Rush calls people "ho", "get that bone out of your nose", plays "Magic Negro" song, DUers yawn.

[Leopolds Ghost]

DUers spent 20 posts per day for a solid week to get Imus fired,
On every blog on the Internet. Why? Because the media told them to, and they believe whatever TV tells them is important. What Imus said is important, not Rush saying "get that bone out of your nose" to a black man. That's not important because if their favorite talking heads (Olbermann, Clarence Page, whoever) aren't outraged, why should they be? They don't believe it's possible to get outraged about something "there is no outrage" over (on TV). TV is the source of their ideas about what their peers think is important, whether they agree or not. They don't see the extent of the lie. The US invasion of Iraq is important, not the US occupation of Somalia last winter (a subject which would suddenly elicit internet-wide alerts and 200 posts per day if one of the propagandists people listen to went and admitted to DUers that it was a US action.) See how it works? DU is completely under the thumb of perceptions generated by the TV media. They will NEVER go after Rush because TV has them convinced that he does not deserve to be fired. But they think Imus does. Why? Because floating heads on their television sets expressed outrage in terms bloggers understood as a signal to nod and agree.

That is why DUers mobilized to get Imus fired, but will not do the same for Rush.

Hell, even favorite DU hobby-horses like election fraud and 9-11 would quickly drop off to nothing if they weren't such taboo subjects in the news media. The newsmen aren't confident enough in their ability to create or destroy peoples' perceptions. All they'd have to do is spend a little time harping away, at, say "voter fraud" and activity on the subject here at DU would drop off to zero because "no one cares anymore" and "we can't prove anything -- I agree with Uncle Kieth Olbermann / Uncle Brian Williams."

In short, to be truly independsent of the news media, you have to shut off your TV and start doing things your favorite TV personalities insist are irrelevant. Like reading up on the Mogadishu invasion. Like putting the same effort into getting Rush fired that you put into getting Imus fired (you know who you are.)

[TwilightZone]

1. Are you new here?

DUers have been trying to get Rush fired for pretty much the entire history of DU, including, but not limited to, contacting broadcasters, advertisers, the FCC, Congress, and anyone else with an e-mail address or telephone number.

If you think DUers don't think he deserves to be fired, you're nuts.

[EST]

2. Do you have an encore?

[Leopolds Ghost]

25. This is the encore. I saw nobody was applying the Imus business to Rush, so I started one myself

It went nowhere.

Note, I do not mean "There was a lot of enthusiasm but nothing came of it, or the thread died off after the next big media event."

I mean about half of respondents refused to even consider the possibility of getting AS ANGRY for one week about Rush's statements over a period of 15 years as the constand media drumbeat had succeeded in making them, for one week, about Imus' similar statements over the same period.

I.e. willing to talk about that, first things first, as political topic
number one with all their nightly-news watching friends and co-workers.

Where are the "Rush Said X. Beck Said X. BOYCOTT" threads like we saw with
Imus for a solid week? I started one and the response I got was "well, in
that particular instance I agree with Rush, she WAS a ho." This is DU?

[Horse with no Name]

3. You are wrong.

But obviously you have never received your copy of the First Amendment from the FCC when YOU complained to them about Rush. Otherwise you would realize how silly your statement is.

[shenmue]

4. Um, speak for yourself.

OP: Try not to accuse large groups of people of something you couldn't possibly know.

:dunce:

[Leopolds Ghost]

20. I could indeed possibly know: I tried after Imus was fired. See for yourself:

Attempt to redirect "FIRE IMUS NOW" energies (to get Rush or Glenn Beck fired) fails

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x639819

Some DU'ers Defend Rush for calling someone a "ho" on air, say he should remain

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x657461

[Cha]

5. FUCK NO..

I don't "yawn"..it OUTRAGES ME! :grr: :mad:

Fuck the treasonous limpballs and the toxic elephant he rode in on.

[atreides1]

6. The first thing

To get Rush off the air, Clear Channel has to be the primary target. The problem with Clear Channel is that they can afford to take a loss on Rush, because just like an Octopus they have their tentacles into everything.

And as long as "conservatives" continue to listen and believe in the tripe that Rush is spewing, nothing short of him using the F-word once a day for the entire summer will force Clear Channel to drop his ass.

So, no matter what people here at DU do or don't do, Rush is here to stay!

[lies and propaganda]

7. "Uncle Keith?" Really?

youre not reaching just a little bit>?

[Leopolds Ghost]

21. Kieth Olbermann is a nice guy. He's also the "Howard Beale" of MSNBC

Intentionally so, according to his producers.

Seems I touched a nerve here, implying that DUers, like Americans, are not
immune from media manipulation and would be loath to take up an issue unless media heroes such as KO begin to first address it on nightly TV.

Replace "DUers" with "Americans" and this thread would have 10 rec's.

Let's be a bit more self-critical here. My post applies to all DUers who watch TV, whether they realize it or not, including (at times) myself.

That's how far management of perceptions goes.

The fact that people were willing to believe it was "worth it to make the effort" to get "liberal" host Imus fired for saying similar things to Rush, is telling.

Who told us what is and is not possible, which corporations can and cannot be defeated? The news media.

[rinsd]

35. "Seems I touched a nerve here,"

Acting like a prick and insulting large swaths of people tend to do that.

But then again, its all about you. YOU touched a nerve! YOU were leading the charge!

:eyes:

[Leopolds Ghost]

46. I was being a scold, yes, but my criticism obviously applies only to the DUers who yawned

And it's a big no-no to point fingers.

None of us has done enough to get Rush fired. Why? Because he's still there and Imus is not.

It's like saying that if we have proof Bush slept with a live boy or a dead woman (just about the only impeachable offense left) that it was not enough, that "we already tried to take down Bush, this changes nothing".

In this case, we now learn that Rush's and Beck's statements are now considered a firing offense. This did not use to be the case.

Those of us who beat our heads against the wall in frustration may be the
majority, but there's no way of knowing. The majority of active posters
see firing Rush as something that will not happen. All too many people
get snarky when it is asserted that it is time to become unyielding and take down these bigots "by any means necessary". I have no problem with right wingers on the air who are not bigots, although the source of their beliefs is entirely different -- suppressed bigotry is at the heart of the post-Reagan Republican party.

If Rush defended segregation on the radio today, what would happen on DU tomorrow?

Let's be unpredictable: Let's summon up that sort of response NOW,
WITHOUT further provocation. And WITHOUT being asked to do so by
anyone in the media.

[SteppingRazor]

8. Why are you guys in posts no. 1-7 trying to argue with someone who's so obviously better than you?

:eyes:

[annarbor]

9. For starters....

Who in the hell listens to Rush Limbaugh, Mike Savage, et al?
DU didn't get Imus fired, Imus did that all by himself....
Also, give it time...he'll step on it soon enough and corporate sponsors will yank his endorsements just like they did Imus'.

Ann Arbor

[rinsd]

10. Clueless, self righteous and judgemental. You should be a guest on Rush's show (nt)

[Forrest Greene]

11. Your Television & Radio Machines Are Indicating To You

...what it may, for a limited window of time & only after many intricate moves, be possible to do. Their moments, seized, ripple. This is not in any way to deny the importance of reading.

[Leopolds Ghost]

23. I think I agree with you. Perhaps, explicate.

[catmandu57]

12. We've been after that porker for years

After a while you get tired of beating yourself silly, however you're more than welcome to have a go at it, maybe, you can do what the liberal community hasn't been able to do all these years.

[sandnsea]

13. "cool kids" said Free Speech

the racists chose to focus on black America. The rest of us were finding ourselves with many-year friendships in tatters.

I posted 3 corporate contacts so that people could organize to get a good replacement for Imus. Nobody bothered to do a thing with it.

[Leopolds Ghost]

32. Sandnsea, I totally understand where you are coming from and I agree

I was willing to accept that perhaps Imus should not be fired but I am
not willing to accept hypocrisy and double standards. I recently learned
that the voters of Seattle voted to kill off their mass transit system and apply the money to roads instead. Hypocrisy is all around us, and the twisted language of the news media is at least partly to blame.

Language creates double standards, allows us to formulate two separate instances of the same outrage,

In order to imagine that one is intolerable and the other cannot be solved.

[sandnsea]

37. The man is a bigot

I cannot understand liberals advocating that a bigot stay on the air. It's no different than when Rush was taken off ESPN. Imus' remark about McGuirk being hired to tell "n***** jokes" is actually the one that sealed it for me. I just can't understand anybody standing beside him after knowing that. It most definitely is the hypocrisy, and then everybody goes on to attack hip hop culture instead of the hate radio culture which is what Imus rose out of. Most of my life has consisted of being stunned at moral hypocrisy, I really don't know why I still let myself get emotionally tangled up in it.

[Leopolds Ghost]

43. The reason you still do is because when we had localism, at least we had competing perspectives

Now, with centralized nationwide information control, there are no competing local perspecives, no competing moral hypocrisies that tend to cancel each other out, allowing localized popular movements to work together (in my opinion).

A double standard, once established, is exported nationwide and used to "flip" people's perceptions.

Our system of democracy was designed to work by allowing different localized systems of ideas (communities) to compete in a system of divided government and competing sources of information in an atmosphere of liberal discourse (i.e. argument about what's important.)

Now, deciding what's important to us is a fait accompli.

This system of government can't work if everyone shares the same hypocrisies on a week by week basis. As Jefferson noted, it only works because separation of powers causes individual, local hypocrisy and selfishness to cancel each other out.

In the pre-MSM era, one town might hate a figure such as Glenn Beck and write in en masse to get his ass removed, while another town rallied around him and embraced his racist ideas.

The same is true on the Internet. The increasing homogeneity of the idea-sphere, brought on by the fact that there are few localized communities where different competing ideas of what's most important can take root and flourish, is disturbing.

Instead the entire bloghosphere rushes, lemming-like, from issue to issue, and the emergent behavior -- the "intelligence of crowds" -- is driven by the predominant force and that is the MSM.

Which makes those of us who are outraged about something that isn't even mentioned in the MSM (say, Rush's racism or the war in Somalia) look like gadflies.

"Gadflies" is the correct term here.

"Nutters", "tinfoil hatters" and "trolls" don't capture the same meaning, although gadflies are frequently condemned for trolling when they continue to hammer away at a topic that is not universally considered important within the community (and with no competing local communities, you're considered a gadfly no matter where you go.)

[sandnsea]

Bigotry isn't a local issue

I don't even know what in the hell you're talking about.

[sandnsea]

47. dupe n/t

[Leopolds Ghost]

51. I'm agreeing with you. When we had localism, we had localized bigotries.

Now, thanks to the MSM, the entire nation is in agreement on who it's OK to hate.

That makes it difficult for many people here to muster up the level of outrage at someone like Rush whom their peers -- not only in their home town but in every media source they can think of -- tolerate. There are no competing frames of reference.

Does that make sense to you?

[sandnsea]

54. To be honest

I'm more cranky than normal today. Other things I need to deal with.

I don't know anybody who listens to or likes Rush. The few people I knew who watched Fox have figured out what a pile of trash it is - so maybe that's why I just don't relate to what you're talking about.

I think there are two possibilities as to why Rush is on the air. One is that he still makes more money than he costs. The other is that Imus was targeted by people on the left who have a particular brand of power that has never been brought to bear against Rush et al.

[Leopolds Ghost]

55. A power we still have, that has grown since the 04--06 elections. Rush is feeling vulnerable.

20 years ago, conservatives were feeling their oats. Someone like Ed Schultz might have been shit-canned over something and replaced with Rush.

To a limited extent, turnabout is not fair play -- merely necessary for the survival of our civilization. So let's shit-can Rush and replace him with, say, Ed Schultz.

(I know, folks will chime in to say they despise Schultz.
But if he suits the market, he suits the market!)

The "marketplace of ideas" has shifted.

We have to be willing to fight media control "by whatever means necessary" and that includes targeting the racists and xenophobes, now that they are on the run.

That is when the fat, weak, elderly senior members of the herd may collapse, or be left behind as a sacrifice. They will eventually turn him over to us as a martyr, to be memorialized by them later. I say we don't wait to do it on their terms, when he's stopped making money for them.

As much as we might find it distasteful to play hardball with the MSM on their own terms (hiring and firing, going after their sponsors).

If we had local control of the media, such tactics would be neither possible nor necessary.

As long as the MSM continues to stifle the free market of ideas we will need to resort to hard-ball (and I don't mean the show). They are the enemy and we need to draw up a list of "unlawful combatants" now thast we have a standard for doing so (thanks to Imus). We need to figure out who's worse than Imus and get them fired, one by one.

[shaniqua6392]

14. DUers yawn???????????

WTF are you talking about? All we can do is bitch about that idiot and send emails. We do not own the radio broadcast company. We had nothing to do with Imus being fired either. How could someone with over 1,000 posts on DU be so ignorant to judge an entire group of thousands of people here? Buh bye.

[Connie_Corleone]

15. DUers didn't get Imus fired.

The black journalists organization(forgot the name) were the FIRST to raise concerns about Imus' remarks.

Ultimately, the advertisers decided to pull their advertising and that's what got Imus fired.

And DUers have been trying to get rid of Rush for years. Rush had to leave ESPN because of his statements about black quarterbacks. Did you forget about that?

Think before writing crap.

[Leopolds Ghost]

22. It's not crap to assert that DUers should either accept that now is the time for Rush to go

Or push to reinstate Imus, if they don't believe that the
"racist remark" standard should be automatic grounds for
dismissal.

Yes, I am being a scold.

The fact remains that people percieve Rush as untouchable.

Do they percieve Glenn Beck as untouchable?

We tried to start a "fire Glenn Beck" thread on DU, too.

Magical thinking tells us that if "the black journalists
got Imus fired", that we don't have similar influence on
Glenn Beck, or God forbid, Rush. That is, 100,000 DUers
working together.

[Raine]

61. agree

and I wonder why Sharpton isn't going after Rush...unless he is and some how I missed it. :shrug:

[Czolgosz]

16. Last time I saw a tally, Olbermann names Limbaugh "worst person in the world" more than anyone

except Billo.

The two key differences between Limbaugh and Imus are that (1) Imus was on a station with pretensions of being a mainstream news outlet where Limbaugh is on Clear Channel subsidiary that has no pretensions about its role in spreading hate and propaganda and - consequently - the complaints to the broadcaster about Limbaugh fall on completely deaf ears where Imus's broadcaster felt more compunction to respond to complaints and (2) Imus was generating millions in ad revenue from corporations who were paying those millions to get a positive association for their product from their sponsorship and when it because apparent that they were not getting millions of dollars of positive association for sponsoring Imus they responded to consumer complaints where Limbaugh's advertisers are somewhat more local and have proven to be shameless about their sponsorship of hate and propaganda and they have been subjected to some boycotts but have continued to support Limbaugh.

I think your complaint is not with DU. It is with Limbaugh's sponsors and with Clear Channel.

[WilliamPitt]

17. Ah, the scolding.

*yawn*

[spoony]

41. Mate, I don't think you have much room to talk on that front.

[Bluebear]

18. Well, that was just plain rude. nt

[trotsky]

19. Well, I guess it's nice to see that you don't just blame non-believers for everything.

You're an equal-opportunity scolder, it appears.

[Leopolds Ghost]

30. If you agree with me, e.g. on the importance of issues the media won't address

If you're as angry about the US unofficial occupation of Somalia as I am
(while millions die in Darfur),

If you're as angry every passing day Beck and Rush outlives Imus in their job as I am,

why do you think I'm scolding -you-?

[trotsky]

57. Because your tone is not "let's get this done," it's...

"shame on you for not getting it done" and/or "shame on you for not having the same level of outrage I have" and/or "shame on you for alienating too many people to get this done."

You're only interested in blaming and scolding and telling everyone to do it your way. That's a great tactic on the right - doesn't work so well on the left. We tend to think for ourselves.

[Leopolds Ghost]

59. OK, fine, I started a "lets get it done thread".

Unfortunately nothing happened.

Not everyone seem to feel that it was appropriate to exercise that sort of pressure, or felt he was impervious to criticism.

When I posted examples of Rush saying stuff that should get him fired,
we got accused of defending Imus (!?)

[trotsky]

60. Not having seen or participated in that thread,

I have no idea what you're talking about.

I just know that approaching the topic as you did is not going to win anyone over. Oh, and DUers didn't get Imus fired.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

24. "Some folks say..."

I'm sure you're very concerned.

[Leopolds Ghost]

28. I'm not going to point fingers at specific people who defended Rush for calling someone a "ho".

And yes, I get concerned when people do that.

There is no way you can get any group of MSM watching Americans
to focus all their energies on something for a solid week that
has not yet made it into the MSM, the way the Seattle protests
of 1999 were, ironically, a success because of all the media
coverage leading up to it. They learned their lesson.

The media creates and defines the playing field.

They create and define the double standards.

For instance, someone on Kieth Olbermann (Washington Post guy) last night accused Obama of taking money from a "slumlord". Who was this slumlord?
A developer who built and ran (possibly into the ground, but still) low income housing.

Where is the outrage for all the luxury urban housing developers who finance DLC candidates, whose primary urban policy is gentrification?

The answer is that the media does not KNOW a derogatory phrase for such developers. They are considered heroes to the community. Landlords in poor areas who fail to displace their poorer tenants, are called slumlords and Obama is condemned by MSM for taking money from them.

You do not see the same reporter condemning Glenn Beck. Why?

Because it would be "off-topic" and "irrelevant" to the current media cycle. Same logic applies here.

[City Lights]

26. My attempts to get Beck fired were as successful as my attempts to

get his sponsors to pull their ads. And only two advertisers had the decency to reply to my email; American Airlines and Bigelow Tea. Both basically thanked me for sharing my opinion. American Airlines pulled the ol' "we buy ads in bulk without knowing what show we're really advertising on" crap, and we're sorry if it offended you. :eyes: Fuck them! Somehow Imus' sponsors knew how to get their "bulk" ads pulled.

The whole thing stinks, and I hate the corpocon media more with each passing day.

[sandnsea]

40. I am always up for that

It has to be organized and we have to believe in it. Between those who argue that it hurts innocent workers and those who are argue free speech and those who are just plain negative - it's hard to get enough people on one page to make a difference. But it can be done. By the way, I was getting emails from women's grousp almost daily during the Imus thing. So organization can make a difference. We just have to start believing it can work.

[Leopolds Ghost]

52. I agree. I posted a note on how we might go about at least getting Beck off the air

I kind of assumed the fait accompli of Imus' firing made the free speech
argument (which I sort-of agree with, BTW) obsolete.

What is good for Imus is good for pure evil like Rush.

Anyhow, my note predicted it would take five organizers compiling and
distributing information, letters, etc. from thousands of DUers about
five different subjects (aspects of the problem) to get Rush fired:

1. Elite perception of who should be fired, per the "Imus principle".

2. Elite perception of who's most vulnerable.

3. List of offensive statements and why they are relevant to today's news cycle. I.e. Talking points.

4. Sponsor lists and mass contact for sponsors of that person.

5. Drawing up a network of opinion leaders (media types and public figures) who publically or privately signed on to the effort.

[Rosemary2205]

27. Flamebait.

[Leopolds Ghost]

29. That was not my intent. I assumed most DUers agreed this was a problem

And that we need to be self-critical and put all our energies into something that will NEVER get mentioned in the Media until it is a fait accompli.

Like mounting a constant assault on Rush and Glenn Beck on the issue of racism alone until their ass is out of there.

We did not have the ammunition to do this before Imus (a quasi-liberal host) got fired.

[rinsd]

38. Really? You thought calling out DUers as TV addled sheep wasn't flamebait?

Couple that with thinking Imus was semi-liberal and I am left speechless at your ignorance.

[Leopolds Ghost]

48. Most Americans are TV-addled sheep. It is our number one problem that needs to be addressed

Best to start in our own communities. (For instance, I'm similarly critical about some of my friends, who are well to the left of many
people here. It think they don't realize to what extent their
perceptions about class, race, what issues are important, etc. are
shaped by their constant exposure to centralized news media.)

We may think we're getting access to different sources, but... consider:

Until my family got cable TV recently, (against my judgement BTW) I had no clue why DU and other sites constantly jumped on a certain issue and harped on it for days or weeks, (en masse) then moved on all of a sudden.

It was truly inexplicable to me. I assumed some large blog community out there I'd never heard about, was throwing their weight around, influencing what subjects all these millions of self-proclaimed MSM-haters (on every blog and website) chose to talk about.

I assumed that these obsessions (many of which were entirely on the money, insofar as our verdict on the issue at hand was different from that of, say, FR or LGF) but it was seeminly random which issue got 20 posts devoted to it.

I had no clue that cable news was so influential on the blogosphere until I saw it. At how precision-timed cable news (and print news) had become at moving from issue to issue and burying the rest in a fashion so outrageous that no one seems to notice,

because if they did notice, they would not merely be outraged at the bias in the MSM, but the very ability of the MSM to control what we here speak about, what we consider important, what we deem inevitable.

The Internet does not control which primary sources, which news topics
get highlighted and plastered all over the blogosphere -- I now realize
that not even broadcast TV does -- cable TV does. It has come to dominate
our political discourse in a way I did not fathom before we had cable.

And that is directly influencing each and every one of our opinions about who's untouchable, who is a goner, which issues must be fought "to the death" for and which ones can be "let slide" in order to build up a case slowly but surely, as many advocated.

[rinsd]

49. Oooooooooookaaaaayyyyyy

<backs away slowly, taking care to avoid sudden movements>

[devilgrrl]

31. Nothing like throwing shit at a wall to see what sticks.

:eyes:

[Leopolds Ghost]

34. That's because you think my outrage over Rush and Beck's continued survival is random and misplaced

It is the MSM which tells most people (including everyone you correspond
with on the Internet who is still tuned in) what is random and misplaced.

Outrage over the Iraq war is acceptabble now in a way it was not in 2003.

It is possible to create a subculture here on the Internet or political
circles that feels alienated by such artificially induced mass hysteria,
but only on common terms that the MSM will accept.

We assumed each of us would be opposed to the Iraq war when we joined DU
because the MSM taught us that is what liberals believe. But except for
a few isolated (so-called) "wierdos" like Scott Ritter, most of us were
unwilling to formulate our "liberal" anti-war arguments in terms the MSM
would not accept. We see a similar pattern with Iran, for instance,
or the (current) US war in Somalia.

Similarly, it is now possible to get a man fired for the sort of statements Rush and Beck continue to make, to prove they are judged by a different standards, and can only be judged by fellow members of the media nobility.

[Catherine Vincent]

33. Don't worry.

His day will come...and it will be satisfying.

[Leopolds Ghost]

36. I just hope when it happens, it will be us (the people) that did it for once.

And not some deus ex machina.

The left was strong and vigorous whenever it stops believing that evil
will fall of its own accord.

[ComerPerro]

39. you and this argument are pretty unoriginal and pathetic

Crap like this was dragged all over the boards during the Imus mess.

And here you are, telling people who aren't working to get Rush fired that they are tools of the media. And what are you doing? You are shilling for a shock jock asshole who, guess what, is the media.

[Leopolds Ghost]

53. I don't care about Imus, I never watched him.

I only assume he's semi-liberal because folks on DU said he was more
liberal than the talk show hosts who DIDN'T get fired.

Thus, somehow (in some way that isn't clear to me) an easier target.

And that was always the meme ("center left")
back when Imus helped get Clinton elected back in 92.

At least, that is the claim that was promulgated by all the print media, that Imus helped turn people on to Clinton. Perotistas.

But I believe there is some truth to the assertion. In any case, the
Imus principle applies to Rush whether he's a liberal or conservative.

I.e. most of us think Dan Rather should not have been fired
(although a substantial minority took the MSM line and said "he messed up".) Some of us may feel the same applies to Imus.

But now that the principle has been established, it must be applied evenly across the board, or we are explicitly endorsing a double standard.

We need to get some real assholes fired. The fact that they are popular for their willingness to go every bit as far as Imus is irrelevant.

Are you suggesting Imus' audience was somehow less tolerant of racism than Rush's? If so then you agree with me. The standard applies to Rush now.

Not a year from now when it could be argued we are being inconsistent after a year of tolerating Imus-like behavior on Rush's part.

[spoony]

42. LG makes an interesting point, DU yawns

Or, more accurately, gets overly defensive about it. Whether we like it or not, what we're exposed to in the MSM does affect what we talk about, and how we talk about it, even here. There's nothing to be particularly ashamed of or angry about in that, but it's something to keep in mind that could keep things in perspective.

[Uncle Joe]

44. The mass corporate media fired Imus because he

plays more to the middle and criticizes both sides, although overall, I believe he trashes Democrats more often. Because of this, he is/was more at risk of angering his base, thus cutting off dollars coming in to mass corporate media coffers.

Rush Limbaugh's base are either fascists or people who don't know they have fascist tendencies. Rush's behavior is acceptable to the mass corporate media because they view him as simply playing to his ignorant, racist base and therefore a much lower risk of costing the mass corporate media money.

Fox "News" knows it's base aligns with Rush's; the fearful, ignorant, hate mongering bigots among us. I highly doubt Fox will ever do anything to risk alienating their base and losing money. They will continue to pander to the lowest common denominator for so long as it's profitable or until they get an owner with at least a grain of journalistic integrity.

[Swamp Rat]

45. sleeeeeep

[Leopolds Ghost]

56. OBEY GIANT

[Initech]

50. I think Limbaugh's a total sleazebag.

I wish there was something we could do to take down that Oxycontin-peddling asswipe!

[yurbud]

58. I said at the time most of the cons had said far worse