The political right is absolutely right. There is no evidence that this Jared Loughner kid listened to right-wing radio, watched Fox News, or any of that dyed-in-the-wool Republican crap. They are so right on this point. However...
...to hear the crazy shit that comes out of these folks mouths, you don't have to go to those sources. It's so outlandish sometimes, that real media outlets are forced to report on it. So, he could have heard that shit anywhere. CNN, MSNBC, Comedy Central, TLC, magazines, newspapers, and literally millions of places on the internet. Let's not act like you have to actually watch Glenn Beck to hear how crazy he is.
The political right is also correct in saying that they are not the only ones who use violent imagery. Everyone goes a little bit over the line sometimes, no matter what the reason may be. However...
...the sheer number of instances that come out of the mouths of right-wingers, be the Tea Partiers, Libertarians, or just run-of-the-mill Republicans is just overwhelming. These people are forever talking about gun rights, rising up against imagined tyranny, the streets running with blood; the right just spend the last two years promoting revolution...or did I imagine the preacher IN ARIZONA who openly prayed that President Obama would be killed?
Yeah, they've got that quote of the President saying "if they bring a knife, you bring a gun," or something like that, but for every ONE quote from the left that uses gun imagery or suggests violent uprising against elected officials, I'm sure I could easily find you thirty. The left just isn't that quick to talk about killing people. Let's be honest; they're generally pussies. Even when George W. Bush STOLE a Presidential election and forced us into a war that no one wanted but him, the left didn't get violent. In fact, Cynthia McKinney got voted out of office for being too upset about it. President Obama won one fair and square and the man instantly faced more death threats than any President in history.
So it's not like people are making things up. The right likes to talk about guns. The right likes to buy guns. And a lot of people on the right are looking for a reason to use one.
That's not to say that no one on the left gets crazy. It's just that no one else is known for it like the right is. And the legitimate media can't even get blamed for this one. The right's own media outlets promote this stuff. It's what their viewers and listeners want to hear. They want to hear Glenn Beck link the Obama Administration to Nazi Germany and scare them into thinking that they'll need to defend themselves. They want to hear Rush Limbaugh say something crass and tasteless against someone who isn't a WASP. They want Sarah Palin to get out there and say, "don't retreat; reload." If they didn't do it, it would be like watching the first four shows of American Idol and walking away with respect for the participants. No, you watch because you want to see someone's dignity destroyed in front of your eyes.
So, instead of defending yourself and just take it on the chin. I never thought I'd say it, but follow the Olbermann example: Just apologize, even if you don't feel you did anything wrong. The gesture alone would say a lot and it isn't gonna hurt Rush Limbaugh's ratings to do that. Only children say, "Well, what about him?" Grown-ups who know that they were also wrong would just accept it, make a statement, and move on.
Then again, Rush Limbaugh has never been known for his maturity.
Hating all your favorite stuff in long form essays since 2004. Follow @ThadOchocinco on Twitter.
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Monday, January 10, 2011
Labels:
Arizona shooting,
Fox News,
Glenn Beck,
Jared Loughner,
media,
right-wing,
Rush Limbaugh,
Sarah Palin
Monday, September 21, 2009
Criticize the President? No, that NEVER happens...
Where did the idea come from that no one was allowed to criticize the President? If you're actually not allowed to do it, then I can't tell, because that's all I hear about the President these days. Fox News is a sworn enemy, right-wing radio hasn't let up, Texas is trying to secede and there is an actual pastor praying to God that the President will die. But no, the White House is trying to take away freedom of speech.
It's not like it's 2002, when any criticism of "President" Bush got you labeled as "unpatriotic." I haven't seen the Obama Administration do any tarring and feathering like that. But why let a legitimate question ("Wait, what did Iraq do again?") stand in the way of maintaining favorable poll numbers?
But we'll just go ahead and say that criticism of the President wasn't allowed. But what is allowed is completely fabricating stuff and passing it off as fact. You can't go wrong there, because the average person doesn't worry about how credible a person is, which is why Wendy Williams has a television show.
We live in the internet age, where millions of people have blogs, just like this one, where we can tell people anything at all; from the "unsubstantiated reports that President Obama is actually Michael Jackson in disguise, and that's why Michael had to fake his own death," to "Swine flu is spreading AIDS, and that's why we need border control." And people will believe it, because we used a professional looking font. "I wasn't too sure about it, until I noticed that Times New Roman. Looks just like Cronkite."
So no one cares about truth. If they did, more people might question Rush Limbaugh when he says something like this:
“If homosexuality being inborn is what makes it acceptable, why does racism being inborn not make racism acceptable?” the talk show host asked. “I’m sorry — I mean, this is the way my mind works. But apparently now we don’t choose racism, we just are racists. We are born that way. We don’t choose it. So shouldn’t it be acceptable, excuse — this is according to the way the left thinks about things.”
If people cared about truth and fact, or even coherence, someone would have asked Rush Limbaugh what the fuck he was talking about. Thanks to my own research, I discovered that 100% of people he just made up were the only ones saying that racism was inborn, and this "left" that he's talking about never listens to them. Everyone knows that the "left" is always reading "liberal books" from those "gay elitist doctors," and all of them said long ago that racism was a learned experience.
Something that ridiculous could only come from someone who never finished high school, because it sounds like some shit that two guys drinking in the alley would make up. Then, they'd stumble into the barber shop and swear that "Clem said he saw it happen." Just like that, it's a fact, and none of those pesky "facts" were involved in the process.
What set Limbaugh off on that tangent about nothing was the hidden agenda that President Obama is making black people attack white people, because mind control is one of his Secret Socialist powers, genetically engineered by Muslims in Kenya to bring down America. Note to Fox News: If you're going to pass that paragraph off as news, make sure you give credit to ME, as the person who made the whole thing up.
Anyway, there's a video circulating of a black kid beating up a white kid on a school bus and the black kids are standing around cheering, which is something that has never happened outside of a boxing ring in America. Witnesses, or "people who were there," say that the fight came out of a disagreement about seating and was not racially motivated. Rush Limbaugh, who at the time of the fight, was anywhere else but at the fight, said this:
This shit never happened to Bush. People who didn't like Bush were very clear about why they didn't like him: He was the dumbest President in history and managed to steal an election. Not only was he wrong, but being outwitted by a complete idiot really stings.
But President Obama? Not only is he cleaning up Bush's messes (of which there are many), not only does he have Glenn Beck saying he's racist against white people (like his mother), or Michael Steele saying he's racist against BLACK people (what the fuck?), and a Socialist Revolution to get off the ground (whoops! I meant "free guns and Bibles!"), now the skyrocketing number of school bus fights in 2009 is his fault, too. Because Obama becoming the first black President is making black people feel good about themselves, so naturally, they're gonna start beating on white people. Of course. It couldn't have had anything to do with the chairs on the fucking bus.
Look, if you're going to claim that "no one can criticize the President," then maybe you shouldn't spend ALL four hours of your radio show not only criticizing him, but fabricating things about him. If no one's allowed to do it, then he must be really bad at enforcing it, because I don't recall hearing about his Gestapo taking anyone away for "protective custody." I mean, you're kind of killing your own argument. At least among people who have two brain cells to rub together.
It's not like it's 2002, when any criticism of "President" Bush got you labeled as "unpatriotic." I haven't seen the Obama Administration do any tarring and feathering like that. But why let a legitimate question ("Wait, what did Iraq do again?") stand in the way of maintaining favorable poll numbers?
But we'll just go ahead and say that criticism of the President wasn't allowed. But what is allowed is completely fabricating stuff and passing it off as fact. You can't go wrong there, because the average person doesn't worry about how credible a person is, which is why Wendy Williams has a television show.
We live in the internet age, where millions of people have blogs, just like this one, where we can tell people anything at all; from the "unsubstantiated reports that President Obama is actually Michael Jackson in disguise, and that's why Michael had to fake his own death," to "Swine flu is spreading AIDS, and that's why we need border control." And people will believe it, because we used a professional looking font. "I wasn't too sure about it, until I noticed that Times New Roman. Looks just like Cronkite."
So no one cares about truth. If they did, more people might question Rush Limbaugh when he says something like this:
“If homosexuality being inborn is what makes it acceptable, why does racism being inborn not make racism acceptable?” the talk show host asked. “I’m sorry — I mean, this is the way my mind works. But apparently now we don’t choose racism, we just are racists. We are born that way. We don’t choose it. So shouldn’t it be acceptable, excuse — this is according to the way the left thinks about things.”
If people cared about truth and fact, or even coherence, someone would have asked Rush Limbaugh what the fuck he was talking about. Thanks to my own research, I discovered that 100% of people he just made up were the only ones saying that racism was inborn, and this "left" that he's talking about never listens to them. Everyone knows that the "left" is always reading "liberal books" from those "gay elitist doctors," and all of them said long ago that racism was a learned experience.
Something that ridiculous could only come from someone who never finished high school, because it sounds like some shit that two guys drinking in the alley would make up. Then, they'd stumble into the barber shop and swear that "Clem said he saw it happen." Just like that, it's a fact, and none of those pesky "facts" were involved in the process.
What set Limbaugh off on that tangent about nothing was the hidden agenda that President Obama is making black people attack white people, because mind control is one of his Secret Socialist powers, genetically engineered by Muslims in Kenya to bring down America. Note to Fox News: If you're going to pass that paragraph off as news, make sure you give credit to ME, as the person who made the whole thing up.
Anyway, there's a video circulating of a black kid beating up a white kid on a school bus and the black kids are standing around cheering, which is something that has never happened outside of a boxing ring in America. Witnesses, or "people who were there," say that the fight came out of a disagreement about seating and was not racially motivated. Rush Limbaugh, who at the time of the fight, was anywhere else but at the fight, said this:
“I think the guy’s wrong. I think not only it was racism, it was justifiable racism. I mean, that’s the lesson we’re being taught here today. Kid shouldn’t have been on the bus anyway. We need segregated buses — it was invading space and stuff. This is Obama’s America.”
"You put your kids on a school bus you expect safety but in Obama’s America the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering ‘yeah, right on, right on, right on.’ Of course, everybody said the white kid deserved it he was born a racist, he’s white."
And this guy is in no danger of getting his show cancelled. Yeah, no one's allowed to criticize the President. Not only are eyewitness accounts not good enough for this guy, but somehow, he brought up someone that no one was even talking about. How bitter do you have to be to tie everything that goes wrong into racism AND the President?This shit never happened to Bush. People who didn't like Bush were very clear about why they didn't like him: He was the dumbest President in history and managed to steal an election. Not only was he wrong, but being outwitted by a complete idiot really stings.
But President Obama? Not only is he cleaning up Bush's messes (of which there are many), not only does he have Glenn Beck saying he's racist against white people (like his mother), or Michael Steele saying he's racist against BLACK people (what the fuck?), and a Socialist Revolution to get off the ground (whoops! I meant "free guns and Bibles!"), now the skyrocketing number of school bus fights in 2009 is his fault, too. Because Obama becoming the first black President is making black people feel good about themselves, so naturally, they're gonna start beating on white people. Of course. It couldn't have had anything to do with the chairs on the fucking bus.
Look, if you're going to claim that "no one can criticize the President," then maybe you shouldn't spend ALL four hours of your radio show not only criticizing him, but fabricating things about him. If no one's allowed to do it, then he must be really bad at enforcing it, because I don't recall hearing about his Gestapo taking anyone away for "protective custody." I mean, you're kind of killing your own argument. At least among people who have two brain cells to rub together.
Labels:
criticism,
media,
President Obama,
Rush Limbaugh
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