Tonight I'm going to celebrate on the sudden blast of attention Rush Limbaugh is getting.
The least that can come of it is a larger audience for him and an increased awareness of one of the biggest piles of crap under America's basement carpet. If he loses some radio stations that would be great. Fantastic if he has to 'retire' and talk radio is never the same.
But that's not good enough. If we extend these recent efforts to right wing talk radio in general this election year will get a lot better for Democrats.
The fact is that right wing talk radio has been kicking democracy's ass for 20 years.
The most reaction it's ever gotten is when Limbaugh or one of the other major racist sexist blowhards says something outrageous. And a lot of that has gone completely unnoticed, like on September 10, 2008 when he said "Obama's head needs to roll". But that's not the important stuff. The important stuff gets repeated over and over and over for weeks, months, and years. The most important stuff has not only gone on unnoticed, it has changed our history and endangered the planet.
The right wing talk radio monopoly is a unique and powerful media tool. TV, print, and internet can't be coordinated and used like RW talk radio. No other medium is as loud and coordinated. It can turn molehills into mountains by prime time. Every day it sets out a smorgasbord of well-chewed talking points and one-liners for the lazy well-paid talking heads to pick through. They feel it; when they spout that lie on national media they know it's already been pounded into the earholes of tens of millions.
It started when Ronald Reagan killed the Fairness Doctrine. That meant from then on they could say whatever they wanted without being responsible for it (except for the kind of public shame we've seen the last few days). Then they bought up the loudest AM stations in the country. Even if Bill Clinton hadn't allowed the media consolidation they would still have created a monopoly of Limbaugh stations- they would only need more owners. And it was great if those stations already had long term relationships with their communities, such as if they broadcast the local sports teams- high school, college, and pro.
Those stations grew to over 1000 and they are coordinated at national and local levels to short circuit the feedback mechanisms a democracy depends on. Think tanks watch the news and if liberals or Democrats use truth and common sense for gain, a campaign can be created to swiftboat, distort, and distract. They can create made-to-order pro-corporate constituencies in days.
Talk radio doesn't have to pretend to be 'fair and balanced'. It can repeat and repeat to semi-captive audiences, reaching 50 million a week. Call screeners make sure the talking points are seldom challenged in real time. Call screening software automatically bumps paid callers, possibly from those same think tanks, to the head of the line. The left doesn't notice until the damage has already been created and attributed to the designated distraction, often Fox TV.
With Limbaugh attacking Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas became a supreme court justice. Talk radio made an example of Dan Rather and turned an AWOL drunk into a 'commander in chief' that even his own party won't mention now. That's how Al Gore became 'inventor of the internet'. That's how combat veteran John Kerry became an elitist flip flopper. That's where Americans learned Canadians were streaming across the border so they didn't die in hospital waiting rooms thanks to socialized medicine. That's where Americans found out Mexicans and dead people were streaming across the border to vote for Dems. That's why we went to Iraq and deregulated Wall Street.
That's why we still can't get together to deal with global warming and one of our major parties still entertains the possibility the Earth is flat.
I hope the boycotts will hasten an early Limbaugh retirement but unless the GOP establishment that has ridden the Limbaugh bandwagon for 20 years finally figure out he's driving them off the cliff and fires him, he might survive. He's got a lot of their secrets. With Citizens United there's a lot of money out there that can be used to keep him going in some form or another to continue to play a part in the elections. If they bail him out they will require him to play ball again and get behind the establishment pick instead of keeping the teabagger talk radio spawn in the race to increase his leverage. Maybe this time he won't be able to pick the VP. Whatever happens, I'll bet the Heritage Foundation or some other think tank has emergency plans for a Limbaugh heart attack or scandal and unless they want to let him go to prevent the Party of Lincoln from officially turning into the Party of Limbaugh there may be some major distraction soon.
The latest reaction to the talk radio monopoly needs to continue throughout this election year if liberals want to give Obama supermajorities in both houses.
There is no excuse for progressive orgs not to deal with the megaphones yelling over them. There is still no readable database of daily transcripts from right wing talk radio. Those orgs and the Dem party waste volunteer time and dollars. Step up. We don't have time to play games with the global warming denial industry, whose biggest blowhard is a........
Christian Dem in NC has started a petition to get U of North Carolina out of the 6 or 7 right wing radio stations that university broadcasts on. Here's that diary: http://www.dailykos.com/...
That's just one of 76 Limbaugh-supporting universities listed here https://sites.google.com/... that need similar pressure.