I see you! (Don't bother to turn off the web cam.) You are sitting there in a comfortable seat, reading and throwing in a comment or two. Is that French Roast or Coors? Never mind.
You may not realize it, but you are about to be drafted into an army. And the best part--you can fight its wars with a finger (not that one!)
First, let me tell you a little bit about this army. It's got a string of service medals already. Ann Coulter calls a fine man a "faggot." Her advertisers drop like flies. The Department of Justice does a massive document dump on a Friday night. They think no one is watching. An hour or so later, a date gap in the collection is found by one of the "grunts." Don Imus acts like a total jerk. The behemoth, Proctor & Gamble, throws up a white flag.
The important thing about power, though, is to use it. Just like the Cold War, overwhelming power can be used to maintain peace as well as war.
So we're watching. You aren't allowed to just sit and sip. Pick your own battle. Send at least one volley a day. Here are a few suggestions.
It's easy to quote Don Imus' bigoted remarks. But are Glenn Beck's (from his April 10 HLN show) any less vile?
Here`s the terrifying fact that I want you to think about tonight. There are about 12 million illegal immigrants in this country right now. Six hundred thousand of them have been ordered to return home, but didn`t. They`re completely unaccounted for. They`re fugitives, running around America doing God knows what.
Hey, Glenn...I know exactly where they are. They are picking our tomatoes, cleaning our hotel rooms and mowing our lawns. They don't have time to run around much!
His guest plays on the fears of senior citizens next:
And if the White House plan passes, if the Senate plan passes, if we legalize illegal aliens under that totalization agreement, Glenn -- get this -- every illegal alien from Mexico and their entire extended family will be put on the already overburdened and almost bankrupt American Social Security system.
Fact: We desperately NEED workers in the system. These people aren't going on social security, Glenny, they are going in social security. They will be paying, see? (Instead of enriching Western Union and other Bush backers by sending their money home.)
Beck goes on to conflate Mexican workers with 9/11 hijackers and then--amazingly--tells Dave Glover that he doesn't watch The Sopranos anymore because
We don`t want to watch man`s inhumanity to man anymore.
I know this will surprise you--given the fact that there's a 1973 article questioning global warming on the home page of Glenn Beck's website. But one of his main sponsors is Shell. prdmkttechservices@shell.com
Need another idea? If you throw away the stuff on sex, it's hard to find much on Bill O'Reilly that isn't bigoted. And O'Reilly's website is mostly self-funded now, since you have to pay to see anything but his big head. But his recent tirade against a drunk driver (blaming the drinking on the fact that the driver was an immigrant) is certainly enough to earn him ranking as a third front in this war. If you feel inclined, his chief non-google webiste sponsor appears to be Emigrant Bank:
CustomerService@EmigrantDirect.com
Still reading? You missed the point. You don't deserve the rich diversity of this freesite if you don't lob a little ammunition in the war for civil, intelligent discourse in the media. Flex your index finger on that mouse.