This is a re-post. On Thanksgiving 2011, we can be thankful we still have people of love and good will in our country. Without the noxious contrast of Rush we would appreciate them less.

By: OcJim

You don’t see Limbaugh’s face real time usually, only as a point of daily outrage on progressive television and as an ally on right-wing television news shows like Fox News. Of course he has daily prominence elsewhere too, for many say he is the voice of the Republican Party. The above cartoon lampoons that claim.

The $28 million per year that Premiere Radio Network pays him is due to his popularity. He eclipses all other nationally syndicated personalities in size of audience, including Sean Hannity and Michael Savage. The estimate of listeners for Rush is over 15 million weekly.

It’s probably just as well that his audience doesn’t see his face. Certainly it is caricatured relative to the vitriol of his rants and the hypocrisy critics cite. His influence is real, for in spite of the rancor and misinformation he spews, conservatives will not cross him.

Many do depict him in the realm of the Prince of Darkness. He doesn’t put on this face to maintain his audience. It is genuine Rush. Anyone can be his target if it can gain him “ditto-head” allies, laughs, or ratings. Over a decade of Limbaugh rants tell us that the dark face of Rush Limbaugh is real.

His enemies will tell you how real!!

Even the “bleeding heart liberals” he likes to demonize, who believe everyone is redeemable, have given up in utter frustration.

If you read the classics, his is the Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad wrote about. It is the one the incantations of voodoo hearken for the deadliest of spells. Its darkness terrorizes vampires and makes witches sob.

When he ambles by, ghouls retreat, and the undead turn away.

Dick Cheney’s mechanical pump recoils when Rush crosses his path, and the devil won’t bargain for Rush’s soul, for fear of being vilified.

The sound of his voice is a cold Rush over free public airways. It pollutes those who stumble over his station of verbal effluents, even those who tune in purposely, not inconsequential in numbers.

His rants scourge and corrode:  minds atrophy and hearts clench. Accordingly, followers join in the Rush  rant, mocking and intimidating those who don’t see the same darkness.

He is a golden idol of exploiting anything and anyone to assure he keeps an audience of “ditto-heads.” His show strip mines the airways, stifles mental development like mercury in fish, and clouds vision like smog. But more than that Limbaugh pollutes for free.

He says he hates freeloaders, but it is written that Rush is on welfare.

In a column a few years back, Ralph Nader called Rush Limbaugh a welfare recipient. Ralph said that the public airwaves belong to the American people. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is supposed to be our trustee in managing this property, but Rush pays no rent: he pollutes the public airway for free. Ralph calls for Rush to be an example of one who doesn’t freeload.

Ralph may be exaggerating, considering that no one pays to pollute the airways, though there is a social cost for its irresponsible use.

One cost is his contribution to the spread of racism, for his message reeks of racism.

Seven of the top ten racist quotes are listed here[i], one even applauding murder:

1. “Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?”

2. “The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies.”

3. “They’re 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?”

4. [To an African American female caller]: “Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.”

5. Limbaugh has called Obama “halfrican American, and Barack the Magic Negro,” only to name a few.

6. “We need segregated buses… This is Obama’s America.”

7. “You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray [the confessed assassin of Martin Luther King]. We miss you, James. Godspeed.”

But he doesn’t confine his bigotry to blacks. A few weeks back it was the Chinese president and the Chinese language he mocked during Hu Jintao’s visit to the US. This week it is the Japanese.

He trivialized Japanese suffering with his concentration on attacking environmentalists: “This has to be a tough call out there for the environmentalists around the world,” he said, “They’re scrambling now to blame this on global warming.”

Ignorance of science and its demonization fits into the conservative plan. For example, deregulation of pollution lowers the cost of doing business and ultimately requires taxpayers to clean the environment, maybe generations in the future.

To paraphrase Rush, those stupid scientists deny Creationism, while pretending, at the same time, that their silly Theory of Evolution is somehow supported by the evidence.

Two-faced so often, Rush’s largesse of hypocrisy is too large to describe in a mere column.

Michele Obama is maligned for her campaign against obesity. She “doesn’t look like [she] follows her own …dietary advice and would never make the cover of Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue,” he said. His juvenile name-calling displayed, Limbaugh calls her “Moo-chelle” and “Michelle My Butt.”

His on and off obesity in between his crash diets is not mentioned. And his April, 2005 settlement over allegations of prescription drug fraud doesn’t count either.

In reaction to Rush’s vilification of the First Lady, Publius Maximus responded, “Michelle Obama is an athletic, well nourished female. Rush Limbaugh, on the other hand, is a non athletic, poorly nourished male that has over fed, and under exercised his body into a couch potato mess.”[ii] The faces above support that view.

According to Forbes in 2008, Limbaugh was ranked 32 out of top 100 in Power Rank.

But progressives would rate him number 1 in all categories of infamy.