Dialogue with raving lunatics

In my last post on Muskrat Hunt (“The storm clouds gather,” 9/15), I ended by saying that we should be trying to reach out to the rednecks we’re ridiculing and insulting. Hunt-master Doogman replied that he wasn’t sure how to “reach out” to someone who thinks he should be exterminated, and I replied that I thought this was in many cases a defensive posture because they think that we think that they should be exterminated, and that if we took them seriously and assured them that we'd rather listen to them than exterminate them, they might lower their guns.

It turns out that this was the fatuous blithering of an aging peace-and-love-and-brotherhood hippie, and I got a good, hard slap in the face by the cold, skeletal hand of reality when I reviewed the piece on Bill Moyers’ Journal on 12 September (www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/09122008/watch.html), linked on Muskrat Hunt (13 September) as “Excellent Moyers piece on the eliminationist movement.” If I was scared earlier at the idea of McCain/Palin winning in November, I’m far more scared by the realization that many “shock jocks” (a term for the mouth-frothing psychopaths of the ultra-super-hyper-fringe-right who host talk-radio shows) are openly and deliberately inciting their tens of millions of listeners to murder and mayhem in order to promote Christian family values. This is literally true, not a hyperbolic exaggeration: Moyers plays quotes from Glenn Beck in which he admits he wants to kill Michael Moore (ending with the rhetorical question, “Is this wrong?”); from Michael Reagan (son of Ronald) in which he says he’ll pay for the bullets for anyone who wants to shoot 9/11 conspiracy theorists; and from Rush Lamebrain encouraging his rabid followers to deliberately foment riots (“Operation Chaos”) in Denver during the DNC. Clearly, it is as pointlessly futile to try to dialogue rationally with shrieking maniacs whose rage and hatred drive them to such insanity, as it is to try to do so with certifiable schizoids who wander down East Colfax yelling incoherent diatribes at the walls of buildings.

All this is, of course, protected by the First Amendment right of these cockroaches (to use one of their own terms for the people they attack) to free speech. There is the rule (which Moyers attributes to Supreme Court Justice Holmes) against falsely crying “theatre” in a crowded fire, but the shock jocks don’t seem to be bound by this rule. (On the other hand, when the fascist thug-pigs in St Paul brutally and savagely violated the First Amendment rights of journalists to free speech, and of protesters to free assembly, they had the approval and blessing of the Fascistican Party holding their convention there. There is such a thing as selective law enforcement; in fact, there’s really no other kind.) But perhaps even scarier than the fact that these satanic monsters can get away with this, is the fact that countless millions of their listeners let their beliefs and opinions be molded and influenced by them—the same people, doubtless, who think the LaHaye Left behind garbage is a true and accurate portrayal of what the Second Coming will be like and are eagerly looking forward to witnessing it. These are the people who are numerous enough and powerful enough to kick our ass in November, and if we can’t dialogue with them to try to change their “minds,” we have to outnumber them somehow—which is precisely the strategy which the Obama campaigners seem to be following: getting more backers of him from the undecided, rather than trying to convert the die-hard Fascisticans. Why is this coming from someone who said earlier that it didn’t make any real difference who won? Well, now that there’s a good chance that the heroes of the mindless, enraged, hateful rabble who adoringly listen to shock jocks may seize power, I’m beginning to think it may make a difference after all.

By the way: how can I get an audience of tens of millions? Or even just get listed on Rude Pundit’s links? I’ll bet it takes money, dunnit? Anyone have a couple thousand Benjamins they want to give me?