A free-ranging discussion on the current and future state of music radio, featuring veteran programmer, Mike Halloran. Click above to play.
A free- ranging discussion of the current and future state of music radio, featuring veteran programmer Mike Halloran. Click above to play.
A free-ranging discussion in 3 parts of the current and future state of music radio, with guest Mike Halloran, formerly of Fm 94.9 and 91X radio. Click to play.
Category : Uncategorized
Category : Uncategorized
Never thought that I could actually feel sorry for Sarah Palin. And I still don’t. But the emphasis on her role in the Arizona assasination massacre has become excessive and counter-productive because it let’s every other over-the-top political douche bag off the hook. How about that schmuck Carl Paladino threatening to “take out” the editor of the New York Post during the New York gubanatorial race? Or how about this memorable incident prior to a Rand Paul campaign event:
Or, how about the odious Sharron Angle and her many tiresome rants about “enemies” within our government, and “second amendment remedies”?
And it’s really hard to forget the relentless attack on intelligence and sanity routinely provided at Tea Party event:
And, while all that has been mentioned in passing over the past week, the real emphasis has been on Palin and her “crosshairs map”, targeting Gabriella Giffords’ congressional district. I know it’s difficult to distinguish between symptoms and disease when it comes to the “words have consequences” argument, but I’ve got to believe that Palin is more symptom than disease. The disease, in my opinion, is the crowd that Palin plays to, the ignorant mob of shit heads who have become the willing victims of a mass brain washing, perpetrated by the media, that has convinced them that the enemies of “freedom” lurk in every shadowy corner of America. Puppet masters like Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, and Michael Savage preach this bullshit on a daily basis to the intellectually challenged, and , through this alchemy, delusion and ignorance are converted to paranoia.
What’s sort of amusing (if anything) about all this is the reflexive defensiveness of the right wing echo chamber. Beck, Limbaugh, and the rest of them have responded with a collective “You lookin’ at me, buddy?” while ridiculing the very notion that their racist tinged fear mongering has any effect at all on anybody’s thinking or behavior. But, of course, any and all loopy-lefty rhetoric does have real potential consequences as a recent amusing Fox News story attests.
Hemanshu Nigam, founder of SSP Blue, an online safety and security consulting company, said most social network companies like Twitter ban hate speech or threats and have “solid mechanisms” in place to report such messages to law enforcement authorities.
“The messages that I saw ranged in the level of hatred as well as a level of threats,” Nigam told FoxNews.com. “There are some that are alarmingly harsh and I think it would be a good idea if Twitter could review them and take action where appropriate. Every case is different, but Twitter does have the right to take action.”
Well, first of all, I suspect most of the offending “tweets” are feeble attempts to be satirical or ironic, but I do find it interesting that Fox News is conceding that rhetoric can rise to the level of threat, as long as the threat is against one of their own.
MSNBC has milked the Palin angle more than anyone else, and I suspect their motives are not entirely pure. The names most invoked by Olbermann, Shultz, and Matthews in their attempt to establish cause-and-effect are Palin, Beck, and Bill O’Reilly, all fixtures at the rival network. There is nary ever a mention of the lesser known, non-Fox shit slingers like Mark Levin or Bill Cunningham, or for that matter, Michael Savage, the xenophobic psycho who makes Beck look like Ward Cleaver. What’s especially annoying about MSNBC’s coverage of the shootings is the constant disclaimer that nobody is accusing Palin of causing the gunman to revert to violence, BUT….
But what? That it’s time to have a serious discussion about the violent rhetoric and imagery surrounding modern American politics? Well, haven’t we been having that discussion going back to, at least, the Oklahoma City bombing? The bullshit coming from the mouths of Limbaugh, Don Imus, Beck, and the rest of them has been a constant theme in MSNBC’s coverage. And have any of them toned it down? And why would they when they’re feeding their goon squad listeners what they want most and getting rewarded handsomely for it?
This chicken-egg, disease-symptom stuff is pretty tricky. But suffice it to say that the totality of all the paranoid brain washing has created a nexus in which a loon like Laughner can lash out violently without really knowing exactly why. I’ve always found violence obscene, but perhaps even more obscene is the spectacle of well-healed “commentators” exploiting that violence from their pulpits, before retreating to the comfort and safety of their gated, million dollar homes.