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Tuesday, July 8. 2008
Elephant Talk
Rush Limbaugh just signed a 304 million dollar deal for his radio program. Apparently people still listen to the gasbag. Got to hand it to the fat gasbag, he started the talk radio phenomenon that carried the Republican Party to power in 1995. He also spawned hundreds of imitators, including the likes of Bill O’Reilly and Laura Ingraham. The liberal/progressives took long enough to get in the game — nearly 20 years, which is too late, maybe at least. It will take some catching up, although we can see Rachel Maddow on MSNBC and CNN from time-to-time, adding some gravitas to the fledgling network, but still the reactionary voices of the extreme right have the lead — on radio anyway.
Thank the gods for Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. He’s beating Bill O’Reilly in the ratings, day after day, after day …
Maybe the pendulum is swinging left again, after the disastrous period that began with the election of Ronald Reagan. For that to truly happen though, Democrats and other “progressives” in government need to grow some cojones and begin standing up to the right. Quite curious though; I talk to a variety of so-called “progressives” and during this past primary season a number of them were voting for Ron Paul. His ideas on health care basically come down to making it an entirely free market — for profit — health care system and like the many politicos who wish to enrich the health insurance and pharmaceutical companies, he trots out the tired old falsehood of Canadians coming to the U.S. in droves for our health care system.
None of his ideas on health care address any of the real issues that kill Americans everyday, the main one being that the for-profit health care companies would rather deny you life-saving treatment than lose any profits.
On immigration he trots out the tired old falsehoods that illegal immigrants — Mexicans and them other brown-skinned ones — come to the U.S. for our health care system and to have children born here as U.S. citizens. Paul relies on the research of the Heritage Foundation for his arguments, so we can pretty much track the tenor of his views.But I have to give him kudos for his defense of the Bill of Rights. For instance: if you deposit $10,000.00 or more into your bank account the bank is required to report it to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network in the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Paul wants to stop that practice. He also wants to overturn the Patriot Act — damn! The more I write the more I like the guy.
Not to mention he was one of the first politicians to call Bush’s war in Iraq illegal and wants to end our involvement there NOW. And going back to the days of olde when Pirates ruled the seas, Paul would issue “Letters of Marque” — licenses to be pirates and bounty hunters essentially — to anyone willing to kill or capture those criminal individuals we seek abroad, like Usama bin Laden. That’s actually kind of funny.
Sir Francis Drake was a “privateer,” issued Letters of Marque by Queen Elizabeth to raid, steal and destroy Spanish ships, ports and other property. He was a hero in Merry Olde England, but a fuckin’ pirate in Spain. That was sort of the case nearly 50 years ago when the C.I.A. “hired” the Mafia (and other nefarious folks) to try and take out Fidel Castro. La Cosa Nostra was a logical choice for assassins since Castro booted American organized crime out of Cuba once his dictatorship took hold of that island nation. The mob wanted its hotels and casinos back and if it meant working with the U.S. government to do it, well alrighty then!
I’ve been to Las Vegas in the “good old days” when the mob ruled the place. I have to say, I much prefer their view of Vegas: vacationland for adults, leave the little tykes at home.
It’s weird picking up a prostitute on Fremont Street with that overhead light show a blazing and little kids watching us make the transaction … err … not that I have ever engaged in such activity … Once, when my brother and I were in Vegas … err … let’s just let that one go. Family members might read this.
Anyway, Ron Paul actually has some fine ideas and he almost looks like a true libertarian — but he isn’t. Still, had he won the Republican nomination he most likely would have pulled much of the youth vote that now is firmly attached to the political fanny of Barack Obama. Trouble is, the Republican faithful would have stayed home rather than vote for either Paul or Obama, therefore giving the election to the Democrats.
Ron Paul isn’t George Bush enough for the Republican base. Hell, John McCain isn’t George Bush enough for the G.O.P. base, but he’s flip-flopping at every opportunity to assure the base he’s just as foolish and off-kilter as the president.
McCain sold his soul to the malevolence of the Far Right to win his party’s nomination and that little flip-flop won’t go unnoticed by the voters in the proverbial middle — especially since he’s tooling around the U.S. in a bus still labeled as the “Straight Talk Express.” It isn’t even ironic, it’s hypocritical and if the Democrats take the fight to McCain, pointing it out — again and again and again — will paint McCain for what he is: a scoundrel who will do or say anything to be president.Send President Clinton out on the campaign trail with that message. He could deliver it quite well. They wouldn’t have to concoct anything either, just point out the long list of McCain flip-flops. Of course, it’s hard to mention everything in a 20-minute speech and we all know, if we were over the age of 15 when Clinton was elected president, how hard it is for Clinton to keep his speeches under 20 minutes.
So, getting back to that fat gasbag Rush Limbaugh; it’s hard to imagine his 300 million dollar contract will be of much help to McCain come November. During the primary Limbaugh insisted he would rather a Democrat win the White House than McCain and many of his Far Right reactionary radio clones echoed that same sentiment.
If Rush says it, it must be right.
But Limbaugh and his radio children of the corn have never been afraid of flip-flopping themselves, so I’m betting they pull behind McCain, for better or worse. It makes good radio.
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