Rush Limbaugh Escapes The Hell-World He Created

I am beginning to wonder if the elites really know what they are doing. Between Covid and the disgrace down in Texas the powers that are don’t even pretend to give the slightest fuck about anyone beneath them. Our “Let them eat cake” moment is rapidly approaching.

The Deplorables have nothing to lose. That’s a dangerous position to put people in.

“We” re-elect them? Well, somebody does.

Given what’s coming, a weekly Saturday Survivalism thread could be a good thing, if people will load it up with real value.

I also begin to think that Wikrent’s Sunday Round-up might be a good place to put thoughts and maybe even info about how millions of unhappy campers might wage a leaderless distributed “scorched earth economic combat” long war against the people Rush Limbaugh served and advanced. Can millions of us each do millions of little things guided by a big shared understanding in order to make THEIR hard times even harder than OUR hard times?

Had he been more of a man he would’ve stated that if his smoking killed him then it was his free will choice and he’d take personal responsibility and be fine with it. Instead, he regularly ridiculed the idea of getting cancer from smoking. Nuf said.

Limbaugh was a carny who sold lies, hate, and personal attacks. He wasn’t interested in making anything better for anyone other than himself. As long as he got his cut, he didn’t care.

@ different clue,

A very different writer, Matt Savinar, wrote about Limbaugh (and others) on the now defunct LATOC forum a few years ago. Might be of interest:

QUOTE:

A while back, a well-meaning LATOC reader emailed me to ask why I cracked a joke about Amy Goodman in which I derisively referred to her as a corporate Alpha-Female in disguise, or something along those lines. I attempted to explain what her true role in the petroleum-banking matrix is but I think this interview sums it up. Thomas Friedman is pro-globalization, pro-war, pro-corporate America, etc.

In my opinion, Goodman’s niche within the petroleum-banking matrix is to keep the 1%-5% of the population that considers themselves “dissidents” invested within what Jeffery Brown calls the “iron triangle” formed by the media, housing, and banking industries.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’d prefer 30 minutes of Amy Goodman over 30 minutes of Rush Limbaugh any day of the week but I’m not a fool. Limbaugh’s niche is to keep a certain (perhaps) 25%-to-33% of the population who identify themselves as “conservative” squarely trapped within the iron triangle. The Al Frankens and Randi Rhodes of the world exist to keep the 25-to-33% of the population who identify themselves as “liberal” trapped within the iron triangle. Goodman exists to keep the 2.5-3.3% of the population who identify themselves as “radicals” or “dissidents” within the iron triangle.

I’ve been to the suburban homes of people who listen to Limbaugh, Franken, and Goodman respectively. To be quite frank, somebody from Mars would not be able to distinguish the listener of one show from the listener of another. They all had the following:

1. Moderate to severe weight problem(s)
2. Giant mortgages on overbubbled homes
3. Two or more cars in the garage/driveway
4. Jobs they either hated or were indifferent to
5. Neighbors they did not know
6. Multiple credit cards they were carrying balances on

The only differences were superficial. The Goodman listener might have a hybrid with a Che Guevara bumper sticker where the the Limbaugh listener has an SUV with a “W” sticker but, in the end, their respective lifestyles were far more similar than different. They’re just located in within different corners and/or opposite sides of the “iron triangle.”

I’ve never seen or heard anything on DN that would have helped the listener/viewer deal with numbers one-through-six listed above. The best I could tell, these things would vaguely be solved by getting some slightly greened-up Democrats into office.

Rush Limbaugh’s influence died alongside the dead & wounded young men who went to Iraq/ AF-PAK. Not a single person I met on my travels today in “red” America knew of his death, nor cared.

Rural/Red America long ago turn it’s back to boosters of George [the 2nd] Bush, Dick Cheney…their toadies like Rush, CNN, Newsweek, Time, NYTimes, WaPo et al.

…and let’s not forget the afterbirth of George [the 2nd], Obama/Biden/Hillary.

But, like so many objective facts these days, the news of this political sea change in 2005/6 has yet to reach the “Blue no matter Who” crowd. Let’s just call it what my HS English teacher did..”a studied ignorance”.

God Bless you Ms Stone…for immunizing me from much of this ignorance, this ceaseless river of callowness that has overflowed it banks…each year, in ever increasing inundations.
________________

BTW, if anybody is going to win a “death bet” it’s Stirling with his Russia, Russia, RUSSIA shit.

>He undoubtedly has as part of his audience, some of the best of our species.

I sure as hell doubt it.

anon, back in the day, Glenn Greenwald was a “more and better Democrats” kind of guy with libertarian streaks. A progressive not so much. I never really forgave him for sitting on the Snowden files the way he did. Or hooking up with the billionaire Omidyar on the Intercept. Seems like Maddow wasn’t the only one selling out, huh, Glenn? Now, I see him as not much more than a Tucker Carlson wannabe.

@Dermot M O Connor,

Thanks. And very interesting. And depressing in its own way. If your figures are correct, then anywhere from 51-71 percent of Americans are self-trapped behind the Iron Triangle Curtain.

Which means that anywhere from 29-49 percent of Americans are either brain-trapped in some different Iron Triangle, or are not brain-trapped in that sense at all. While it is saddening to think that only a minority are not inside the Iron Triangles you specify, it is still a lot of people. Who are they? What is their brain-home, if any?

By the way, I can’t be sure any more but I think I remember Idleworm having been linked to some years ago by Ran Prieur in one of his posts.

@Chicago Clubs,

I only quote what Saxon wrote.

America is a big enough country that it could still have a lot of Limbaugh listeners and Limbaugh leavers both.

Ian – that really is a very succinct summation of Limbaugh.

Better yet, just – “He was pure evil”.

And hopefully you’ll soon be able to replace ‘Rush Limbagh’ with ‘Mike Savage’.
Another monster.

Hugh, about The Intercept, they allow all manner of racist commentary at that venue from right wing trolls and yet in the commentary to an article about a pork processing company, I mentioned Blimpblow’s death because he’s a fat pig, or was a fat pig, so it was appropriate and on topic. They censored my commentary. It was up for about an hour and then they took it down. I’m convinced the right wing trolls who troll that place and who have free rein to do so, are in fact Omidyar and his libertarian Silicon Valley friends. They do it for shits and giggles because to them life is but a joke. Critical commentary about Blimpblow is disrespectful, afterall. The Intercept showing its true colors despite the drama of Greenwald leaving because he was/is allegedly at odds with them.

Someone mentioned up-thread how the little guy could make the elites suffer just as much.

One way is to not give them your money. You could look at your payment streams and see which of them take your hard-earned cash and send it up a pyramid to a billionaire. I personally was willing to give up certain aspects of the first-world modern lifestyle just to stick it to the man in my own small way. Gradually shifting your purchases to be local can do a lot. Of course these people can still get rich off monopoly money, but that’s not something a regular person can change.

In 1984, KFBK radio hired Rush Limbaugh to do his carny act for the legislators, state workers and governor of California, and for the rubes out in Orangevale who could hear his barking madness. He was selling hate and anger, of course, but more than that, he was selling the “counter-narrative” snakeoil, excoriating the radical liberal Democrat communists that ran California, at the time who ran most states and still held power in DC — even if the not-so-conservative Reagan (former California governor) was sitting pretty in the White House.

Limbaugh was recognized as a clown early on, and he was widely thought to be a joke. But when his fans started harassing and killing people for being not like them (a gay bar was shot up, people identified as “lib-symps” were targeted and threatened, threats against anyone who wasn’t a ditto-head became routine) he was recognized as a clear and present danger, and a movement to get him off the air began, flourished and failed. KFBK not only kept him on, it wasn’t long before his show was nationally syndicated, and Limbaugh’s shtick became a national phenomenon and danger.

He denied any responsibility for the violence his fans and followers engaged in, and every now and then even seemed to ask them not to do it. But he also defended their anger and frustration. At what? Well, everything. Of course. And in particular the anti-Rush/Ditto-head people who were everywhere, saying things, doing things that Rush didn’t like, wearing funny clothes, eating funny food, doing the nasty with people they didn’t approve of, being “different” and believing things that made Rush and his fans angry.

Broadcasting took note. Rush’s formula worked and made him and radio stations and their owners LOTS of money. Big, big bucks. A sucker was not only born every minute, they’re created by the gross when clever hucksters like Rush took to the air and spewed falsehoods, hatreds and anger, feeding the Beast that lives in so many men’s and women’s souls. White grievance didn’t begin with Rush — oh no, he was marinated in it from birth — but he gave it a national platform and built castles and counter-worlds of the mind upon it.

Dozens of imitators came forth, some of them still around, and they made fortunes upon fortunes from the gullibility of those searching desperately for something else again, a different and more comforting view of the world and what was going on.

This is the power of counter-narrative, the stock in trade of Rush for decades, and of Caitlin Johnstone and of Glenn Greenwald among so many others. What we are told by our betters may all be fictional, but some of it will resonate somewhere with a majority. And some of the counter-narratives can be so powerfully resonant that they become a matters of faith. Feeding deep emotional and psychological needs of some faction of the rabble.

Rush started something that has a life far beyond him. Narrative and counter-narrative compete in the material world, and power, ultimately, is the goal. As long as there is money to be made from it, nothing much will change.

@edmondo: It seems that we are having a series of Chernobyl moments. Every day is Chernobyl Day.

Before Chernobyl, everyone already knew that the Soviet government was corrupt, cynical, self-serving and tribal.

After Chernobyl, the powers of repression were there on full display, but not even the KGB could hide the obvious fact that the government was also manifestly incompetent.

Dermot M O Connor

I’ve been to the suburban homes of people who listen to Limbaugh, Franken, and Goodman respectively. To be quite frank, somebody from Mars would not be able to distinguish the listener of one show from the listener of another. They all had the following:

1. Moderate to severe weight problem(s)
2. Giant mortgages on overbubbled homes
3. Two or more cars in the garage/driveway
4. Jobs they either hated or were indifferent to
5. Neighbors they did not know
6. Multiple credit cards they were carrying balances on

I’m not sure I’d agree with these.

I will say I do have this hypothesis about Limbaugh and his misogyny and his “feminazi” rants. That’s because all the Rush listeners I know *look like him*….overweight, unattractive men (one time I remember Rush railing against scientists as “thin as rails scientists” so I guess he has Bill Nye envy).

What I think drives this is this—Rush played the mating game by the old rules–become financially successful, while letting your body go to pot (literally) and despite that, the babes (lacking any financial option) will come running to you. Like Hugh Hefner, you’ll be surrounded by Playboy bunnies.

Instead, feminism allowed women to go out and make their own money, instead of seeking out that rich man. So now successful women can ditch the “Rush option” and instead surround themselves with attractive boytoys, Chippendale look-alikes. Why should this be any surprise? Powerful women in history (Elizabeth and Catherine the Great, and others) were perfectly happy to do exactly this.

So the “Rush syndrome” is the wail of the men who played the mating game by the old rules, only to see the rules changed, and then berate the incoming tide.

As for the rest of the characterizations—here in Appalachia, a coworker who hails from here said his family and home townfolk would think that Bernie Sanders voters were “losers” who were poor and destitute and looking for “handouts”. “Then I come here to work” he says “and I see the Bernie voters are usually financially solvent professionals, moreover who are in fact willing to pay higher taxes to get the things they want”. This observation also applies to my Unitarian friends, who tend to be politically liberal but who also ironically conform better to the “Focus on the Family” stereotypes of stable marriages and successful offspring, while the families of conservative evangelicals are much more likely to be basket cases (they have the highest rates of divorce).

Particularly for the Unitarians, I’d say that almost none of the characterizations you put in apply. They generally don’t buy the “starter castles” homes they can’t afford and they’re pretty actively involved in their churches and community.

Question 1: of the people at the top levels of power, what do you think is their opinion of Rush Limbaugh? Question 2: of Rush Limbaugh’s fans, how much power or influence do you suppose they have?

Limbaugh may as well be Emmanuel Goldstein for all this orgy of denunciation.

The observation that socially liberal blue-voting cultural-elites tend to have an outward lifestyle that are paragons of planned stability regardless of how they are constructed (from conventionally straight nuclear families to trans polyamorists) while outwardly conservatively religious “middle Americans” tend to have broken relationships and bitter custody battles has been made for a long time. I call it the My Cousin Vinnie effect. I don’t know if it holds up empirically, but it has the ring of truth at least.

Right wingers like Charles Murray have argued from this observation that social liberalism as policy is profoundly selfish, because it harms parts of the population that are innately incapable (for values of “innate” that charitably include poor upbringing) of safely handling that kind of freedom from pressure to conform. Apparently, this includes a lot of stereotypical “middle Americans”. YMMV.

In contrast, I would argue that successful social liberalism that retains outward family stability is essentially synonymous with some amount of reinvention of the male role and self-image. e.g. “in principle” (if not in practice; remember that practice is always secondary at every level of political argument) willingness to take responsibility for things like childcare and housework.

I’m not sure I’d agree with these.

That’s putting it kindly. Dermot engages in a 6-point reductionism in order to fit life’s complexities into something his feeble mind can handle. One of the dumber things I’ve ever read.

David Miranda is in much more danger daily than Greenwald ever was in his life.

@Che:. Didn’t realize this was a martyredom competition. At least the early Christians were promised eternal life in heaven as reward. What’s the motivation for martyredom these days? Other than getting marginalized and slandered a la Corbyn…

Astrid,

It should be clear by now that the “blue no matter who” crowd will disparage the purity of anyone who does not strictly adhere the neoD’s ever changing, self-serving narrative. Supporting falsehoods, often with contrary positions, often in the same day, is not a problem for these hypocritical creatures so long as their twisted mental back-flips are in support of the DNC’s Shiton Astick [D]’s.

Any person who in any manner attempts to destroy Al From’s legion of R’s that took over the then Democratic party 40 years ago must be ruthlessly purged, made voiceless and if possible, destroyed. Hugh, NR, StewartM and other such commenters here see anti-From D’s as the real threat, not rumpR’s, they know they must shout down those who wish to make the working class central to the present day neoD party. That is why they sell non-productive hatred, they know it is the surest way to prevent rational, self-enabling thought.

“the neoD’s do not control all of government…we must have revolution in the streets,..oh these R’s are monsters, we have to vote for the Shiton Astick [D]’s…don’t even think about…now that Shiton Astick [D] is in…we must give him a chance…he needs two terms or…longer…oh these rumpR’s are monsters what can we do…they are so evil…we have to vote for Shiton Astick [D] with more enthusiasm [D]..yes, yes more enthusiasm…don’t even think about”

So if Greenwald shows up on FoxNews pushing FoxNews storylines, that’s just a coincidence. Greenwald went through the 4 years of the Trump madness, and was so insightful that he managed to miss all of it. And Rachel Maddow is a sell-out for working for MSNBC while Glenn is a rebel for working for an eBay billionaire. He’s a martyr, another Assange, for sitting on the Snowden files in a comfortable house in Rio. This actually fit right in with a post on Rush “Don’t believe your lying eyes” Limbaugh.

Any truly dangerous reporter will end up dead mysteriously, sometimes suicided. Or simply ruined. All others of any significance are most likely “with” the company in some capacity, whether they even know it or not.

Except to his fans (and some of his critics), Greenwald is irrelevant. No one is trying to silence him. He’s had platform after platform, has been able to say and write anything he wants and avoid whatever he wants to as well. No one interferes with his sacred Freedom of Speech.

But he’s not immune from criticism. These days, though, hardly anyone cares what he says or does. He’s well past his best-buy date and isn’t even able to inject poison into the system like he used to. Others have done it more and better the last four-five years.

Whether a country or a person, you either stay ahead of the curve or get run over by it. Much like Trump and the right, Limbaugh simply denied there was a curve and wanted to return the country to a mythical racist white past where men were men, who told women what to do and left anyone who couldn’t con the system to go die in a ditch. As Ché Pasa says, the curve ran over and past Greenwald a long time ago. Now he’s just an embarrassment, and an irrelevant one at that.

Greenwald has done serious reporting but none of his reporting ever threatened the economic or imperial power structures in any serious way. The Snowden affair is rather curious indeed. Snowden himself should not be above approach.

Carlson is silly.

Hugh, we can’t all be like you and be aboard the trending TDS ad infinitum, Russia/China/Iran are unspeakably, and Cancel Culture is A OKAY bandwagon.

Huzzah for you to be ahead of the curve and ready to condemn someone not for what they said but for saying it on what you consider to be the wrong channel. For that, he surely deserves to be without a means of support and Cancelled in every possible way

Cancel Culture is a great invention of the right. You don’t need any facts. Indeed, if the facts are against you, just cry “Cancel Culture!” or “TDS” or “Russia” and it’s all OK. In right wing think then, the more facts given that they are wrong, in their minds magically change into more reasons they are really right, somehow.

Well what do you know . . .

That link I offered just up above doesn’t open the article itself, but it DOES take you right straight to the legacy Kurt Saxon homepage, without any hunting and pecking on the Wayback Machine page itself.

“Help, I’m being cancelled!!!” say a bunch of right-wingers as they make thousands of posts on social media and give countless TV interviews where they won’t stop talking about how cancelled they are.

This is like one of those conversations where people bicker over whether Michael Jackson was really black or actually white, with the occasional moron popping up to say it doesn’t matter because he was actually a communist.

So why the hell does Greenwald spend so much time on Fox News? Does he have a realistic plan we folks here are just too stupid to fathom? Is he trying for that coveted Alan Colmes/Juan Williams/milquetoast liberal panelist slot? Is he trying to persuade the Rush Limbaugh wifebeater-tee-shirt MAGAs that maybe gay socialist lawyers aren’t so bad after all?

I don’t have the time to go through a bunch of Fox News Greenwald video comment sections to take a count of who’s being persuaded of what.

Plus this is supposed to be the time when people say their goodbye fuck you’s to Limbaugh. And maybe discuss how somebody more FDR good-n-decent might become as influential.

Anyone claiming to believe that “covid is just the flu” should get himself infected with it so we can see that he actually believes his own statement.

Biden tells his flock of BlueNoMatterWho’s that the $15/hr promise he ran on has to wait so. C’mon man…shut-up about it already:

“look man…I really want this in there but it just doesn’t look like we can do it because…[Republicans]..er..uh…reconciliation”

To the BlueNoMatterWho’s reading this, in all likelihood $15/hr will happen pretty soon…when inflation kicks up from all the money printing going on, most employers will raise wages anyway. So just “calm down” and wait until it’s meaningless, you’ve been good losers, don’t ruin it for Joe.

Nice one Trinity!

«They’re going to die, never having faced the consequences of the evil they have done. You, on the other hand, if you’re not old and cushioned by wealth, will.»

This “old and cushioned by wealth” applies also to a a large part of the middle class, in particular those owning significant 401(k) shares or real estate in the areas where prices have been inflating for the past 40 years, something like 10-30% of voters.

Our blogger writes this of elites like Limbaugh or Pelosi, but they were not all-powerful on their own, they could do what they did because those affluent middle classes supported them electorally and with donations.

In particular real estate is the opium of the middle class, the single biggest economic and political fact in most anglo.american countries.