsored event, complete with photographs of the grateful Senator sitting beaming next to his ACORN host in appreciation for being given a platform to discuss immigration policy.
We can do this. We can demand better of our public servants. In Minnesota, Senator Coleman has disavowed negative campaigning. Whatever his motives, his change of tactics was clearly influenced by the public's negative reaction to the heretofore destructive tone of his campaign. Senator McCain's defense of Senator Obama's character in Lakeville, Minnesota last Friday, delivered to an unidentified, disheveled supporter who is probably thanking God that her back was to the camera, was a start, a seedling planted for a crop of civility. Perhaps Senator McCain, too, realizes we reap what we sow.
It is getting harder and harder to be a Nellie Forbush cock-eyed optimist. But I can't get it out of my heart. This heart is sentimental and patriotic. This heart thinks The American President, scripted by Aaron Sorkin of subsequent West Wing fame, is one of the best movies ever made (partly because this heart is also in incurable romantic). During this campaign, I often think of the climactic speech in The American President, delivered by President Andrew Shepard to a speechless press corps. Sorkin has his American President go on the offensive and, as if with 2008 in mind, speak the truth about his conservative opponent's dishonest campaign tactics. When I watch that speech, time and again, my eyes swell and I find the strength to believe that those of us who see conservative negativism as a desperate attempt to make up for the absence of substantive solutions to our problems are on the right track.
Click the play button on the image below to watch it. It provides a quick, inspirational lesson in democracy. Pay particular attention to President Shepard's description of his opponent's tactics at about 2 minutes into the clip. See if it sounds familiar and, more importantly, see if you don't come away invigorated by President Shepard's closing, ready to help get out the vote on November 4th and thereby save our nation from continuing down the slide.
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