You can tell a "dittohead" a person who is a fervent fan and mindless follower of Rush Limbaugh and his lesser fellow radio-talk-spewers by his unfounded religious expounding of the repetitive, mantra-like statements that Limbaugh and fellow morons Sean Hannity and Glen Beck vomit up to their mostly male audiences just about every day of the week. Of course, these are not just simple phrases thrown off-the-cuff by these mouthpieces for the far right. No. These phrases-- "tax and spend," "big government" have been honed and polished by the right's thinktanks with their billion dollar plus budget over the last ten years.
In the film classic, Defending Your Life, Albert Brooks is told that he's a "little-head" by a soul who's been around the reincarnation block a whole lot more. It seems that this term-- littleheads-- applies so well to these "dittoheads." They are short on think-through, short on reasoning, short on questions. And as, I've said in a number of previous articles, these people, mostly guys, also appear to feel short on manhood. They need to constantly hear the right wing screed/hate mongers constantly put down and attack liberals. They need to relate to George Bush being a tough guy, using the might of America to kick Arab ass. They are littleheads in more ways than one. And the far right, taps these psychological flaws, knowing this group to be ineffective, inarticulate hypermacho losers in jobs that are meaningless and frustrating, in shallow relationships (how can these macho chimps be in caring, mutually respecting relationships when they need to be proving their masculinity and focusing hate?)
But these are not harmless little puppies or chimps. They are over-amped, hyper-macho men who are not smart enough to see what dumb arguments and statements Rush Limbaugh and his fellow hate mongers are spewing. These "littleheads" are like time bombs, targeted to go off in all kinds of situations. They are primed with hate and anger, racism, anti-arabism... and encouraged to be intolerant, cynical and nasty. They are told that liberals are intolerant, cynical and nasty. They are told that liberals hate America's ideals, that all liberals want to do is dwell in the past and fight for old causes that they've recently lost. They are told that Rush Limbaugh and George Bush are living in the future, that liberals live in the past and have no ability to envision the future.
They are told this by Limbaugh, while he repeatedly tells them how incredible he is, how brilliant, how important, how, by fulfilling his need to rant, he is fulfilling their needs.
Limbaugh is not just the fat liar Al Franken called him in his book, he is a one of the most dangerous threats to America. His hate radio has polarized the people of America, taking your average couch potato football, baseball, basketball, hockey watching guy and transformed him into a rabid right wing, republican voting, paranoid, mean machine. Limbaugh is individually responsible for raising the level of meanness in this country by severe degrees. I put him in the same category as nazis like Goebbels, monsters like Idi Amin and... Saddam Hussein. While Limbaugh is a gutless coward, his mean, nasty words have killed the kindness in America, and cut a divide in the American landscape that will not soon disappear. His cronies-- Hannity, O'Reilly, Beck, Savage-- are Limbaugh wannabes who puke just as ugly on the airwaves, but they are copycats.
I listen to Limbaugh and the others to know the enemy. I'm going to start complaining to the radio stations that carry him and the others. Their nastiness should not be perpetrated upon million of Americans. If enough of us complain, maybe, like Michael Savage's TV show, the media will get the message, and these diseases of the airwaves will go away. Believe me, they'll do the same, as soon as there's a progressive talk radio show near you.
this article was originally published on OpENews Sept 24, 2003.
