Why I Chose Chapter 14: Rush Limbaugh

I'm tired of these people on TV and radio who provide no basis for their arguments.  Their goals isn't to inform, but try to swing people to their side, through any means necessary.  The pundits I speak about in the blog, and many others who I didn't mention, destroy the credibility of other people in the media who actually report the news, and if they do give their opinions, do so through well-investigated evidence.  It is amazing, especially in the Republican party, that these talking heads have more political power than anyone else.

Political Cult Leaders

While Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee for this coming presidential election, he is not the leader of the Republican party.  Pundits like Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh control the beliefs and sentiments of the majority of Republicans today.  They use manipulative language and feed on the paranoia of their base in order to maintain their clout.

Left to Right: Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and Sean Hannity, commons.wikimedia.org

Rush Limbaugh might be the worst offender.  He disparages women, African Americans, and gay people on his radio show to connect with his audience, many of whom already have a quiet contempt towards these groups.  For women, "he adopted the grossly sexist policy of requiring [them] to send him photos of themselves before he'd take their calls on the air." (Streitmatter)  He once told a Black caller to "take that bone out of your nose" and "routinely [refers] to gays as 'faggots' and 'perverts'." (Streitmatter)  Limbaugh is the voice behind a lot of the intolerance in this country.  He uses humor on his radio show to keep people, even those who disagree with him, listening.

Keith Olbermann, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?seaerch=keith+olbermann&title=special%3Asearch

While there aren't as many divisive liberal pundits of note, they do exist.  Former MSNBC personality Keith Olbermann comes to mind.  While he never used sexist, racist, or homophobic language, he was just as guilty of pandering to his base in order to control the way his liberals viewers think.  All of these pundits, liberal and conservative, don't want people to think for themselves.  They want us to think that if you strongly feel one way about a particular issue, you then automatically feel a certain way about various other issues.  Just because you are pro-choice does not mean that you're fiscally liberal.  Instead of listening to these people in the media, who have obtained way too much power, we must think of each issue individually.  We need to think for ourselves in order to form opinions.

Why I Choose Chapter 2: Father Coughlin

As a Jewish person, anti-Semitism is an important issue to me.  While I haven't personally experienced much anti-Semitism, growing up in a neighborhood with a large Jewish population, I see plenty of stories about it on the news, so I know it is still rampant.  Many of my grandparent's relatives were killed during the Holocaust on the basis of their religion, so I felt that blogging about this chapter made a lot of sense.

Anti-Semitism: It Didn't End With Hitler

"The personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew." -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1925

Adolf Hitler, http://www.flickr.com/photos/26449307@N04/2479937085/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Adolf Hitler is the most infamous anti-Semite of all time.  Before he took power in Germany, he wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle), a book that laid out his flawed reasoning for his hatred of the Jewish people.  When he took power, he fed on an existing sentiment of anti-Semitism in Germany.  He manipulated the beliefs of his people and was able to first take away civil rights from German Jews, and ultimately send them, and Jews from all around Europe, to their deaths during the Holocaust.

While this, the death of approximately six million Jews, has been the worst episode of anti-Semitism, it was not the only incident in which Jews have been persecuted.  In the United States, a country that prides itself on justice and liberty, “during the 1930’s and 1940’s, a virulent anti-Semitism pervaded American society.” (Streitmatter)  Jews were barred from some companies and schools, and were ostracized by their neighbors.  Like Hitler, a priest and radio host named Father Charles Coughlin fed on his anti-Semitic audience to gain popularity.  He compared the Jewish people to a deadly disease by saing that “‘there is a Jewish question.  It is just as unfortunate that it exists in the social world as it is that cancer exists in the physical world’” (Streitmatter)  During the same time period in which Hitler was blaming the Jews for all Germany’s problems, including losing World War I and the Great Depression, this American was spewing the same hatred on a smaller scale.

Charles Coughlin, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/file:charlescoughlincrainedetroitportrait.jpg

Luckily, anti-Semitism has died down in the United States, but it unfortunately still exists.  Just last week, Delmon Young, an outfielder for the Detroit Tigers, was arrested for a hate crime in which he yelled anti-Semitic epithets at a Jewish man in a hotel.  It culminated in a physical altercation.  While Jews haven’t experienced the same level of persecution as people from other minorities in this country, it has always exists and it still exits.  While I hope that all racial, ethnic, and religion persecution will one day end, I think it is illogical to think that this is actually a possibility.  People like Adolf Hitler, Charles Coughlin, and Delmon Young will always exist.

Why I Chose Chapter 1: Sowing the Seeds of Revolution

I have always been interested in the American Revolution, and this chapter talks about how journalism played a big role in the war.  I decided to write about this and tie it in with other examples of the power of journalism.

Restarting the World is Common Sense

Thomas Paine, http://www.flickr.com/photos/28268328@N00/3045835627

"We have it in our power to begin the world over again." -Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776


In 1774, Thomas Paine, ironically a former tax collector from London, was sent to America by Benjamin Franklin, who recognized the talents of the young dissident.  He went on to become "the most important writer of the colonial era" (Streitmatter), helping pave the way for the creation of the new world along with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and the other great American revolutionaries of the time.  His greatest contribution was the pamphlet Common Sense which "argued that those men and women [of the colonies] not only deserved, but were obligated as citizens of the human race, to demand much more [than their rights]." (Streitmatter)  His pamphlet struck a cord with a great number of colonists, and served as a catalyst for them to fight for their independence.

Paine not only wrote about the power of humans to create a new world, he served as a living testament to his theory.  With the ability to reach a large audience, a person possesses a potent tool for change.  Throughout history, people have used this power for a multitude of purposes, both positive and negative.  The effects of this can definitely have been said to begin the world over again.

Going back to the American Revolution, Sam Adams, a journalist for the Boston Gazette, used his persuasive voice to garner support against taxes on the colonists.  His support allowed him to organize the Boston Tea party, which was the first large civil act against the crown.  After this event, support for the revolution snowballed, the war began, and the result, of course was the formation of the United States.

Sam Adams, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/J_S_Copley_-_Samuel_Adams.jpg

However, power when used inappropriately has dangerous consequences.  Judith Miller was a journalist for The New York Times who propagated the false belief that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.  She made the error of not checking her sources, and publishing the information without any real investigation of the truth (http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/9226/).  Her spread of misinformation helped create a pro-war sentiment in the US when it came to Iraq, and years later, our economy is still decimated from the war and almost 4,500 of our soldiers have been killed (http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/).

Thomas Paine's words still serve as a lesson for all journalists and people with vocal power today.  Since they have the ability to change the world to such a degree that life as we know it could start over, these influential people have the responsibility to report, not repeat, and make sure their words don't have the ability to restart the world in a negative way.