Rush Limbaugh's On-Air Reign

The news came this past Wednesday that conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh has died after an extended battle with lung cancer. Rush Limbaugh was a boon to the talk radio industry, but he was a bane to the community and a blight upon the broadcasting landscape. He tapped into our worst, most selfish actions and reactions and gave multitudes permission to abide in their hatred and bigotry. When his radio program first came to the Birmingham area it aired on the most widely listened to talk radio station, WERC. I would often listen in to find out what the brouhaha was all about. This was in the day when one could hear informative interview programs that were nationally broadcast, as well as local talk, of which Tim Lennox was a favorite in the city. It didn’t take much listening to the spouting of Rush and the fawning of the “ditto-heads” calling in to understand what was happening. Nevertheless, I kept my car radio tuned to WERC Talk Radio because I felt it was important to hear what was being said what others were thinking. 

The other part of my story was that I had been a Baptist seminarian who was so dismayed by the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention that I had left the denomination 5 or 6 years earlier. I guess I still had some lingering hope for “my people,” why else would I have wandered into the Baptist Bookstore one day? As I entered the bookstore, which at the time was still on University Boulevard near UAB, there on prominent display was Rush Limbaugh’s newly published first book, The Way Things Ought to Be. I had listened to Rush enough to know that he made no claim to any religious faith and had stated as much, yet here in the store that once presented only what was considered to be aids for Bible study and Christian living was a book by a man who made no attempt to hide his narrow-minded bigotry and expressed no love at all for any faith practice.

That moment simply re-affirmed for me the rightness of my decision to have parted company with the church of my childhood. Moreover, it showed me that the core beliefs of the denomination rested not on the Bible, as was publicly stated, but on bigotry, xenophobia, and hate. It also showed me that you don’t have to be religious to be a racist bigot, but a racist bigot is readily welcomed by many religious folks. I walked out that day with no further desire to even look back, though I have carried the grief that good-hearted people can be so easily led astray.

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The Virus

We have a national viral emergency, and I'm not talking about the coronavirus, though that, too, is a national problem. I'm talking about a more insidious virus.

Have you ever downloaded a virus that affected your whole computer operating system? When we elected Donald J. Trump, our nation downloaded a virus. Not only do people feel free to openly hate those who are different, but we are also seeing a dismantling of systems designed to preserve the environment and support public health. Hatred and disregard are extended even to our environment and our communities.

Moreover, just as a Trojan virus might do, Mr. Trump has consistently cast doubt upon every major governmental institution and has done his best to dismantle the government's effectiveness by appointing inexperienced cronies and donors to head those government institutions.

How can we free ourselves from this virus that affects our nation's operating system? We'll have a chance at the polls next week.

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The Government We Get

Fas-cism: a political system based on a very powerful leader, state control of social and economic life, and extreme pride in country and race, with no expression of political disagreement allowed.  (Cambridge Dictionary)

The Government We Get

This is how the dread begins –

                    too easily.     

Fascism is too easily

Spoken.

The word itself

Suddenly stops

                   all examination

And hinders

                 possibilities.

It makes us think

                   in graphic images –

Lets us picture the other

As mindless oppressors

                   whose foreign tongue

And jack boot heels

Set perimeters of conformity –

And the other

                    is always the other.    

Fascism is too easily

Held

In times of hate

When the world becomes

                 afraid and uncertain.

It has been

Our default mode

Of governing

Ourselves – as if

                   we would be governed.

What harm is it

                   to want to be

With people who look like us?

Where we can speak with ease

                   and without care?   

We gravitate toward a system

                   that helps us

Not think

Not struggle

                   when times are hard.

We then hand it over

                   to those in charge

To set the perimeters of conformity. 

Just let me have

                    my own couch

And kitchen table –

And people like me.

It all seems natural

And normal.

Therein lies the problem.

This is how the dread begins.

                                              

                                                  ~ CK 

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Looking at 9/11 Memorials on the Day After

Each year since 2002, we have spent time remembering the tragedy at New York City’s Twin Towers that occurred September 11, 2001. On the first anniversary, I wrote a poem to commemorate that event that left its mark upon our national psyche. Garrison Keillor, in yesterday's The Writer's Almanac shared a beautiful and thoughtful poem by Charlotte Parsons titled, "9/11." 

Now, 16 years later, I wonder if we are indeed honoring those lives lost that day. I wonder if we are honoring our American ideals, In a tweet yesterday, President Barack Obama said that “No act of terror will ever change who we are.” When I look around at the state of our nation today, I can't help wondering if that is really true. Have we changed since that day when the towers fell?

We continue to launch campaigns of hate, and we fear the foreigner so much that we as a nation are threatening war on many fronts while our president seeks to dismantle hope for some of the brightest who happen to be Hispanic children of undocumented immigrants. Has terror caused us to forget who we are?

I must hasten to add that not everyone in our country is operating from fear and hatred. How we treat our immigrant neighbors, how we respond to the Islamic community, and what values we present to the world are currently being debated in the public square. While prejudice seems to be on the ascendency at the moment, we have not lost our hope for justice to prevail and for the common good to be our standard.

One of the best 9/11 commemorations that I have read is by Gary Furr, pastor of Vestavia Hills Baptist Church and blogger at The Flat Pickin’ Pilgrim’s Progress. You can read his essay here. I highly recommend it for its broad and compassionate look at what the anniversary of 9/11 means to us.

As we think on our history, our legacy, and our travails, may we always, somehow, look to the better angels of our nature, and not grow weary in our well doing.

____________________

Photo: Two women stop to read the names of the victims lost at Ground Zero (FEMA photo by Lauren Hobart, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

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A White Southerner Takes Another Look at Racism

My latest commentary on AmericaBlog...

We’ve been reeling lately from blatant issues of racism in our country that illustrate how much work there is yet to do in matters of racial equality. We thought we were making some headway, at least that’s what we kept telling ourselves, yet we continue to be hit with evidence to the contrary. This year is was Freddie Gray in Baltimore dying in police custody from a spinal cord injury. Last year it was Eric Garner dying in New York City after a choke hold by the arresting policemen. There was also the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri; before that it was Trayvon Martin in Florida. We have seen numerous local ordinances passed throughout the country that made it harder for African Americans to vote.

Our racial bias is evident, and it’s not just in the South. Just this summer, The New York Times released its summer reading list with nothing but white authors – and The New York Times is supposed to know better... (continue reading here)


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