(Cross-posted on Someone Took In These Pants...)
Amidst the nationwide nonviolent protests on the third anniversary of the War in Iraq, Rush Limbaugh has been doing his best to smear all those who are calling for peace.
Recent examples below the fold.
Last week, Media Matters
reported that Limbaugh
falsely claimed that Rep. Dennis Kucinich's proposal for a cabinet-level Department of Peace and Nonviolence would "[g]et rid of the Department of Defense."
As it has done hundreds of times in the past couple years, Media Matters corrected Limbaugh's misinformation.
In fact, Kucinich's proposed Department of Peace would operate in addition to the Department of Defense to "develop policies that promote national and international conflict prevention, nonviolent intervention, mediation, peaceful resolution of conflict, and structured mediation of conflict."
On Monday, furious that a recent Zogby International poll found that 72% of U.S. troops in Iraq want the U.S. to pull out of Iraq within a year, Limbaugh advocated "throw[ing] it out" because it was funded by the Center for Peace and Global Studies at Le Moyne College in upstate New York. As always, Media Matters is on the case:
And when I -- anytime an organization has the word "peace" in it, throw it out. It's just a bunch of long-haired, maggot-infested, dope-smoking, FM peace-types that have an agenda.
That's interesting, Rush. I am an active member of my community's peace and justice organization, and I have a degree in peace studies. But I have very short hair, am maggot-free, and don't smoke dope. Even if I did do that latter activity, far be it for a "hillbilly heroin" addict to throw the first stone. And I don't even know what "FM" means in this context. Perhaps the slang etymologists amongst our readers could help me out on this one.
This is the same Rush Limbaugh who, according to Media Matters, found silver lining in the kidnapping of four Christian Peacemaker Teams activists by Iraqi insurgents in the fall.
I mean, these people are liberals, they're warped. Well, I mean, that's why there's -- I'm telling you, folks, there's a part of me that likes this. Probably, even with this, though, you know, they're not going to see the light of day. They're not going to --
The activists had been working with families of detainees to document human rights abuses, like those that occurred at Abu Ghraib. Sadly, the kidnapping which part of Limbaugh liked led to the death of one of the activists, Tom Fox. Fox was confirmed dead about a week ago.
The whole of me likes the idea of Rush retiring from his smear-show host job and never again polluting the minds of his "dittoheads" with this kind of filth. It is the same filth as the conservative talking points which paradoxically link "supporting our troops" to supporting a war which has killed over 2,300 of those men and women, and left over 10,000 of them injured.
Email Limbaugh (rush@eibnet.com) and tell him to stop his war on peace, which has only lately included misinforming on the proposed Department of Peace, smearing peace activists because he doesn't like the result of a poll which proves him wrong, and expressing partial fondness for the kidnapping of people with whom he disagrees.
