And this is why they lost their funding? Cite, please.
You misunderstand, in two ways. Beck and Limbaugh were created to counter the left-wing hatred and mischaracterization of the right that had been going on for decades before their arrival. William F. Buckley speaks of this at Yale in 1950 in his book Man and God at Yale, and he alludes in one of his books (I forget which, possibly even the same one) to denigrating comments being used by influential liberals and on college campuses going back to the 20’s and perhaps even the turn of the centrury. For most of the 20th century the right had no voice, other than at the polls, whereas the left had rabble-rousing college professors, Hollywood movies and television shows, and news and entertainment magazines all promoting view favorable to leftist politics and goals. And from the mid-sixties the left had large parts of the populace (i.e., the hippie generation) slinging insults and hatred and name-calling toward conservatives almost nonstop. If we weren’t warmongers, we were racists. And if we weren’t racists, we were sexists. And if we weren’t sexists, homophobes. And if we weren’t homophobes, we were capitalist pigs. And if we weren’t capitalist pigs, we were imperialists. Etc., etc., etc. On and on the drumbeat went, and then came Limbaugh, who was extraordinarily effective at condensing your hatred, rolling it up into a ball, and throwing it back at you. Admittedly, it was more intense. He was but one voice after all trying to counter the effects of Hollywood movies and television programs, news and entertainment magazines, and hatred and name-calling by politicians and rank and file members of society who had gotten all het up by events of the late sixties. Then along came cable television, and lo and behold, the right gained an additional voice with Fox, who told us news the rest of the media kept hidden from sight. And it gave us Sean Hannity (who I happen to dislike, btw), Glenn Beck (who I think is more or less a nut, btw) and Bill O’Reilly, who is a bit much but basically okay. But still, when compared with the forces marshalled against them, they are still woefully outnumbered. So these guys have to be more strident and intense in their criticism of the left in order to make their voice heard amonst the ABC’s, the CBS’s, the NBC’s, the CNN’s, the MSNBC’s, Hollywood movies and television shows and news and entertainment magazines and a fair number of the nation’s largest newspapers. So you can’ really point to them and then to a NPR-er and say “let’s you and him fight”, for certainly the Limbaughs and the O’Reilly’s will be more forceful in their disdain for the left than will be the representatives of NPR.
But on the basis of the national dialog, just normal citizens over the last forty to forty-five years, you’ll find a great deal more political hatred and insults and name-calling coming from the left than will from those on the right. And the reason is simple. As I said above, liberals have tradionally had a very hard time selling the public on their ideas and goals. Traditionally, people find most of what liberalism supports to run contrary to common sense, so they have tradionally resisted it. In other words, liberals have never been able to evangelize or articulate very effectively for their side. So they’ve adopted the strategy I mentioned upthread of demonizing their oppponents. And they’ve been doing that for a very long time.
So, it doesn’t really tell you anything about which side is most reponsible for the hate going around these days until you look at the day-to-day population itself, and when you do that you find virtually all of the aggressive hate talk and characterization coming from the left. There is admittedly some coming from the right too, but it too is reactionary and a result of the aggressive and impassioned type of hate speech that has been pouring forth from the left since the days when lefties were seizing college administration buildings, rioting at polical conventions and yelling “Fuck You, LBJ” at President Johnson over the Vietnam war.
So, no (and now I’m going to have to go. The Ambien I took half an hour ago is making the typing of this post a very woozy experience), in my opinion it would prove nothing to set up a contest between a couple of radio personalities and draw any kind of reasonable conclusion about which side engages in inciting the most political hatred toward the other.
Oh, one other thing before I go. Liberals, by their very nature, are whingers. They are afraid of this and that, and they are indignant and outraged over other things. Thus they tend to be very critical of and insulting toward anyone who doesn’t see things the same way they do. So you’ve got liberals on one side of the populace getting all hepped up bascially over the fact that the world isn’t perfect and getting damn mad about it, and on the other side you’ve got conservatives happily going along, making the best of things the way they are and doing a pretty damn good job of it. They study, they work hard, they think, they deal with adversity, and they build good lives. So they are basically either happy or working toward goals that they feel will make them happy. So which of these two sets of the population do you think is going to be most inclined to bitch and whine and yell insults because the other side doesn’t get all hepped up about these things like they do?
I’m shocked, shocked that anyone who works for NPR might not like conservatives. In fact I’m shocked that anyone could dislike conservatives. They’re the only thing protecting the country from its foreign born Muslim terrorist Communist black militant elected officials.
Correct: the racists learned to talk in code a long time ago. That’s why a large chunk of them keeps saying they think Barack Obama was born in a country he’s visited two or three times in his life.
Ah, thanks, I don’t remember that line from the movie, and have never heard the phrase used elsewhere. I was thinking that you meant “parasite” and got a weird autocorrect error.
Just give them a microphone and let the cameras roll. But be prepared to be disappointed if you expect any repercussions. In fact, it usually gets them more votes/money/etc.
That’s the funniest thing I’ve read all week.
Beck and Limbaugh were created to rake in cash. End of statement. To claim that they were foist upon the public as humble defenders of the poor trod upon right-wingers is absolutely fucking laughable.
Unfortunately, I’m about to embark on a busy, 14 hour workday, and won’t have the time to refute all of your post, so I think that I’ll just choose this one to address.
Are you really glossing over the influence of the pulpit?
Every internal investigation by every organization shows problems. That’s not the same as showing corruption, which ACORN was cleared of. There was no “wrongdoing,” period. End of sentence.
I’m finding it difficult to know what I’m supposed to be outraged over with this whole kerfuffle.
This guy who made the statements was either on his way out, or already gone. And what was his big sin? Denegrating the Tea Pary Movement? Oh no, how will they ever find the will to go on?
Fuck the Tea Party Movement. Who gives a shit if they get insulted. Ever other ‘movement’ gets shat upon regularly from all sides of the media. What makes these Teabaggers such special snowflakes?
Pillow talk is usually unguarded . . .
Starving Artist, please don’t confuse people’s refusal to argue with you with validation that your arguments are correct. Your views on history are laughable.
The bizarre part of this, of course, is that the videos will be used as part of a push to cut or eliminate NPR’s funding. Because of course, whenever a departing employee in the marketing department of an organization that receives federal funding expresses a personal political opinion in the process of turning down money from someone pretending to be part of an organization that may have terrorist ties and says his organization might be better off without government funds, you definitely need to defund them before they kill again.
How many of those media outlets receive federal funding?
You have expressed my feelings perfectly, good sir.
I would say that it will be used as pat of a push to cut funding because, from MSNBC’s website:
“Schiller (no relation to NPR CEO Vivian Schiller), also stated that NPR “would be better off in the long run without federal funding,” a comment that is in conflict with the organization’s position”
So, yeah, when you have people in your organization who say they shouldn’t get federal money, that’s going to be used to argue that… they shouldn’t get federal money.
You should never, ever use those words in that order again.
Which is why I mentioned it in my post. I’m looking for the full text of what Schiller said but I’m not sure how definitive it was.
Exactly. This is about as shocking as when Piers Morgan got Joel Osteen to admit that he thought homosexuality was a sin. Why anyone would be shocked about this is beyond me.
I know correcting your understanding of what happens in the field of ideas is useless, but on the narrow question of ‘What kind of embarrassing things might a liberal think he could trick a conservative into saying’, I can think of several that have nothing to do with racism:
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That they’re pushing the whole ‘global warming is a hoax thing’ because of ideological reasons, and they know they’re lying.
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That they demonize gays only to get votes from Neanderthals, and don’t really believe anything they’re saying.
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That they know very well they’ll have to make spending cuts significantly more painful than anything that’s been proposed so far, or raise taxes.
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That FOX News is really a propaganda, not a news, outlet
Hell, that’s just off the top of my head, and I haven’t had any coffee yet.