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Attack. Demonize. Divide and Deride. It's the right wing Lords of Loud bread and butter. Ripping the opposition is as comforting to talk show hosts as Jessica Simpson is to a New York Giants fan. Oh, they'll yell all day how the evil Left throws around the Nazi card. Meanwhile, Jonah Goldberg's newest tome, "Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning" is being pimped across the dial by right-minded Lords of Loud. But this week the Right Wing whack attack took an even darker turn...inwards. And when I heard the light and lilting modulated tones of talk show host Mark Levin on his daily show throwing down the gauntlet at the feet of journalist Bill O'Reilly yesterday, I nearly fell off my No Spin Recliner. Levin was royally annoyed that Bill had anointed himself chief oversight for talk radio standards of demeanor when he brought on six talk show hosts on the TV Factor to discuss what is the right or wrong behavior for radio hosts. Though no names were bandied about on the Factor, Levin felt Bill was referring to Levin himself as an example of someone who had the temerity to mock politicians, physically and otherwise. How upset was the normally calm and collected Levin? After saying that O'Reilly had no audience and would be off the air in a year, he said the worst thing you could say about the performance of a host, that O'Reilly "phones it in." In radio parlance, he basically just shows up and wings it. But the real shot hit the fan when Levin reminded his audience that Bill was involved in a "porn"(Levin's word, not mine) scandal where he was taped sexually harassing a younger subordinate, one in which Bill had to pay millions to make it go away. Levin said that if Bill didn't stop taking on the mantel of talk radio's ombudsman, he would "do an hour on the porn" during his own show. Yikes. While Levin's show is syndicated by ABC and O'Reilly by Westwood One so there's no love lost there, but there are outlets, like KABC in Los Angeles, where both shows broadcast over the same station. Having one host going to war with another one in the same lineup should make for a bunch of tight sphincters in a number of program directors' offices. Will Bill acquiesce to Levin's demands or will the Nospinster tell Levin to stick it where the AM signal is difficult to receive? Will Levin allow O'Reilly to tell him how he should behave on his own show or will he end up broadcasting a show that would guarantee to draw Levin's largest audience? We should know soon, but I can already feel the WWE verberations on the airwaves. Levin vs O'Reilly. Steel Cage Radio Match No Loofas Barred www.greatfailure.com A talk show host, author, columnist,award-winning television writer and filmmaker, his inspiring book, "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful" (Tallfellow Press) has been published internationally and has become required reading in the Wharton School of Business Masters Program. His "All The News That's Fit To Spoof " column appears every Sunday on the L.A. Daily News Oped Page.
Steve has appeared all over national TV and radio with his unique brand of satirical punditry and social observations appearing in national periodicals from the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, to his own weekly Internet column "The Lords Of Loud," at AlbionMonitor.net and The Huffington Post.
I see the world being governed by idea's in motion. If an idea is logical, and evokes emotions, it will move people into action, and once it has gained momentum, nothing can stop it. Peace is inevitable.
Just another outburst from the 'Emotional Right' I used to think that politics were evenly divided on what was best for America. I thought that the major differences were based on equally well thought out paths to achieve similar goals. After many years studying psychology, propaganda, and then finally politics, I realize that the major divide is created by corporate funded propaganda and the Emotional Right. During the "Cold War" insurance companies attacked universal health-care as "Socialism", relating it to an enemy takeover. That generation of voters was warned that "one thing leads to another". These scare tactics, and implied relationships to existing opposition were intended to evoke emotions that would trigger reactions rather than logical thought. Government run health-care eliminates multi-billion dollar businesses, and faces multi-billion dollar opposition because the people making all the money want to keep making it. I was told that the answer to opposing the war was to watch the video of the 911 attack again, and that was all I needed to do to understand why we were at war.... Well, I haven't forgotten about 911 as many of the right seem to assume when someone is against the war. I have watched the video, but I also watched "Shock and Awe", and I understand that the "enemies" we face in the region watched it too. I can only assume that the people on both sides who watched these events, and advocated for a violent response, were reacting to the same emotions. Mark Levin showed a tendency toward the kind of emotional reactions that would be expected of someone who would also react to violence with violence, or would fear a conspiring enemy in a health-care plan. The "Emotional Right" is on the "Right", not because of a well thought out path, but because they are emotional. There are some good people and logic on the Right, but a calm rational conversation is hard to hear over all the hysterical outbursts. Watch for the emotions in all politics, and understand that although an emotion may be logically based, it's a game of chance with loaded dice thrown by the corporate media. by
James Hovland (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments)
on Thursday, January 17, 2008 at 4:59:51 PM
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