What can a blogger write about on “Super Tuesday” when the eventual results of the 10 States’ Republican Primaries are of little interest personally and of little long-term global impact? Wading in the morass of the ongoing Rush Limbaugh imbroglio is an interesting alternative. I view it as another humorous and depressing tour of the current American national insane asylum.
From now on, I will refer to Mr. Limbaugh as “Rushbo” since it’s much shorter to say and write. He does not deserve to be addressed with the same respect as most human beings. He does not even merit the “El” article because that would incorrectly imply that he is important to humanity despite his personal wealth. He is a wholly contrived media personality that perfectly outlines one aspect of the decline of the American Empire.
For about two decades, Rushbo has entertained his loyal radio audience with some of the most outrageous, nasty, false, sometimes funny, despicable, revolting, abusive, unhinged, extreme right-wing and fact-free opinions. But that’s how an entertainer keeps his job when catering to a particularly angry, ignorant and unhinged audience. His fanatical ravings say more about the nasty, warped, depraved minds of his “ditto-head” followers and this nation’s state of mind than about himself.
Democrats, Liberals, and Progressives are continuously outraged by his statements. Why? They only feed his ego by keeping him in the public limelight whenever they uselessly analyze and critique his particularly irrational statements. Sadly they perpetually get themselves all riled up over nothing instead of intelligently ignoring him. Thus our national public discourse never goes anywhere.
Temporarily Rushbo has lost some corporate sponsors for his syndicated radio show and a few radio stations have decided to no longer carry him. He made an intentionally insincere apology for personally insulting Sandra Fluke, a female law student, with respect to her testimony before a Congressional panel concerning her support for public funding of contraceptives. At this point in the media kerfuffle, his words and actions are simply “damage control” in order to maintain his enormous ego by staying on the airwaves and keeping the advertising dollars flowing to his radio show and media sponsors. Even if he were off-the-air and collecting unemployment checks, he has already amassed enough money to live comfortably for the rest of his life laughing at his stupid followers and even stupider opponents.
After a person has insulted many people over a career and starts to gratuitously call private citizens “sluts,” “prostitutes,” “hoes,” “whores,” and other patently false, derogatory, abusive and nasty monikers, it is very difficult to change course and provide a sufficiently believable apology. Rushbo has publicly insulted many individuals and organizations he opposes or who oppose him on almost every issue. He rarely debates an intelligent and prepared opponent on his programs, never participates in panel discussions, or subjects himself to incisive cross examination on the facts by any individual given equal time so that his poor analysis and faulty arguments are fully exposed and discredited.
Forgiveness from an aggrieved person can only be provided when the offender is genuinely contrite and remorseful; he realizes the wrongness of his actions, words, mistakes or omissions; he fully understands the injury and pain that resulted; he makes sincere and continuous efforts to permanently stop and reform the prior behavior; he performs honest penance and makes a genuine public effort to provide appropriate restitution; and he is not a lying sociopath or psychopath. Rushbo cannot intellectually or emotionally provide a sincere apology because he cannot meet any of these necessary criteria. Forgiveness will not likely be forthcoming because Rushbo does not want or need it. Getting upset about this Rushbo failure is a waste of time and energy for his critics – particularly if they fail to realize that he has been paid very handsomely over his career to say such vindictive garbage.
For those injured by the lies, slanderous statements, and intentional insults geared to cause pain and not jocularity, holding onto the resulting anger and grudges eventually hurts the victim more in the long run. The perpetrator generally moves on without even feeling any remorse or even being hurt financially, physically or psychologically. Life is short and some people (including Rushbo) are unredeemable, cruel sociopaths or psychopaths who cannot change. It’s better to ignore the baseless insults and move on – thereby releasing the anger and pain by concentrating on more important matters.
It is amazing that some people forget that their mothers were all women. Some might argue that Rushbo just slithered out of some primordial excrement and morphed into an arch-conservative and reactionary media sensation. To perpetually denigrate and disrespect over 50% of the human beings on this planet is simply amazing. That tens of millions of people support, regularly listen to, and moronically purchase the books of such a wealthy misogynist ego-maniac is simply mind-boggling. All I do to ignore this particular primordial dung heap of humanity is to remind myself they are still a small minority and life is too short.
I remember when I went to primary and secondary school in the 60’s and 70’s, eventually finishing college and graduate schools in the 80’s and 90’s, that to criticize another person’s mother would be the fasted way to start a painful physical altercation and an unexpected visit to a local healthcare facility. Even if the poor mother really was incarcerated for being a drug addict and a prostitute, most children would be very hurt by such a needless public insult – and naturally (plus justifiably one could argue) respond in a less than transcendental and restrained manner.
There are some lines that a civilized society and its members avoid crossing if they can be avoided. Some of today’s youth seem to fetishize the “yo mama” jokes as a way to lessen the pain of objectively viewing their dysfunctional parents. However, direct verbal attacks on a parent are still generally verboten – particularly if one foolishly hurls them in front of a dangerous and short-fused gang leader.
Rushbo is driven by private limousines to his secure radio station where he speaks alone to his 15 million regular listeners from a sealed booth. He avoids contact with the vast majority of other human beings in the U.S. He lives the very rare, lucky, lazy and sequestered life of a very wealthy man and member of the .01% oligarchy, whose greatest talents are self-promotion, catering to a particular lunatic fringe, and being a useful tool of even more powerful players in our corrupt crony kleptocracy that runs the U.S. He is not a particularly insightful, intelligent or caring individual but a very glib, closed-minded, narcissistic, manipulative and clever imbecile.
If Rushbo walked down most streets in America (and even most public arteries found overseas) and said to people’s faces what he regularly says on the radio, he would quickly find himself in an intensive care unit of a local hospital with major physical injuries – possibly having a re-arranged face more akin to a Picasso painting than to his current flabby, bloated and discolored pancake visage that is a tribute to years of gluttony. Such deserved consequences might quickly educate most thinking people on the valuable art of discretion, politeness, civility and the “golden rule.”
Rushbo and some of his like-minded followers might not embrace such a “teachable moment.” Making more than $50 million a year, Rushbo’s mouth would continue to spew forth stupider and nastier invective even if he removed his own head before starting his next radio program. Anyone want to sell him a gold-plated guillotine?
Submitted March 6, 2012 by Marc Pascal, ranting happily from warm and sunny Phoenix, Arizona.