Left In Lowell

Oh Thank God

15 Responses to “Oh Thank God”

1. -b Says:
   April 12th, 2007 at 12:07 am

   Very glad to see him go. I never understood how anyone could enjoy listening to him. Maybe CBS will pull the plug on him too. I can only hope.

   Somehow I think six months down the road we’ll be hear an announcement that his show has been picked up by XM satellite radio.

2. Ryan Says:
   April 12th, 2007 at 12:21 am

   The thing that annoyed me most about Imus was that he tried to pretend he was liberal and people tried to pretend that he was this rational voice…. and I was like ‘are you all effing crazy?’

   I’m just excited for the precedent this now sets up.

3. Renee Says:
   April 12th, 2007 at 7:36 am

   Not familiar with Imus, but it reminds me of a conversation I had with a father of teenage boys who seemed to have no problem with his sons listening to music that was degrading to women and used the “n” word maybe the father was just accustomed of such language through talk radio.

   Black leaders have recieved criticism for not going after the music industry, but there was an great blog entry on Patrick and his own daughters.

   http://wbztv.com/kellerblog/local_blogentry_090192021.html

   “This brings to mind a scene I witnessed in Lynn last August, then-candidate Deval Patrick meeting informally with a group of local girls - about the same ages as Patrick’s own daughters - at the social-service agency Girls Inc. In the course of the conversation, Patrick told a story I’d never heard him tell before, and haven’t heard since.

   One of the governor’s girls wanted to go see Fifty Cent in Manchester, N.H., and daddy, could you please get tickets and drive me and my friends up? He could, but while the daughter figured he’d go do whatever it is old people do for two hours before returning to pick her up, it seems Dad was acquainted with the show’s promoter, and watched Fiddy perform from the wings.

   I’ve got a tape of what Deval said somewhere, and I’ll try to give you precise quotes in a future post. But the gist of it was, he was appalled at the misogyny of the music and the performance, repulsed by the coarseness of it, angered by the way he felt this demeaned and degraded women and the thought of its impact on young girls and boys.

   It was eloquent. It was moving. It was sincere. There was no disagreement from the girl. Staffers. They seemed thrilled that a politician was actually addressing something real in their lives with courage and candor. It was Deval Patrick, potential leader, at his best.”

4. Lucy the Dog Says:
   April 12th, 2007 at 8:23 am

   “I’m just excited for the precedent this now sets up.”

   Yes, it’s exciting to know that if the right (actually, the wrong) people yell loud enough, you can get canned. It’s exciting to know that if you go on the radio and call George Bush a nazi, you can be fired. It’s exciting to know that the issue isn’t really what’s offensive. After all, turn on 96.9 anytime aside from Eagan and Braude and you’re likely to hear something worse than what Imus said. But it’s exciting to know that what’s important is not the content or the context, but rather, what opportunists like Al Sharpton will seize and beat into the ground. I’m looking forward to when the government and corporations will be able to put a chip in my brain that tells me exactly to say. That, my friend, will be really exciting.

   By the way, I despise Imus more than you. What he said was loathsome, but not much more loathsome than what’s come to be considered acceptable in today’s public discourse.

   If this incident would have any lasting impact on issues of race, it would indeed be an exciting precedent. But at the end of the day, it’s just another higher-than-thou beatdown and an ongoing audition for Jesse Jackson to get the morning MSNBC slot. Yawn.

5. Mr. Lynne Says:
   April 12th, 2007 at 9:40 am

   “By the way, I despise Imus more than you.”

   I’m confused… are you angry that people who agree with you were able to pressure the media into acting out a desired outcome?

6. Lynne Says:
   April 12th, 2007 at 9:40 am

   I’m sorry, but if you yell “fire” in a theatre, you can be arrested.

   Hate speech is hurtful, and it goes beyond what is said and out into the general atmosphere that leads to violence. Yes, it does. Ask a gay man if being called a ‘fag’ with derision over and over hasn’t caused physical damage, and in turn contributed to the sort of violence all gays yet fear. Is it OK if you put a burning cross on your lawn? Wouldn’t you expect your neighbors to respond to that? Ostracize you at the very least, or invoke a zoning law or fight to create one if there isn’t?

   If the marketplace (ie, us listeners) doesn’t want to tolerate hate speech, we have every fracking right to demand accountability from those who use it. And Imus was the leading edge of a bigoted group of performers (I refuse to call them news talkers) who invoke this sort of hate speech because they can. Well, maybe they can’t do it with impunity anymore.

   You know what killed Imus’ show? The light of fracking day. That’s it. People got a chance to hear the sort of language he and others use on his program and companies advertising on his show got the message that they do NOT want to be affiliated with such hurtful language. In the marketplace of ideas, Imus and those others stink like rotted fruit. We have the right to discriminate against ideas that don’t hold up to scrutiny, and we have a right to make MARKET DECISIONS to do so. Anyone who thinks this isn’t about the free market making a decision is delusional. Imus became too hot to handle because of IMUS. Not because of some notion of PCness, but because hate is dispicable and his sort of rhetoric only hurts, and people are finally sick of it.

7. lucy the dog Says:
   April 12th, 2007 at 10:12 am

   i’m not really angry, first of all.

   but secondly, i don’t believe this is a ‘fair’ outcome, as much as i hate don imus. if this is the way we’re going to run things, fine. but get rid of michael savage, jay severin, etc. the list is long. i simply don’t agree with firing people indiscrimantly just because certain predictable loudmouths start raising hell.

   if you believe in free speech, you believe in free speech. you can choose not to listen. you can choose to get riled up and boycott. i don’t mind that. i mind the spineless people getting on their knees and not standing behind the people they put on the air - who are doing the same thing they do day after day.

   i didn’t agree with bill maher being run off of abc, and i didn’t believe in the dixie chicks protests. in those cases i supported what the people said. even though i don’t support what don imus says, i don’t believe he deserves the fate they got either.

   again, the main point is this is another silly media firestorm. the ‘winners’ can now cheer that imus is going down in flames. but at the end of the day, it does absolutely nothing to solve any problems about race and inequity. nothing.

8. Lynne Says:
   April 12th, 2007 at 11:19 am

   I agree, I don’t know why Severin and Savage and their ilk didn’t get run off a long time ago. But I disagree that you can’t boycott or otherwise affect someone who says something and only be expected to ‘turn it off’. Take a look at my new post if you want to see what I mean. What shows in the light of day is fair game.

   It’s well within Republican-leaning voters’ rights to stop buying Dixie Chick albums if they don’t like what they said. But in doing so, they showed their blind loyalty to an authoritarian regime, not free thinking. However, that said, it’s still their right to put economic pressure on anyone they don’t like. What they hate is when the tables are turned and everyone else starts BUYING Dixie Chick albums, or when someone like Imus reaps what he has sown for decades.

   The problem I think you have is that those who have been affected by this sort of ‘firestorm’ as you put it, were done in by a small segment of the population - ie, market decisions that made NO sense. Springer had a pretty highly rated show on MSNBC during the runup to the Iraq war, but MSNBC was cowardly in allowing dissenting voices and fired him. (Luckily, Obermann is so kicking ass they’d be economically suicidal to cancelling him and did the smart thing…but don’t think Obermann hasn’t been in danger of losing his show either. I don’t know why MSNBC and other networks - ahem, CNN - haven’t picked up that they are not serving their marketplace and maybe that’s why their ratings aren’t going up…and that that audience are NOT Fox-like viewers.)

   I was just happy I could have MSNBC back in the mornings, that was the main point of my post. And it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, who got what he deserved in the marketplace of ideas. Maybe the Dixie Chicks didn’t deserve it, or Springer, or even Maher (who’s way better on HBO anyway, plus I think he can be a mysoginistic ass). But that’s more because those networks were being led by the nose by a small hateful group of people and they didn’t listen to the silent majority. In Imus’ case the silent majority are pretty adament - he doesn’t belong on a news station.

9. Mr. Lynne Says:
   April 12th, 2007 at 11:36 am

   If they want to use a commercial forum for what they produce, isn’t the reaction of potential consumers (an indirect measure of the reacton of advertisers) a legitimate concern for the broadcaster? Isn’t generating positive public reaction what they are in the business of? If he was neutral news broadcaster I’d say this is hystaria, but he’s an entertainer and people (the market) is free to be as offended as it wants and the broadcasters are free to make good or bad business decisions…. but make no mistake… its their viewers they really have to listen to for their bottom line.

   I guess the question here is… was this really indiscriminate or was this a legitimate outcry of offense?

   Personally, I thought this whole thing was going to get passed on, until the team gave thier conference put into perspective the humanity of the people Imus was dehumanizing.

   BTW I agree about Savage and Severen and thier ilk and I understand your call for consistance. I think it should be noted that Imus isn’t going off the air (he’s staying there with Savage and Severen and such), but he is leaving NBC and MSNBC (which got rid of Savage earlier). So if you want to measure consistancy one should ask if NBC or MSNBC is giving a pass to anyone on the same level as Imus. I don’t think that they are.

10. Lynne Says:
    April 12th, 2007 at 12:20 pm

    Though CNN still is with Glen Beck. *sigh* Probably why I’ve stopped watching CNN - besides the fact I can’t stand “missing white girl of the moment” news.

11. Josh Says:
    April 12th, 2007 at 12:51 pm

    “Hate speech is hurtful, and it goes beyond what is said and out into the general atmosphere that leads to violence. Yes, it does. Ask a gay man if being called a ‘fag’ with derision over and over hasn’t caused physical damage, and in turn contributed to the sort of violence all gays yet fear.”

    Are you for outlawing “hate speech?” That’s what it sounds like here. If so, it sounds like the thought police are coming.

    “We have the right to discriminate against ideas that don’t hold up to scrutiny, and we have a right to make MARKET DECISIONS to do so.”

    Glad you see you having some appreciation for the self-regulating aspects of the market. Now apply that same principle to everything else.

12. Mr. Lynne Says:
    April 12th, 2007 at 1:47 pm

    I have an appreciation of the ability of a facist police state to enforce law and order… doesn’t mean its smart to “applay that same principle to everything else.” Absolutisms are rarely smart.

13. Lynne Says:
    April 12th, 2007 at 3:20 pm

    I think we the public have a right to decide the usage of our public airwaves. I suppose you want to abdicate that to private interests?

14. tim Says:
    April 13th, 2007 at 12:12 pm

    I don’t think Lynne mentioned arresting anyone or even fining them for speech. She did call for accountablity, but for talk show hosts. Meaning they should be suspended or fired.

    As for the comment “Now apply that same principle to everything else” - do you do that with every idea that works in a couple situations?

15. I-Man Report Cards « Lucy the Blog Says:
    April 17th, 2007 at 2:37 pm

    […] deo feed.  B+ Left In Lowell - Not much original I-Man content here, and “Oh Thank God” seems a tad hyperbolic.  But the heart, if not the mind, of Left […]

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