Tag: Missouri

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Ditto.

Rush Limbaugh and I had a lot in common.

We’re both Baby Boomers, both from a small town in Missouri, and both of us grew up in a Republican family. Rush dropped out of college and then moved to Pittsburgh to try to become a radio DJ. I dropped out of college to smoke pot and protest the Vietnam War. Then I moved to San Francisco and became a night watchman and a busker for tourists in Ghirardelli Square. 

Both of our career paths were a bit murky there for a while.

Rush bounced from station to station for a few years, eventually ending up in Kansas City. I bounced from job to job out West and in Columbia, Missouri, where I eventually finished my journalism degree and found semi-honest work in the business where I still ply my trade.

Rush began his climb to glory in the wake of the overturning of the FCC Fairness Doctrine in 1987, when broadcasters were no longer constrained by having to provide equal time for opposing views, or for anyone who was attacked on air.

After getting some attention in Kansas City for his “public affairs” show, Rushbo got hired by WABC in New York and he quickly gained national notoriety for such actions as celebrating the deaths of gay men from AIDS with show tunes, coining the phrase “Femi-Nazis” for women’s rights activists, calling Chelsea Clinton the “White House dog,” and regularly saying revoltingly racist things about African Americans (too many to list here), all under the guise of “conservatism.” It was a truly deplorable schtick before deplorable became a thing, and one that resonated, appallingly, with much of white America. Rush got very rich with it.

In 1996, the Telecommunications Act allowed broadcasting companies to own stations in many markets and spawned radio syndication. Rush quickly got even bigger (literally) and richer and became a major player in the Republican Party. A slew of conservative Rush-clones emerged: Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Mark Levin, to name a few. Stirring up anger and outrage at liberals, Democrats, Blacks, Muslims, and immigrants was, and is, their stock-in-trade. And it’s made them rich.

Then came Fox News, the ultimate benefactor of the abolishment of the Fairness Doctrine. (“Fair and Balanced” being the lie from which all others were spun.) Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes built a television empire on right-wing outrage, angry white male hosts, short-skirted blondes, and lies.

Now, with the internet, the genie is out of the bottle. If you want “fair and balanced,” it’s strictly DIY. Pick your news to suit your views. If you believe climate change and COVID-19 are hoaxes, that Donald Trump won the 2020 election, that Texas lost power because of a Green New Deal that hasn’t been passed, that QAnon is onto something, that Antifa spawned the January 6th insurrection, that President Biden’s dog isn’t “presidential,” that the Bidens’ marriage is a “charade” … there’s a whole news ecosystem built just for you. Likewise, if you take the opposing point of view on any or all of those issues.

But it all started with Rush Limbaugh. And now he’s dead of lung cancer, at 70, leaving three ex-wives and a widow and millions of fans to mourn his passing. Lots of Republicans want to honor what they perceive as Limbaugh’s glorious legacy. He’s being called a great American, a true patriot — lauded by GOP politicians all over America. In Florida, the governor wants to fly the flag at half-mast in Limbaugh’s honor. In Rush’s home state of Missouri, legislators are talking about establishing a state holiday in his name. A state holiday! His bust already resides in the state capitol building — kind of like Nathan Bedford Forrest’s up in Nashville.

But let’s speak the truth here: Rush Limbaugh was not a great American by any fair and balanced measure. In his radio persona, he was a divisive, hateful, homophobic, racist, misogynistic asshole. What he was like in private, I can’t say, but I doubt that he and I had much in common when Limbaugh departed this earthly vale — far from his Missouri roots. I do hope he found peace at the end. It’s more than he wished for others.

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News News Blog

Locals Protest at Intersection of Poplar and Highland

CREDIT: Louis Goggans

Louis Goggans

A protester near the intersection of Poplar and Highland.

A day after a Missouri grand jury decided not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson for fatally shooting unarmed teen Michael Brown, a large group of protesters gathered at the busy intersection of Poplar and Highland.

Wielding signs emblazoned with words like “Film the Police,” “Protect Us, Don’t Kill Us,” and “No Justice,” the group began gathering around 5 p.m. The amount of protesters quickly increased from a couple dozen to more than 50 by 5:30 p.m.

Protesters chanted, “Hands up, don’t shoot!” and “Stand up, stand down, we’re doing this for Mike Brown!” as a handful of Memphis police officers looked on.

Several people spoke to the large crowd, motivating them to fight against police brutality and racial injustice. And numerous cars that passed by honked their horns in support of the protest. 

The event was orchestrated by the Mid-South Youth Collective, Enough is Enough Memphis, and the Brotherhood & Sisterhood.

View some images from the protest below. 

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News The Fly-By

Cohen, Memphis Activists Turn Attention to Ferguson

CREDIT: Memphis United Facebook Page

U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen of Memphis signed on to a letter issued last week demanding a hearing on the use of force by local law enforcement officials during the protests in Ferguson, Missouri.

Cohen, and Reps. John Conyers and Robert Scott issued the letter to Rep. Bob Goodlatte, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, after Ferguson police broke up a protest last week with “brutal force: confronting demonstrators in riot gear and armored vehicles, arresting journalists, and firing tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowd.”

The protests in Ferguson, a St. Louis suburb, were sparked when local police shot and killed an unarmed African-American teenager, Michael Brown, more than a week ago. 

Protests there briefly calmed after the initial show of force by police officers outfitted in riot gear and driving armored vehicles. Security of the protest was handed over to the Missouri state police last week, who shed the riot gear and walked among the protestors. Violence picked up again Sunday and Monday nights as some protesters threw Molotov cocktails at police and several people were shot. The National Guard was called in to Ferguson on Monday. Cohen and others want an investigation into the events “as soon as possible.”

“These incidents raise concerns that local law enforcement is out of control, and, instead of protecting the safety and civil liberties of the residents of Ferguson, is employing tactics that violate the rights of the citizens and hinder the ability of the press to report on their actions,” the letter reads. “This situation requires immediate congressional scrutiny.”

The congressmen want to discuss “what appears to be a pattern of the use of deadly force by police against unarmed African Americans in cities around the nation.” They also want an investigation into the arrest of two journalists — Wesley Lowery of The Washington Post and Ryan J. Reilly of The Huffington Post. Finally, Cohen and the others said they want to address the “extensive militarization of state and local police.”

“In Ferguson, why do local police dress in military-style uniforms and body armor, carry short-barreled 5.56-mm rifles based on the M4 carbine, and patrol neighborhoods in massive armored vehicles?” the letter reads. “In all likelihood, the decision to adopt a military posture only served to aggravate an already tense situation and to commit the police to a military response.”

The protests in Ferguson have sparked action in Memphis. Vigils, gatherings, and marches sprang up all over town last week at parks, major intersections, and the National Civil Rights Museum.

Memphis United Facebook Page

Supporters took to the main intersections along the Poplar corridor on Monday holding signs that read “#handsup” and “#dontshoot,” Twitter hashtags inspired by Ferguson protestors. That protest was organized in part by Memphis United, the Mid-South Peace & Justice Center, and others.

Memphis United wants to use the energy surrounding the events in Ferguson to push for a slate of changes in Memphis. The group wants body cameras on all local police officers, action on the city’s backlog of untested rape kits, and an end of militarization of the Memphis Police Department and private security officers, among other things.

“We are all outraged by the events in Ferguson and around the United States, where we see people of color disproportionately targeted by police violence,” says the group’s Facebook page. “We should be outraged, and our voices should be heard.”