How can we evaluate Obama fairly while ignoring right wing talk radio?

certainot

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Thu Dec-09-10 08:21 PM
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How can we evaluate Obama fairly while ignoring right wing talk radio?

Edited on Thu Dec-09-10 08:29 PM by certainot

Every day for 20 years, since Reagan killed the Fairness Doctrine, the Right has been putting soapboxes on every corner and stump in the country to scream that liberals and our representatives are thieves and liars and traitors. And except for picking out a few comments by the main blowhards now and again the Left has been giving the Limbaugh gang a free speech free ride.

“Obama’s head needs to roll” said Rush Limbaugh on September 10, 2008. It might have been “It’s Obama’s head that needs to roll”, I’m not sure which one. His absurd pretext for saying that was that Obama should fire himself. I complained to my local Limbaugh station (one of about 600 in the US) and may have been the only one.

In their latest victory they successfully stopped a black man in the White House from ‘stealing’ billions from America's most important white citizens.

Whatever faults Obama has, if you think you're going to get a better president in the near future without recognizing and responding to the Right's most important political and media weapon you're crazy. Everything liberals/progressives/Democrats want to do is made significantly more difficult because they ignore the talk radio monopoly. And more specifically, because they ignore the local stations that constantly blast their communities with lies, racism, and hate.

We let them sell excuses for election theft and we didn't get in the streets. We let them put corporate lawyers and religious fundamentalists on the supreme court. We let them sell torture and phone tapping for fear of a few terrorists. We let them sell the deregulation that allowed syphoning trillions of dollars from hard working Americans. We let them swiftboat good people and destroy Acorn. Without complaint.

We let them convince large parts of the country that the people who use America's infrastructure and resources the most shouldn't have to pay for it because jobs will trickle down. We let them turn a failed silver spooned AWOL frat boy into commander in chief. We let them rationalize the Bush Cheney Rove crimes. We let them lie us into Iraq and equate single payer with communism. We let them threaten and push around our representatives. Without complaint.

Without complaint, students and faculty let their institutions of higher learning broadcast athletic events on radio stations that also broadcast racism and global warming denial on a daily basis. Our unions and progressive and environmental organizations protest at state capitols and get no press while the RW radio stations reach much larger audiences to insult the protesters and distort their message. For those outraged by US torture, how can you let Limbaugh sell his Club Gitmo T-shirts and coffee mugs from your local Limbaugh station without complaining to that station's local sponsors?

Without complaint. When the Left does complain it's often after it's already been pounded into the earholes of 50 MIL Americans and moved into another medium. The collective Left walks by those soapboxes with its fingers in its ears, turns the dial, slides in another CD.

Every day the right wing think tanks use their giant megaphone to feed coordinated and well-timed lies, distortions, and distractions to the rest of the media. They create their own reality so that made-to-order pro-corporate constituencies can scream 2+2=3 at town hall meetings. Irrational, hypocritical, and lying politicians become enabled and acceptable merely because they ride the same talking points bandwagon. Everything the GOP does depends on unchallenged talk radio power.

Obama doesn't have the bully pulpit. Forget trying to get Democrats to 'message' or frame better. If they get any real traction or get lucky with truth and common sense the think tanks notice and counter it. With their giant soapbox they can usually lie, distort, distract, and yell over it. Whether it takes a day or a month.

Whether you want a sports analogy or not, here it is. The Left is playing without a front line, doesn’t know it, and screams that their fallen quarterback is a wimp.
Forget media deregulation and election reform or any other major reform before we fix the radio. Forget bipartisanship or real democracy. Forget sane reactions in national emergencies.

It's too late and probably impossible to get some new Fairness Doctrine, whether you want it or not. And global warming won't wait for the Left to break through the well protected monopoly and get more progressive radio stations.

But Americans must stop giving right wing radio a free speech free ride, especially after the Citizens United ruling. It only works because it is essentially unchallenged, with the national talkers well protected by call screeners.

Protest, complain to local sponsors, and expose its carnival barkers as the liars they are. Give them the blame they deserve for selling us this disaster. Challenge their credibility on a national level. Recognize Limbaugh as the most powerful man in the GOP - there's no one they're more afraid of pissing off.

As long as the collective 'Left' ignores the radio problem it cannot fairly say it got its representatives' backs. Or Obama's. Neither can it fairly evaluate their performance.