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Rush Limbaugh: The Audacity of Racism, Sponsored by Barnes and Noble

On Tuesday, uber-conservative radio commentator/propagandist Rush Limbaugh said this about the Hurricane Katrina victims versus the victims of the recent Midwest flooding crisis:


I see devastation in Iowa and Illinois that dwarfs what happened in New Orleans...I see people working together. I see people trying to save their property . . . I don’t see a bunch of people running around waving guns at helicopters, I don’t see a bunch of people running shooting cops. I don’t see a bunch of people raping people on the street... I don’t see a bunch of people doing everything they can . . . whining and moaning, “Where’s FEMA, where’s Bush?” I see the heartland of America. When I look at Iowa and when I look at Illinois, I see the backbone of America.

Mark Twain wrote "To a main with a hammer, everything looks like a nail." To Limbaugh, who has a long history of racist comments, even natural disasters are just another reason to let loose with racial tirades. In Limbaugh's mind the mostly black, poor victims of Hurricane Katrina were “people raping people on the street,” while the mostly white, rural farmers of the Midwest are “the backbone of America.”

But these comments are nothing new to anyone who has listened to Limbaugh for more than five minutes. Which is why it's outrageous that a big company like Barnes and Noble continues to be one of the Rush Limbaugh Show Website's major advertisers. The money they spend to advertise on his Web site and show essentianly funds Limbaugh and his hate-filled rhetoric. Click here to send an e-mail to the executives. Ask them to stop funding Rush's racism and drop advertising on the Rush Limbaugh show.


Comments (6)

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Muckraker = Crazy

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Just think if this flood happened in a 24 hour period rather than over a week or so. Big difference in dealing with a hurricane with tidal surges, torrential rains, and 150 mph winds and a slow moving and predictable flood. They're sandbagging while the sun is shining, not in the middle of a freakin' storm with sheet metal and two by fours slicing through the air.

I hope McCain's VP choice has been a regular on Rush's show, so he'll have to renounce/denounce him.

There's also the simple matter of population density. When a natural disaster hits in a relatively low population density area, you've simply got fewer people competing for availible resources, be it rescue, foot, fresh water, or help controlling the flooding. Disaster recovery people can triage remediation of flood control failures--choosing to sandbag one levee that protects a small town and let the one a few miles down river that only protected cornfields, fail. You really didn't have those kinds of options in New Orleans, now did you?

Even leaving aside Rush's usual repitition of things that all good "I'm not a racist, but . . ." whites just know are true about Katrina that are actually myths, high population density inevitably magnifies the problems caused by a natural disaster by whole orders of magnitude. Under those circumstances, social order will inevitably break down if help (and, yes, troops) are delayed in arriving. It's not because people are poor, or black, or uneducated. Its because they are crammed together cheek to jowl and they live entirely at the mercy of systems for delivery of necessities that are inherently fragile.

If you'd dropped Katrina onto the most expensive part of Manhattan, I dare say you'd have seen investment bankers and hedge fund managers acting just the same as the majority of folks in New Orleans once the food and water ran out. The only possible difference is that New Yorkers are a lot more averse to firearms, and less likely to own one, than people in any city in the South.

John K5 McCain won't have to renounce or denouce Rush or the equally racist Hannity, as he was rarely a guest on either's show. More often just a liberal villian to be made fun of. That was the case all the way up to the very day after he became the Republican's nominee and they had to do a 180 and start kissing his ass and then got on their knees to beg forgiveness and take a "dirty sanchez" for the team. Rush and Hannity have no moral baseline. They will be any Republican's bitch for the asking.

they had to do a 180 and start kissing his ass and then got on their knees to beg forgiveness and take a "dirty sanchez" for the team.

thanks for that terrible image. i will probably have nightmares.

His nights must be filled with 95% nightmares. He wakes up huffing and puffing and crying every night. He wonders why the God, in whom he doesn't believe, forgot to give him a soul.

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