It was interesting this week to watch the left feed on one of their own. Don Imus, was thrown to the dogs, or in this case, to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who feasted on him for their own self-gratification - as usual. His offense? Saying something stupid. That mistake was then allowed to escalate into an all out feeding frenzy in which Imus was sent into early retirement and the hypocrisy of the left was fully exposed through the illumination of the media spotlight. I think if everyone is honest here, takes a deep breath and pauses for a moment before joining the hysteria, we should be able to boil this whole thing down to the simple fact that this event is nothing more than an arrogant, washed up radio host trying to be "hip" and funny by saying something reminiscent of the pop culture that so many imbeciles seem to relate to. Imus is not a very funny guy. I rarely listened to his show, and when I did, was nauseated by the smugness of both him and his guests. He was trying to sound controversial and cool and he blew it. End of story. However, in the ridiculous 24 hour news world we live in, this story grew into a full circus with none other than the two biggest race-baiting, poverty pimps in the country, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, as ring leaders, taking over the story and exploiting it for their own selfish purposes. Imus made a huge mistake by groveling in front of Sharpton and asking for forgiveness. He should have known that these men don't advance themselves by resolution, only conflict. Does anybody know why and who considers these men as "black leaders"? Who is stupid enough to follow them? They do nothing for anyone else but themselves, but yet are allowed to claim to be helping others. They are pathetic.
The other amazing hypocrisy brought out through this fiasco is the double standard of the networks that fired Imus. MSNBC and CBS cancelled Imus' radio and TV programs before he had even finished apologizing to everyone. The sad truth is that both networks are responsible for tons of overtly obscene and offensive material put on the public air everyday. For Les Moonves to stand on his solid gold pedestal and feign shock over Imus' statements, while at the same time on another of his networks black women are referred to and shown as nothing more than red meat to be consumed and discarded by unthinking males with their hats on sideways and their pants down to their knees, is disgusting. But that's OK I guess if you're a liberal hypocrite. Pick a target and destroy it without applying similar standards to yourself.
The situation is pretty stupid all the way around; a bad radio guy says something dumb and the left goes nuts. The real fear is now that they've sacrificed one of their own on the alter of political correctness, will they set their sights on others with whom they disagree? My guess is yes. The left would like nothing better than to re-institute the fairness doctrine and silence the voices on radio and television that don't meet the high moral standards of tweetle dee and tweetle dumb - Jackson and Sharpton. Remember, to the left, one of the sacred rights of life is to not be offended. Free speech? Sure, as long as it meets with the approval of idiots like Jackson, Sharpton or any other of the leftist thought police.
55 comments:
The only way you can get anything to review or post is Anonymously.
???????? you lost me buddy.
Ok, it appears to be ok now. Before the only way you could review or post a message was to do it under the "Anonymous" classification. When you tried to leave a message under the "Google/Blogger" or "Other' category, you couldn't do it.
interesting. sorry, I didn't know that.
You Know Scud, you make it extremely hard to agree with you on almost anything. At times you have some valid points, but somehow you always manage to bury it under a shit load of Limbaugh speak. The kind of hyperbole I always feel obligated to return in equal measure. So, in spite of your amazing ability to see a leftist plot behind everything that happens. I'm going to agree with you on many of the things you had to say on this. But It would have been considerably easier to do so if you could have managed to rein in some of the normal right-wing hysteria.
Imus shouldn't have said what he did. It was stupid, but it shouldn't have been fatal to his career. I don't know what the proper repercussions for his actions should have been. But, when compared to what others have said and done, I think being fired was excessive. Worse yet, was seeing Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson leading the charge to get him fired. How could anything be more absurd than that. It's common knowledge that both of these guys have a history of being just a tad bit racist themselves. They are self-promoters who don't speak for most Liberals. In fact, they are a source of great embarrassment to many of us. They are to the left, what Ann Coulter is to the right. Though she suggested it, I don't believe everyone on the right wants to poison Supreme Court members.
A few of the more readily remembered episodes of Al and Jesse. The Reverend Jackson, calling Jews "Hymies" and New York City "Hymietown". His instant declaration of guilt for the white students in the Duke rape case. Which by the way, was completely dismissed just this week and the charges declared completely false. Sharpton, too was very vocal about the guilt of the Duke students. Al, Jesse, can I hear an apology?
It's going to require several paragraphs alone, just to touch on some of the more notable incidents in the Reverend Sharpton's career. The Reverend Al Sharpton's first national appearance in the spotlight of race relations, was his 1987 promotion of the Tawana Brawley hoax. Where he accused a local prosecutor Steve Pagones, of various crimes. Finally telling him "If we're lying, sue us, so we can prove you did it." Pagones does sue, and wins a $345,000 verdict for defamation. But, unless he's done so since I started writing this, Sharpton still refuses to apologize for his role in this affair.
In 1991, a Jewish driver in Brooklyn accidentally hits and kills a 7-year-old black child. Anti-Semitic riots break out and Sharpton gets involved again. At the child's funeral, Sharpton call Jews "diamond merchants" with the "the blood of innocent babies" on their hands. He organizes a protest march through the Jewish neighborhood, chanting, "No justice, no peace." During the march, a Jewish student is surrounded by a mob shouting "Kill the Jews!" and is stabbed to death.
A few year later, The United House of Prayer, a black landlord in Harlem, raises the rent on Freddy's Fashion Mart. The owner of Freddy's, a white Jewish man, then raises the rent on his subtenant, a black-owned music store. A landlord-tenant dispute ensues between these two. Sharpton steps in and proclaims, "We will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business." Sharpton's National Action Network sets up pickets. Customers going into Freddy's are spat on, called "traitors" and "Uncle Toms." Some protesters shout, "Burn down the Jew store!" and pretend to strike matches. On Dec. 8, one of the protesters bursts into Freddy's, shoots four employees, then sets the store on fire. Seven employees die in the inferno. In spite of his part in all these actions,he still has his radio program. And Both Jackson and Sharpton are frequent guests on all the TV networks. So, using the NBC and CBS sliding scale of racism. The one applied to Don Imus. Where do these two guys fit in?
Many of the things you implied about Don Imus are simply wrong. Since you said you rarely listened his program and because I did watch it on a fairly regular basis. Maybe I can tell you a little about him. Sure he's a shock jock and as such, by it's very nature, his program offends some people. But as has been said many times before, no one is forced to watch or listen to any radio or TV program. That's what remotes and dials are for. His show was by no means a liberal radio program. Unless you consider the likes of former President Bush, VP Dick Cheney, Sen. Pete Domenici, Sen.Orrin Hatch, Rep.J.D. Heyworth, Sen. Alan Simpson and Mary Matalin liberals. All guest on his show, some repeatedly. Though, I can see why you would think that. When compared to the format of the radio programs you on the right frequent. Actually having guests from both the right and left does seem liberal. Something else that's really surprising, is that you were "nauseated by the smugness of both him and his guests." I would have thought a steady diet of the Sean Hannity show would have immunized anyone to that problem.
You often mention the generosity of those on the right. Well check out Imus. There's the Imus Ranch, which is non-profit and operated for kids with cancer. There's also a non-profit food and cleaning product business, where all after tax profits go to charity. The major role he had in getting the death benefits for troops killed in combat, raised from $12,500 to $250,000. His personal donations and fund raising efforts for the Intrepid Fallen Heroes rehabilitation center. A new state of the art facility built to treat servicemen seriously injured in combat. He wasn't quite the ass that you and many others want to make him out to be. I doubt Al Sharpton and Rush Limbaugh together can match Imus's history of helping others. But I really don't care about his politics or his personal image. It's when I think of how he often used his radio program to do the kinds of things I listed. That I regret his firing.
Antiscud,
Hard to argue with anything you've said. Good points all. My disgust with the whole situation, as I tried to point out, and you seem to agree, is the hypocrisy of the likes of charlatans like Jackson and Sharpton, as well as the corporate entities like CBS/Viacom. It's outrageous that Jackson and Sharpton are even given a voice in such matters, much less, credibility. And CBS/Viacom, which owns MTV, BET, etc. has no business feigning offence and outrage while at the same time making millions by degrading black women and culture through promotion of Hip-Hop, Rap and programming that is blatantly demeaning to those groups as well as youth culture overall. I am well aware of Imus' charitable work. He has done amazing things with his position, wealth and talent. No problem there. My main issue with Imus as a radio personality was with his propensity to diminish the positive things conservatives do, and cheerlead the negativity that the left loves to promote. Not all conservatives are mean-spirited, evil, homophobic, war-mongering, religious zealots, and not all liberals are wonderful, peace loving, honest, empathetic, do-gooders. I grew tired of hearing the same lame cynicism from him and his usual crew, despite his occasional guests from the right.
Good contribution though. Thank you for the detailed history of Sharpton and Jackson.
One more thing.
The bottom line is that he shouldn't have lost his career for this. He appologized - sincerely. He knew he had crossed the line and he tried to make good of it. Unfortunately the PC police wouldn't let him. This should be a chilling event for us all.
scud: This blog never fails to entertain. Thank you for your efforts.
If antiscud takes issue with your rightwing hyperbole, then I'll address the wide brush with which you love to paint.
Liberals and progressive tend to dislike the president but that doesn't mean they share an ideology. Progressives are the people with whom you have issue. They tend to be politically correct. Liberals think the antidote to venomous free speech is more free speech. If Mel Gibson launches an antisemitic screed, then we are free to rebut him.
And so we're free to rebut Don Imus. Scud characterized his comments as "dumb" but it's far worse than that. He didn't take shots at the powerful, he attacked a group of hardworking young ladies who are really outside the realm of celebrity. They are members of a college basketball team. His words were downright mean.
Should he have been fired? Of course. Another liberal structure was responsible for his demise, namely a free market. Nobody's services are guaranteed and if a corporation decides your's are no longer desireable, then it's free to end the business relationship and shop the open market. CBS and MSNBC decided they no longer wanted Don Imus on board. Should they be forced to retain him because scud thinks he was wronged? Don't be silly.
Free speech, rebutting venomous free speech sounds like a nice clean theory. But watching the charade of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton assuming the moral high ground and proceeding to roast Don Imus. Soon laid that assumption to rest. As with most political theories, when put to practical use, they get ugly fast. This one quickly degenerated into a case of venomous free speech being condemned by a couple of the nation's foremost practitioners of venomous free speech. Most disappointing to me, was that so many of my fellow liberals apparently bought into their act lock stock and barrel.
If the primary catalyst for the Imus firing was his poor choice of subjects to insult. A group of innocent college women. Then shouldn't his main accusers be brought to task for picking a similar target. Just recently, they were both doing their best to saddle some innocent Duke students with a made up rape charge. Wouldn't you think, that for their part in this incident, Al and Jesse would have qualified for a little of the vaunted indignation we so liberally heaped upon Imus? In my unsophisticated view, the trauma caused by the prospect of serving a 30 year prison sentence for a crime you didn't commit. Trumps being insulted every time.
Why then didn't this other liberal structure, the free market, make an effort to bring these two guys to task for this travesty? It could be because we liberals are sometimes selective about when we exercise our free speech. And why might that be? Because, just as with conservatives, principle often takes a back seat to the number of votes someone might influence in the next election. Deplorably, to many Americans, winning... is everything.
Here here! Well said. It's nice to know that common ground can be found.
antiscud: As far as I know, there are no laws (at the moment) that prohibit anyone from denouncing Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. In fact, you did just that. Unfortunately, the media rewards shrill because it tends to generate revenues. Media coverage should not be confused with the liberal notion of free speech. One is a product and the other is a constitutional right.
I would contend that those who are "selective about when we exercise our free speech" are not, by definition, liberals. There are structural mechanisms to hold Jackson and Sharpton accountable. Beyond that we have the court of public opinion. As far as I'm concerned these two have overstayed their welcome. Unfortuantely, they sell newspapers and commercial advertisements so the media loves to grant them a stage.
Yes, Imus may have deserved what he got. And you guys are right. There are quite a few others who deserve the same treatment. Two of the most blatant you've already Identified. But, for all the obvious reasons, there's not likely to be any public outcry over their actions.
Imus for President, 2008.
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It's the fourth anniversary since Mission Accomplished.... I have nothing to say.
BOHR-RING!!!! This post blows. It's time for another angry screed. Lemme help you out:
* Democrats suck, BUSH IS GOD! (or maybe Jesus but he's certainly divine).
* Demoncrats suck. Notice how I made them the anti-Christ simply by adding an "n." Oh, and Bush is still god. (Or Jesus or something)
* Democrats REALLY suck. Oh, and they hate America. And our precious freedoms. Like freedom to let the Bush administration do what ever it wants in order to quash terrorists. (And liberals)
* Everything was better when I was young. There were no broken homes. She's just clumsy. She slipped and fell on her eye. That's why it's black. Really it is...
Why does Rudy Giuliani hate ferrets?
You gotta hate somebody.......right scud?
The President hit an all-time low this week - 28% in the Newsweek poll. One can only imagine how much higher than number could have been if only scud had continued to voice his support on the Internets...
Hey now, go easy on mental midgets like Jeff. When you don't have much to work with, you do the best you can.....Newsweak: The Book Of Latter Day Libs.
Going through life gullible, misinformed, and stupid, is not much of a life but for a Lib, that's all there is.
Ha, ha, ha, good one jr. Don't pile on too much. Poor misinformed Jeff still thinks that Saddam Hussein didn't have anything to do with 9/11. What a dummy! He probably thinks that if the Prez vetos legislation funding the troops, then the democrat congress isn't responsible for the troops not getting the funding they need.
Scooter's off to see the Warden.
Damn, Scud must be off fightin' in "the Surge"...., or maybe he's down on the Mexican border keepin' all the brown people out.
Happy Father's Day, Jeff!
Oops, sorry, my bad. Disregard.
scud's hero at work
I'm really concerned about Scud. He's been missing so long, I think it's time we check into the possibilty of getting his picture put on milk containers.
Maybe a brown person flew an airplane into his house.
By commuting Scooter's sentence, Bush has finally restored honor and integrity to the White House....
GWB has, by his actions, assured that my namesake "Scooter" won't have to worry about having any cellmate to snuggle up to. And he's also done his part to put to rest, once and for all, the fallacy that everyone is equal under the law.
Bush once said, “If there’s a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of.” It may have been naive of me, but when Bush said "that person will be taken care of". I came to the erroneous conclusion he felt such a person should be punished. When all the time he meant "taken care of" in the positive sense. You have to give him credit, that George sure can turn a phrase.
Anyone willing to make a bet about the potential for a full pardon for Scooter at the end of Bush's term.
Uh oh, Jeff, I just read that a Gallup Poll places the approval rating for the New Lib Dem Congress at 18%. So much for sweeping changes and a new direction by the Party of Nothing. What's really amazing is that so many voters bought into the BS.
Congress gave scud's hero a blank check to continue his war, and their poll number's tanked. Imagine that.
Latest congressional approval rating: 11%.
Not to worry, Sheehan is heading to DC to kick Pelosi's butt. Soon, everything will change.
anonymous: The low congressional number reflects a strong disdain for the current administration. Congress is NOT doing enough to keep this president in check. Sure it provided moments of comic relief like the discovery of the Cheney Branch of government yet it was unable to shut that rogue branch down. Oh, and the war, the war continues....
Well, well, well, you're still vertical Jeff. How nice. Sipping some more aged Koolaid? Your Lib Dem Congress has a low approval rating because they suck.
Scud is practicing faith-based aging. He's been forty-seven years old since 2004.
Analnymous has spoken, so it must be true.
What's the matter GWB? The air conditioning not working in your double wide again?
Try paying the electric bill, scumbag.
GWB, don't feel bad. The world needs ditch diggers too.
Minnesota was finally in the news yet this blog was silent. CNN displayed one of those maps they use whenever we bomb somebody. I saw the map and guess what? Minnesota now down in the South with all the other Republican states. It's actually in the North near Kanada of all places!
The coastal elites scud hates don't fly to Seattle. They fly from the Northeast to Southern California. Nobody flies over scud. He's been misrepresenting himself all these years. Scud is subflyoverguy! The end.
I think we should all stop bustin' scud's balls until we find out whether or not he was one of the unfortunate victims of the I35 bridge collapse. It's a very real possibility. After all, scud's girth alone could test most bridge superstructures. If he was in a car with his fat wife, or off-spring, the bridge never had a chance.
Holy Shit!!! First, a bridge collapse, now devastating floods! Jesus must be really angry at Minnssotans for electing a muslim to Congress, and allowing a jew to run for Senate. What else could it possibly be?
Did Senator Larry Craig (R-Whacko) catch teh Gay in Minnesota or was he always partial to hairy man-ass? Gay Old Party, indeed....
I think the good senators problem with public restrooms can be laid directly at the feet of his personal affliction. As he courageously admitted, in a police report, he suffers from the dreaded wide stance syndrome.
The fact is, Sen. Craig (R) suffers from the effects, peeking and spreading, of this dire condition each and every time he takes a dump. That alone should be proof that there's absolutely nothing unsavory about this man's actions. He's simply one of those people who needs a lot of leg room to get the required cheek spread necessary for a successful bowel movement. As a rule, those afflicted can attain the proper cheek separation just by sticking their feet into the adjoining stalls. But on rare instances, in order to gain sufficient leverage for proper buttocks partition, they are also forced to grab the legs of the neighboring stall occupant.
So I would urge you not to rush to judgment on this one. It's refreshing to see a light being focused on the Butt Cleavage problem. For far too long, it has been one of America's dirty little secrets.
It's all Clinton's fault.
Dear liberal friends, my test results are back and my worst fears are confirmed, it is HIV. I've had numerous STD's in the past but this has me really scared. As liberals, we live lives void of morals and principles and sometimes we have to pay a heavy price for that. I'm an atheist, so I know that nothing but eternal darkness awaits me in the end. Still, I wish my short, worthless life amounted to more. What do I have to show for it? A stupid blog site called Blog Day Afternoon, a couple of articles written for publications no one ever reads, a tennis racket, and an autographed nude photo of my personal hero, Mark Morford. My ex-Playboy Playmate wife won't talk to me anymore. She just mopes around all day banging her tennis racket around our doublewide trailer. I never even had any kids (I have medical problems too revolting to go into detail here) so I have nothing to leave to posterity. I'm so depressed and I have nowhere to turn.
scud posing as jeff: I find it odd that my non-belief bothers you. So I don't take orders from an Invisible Sky King, so what? As I'm sure you come from a long line of believers, I come from a long line of humanists. In this sense, I'm respecting my elders which the bible says to do.
Wow, it's been almost 6 months since a new Scud post. While it's true that right wingers have been in a real funk lately. Surely, with his talent for ignoring reality, he could come up with something. If not, I'll soon have to declare this blog, dead and buried.
May this site "Rest in Peace." It's now time for everyone to delete flyoverguy from their favorites list.
Maybe Flyovergirl's vagina hurts too much to type.
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