posted
She didn't just quote the N-word a bunch of times; she also said, among other things,
"I think that's -- well, listen, without giving much thought, a lot of blacks voted for Obama simply 'cause he was half-black. Didn't matter what he was gonna do in office, it was a black thing."
and
"If you're that hypersensitive about color and don't have a sense of humor, don't marry out of your race."
So I can understand why anyone would be offended by what she said.
posted
You know what makes me sad? That so many of the people (rightfully) criticizing her can't do it without calling her a "stupid cunt" or "dumb bitch"... like really, they can't think of a better way to combat racism than with sexism?
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I don't know that using a gendered slur is necessarily a display of sexism. Most of the similar insults applied to men are also, generally speaking, applied *only* to men. She's a bitch. He's a dick. That's just convention.
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Certainly, but female gendered slurs historically have much worse connotations than male gendered slurs. An example: I rarely see adjectives such as "stupid" "dumb" and etc attached to male gendered slurs, whereas it's almost a kneejerk reaction to dismiss the intelligence of any woman one dislikes, feeding into the trope that women in general are inherently more frivolous and foolish than men. In short: it is convention, but conventions weren't made in a vacuum.
On a less serious note, I'd just like to see people get more creative with their insults. A bigger vocabulary is always a good thing Posts: 241 | Registered: Nov 2009
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Or, if you look at it the other way, female slurs have to be qualified with terms like "stupid," whereas male slurs take that for granted. Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
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quote:Originally posted by James Tiberius Kirk: "Dr.Laura:don't retreat...reload! (Steps aside bc her 1st Amend.rights ceased 2exist thx 2activists trying 2silence'isn't American,not fair')."
It's like the perfect storm of mental vapidity. Palinesque desperately condensed into a 140 character limit, creating a hybrid grammatical/logical abomination that hits you like a brick being thrown into the washing machine of your mind.Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by scholarette: I want my first amendment rights! No one pays me to have a talk show or listens and respects what I say regardless of how offensive and stupid it is. It is not only unfair, but unconstitutional!
She's so oppressed! All she wanted was what every other American enjoys under the constitution; the right to say stupid things and never face any consequences from your fellow citizens!
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My wife was making a similar point a few days ago and I knew something was not right.
Why can African American teens in her schools hallway us the n-word and the other kids can not.
Then, thank Card, it struck me what the situation was.
The N-Word is used to define a group of people. Historically, when a non-African-American group use it, they are defining a group of people as less than human, unworthy, basically--The Other.
When an African American group use it they are defining themselves as being part of the same group that has endured the unique travails of that particular minority experience.
When I say N it is associated with others that look and talk like me saying "they are Other." When they say it is is associated with their group saying "its hard out there, but together we can withstand it."
I've heard the bleeped version of her conversation. I find it 10 times more racist in that she suggested that only people willing to put up with abuse should marry outside their race, than in her attempt to comprehend the meanings of the N-word. The fact that she supposedly fights against the culture of victimization is opposed by her advice--which is, "Its not their fault they are calling you degrading names. Its your fault for not ignoring it, which is what all good people do when they dare to cross the race line. Its your fault so you deserve to suffer for it."
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When things like this happen, I tend to find myself thinking: "Why couldn't (x) have gotten hammered for any of their willful and intentional displays of abhorrent behavior rather than some stupid, off-the-cuff thing they said that happened to hit the right (wrong) button?"
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This is particularly worth asking in the case of Dr. Laura, who has spent years dispensing probably the most fantastically terrible and offensive advice on her radio show imaginable. Years.Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I think that despite the group dynamics, it is still wrong to give one group a pass on a term and another group such severe consequences. I am thinking about the current Jennifer Anniston controversy over calling herself a retard. I have never heard anyone in any the disabled community use the word they are trying to eliminate and frankly I think it makes their claims a lot stronger. I think by using it within the group, it will eventually return to being a universal word- like how there used to be that show "Queer eye for the straight guy" when at one time queer was considered a very offensive word. I think a word like retarded will instead fade and disappear.
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quote:Originally posted by Darth_Mauve: The N-Word is used to define a group of people. Historically, when a non-African-American group use it, they are defining a group of people as less than human, unworthy, basically--The Other.
When an African American group use it they are defining themselves as being part of the same group that has endured the unique travails of that particular minority experience.
When I say N it is associated with others that look and talk like me saying "they are Other." When they say it is is associated with their group saying "its hard out there, but together we can withstand it."
If you look in the dictionary, it shows that the word is used to defined as follows:
"a victim of prejudice similar to that suffered by blacks; a person who is economically, politically, or socially disenfranchised. "
To me, that still doesn't make it right. If I called another member of the LDS faith the N-Word, it would not be ok, even though according to history and the dictionary term I would be perfectly justified in doing so.
quote:Just curious Geraine: do you have an inherent problem with profanity in general or are you primarily concerned with racist overtones/history?
It isn't a question of profanity to me, but with the racist overtones and history. I think the term "Uncle Tom" when referring to a black man is offensive due to history. I also have problems with terms such as "wetback," "chink," and "spick" are offensive.
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Okay, you had just mentioned a similar problem with Chris Bridge's use of profanity in public, so I wasn't sure whether the driving force was the racist element or the vulgarity in general.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: This is particularly worth asking in the case of Dr. Laura, who has spent years dispensing probably the most fantastically terrible and offensive advice on her radio show imaginable. Years.
I think that's a bit exaggerated. People wouldn't listen to her show if her advice had zero efficacy.
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quote:People wouldn't listen to her show if her advice had zero efficacy.
People do all sorts of stuff irrespective of efficacy. People only need to *think* it's effective in order to keep doing it and in the case of Dr. Laura, I've known many people who have listened to her purely for entertainment.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: This is particularly worth asking in the case of Dr. Laura, who has spent years dispensing probably the most fantastically terrible and offensive advice on her radio show imaginable. Years.
I think that's a bit exaggerated. People wouldn't listen to her show if her advice had zero efficacy.
People listen very intently to homeopaths. More people than watch Laura's show, in fact. That people listen to something doesn't mean that it's not possibly wrong and harmful, as Dr. Laura's advice often was.
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Dr. Laura holds the opinion that if someone calls her show, the only person she can help is the person with whom she's speaking. So she's often very tough on the person in question.
She's not for everyone and has by no means given 100% perfect advice all the time, but I'll wager most people would do well to stop playing the victim, put their children first, and make the right and hard decisions. That's the crux of Dr. Laura's advice. Apart from hurting someone's feelings, I can't see how that's harmful.
Then again, Dr. Laura leans more right than left, so I imagine the opinions expressed here about her "wrong and harmful" advice might be based more off that than her actual show.
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And like a doctor who recommends a low-fat diet and jogging to all his patients, regardless of their aliment, Dr. Laura leans on that "crux" considerably harder than she needs to. To the point that she's practically cartoonish.
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quote:Then again, Dr. Laura leans more right than left, so I imagine the opinions expressed here about her "wrong and harmful" advice might be based more off that than her actual show.
No. It could not be more fantastically irrelevant to me. This even though what parts of her advice could easily be crudely implicated as being 'right wing' don't help her at all because those parts that are construed as 'right wing' involve her already bad advice becoming snakebitten with ignorant homophobia and culturally inquisitive demands that women juggling career and family immediately prostrate themselves to the traditional role of women, regardless of how appropriate this advice actually is. But I don't consider that inherently 'right wing' any more than I would consider it to be 'right wing' if she gave racist advice. If she represents 'right wing' therapy and life advice, then 'right wing' therapy and life advice sucks and is bogglingly shallow.
My opinion is based off of her actual show, because her actual show sucks and she's a terrible advisor.
Her advice is silly, she overuses a 'confrontational' style, and frequently prescribes bad advice fostering codependency and malignantly harmful parentage in the worst of cases. Just guess what she'll recommend if your son comes out to you as gay. Just guess. For the rest of the issue, I will wantonly paraphrase from the nameless.
Her show was popular because she was considered to be an unwavering moral champion of tough love. She has no patience with people who 'lie to themselves' and she 'tells it like it is even if it hurts.' If this was true, it would be somewhat commendable. It is difficult and sometimes risky to tell people things they don't want to admit to themselves. It is true providing, of course, you have a relationship with that person and some actual insight into their situation. It is not true if you do not. It is neither difficult nor risky to give advice to strangers. And that's the biggest problem with Dr. Laura.
Typically, her callers get an iota of impeded upon time to describe their situation. Any detail that seems extra is instantly discarded. Within that time Dr. Laura has already 'identified' the 'type' of person making the call, their problem, and selected the appropriate formulaic solution to solve it.
Unfortunately, Dr. Laura seems to only use about 4 different categories of people and problems. Since there are millions of people and problems which she's presented with other than the 4 she understands, only 4 in a million will fit into one of her categories. But since there are only 4, they're going to have to fit in somehow. So all the factual details of the problem that don't fit or contradict her categorization, she ignores.
That is probably why the caller gets so little time. Any more time would bring out all the troublesome facts of their situation that would make her advice look shallow and incomplete. The advice itself is designed more around palliating and gratifying her audience than actually being helpful. It's not advice which is particularly helpful to an individual, it's advice which her audience likes to gratify themselves on hearing someone else be told to do. Like many in the self help field she survives on public acceptance of the notion that there are easy answers and that she can dispense them to you and have them take hold in less than the time it takes to microwave bacon.
Other personalities that work off her same general formula are still typically leagues better than she is. For her popularity, Dr. Laura was in a fail-class of her own. Her advice was often fabulously poor and ruthlessly adopted to the single 'crux' you mentioned, to the extent where the odds of the advice actually being useful to the myriad of situations that were phoned into her was an absolute crap shoot.
It's not actually a surprise. Dr. Laura is in no way qualified. The PhD behind her being "Dr. Laura" is a PhD in physiology, not any of the fields relevant to psychological inquiry or therapy. Of all the people who are actually qualified, PhD holding psychotherapists, most would understand the problems with trying to immediately assess and assail someone based on the most cursory of data in the way Dr. Laura's style was so inclined to do. In lieu of being actually qualified to assess, she filled in the holes with gratuitous, presumptory moralizing. You don't have to be right wing to do that.
I'm sure we all recall my stance on therapy. Laura represented the most demagogic bastardization of pop-therapy in mainstream culture. She made Dr. Phil look like a saint.
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posted
Really, I'm not sure why anyone credits Dr. Laura with, well, anything above neutral. She calls herself 'Dr' Laura and dispenses psychiatric- and medical-style advice, but she is not actually a doctor in either of those fields. The choice to call herself that professionally cannot possibly have been made unknowingly, therefore she is awfully sleazy and deceitful.
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Well, she does have a PhD, and is certified as a marriage counsellor. From Wikipedia:
quote:She received a bachelor's degree from Stony Brook University. Moving to Columbia University for graduate studies, she earned a Master's and Ph.D. in physiology in 1974. Her doctoral thesis was on the effects of insulin in rats. After she began dispensing personal advice on the radio, she obtained training and certification in marriage and family counseling from the University of Southern California, and a therapist's license from the State of California. In addition, she opened up a part-time practice as a marriage and family counselor.
As I mentioned, in physiology. I fully grant she would likely be fully qualified to be a nationally renown source on issues related to that field, but it's not a degree in anything remotely related to her field of promoted expertise.
The other licenses grant her more credibility than what she gets the Dr. moniker for. Though, like I had noted, it's easy for terrible therapists to get a therapists' license and in and of itself is little guarantee of quality. Fortunately, thanks to her show, I have little ambiguity on the matter: she sucks. She's a known quantity.
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posted
Dr. Laura bills herself as a Jewish mother who nags people to do what's right. That's it! Take it or leave it.
Her listeners have known for a long time that she's not a doctor of psychology or a licensed therapist. She's pointed this out herself many times and has advised people to seek professional help when the situation is beyond her.
You can dislike her show all you want. There are times I find her too confrontational for my taste and tune her out. But I take issue when you speak in absolutes. Not all of her advice is wrong or harmful. Many people have benefited from it. At her worst, she's noisy and argumentative, and people are turned off by her. At her best, she's on the phone finding a local women's shelter for someone who needs to get away from an abusive husband.
Edited to change "her" to "an."
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quote:But I take issue when you speak in absolutes. Not all of her advice is wrong or harmful.
quote:wrong and harmful, like Dr. Laura's advice often was.
quote:Her advice was often fabulously poor and ruthlessly adopted to the single 'crux' you mentioned
These are not absolutes. I'm not saying that Laura's advice is 'always' bad. If you are taking issue with people speaking in absolutes, you might want to wait for that to actually happen, at least in my case.
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quote:Well, she does have a PhD, and is certified as a marriage counsellor. From Wikipedia:
Yes, I know, Scott. She is technically accurate. But given the content of her show, calling herself Doctor Laura sends a pretty specific implied message. I can tolerate that kind of implied deception in, say, advertising. It's to be expected there. And the smart thing to do is to expect it in mass media in general, after all. But that doesn't make it right, and it doesn't make her any less sleazy for doing it. If she called herself 'Counselor Laura', I would have no complaint, at least not any complaint not tied to her rhetoric. But she doesn't. 'Doctor' Laura-not, y'know, in the things I actually broadcast (preach) about, but am I mistaken or does she mention that at the beginning of her show, as a bit of helpful information to her listeners?
quote:Dr. Laura bills herself as a Jewish mother who nags people to do what's right. That's it! Take it or leave it.
No, she bills herself as a Doctor. It's right there in the name. My next door neighbor growing up had a phD in some mathematical field, maybe engineering, I forget. He was also very much involved in his church when I was a kid - I know this from many attempts to rope me in when I was a kid, only a couple of which were successful. But when he spoke to his fellow church-goers, he didn't say, "I'm Doctor ______," he just said, "I'm Stephen." I'm sure one of the reasons was, aside from it being silly and pretentious to refer to himself as 'Doctor' outside of conversations where it's relevant, he didn't want to convey a false image.
quote: Her listeners have known for a long time that she's not a doctor of psychology or a licensed therapist. She's pointed this out herself many times and has advised people to seek professional help when the situation is beyond her.
It sounds like you're a regular or at least a not-infrequent listener. How often, in a typical broadcast, does she point this out vs. the number of times she is referred to in that same span as 'Doctor Laura'? I would be very much shocked if the proportion was incredibly skewed towards the latter instead of the former.
quote: You can dislike her show all you want. There are times I find her too confrontational for my taste and tune her out. But I take issue when you speak in absolutes. Not all of her advice is wrong or harmful. Many people have benefited from it. At her worst, she's noisy and argumentative, and people are turned off by her. At her best, she's on the phone finding a local women's shelter for someone who needs to get away from an abusive husband.
Who is speaking in absolutes? Who has said all of her advice is wrong or harmful? You're speaking against arguments that haven't been made, FoolishTook.
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posted
Dr. Laura is interesting to listen to you if look at her advice as global standards instead of solutions to the specific problem of the caller.
I don't believe anyone can give really relevant advice to a complex problem in a 30-120 second phone call. However, Dr. Laura is a great defender of children, stresses honest communication, the need to stand up for yourself, goals, and values, and tries to get people to not be so selfish in relationships.
I think she is horribly wrong on gay issues. I think her directive to not marry or date once you are divorced is unrealistic and meaningless. Her specific advice might be toxic to the caller--but she is good at setting out a standard for other people to try and implement in their lives.
I tend to listen to talk radio. I don't have many cds, our music stations are aweful, and I travel a lot in my car.
I would rank our little towns line up as:
Dave Ramsey (I actually like him a lot)--Dr. Laura (tolerable, interesting to listen to, I am not a hater or a lover)--Rush Limbaugh (I agree on fiscal conservative issues BUT I DISLIKE him a lot. He can be funny but he is a master deceiver, manipulator, and he makes me mad)--Hannity (can't stomach him for more then 5 minutes--Levine (I honestly wonder how he has a successful show). I can't rate Beck or Savage. *shudder*
I don't know the other air personalities like Colmes or the satellite people like Stern. I don't listen to anyone a lot. I wish Ramsey had the 10-1 slot--that is when I am in my car the most.
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posted
Given that she renounced her conversion, I'm pretty sure she hasn't billed herself as "Jewish" anything in quite a long time.
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I'm pretty sure "Dr. Laura" was a marketing idea in the beginning, and it stuck.
She doesn't announce that she's not a licensed therapist or has a PHD in psychology at the beginning of every show--with the exception of the one show when she addressed criticism from people about this very subject--but if the subject is ever brought up, she doesn't hesitate to point this out.
quote:Samprimary: These are not absolutes. I'm not saying that Laura's advice is 'always' bad. If you are taking issue with people speaking in absolutes, you might want to wait for that to actually happen, at least in my case.
The statement itself, that her advice is wrong and harmful is what I'm getting at. You don't know that any of her advice has ever been harmful. You're assuming it is and stating with confidence that, most of the time, her advice is wrong and harmful.
Does it hurt people's feelings sometimes? Yes. But so do a lot of things--positive and negative.
quote:I tend to listen to talk radio. I don't have many cds, our music stations are aweful, and I travel a lot in my car.
Same here. If it's not an audiobook, I go for talk radio, news, whatever I can get a hold of.
I don't care much for Hannity. I like Glenn Beck the most. I dislike Savage. Limbaugh is okay.
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quote:You don't know that any of her advice has ever been harmful.
All I would have to do here is insert a quote of her giving advice recommending reparative therapy for homosexuals, or 'keep your children away from gay relatives! don't you know that gays are predatory biological errors!'
It's a gimme.
yes, I can be sure that she has given harmful advice.
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posted
You like Glenn Beck the most, hm? Well, I can see why. It was people like him who 'did' the Civil Rights Movement in the first place, and thank goodness he's gone to Washington to reclaim it.
Different strokes for different folks and all that, FoolishTook, but I cannot understand how anyone can appreciate Beck or Limbaugh for that matter as anything serious. They're hacks in a thousand and one ways.
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quote:You don't know that any of her advice has ever been harmful.
All I would have to do here is insert a quote of her giving advice recommending reparative therapy for homosexuals, or 'keep your children away from gay relatives! don't you know that gays are predatory biological errors!'
If you could find such a quote I'd be interested, it doesn't mesh with advice I've heard her give on the subject.
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Huh, that seems so different from what I've heard her say, but then again, those quotes all seem to stem from 1998-2000. I didn't listen to her show at all until this past year.
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posted
As far as I know, Dr. Laura she supports gay people as long as they are monogamous and committed to one another.
So it sounds like she had a change of heart. Or maybe she just stopped fighting the issue. It's a giant can of worms.
quote:Different strokes for different folks and all that, FoolishTook, but I cannot understand how anyone can appreciate Beck or Limbaugh for that matter as anything serious. They're hacks in a thousand and one ways.
*Shrug* I don't understand how people can watch Rachel Maddow and take her seriously. But I also think her show has value as a counterpoint, and it's obvious where she stands.
Every time I hear something from Glenn Beck or Limbaugh that seems irrefutable, I want to hear the other side's view of it. Usually, the circumstances are far more complicated and less cut and dry as either side presents it.
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Huh, that seems so different from what I've heard her say, but then again, those quotes all seem to stem from 1998-2000. I didn't listen to her show at all until this past year.
She had been hammered into keeping mum on the subject of homosexuality, for the most part, because of advertising pressure, but that hadn't kept her from saying dumb things about homosexuality on occasion.
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quote:Every time I hear something from Glenn Beck or Limbaugh that seems irrefutable, I want to hear the other side's view of it. Usually, the circumstances are far more complicated and less cut and dry as either side presents it.
Example? Maybe about how people like Beck were the ones who did the Civil Rights Movement?
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quote:*Shrug* I don't understand how people can watch Rachel Maddow and take her seriously. But I also think her show has value as a counterpoint, and it's obvious where she stands.
I don't believe shows have value as counterpoints. Aping the obnoxious, imperious format of serial misinformers on the other side doesn't give you value as an informer, only a demographic niche. I think that Maddow, Olbermann, Beck, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, etc, should primarily be viewed in terms of whether or not they are actively informing or misinforming, and whether or not they improve the public discourse.
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I want my news to actually be news. I don't want partisan rhetoric. Baring that, I want humor, which is why I am one of those Americans who counts the Daily Show as their news source. At least they know that it isn't like real news.
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I used to listen to "Dr." Laura back when she was one of the few voices supporting my lifestyle choice (which, as it turns out, was also the lowest period of my life to date) but I stopped listening for a couple of reasons.
One day I heard her badger a woman with children into not taking a class to better her life because it would 'take too much time away from her kids.' Basically, she said if this woman wanted a life of her own, she should not have had children, because when you have kids you're not allowed to do anything for yourself.
It bummed me out so badly (I was fighting post-partum depression at the time) that my husband (who hated Dr. Laura anyway) begged me never to listen to her again.
It seemed to me that if she had followed her own advice, she wouldn't have a freaking radio show. That was ten years ago, or more. I feel no particular enmity toward her, but sometimes you have to cut things and people that hurt out of your life. So I did.
On the original topic of this thread, it wasn't her point about the n word that was offensive to me. She's right. It's not okay for whites to say that word, and it is a double standard (for very understandable reasons as Darth _Mauve pointed out). To hear her chanting the n word was shocking, but what was <I>offensive </I> was the idea that if you marry out of your race and your spouse's friends use racial slurs, you should just suck it up because you have no sense of humor. (I wonder if the caller had been Jewish and her spouse's friends used the k word, or if it had been a white couple and the friends had used the c word, if her response would have been different.
Here is a video that is circulating as a part of a movement among African Americans to persuade other African Americans not to use the N word:
So the word is not without controversy among people of color, either.
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
It's not about having a sense of humor or not, it's clear from context that the friends were being abnoxious and almost certainly refused to stop.
If it's used in a funny context then any comedian will tell you that part of the rules is that if its offensive, and someone actually personally gets offended then you have to apologize and stop. (On a personal level, there's no helping it if your doing it on a stage and 1 out of 100 gets offended)
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quote:One day I heard her badger a woman with children into not taking a class to better her life because it would 'take too much time away from her kids.' Basically, she said if this woman wanted a life of her own, she should not have had children, because when you have kids you're not allowed to do anything for yourself.
I have no idea which, overall, was her worst angle: her stuff about gays, or this whole deal where families are always supposed to work this way and if you a mom, you get back in the kitchen right the heck now.
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I think the in group argument is nonsense, but she also shouldn't have repeated the word. Do people do the in group thing? Yes. Does that make it good and something educated people should defend? No.
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quote:Example? Maybe about how people like Beck were the ones who did the Civil Rights Movement?
This comes the closest to providing context, and yet there are still those pesky little dots that leave questions:
quote:“This is a moment, quite honestly, that I think we reclaim the civil rights movement. We are on the side of individual freedoms and liberties and, damn it, we will reclaim the civil rights movement … we will take that movement because we were the people who did it in the first place.”
For either republicans or democrats to claim the movement for themselves is a bit silly. I don't agree with Glenn Beck. But I also take issue with the notion that only liberals can support Martin Luther King's ideas.
quote:I don't believe shows have value as counterpoints. Aping the obnoxious, imperious format of serial misinformers on the other side doesn't give you value as an informer, only a demographic niche. I think that Maddow, Olbermann, Beck, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, etc, should primarily be viewed in terms of whether or not they are actively informing or misinforming, and whether or not they improve the public discourse.
It seems that the public discourse is getting more and more extreme. Both sides have a tendency to misinform, to jump to conclusions, and assume the worst of their opponent, but I feel that's endemic in this culture. Did the likes of Limbaugh and O'Reilly create this, or is it the natural consequence of solipsism?
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quote:For either republicans or democrats to claim the movement for themselves is a bit silly. I don't agree with Glenn Beck. But I also take issue with the notion that only liberals can support Martin Luther King's ideas.
I agree that it's silly, though it's less silly for liberal democrats to do so than it is for conservative republicans by a not inconsiderable margin. But in any event, this is neither here nor there. Glenn Beck said 'people like him' 'did' the civil rights movement in the first place. Now, FoolishTook, take what you know of Beck's politics now, and imagine him back in the 50s-60s. Do you really think he would have been anything north of neutral on the matter?
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quote:It seems that the public discourse is getting more and more extreme. Both sides have a tendency to misinform, to jump to conclusions, and assume the worst of their opponent, but I feel that's endemic in this culture.
Since you like talk radio, I strongly recommend that you try out NPR. Personally, I find it to be the best source to get both sides of an issue. They also fact check and steer away from "sound bite" stories. Independent studies have also found that listeners of NPR are more likely to have the facts on a story correct than listeners of any other news source.
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quote:But I also take issue with the notion that only liberals can support Martin Luther King's ideas.
I think many conservatives support Martin Luther King's ideals. But I don't think that Glenn Beck is one of them. King was pro-labor, anti-war, pro-affirmative action, in favor of federal assistance to the poor, in favor of health care, and generally a supporter of the very types of social action Beck famously called on Christians to denounce, asking them to leave their churches if the words "social justice" were used since apparently those are super secret code words for big-C Communism. (He's since backed off a bit from that last after many of his Christian supporters objected.)
I agree that there are extremists in media on both sides of the political spectrum, and idiots willing to follow anyone who tells them what they want to hear. But I submit that the right wing nutjobs are better at it, with larger followings of people willing to ignore facts if they contradict what they've been told, and their ratings prove it.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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