Originally posted by joyfulgirl:
I said I was offended by Rush's tendency to make racial comments and I base that on several things I have read, the above article being one of them. To me, the article is credible. To you, it is not. There are many such articles, and if I didn't have a job I could find them all, quote them to you, and then you would have the same response, that they are taken out of context by "liberals" or that you still don't understand why they are racist.
For the record, I did not personally hear the context of these comments. But it was a big news story at the time and much-discussed. If there was some big point he was making, or a lesson I should know about, to put those comments in a non-racist context, I am happy to hear about it. If referencing articles written by journalists makes my argument null and void because I didn't hear it myself directly, then so be it. I don't care. I really don't, although we all base opinions everyday on things we read in the media--right or wrong--because few of us are in a position to have direct personal experience with every public figure and to be in every situation we read about. If a whole bunch of people heard Rush say those things and I didn't, and some of them wrote articles about it, I tend to believe they aren't lying though I am certainly willing to concede that they may have taken the comments out of context or didn't "get" his point.
In any case, I cannot spend all day researching to prove my point. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe this article is wrong. It's really okay with me since my self-esteem is not defined by how often I am right or wrong in online forum debates, and if being wrong builds a little humility, then I welcome it. But I do not care enough about this particular argument to invest anymore energy into it because it is futile with you. If you had responded with, 'Hmm, that's an interesting article--but I question the source and I also wonder if perhaps those comments were taken out of context--did you happen to hear the context yourself?" I might be willing to continue. But until you learn how not to attack like the insecure schoolyard bully, you are off my radar.
First off, how does that article have any credibility whatsoever?
* With proof so vague as what they provide, they claim IN THE HEADLINE that Rush is "A Man Who Has A Problem With People Of Color", conveniently ignoring the fact that these people he has a problem with are ALSO very liberal.
* Showing prejudice themselves, the authors call Limbaugh's audience "angry white males", ignoring the fact that A) there are women in the audience and B) there are non-whites.
* Offering complaints from two sports columnists, the "journalists" refuse to follow the tradition of finding "both sides of a story" and acknowledge that there are ACTUAL football owners and players (particularly the Pittsburgh Steelers as an organization) who love the guy.
It's not an article. It's an editorial at best; it's one-sided, dishonest propaganda at worst.
It's not a simple issue of "you think the article's credible, and I don't." Nor is this an issue where "we all base our opinions on things in the media, and none of us are in a position to directly judge."
Unlike a LOT of people in this forum, I LISTEN TO THE SHOW. OFTEN. AND I'VE BEEN A FAN SINCE 1988.
If you want an analogy... let's say you're saying "Star Wars is X". You've never actually seen any Star Wars movie, and you're basing this on a negatively slanted review of one of the four movies, a review that takes things SEVERELY out of context. Sure, you can say we're all influenced by such reviews and no one can really experience the films enough to know.
But it's not true. I've seen all of the Star Wars films A LOT (having gone to the theaters to see some Star Wars movie or another some 27 times since 1997).
In this case, the argument that we're all just parrots of the media DOESN'T hold up.
Certainly, I may be biased towards defending Rush, but I'm also a much better position to remember the context and say WITH AUTHORITY when comments are taken out of context or are suspiciously lacking context.
Don't forget: it's not just me asserting things are out of context: I prove that some of the charges are ridiculous, like the bilge about East St. Louis, an area that holds LESS THAN TWO PERCENT of the metropolitan population - in a city that Rush knows well, given he grew up a few miles down the Mississippi.
Further, Rush Limbaugh's apparent racism was a big story in 2000 because some schmucks were threatening boycotts of ABC if he were to become an MNF analyst. BUT, the same stories that asserted a pattern of bigotry had to go to the same old vault of F.A.I.R. quotes from 1994, quotes that ARE taken SEVERELY out of context for the obvious purpose of discrediting Rush.
(In fact, I'd be SHOCKED if you could find even one article whose assertions of racism can't be traced back to F.A.I.R.)
Finally, if I think an editorial is completely worthless (as I believe this one is), I'm not going to lie to be diplomatic about it, "Interesting article, maybe out of context," etc. I'm going to be honest: from my OWN EXPERIENCE listening to the guy, I know the article is worthless.
Sorry if honesty makes me appear to be an insecure bully, but I'm not going to legitimize crap like that for the sake of looking open-minded.
And if addressing an article, point-by-point, when I know the work to be worthless, makes me look like a bully, well, I guess I'm a bully then.
But you know what?
THAT DOESN'T MAKE MY ARGUMENT ANY LESS VALID.