Inciting The Lunatic Fringes: When does responsibility kick in?

At the risk of offending some people…as if this blog might actually have followers amongst the ‘Ditto Heads’…Rush Limbaugh is about as disgusting an example of the human species as we can imagine. This pathetic excuse of a man has sunk to a low that we didn’t believe even he could find…all to the end of building even more audience to further line his already overstuffed pockets. And damn the consequences of his words!

We’ve all seen or heard any number of these Christian Evangelists on TV and/or radio over the years…some of them quite reasonable, but others so ridiculous that their routine is actually laughable. Well, in a way, that’s what Limbaugh has become… although there’s nothing either Christian or laughable about his act.

Rush Limbaugh is a ‘Hate Evangelist’. His core audience is the lunatic fringe of what has become the extreme right, extremely white wing of the Republican Party…the party of Abraham Lincoln for crying out loud. And this blustering, offensive man has these crazies in his pocket, lapping up all the vitriol and divisiveness and anti Barack Obama, anti Democrat garbage that he consistently vomits out of his pie hole.

His latest proselytizing concerned that incident that occurred on a school bus a few days ago, where a white student was, unfortunately, beaten up by some black students. Limbaugh described it as just another example of what it’s going to be like for white people to live in Barack Obama’s America. Nice…as if something like this, or the reverse of it, had never happened before he became President. And even though the police who investigated the incident said they found nothing to indicate it had been in any way racially motivated, that apparently wasn’t good enough for the odious Mr. Limbaugh.

He indignantly said of the police, “…they’re wrong”. That’s because he wants his listeners to believe IT WAS a racially motivated attack, and they will. Most of them believe whatever he tells them… and far too many of them, if so directed, would act on whatever he tells them too. And therein lies the very real problem with this alarmingly dangerous, hate-mongering, fear-mongering sack of crap… and every other bloviator of his ilk that’s on the air today. They’re dangerous, and they shouldn’t be allowed to spew their venom on our public airwaves.

To inflame the passions of his listeners and viewers even further, Limbaugh also opined, we can only hope jokingly, that perhaps we should return to segregated school buses for the safety of the country’s white students. Right, and then what, Rush…segregated schools, segregated neighborhoods, separate water fountains and public rest rooms, whites only restaurants and hotels. Pretty soon we’ll be back to the way it was before the Civil Rights Act…or is that actually what you want? It sure seems like it!

Much of the impact of broadcast trash such as Limbaugh, the frighteningly psychotic Glenn Beck, bullying blowhard Bill O’Reilly, self-serving apologist Sean Hannity, and the increasingly xenophobic Lou Dobbs, could be neutralized if someone from the GOP had the guts to stand up and say “Enough! These people and their paranoid, hateful disciples don’t speak for or represent me…and I don’t speak for or represent them. What they say and do bears no resemblance to my Republican Party”.

That’s what we’d like to hear, somebody in that party willing to take the first step towards bringing civility and sanity back to our political discourse and debate. But sadly it’s unlikely to happen because truth to tell, their de facto leader is Limbaugh...and there isn't one of them who'd be willing to risk the ire of Java The Hutt by speaking out against him or his herd.

Republicans decided over 40-years ago that no price was too high to pay in their quest for power…not even if it meant embracing Richard Nixon’s soul-selling Southern Strategy. It began with their courting of the Christian Right, and has evolved into this mélange of fanatics and extremists you see the GOP pandering to today…the people who show up at Town Hall meetings, and events such as the recent 9/12 assembly, brandishing guns and carrying those vile, racist, threatening posters you’ve seen so often in the news lately. The GOP has become so locked in, so beholden to this extreme right wing of THEIR party, that they likely couldn’t extricate themselves even if they wanted to…which, obviously, they don’t.

Republican political leaders claim these people are motivated by patriotism, not racism…and that their posters and guns and threats are just a way of expressing concern about America’s future. But that dog ain’t gonna hunt. They may not all be racists, and they may not all be dangerous, but with Limbaugh and the rest of the enablers and encouragers, politicians and broadcast trash alike, fanning the flames of fear and hatred, they’re rapidly assuming the mentality of an angry mob.

The GOP rails against anyone who dares suggest that their extremist followers might be racist, but they’ll gladly toss the race bomb in the other direction whenever it suits their purpose...as Limbaugh clearly showed when discussing that school bus fight on his radio program. The very next day, when former President Jimmy Carter said that he believed much of the venom directed at President Obama was racially motivated, the big man almost lost his lunch on the air.

“Jimmy Carter is America’s hemorrhoid”, Limbaugh mockingly proclaimed.

To which Keith Olberman adroitly responded, during his show on MSNBC, “…Well, I’ll have to defer to Rush on that…because who would know more about hemorrhoids than America’s asshole”.

Oh snap! Apparently civil discourse must await another day.

And so it goes.


SC