Hanoi Jane and Fembot Steinem speak...

FCC should clear Limbaugh from airwaves

CNN: Ironically, the misogyny Rush Limbaugh spewed for three days over Sandra Fluke was not much worse than his regular broadcast of sexist, racist and homophobic hate speech:

• Women cabinet members are ”Sex-retaries.”
• “The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies.”
• The National Organization for Women is “a bunch of whores to liberalism.”
• [Said to an African American female caller]: “Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.”

These are just a few samples from the arsenal of degrading language Limbaugh deploys on women, people of color, lesbians and gays, immigrants, the disabled, the elderly, Muslims, Jews, veterans, environmentalists and so forth.

Limbaugh doesn’t just call people names. He promotes language that deliberately dehumanizes his targets. Like the sophisticated propagandist Josef Goebbels, he creates rhetorical frames — and the bigger the lie the more effective — inciting listeners to view people they disagree with as sub-humans. His longtime favorite term for women, “femi-nazi,” doesn’t even raise eyebrows anymore, an example of how rhetoric spreads when unchallenged by coarsened cultural norms.

 

At least this most recent incident has turned a spotlight back on the vile, damaging statements Limbaugh has been promulgating for years. His sponsors are dropping him; his stations have begun to follow suit. VoteVets, a coalition of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, released a statement by female vets, including Katherine Scheirman, former chief of medical operations in the U.S. Air Forces, demanding that the American Forces Network drop Limbaugh from its programming.

 

They state, “Our entire military depends on troops respecting each other — women and men. There simply can be no place on military airwaves for sentiments that would undermine that respect.”

This isn’t political. While we disagree with Limbaugh’s politics, what’s at stake is the fallout of a society tolerating toxic, hate-inciting speech. For 20 years, Limbaugh has hidden behind the First Amendment, or else claimed he’s really “doing humor” or “entertainment.” He is indeed constitutionally entitled to his opinions, but he is not constitutionally entitled to the people’s airways.

Blah, blah, blah.  Read the rest here.

This is not political?  Did these women speak out about these comments?

• Keith Olbermann calls Michelle Malkin a lipstick meatbag
• Bill Maher calls Sarah Palin a “dumb t*at”
• Ed Schulz calls Laura Ingraham a right-wing slut
• Sandra Bernhard issues “gang rape” warning to Sarah Palin
• Sly Sylvester (talk show host) said “…I had heard at one point Rebecca Kleefisch (Republican Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin) pulled a train, but that must have been a different story I was reading about.”
• David Letterman calls Sarah Palin a slut
• Keith Olbermann implied that female conservative commentator S. E. Cupp should never have been born
• Jimmy Fallon’s drummer played “Bit*ch” song during Michele Bachmann’s appearance on his show (ABC called it “quite the trick”)
• Cloris Leachman calls Sarah Palin a slut on the Wendy Williams show

Like I said, double standards.  If it wasn’t for those, liberals wouldn’t have any standards at all.

DCG