Sometimes, free time at work is a bad thing.
I listen to Rush Limbaugh.
A lot.
I grew up listening to him. My Dad and I used to watch his T.V. show together. It's a happy memory from my childhood, eating dinner with Dad, watching Rush, but not really understanding.
Now, all grown up, I can't stand the man. I think what he does is insipid. It's not the things he says that get to me, it's the fact that I know he doesn't believe them. Not all of them, anyway. I especially don't believe that he supports the Bush administration's assault on Civil Liberty. Rush is smarter than that. Rush has a sense of history, he knows what happens when government power runs amok, knows that our government is one of checks and balances not one of unlimited Executive police power.
Rush knows that they wont stop at phone records. Or bank records. Or medical records. Warrantless searches. Expanded police power. Martial Law. Rush sees the spectre of these things.
But, he has to cater to his audience. Rush is an entertainer first, newsman second, and he has millions of listeners who tune in every day to hear right wing apologetics. Rush has got to feed the monkey.
And, it is in the monkey, not the zoo keeper that we see the true face of the extreme right wing. And it's ugly. It's ugly and it's thoroughly un-American.
Rush's phone lines were jammed today. Jammed with frothing Wingnuts decrying the Supreme Court decision to give Gitmo detainees equal protection under the law. Trials for the "enemy combatants", not Tribunals said the decision, and the Right Wing was on fire.
I heard men advocating torture. Locking them up and throwing away the key. Lining them all up and shooting them. Caller after caller after caller filled with hate. Filled to the brim with the desire to dehumanize other men, to do the very things that we are supposedly struggling against in Iraq. Not a word of admonition from Rush. No blatant support, but no admonition either. He knows better, but his job wont let him say so. His listeners wont let him say so.
It was nothing I didn't already know, but for some reason as I listened today I was filled with despair. How misguided do you have to be to advocate torture, mass killings, gulags with one breath, then with the next breath label me and people like me un-American. Democrats, liberals who support the American ideals of equal protection and fair treatment for all human beings, of due process. People who decry the use of torture in any form, who believe that our military is not to be used unless it's absolutely necessary. People who value the lives and rights of all human beings, people who value the fact that we live in a free society, free (for the most part) to say what we feel, to express ourselves, to be free from the prying eyes of an oppressive government.
In what kind of twisted world are those things considered un-American? I'm at a loss, but there are millions of people out there who would be glad to explain it to you.
After today, I think I might have to take a break from Rush. Part of me is sad to do so. Rush not only makes me remember spending time with my Dad, but he gives me the rare chance to look the opposition right in the face and see what they really stand for.
In this day and age, that is invaluable.
