In my view, the struggling but surviving liberal radio network founded by Al Gore and other liberal pioneers in 2004, Air America, should fire its Young Turks commentator Kossack Cenk Uygur or otherwise disassociate itself from him. Mr. Uygur is certainly entitled to express his views anywhere he wants, but freedom of speech and of association are not one-way streets. This grotesque and embarrassing display of contempt and hatred towards both Christianity and Islam, posted both here and on his show's website, make it clear that Air America will wind up making a choice sooner or later. My own hope is that it will be we liberals, not Jew-baiting asshole and right-wing media assassin Bill Donohue, who get the job done in this case AND get the credit for the firing.
I won't "Fisk" Uygur's diary; it speaks for itself in the title and gets worse. But it ends thus:
So, you take your voodoo and I'll take reason and logic, and let's do ideological battle. I might not win in the short run because humanity is an infant that is still struggling to open its eyes. But ultimately my victory is inevitable (unless of course the religious kill us all first).
You can make all the loony toon arguments you like. And you can even whine over cartoons of Mohamed or chocolate covered Jesuses. But when you says [sic] I am not even allowed to speak back, well, that's fighting words.
Some pedants will scream "free speech" or "artistic expression" or, even more embarrassingly, "First Amendment" to the proposition that Cenk Uygur should get fired. I certainly don't believe that the government should ever take action against people for writing offensive bigotry. Uygur and the Klan and the Nazu Party should all be able to march down 5th Avenue in New York or down my street reading off their diary or off of Mein Kampf without governmental interference, or at least not on the basis on the content of their speech (e.g. they shouldn't be able to do it at 3AM with a megaphone.) But I fully endorse Uygur's right to publish or speak at any forum that he owns or uses from a willing owner. He should be able to stand and read that diary aloud on any public space in the United States without interference from the government or from a single soul doing anything but heckling him back. His right to free speech without governmental interference I FULLY ENDORSE.
The issue is not whether he has freedom of speech, but rather whether Air America should continue to buy his speech and provide him an Air America microphone, chair, broadcast network, XM transmission, etc. I think they should purchase no more of Mr. Uygur's speech, i.e. they should buy from another supplier, of which there are thousands.
Why? Because the network is associated with the growth of liberal and Democratic politics in this country, and for it to slowly bleed while right-wing media assassins like Bill Donohue take free shots at it for the next weeks and months and years (and you know that they are already gearing up to do so now, as we speak) damages all of us. Air America cannot deny its participation in this speech; it's on the damn Young Turks site!
Some will say that I am a concern troll. No. I am a pissed-off secular critic of religion, a frequent torturer of the semi-reconstructed segregationist and racist Jerry Falwell on my own site. I am proud to have been the author of the term "sacroturf" to describe the mau-mauing of Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwen for comments made substantially before their connection to the Edwards campaign, comments much less offensive than this puerile embarrassment of Uygur's.
I want a more secular, more liberal and libertarian America, for the influence of the religious right to wane. I want to see atheists and agnostics, secularists, humanists, infidels, heretic and all-around freethinkers to take the lead again in American cultural life. I want to see a secular Congress in my lifetime, want to see a thousand Pete Starks willing to come out of the closet and announce that they, too, are proudly non-theistic, atheist, whatever/however they define themselves. On my iPod as we speak are podcast downloads from the Infidel Guy, from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, from Dogma Free America. Of the three, Dogma Free America's host is the one whom I would most wish Air America would pick up when/if they fire Uygur. These shows hit hard without apology, but none of them talk about Islamic countries sucking the cock of Jesus of Nazareth.
Atheists and agnostics have to fight too fucking hard to get ahead politically and socially for them to have the luxury of suffering fools like Uygur without a response. A majority of Americans will not vote for an atheist for public office, period. That is a bit less true in the more liberal and secular parts of the country, of course, but severely true in most of Red-state America. There are enough serious, mature challenges to make to right-wing religious institutions on the basis of their tenets, their social agenda, their political activities, their homophobia, their sexism, their racism, their promotion or tolerance of militarism and questionable foreign policies, their occasional tendencies towards fascism (as anyone who has seen the "praying to/for George W. Bush" scene in Jesus Camp can attest.) Atheism, materialism, secular humanism, skepticism - all have a great deal to offer on their own merits; it's destructive to poison the debate with discussions of Jesus' cock in Syria's, Jordan's, Mali's, Pakistan's mouth, etc.
Uygur should be free to speak. And write. And publish. Including about Jesus' cock in whomever's mouth Uygur would place it under his literary or rhetoric style. But liberals should not have to subsidize their own political destruction. We should spew Uygur out of our mouths, as it were, and send him free to speak freely. But we - liberals who are Air America's intended audience - can't fire Uygur. Only Air America's management can do that.
If Air America won't fire him willingly, it may wind up doing so under orders from a bankruptcy judge at a future date. My own hope is that he will be fired by 9 AM tomorrow and that a more suitable host - secular, liberal, unapologetic and tough as nails, but devoid of chocolate cocksucking references - will be hired promptly.