The Grandfather of Hate Radio
A lot has been said lately about the state of talkradio - the overwhelming presence of hate, lies, threats and hysteria. Everyone thinks its a phenomenon of the past twenty years. Sadly, no.
Hate radio has its roots back to the beginnings of radio. Although not the only one who used the airwaves to preach hate, fear and prejudice, Father Charles Coughlin was probably the most famous practitioner of extreme right wing sentiment. At his peak, his one hour "sermons" had an audience of several million and were a Sunday night staple on CBS Radio at first, and later NBC before his decline and eventual demise.
Coughlin established the template for what is the basis of Hate radio today. Although to be fair,Coughlin was articulate and had style - something todays practitioners have no clue how to use.
The excerpt here is from a broadcast of July 30, 1939 in a talk called "The Christian Front versus the Popular Front".
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"In the meantime, if you care to carry on, you have the discomfort of knowing of your past failures. In the meantime if you do not emulate the traditions of your European comrades, who ran like rats for safety, leaving behind their disillusioned followers to bear the brunt of defeat, you will be responsible for building up such a defense mechanism as this world never witnessed. A defense mechanism which will either isolate you or obliterate you if you persist in pursuing your attacks against religion and constitutional Americanism."
Michael Savage
Goodnight, Frau Blücher
Kinda has Hannity-like jowls though...
Watch out for flying-spittle when he shakes his head.
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I think that guy seated to the left of the lectern needs an ear horn.
That clown was rather boring...I guess I've heard this bullshit too many times.
One of my favorite artists.
Man, Rush is going to be bummed to hear this. I'm sure he thinks he invented hate.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
coughlin was the mother of all fathers.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Thanks for reminding me. Speaking of models for hate broadcast, does anybody remember the Joe Pine show of the late '60's. He set the pattern now used by FOX and CNN, portraying intolerance and bigoted self-righteousness as if they were patriotic and upright virtues held by all right-thinking citizens. He was a slimey character who would be right at home on FOX.
I saw a bit of an interview with a Bendadictine monk (who wrote a book). His basic premise was that "over-regulating" the banks caused them to act immorally. I guess that makes sense in the same way that when I leave a safe following distance from the car in front of me some asshole is going to come flying up and cut me off right before the exit. Therefore, I caused him to be an asshole.
... the idea that a women wearing what a man perceives as "provocative" clothing excuses him from the crime of rape.
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... one of direct causality.
It's a self-reinforcing meme on both sides. Drivers come onto the freeway slowly because they're afraid of getting hit by leadfooted loons in giant SUVs.
And the leadfooted loons in giant SUVs go that fast because, in their estimation, people aren't driving fast enough when they come onto the freeway.
What the monk neglected is the element of human choice.
War is peace, and so on.
Nothing wrong with a little bit of over the top rhetoric when the appeal is based somewhere close to the confines of logic. When it is not, all you get is someone trying to sell you something.
Cool speech, ya old dead religious guy, but the false dilemmas presented do not convince; just as the appeals of Hannity and Rush today, to fear and hate, argue but don’t convince.
… or was that the intent?
Like the old dead religious guy said, if you would like a transcript of today’s comments, please send $7.95 (plus S&H)to my PO Box...
Coughlin was articulate and had style - something todays practitioners have no clue how to use. There is a reason for this.
The Princeton Review analyzed the transcripts of the Gore-Bush debates, the Clinton-Bush-Perot debates of 1992, the Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960 and the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. It reviewed these transcripts using a standard vocabulary test that indicates the minimum educational standard needed for a reader to grasp the text. During the 2000 debates, George W. Bush spoke at a sixth-grade level (6.7) and Al Gore at a seventh-grade level (7.6). In the 1992 debates, Bill Clinton spoke at a seventh-grade level (7.6), while George H.W. Bush spoke at a sixth-grade level (6.8), as did H. Ross Perot (6.3). In the debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, the candidates spoke in language used by 10th-graders. In the debates of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas the scores were respectively 11.2 and 12.0.
In short, today’s political rhetoric is designed to be comprehensible to a 10-year-old child or an adult with a sixth-grade reading level. It is fitted to this level of comprehension because most Americans speak, think and are entertained at this level. This is why serious film and theater and other serious artistic expression, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of American society. Voltaire was the most famous man of the 18th century. Today the most famous “person” is Mickey Mouse.
Chris Hedges
as we've pushed support for public education to the back of the line and moved making bombs/guns and killing people in foreign lands right up to the front. After all, if your government looks at you as cannon fodder, there's no good reason to spend a lot of money educating you??
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of Stupidity" - Frank Leahy
Don't suppose for a second that that isn't a calculated and deliberately instigated strategy behind the way re-Thuglics look at education.
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How else can they build their army of crusaders, if the general public is educated?
They want us to be idiots.
If you're enrolled in college or have an actual career in mind - it makes it that much harder to recruit you away to the army where you're desperately needed for cannon fodder. To that end - they had to find a way to eliminate critical thinking from school curriculum. Voila!! No Child Left Behind. If my kids were in public schools now, I'd yank them out.
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the ruling class needs an army of fleshy roombas to tend to their fortune...
luckily, there will be the chosen ones, pulled from the muck and grime of everyday-ness, knighted by the ruling class, selected, inspected and directed to do the bidding of the ruling class.
in an wallersteinian understanding this group is, on an indiv level, the semi-periphery. they will be used (much like the soon-to-be-a-relic-of-the-past middle class) as a buffer between the ruling class and the mass of humanity.
the rest us of will be merely the worker drones for our overlords.
our education system is no longer based on free thinking, complex problem-solving, essay-writing, and other higher forms of thinking; and more on wrote memorization, simple skills, and multiple choice problems.
while but the monopolies, like talk radio, do great harm. we'll see soon if this 'democracy' can stave off the real problem.... satisfaction-demanding sex energy fueling the logical/numerical parts of the brain, where satisfaction comes in terms of finality/conclusion(premature) and magnitude- or certitude, absolutism, oversimplification, and greed.
the left logical side of the brain is connected to the right hand
Do you psychos really believe that the decline in educational standards over the last 100 years has to do with one political party? Where were the other people? Such a thing could only be successful if both sides were complicit. It has more to do with the shift to focus on liberal arts and away from basics. Trying to teach people what to think rather than just giving them the tools to think for themselves which by the way is what you are all moaning about here. Pathetic.
Amitola
"... if your government looks at you as cannon fodder." This observation can also be taken a step further as when those who are currently in the military ALLOW themselves to be used as cannon fodder. If military personnel had an ounce of integrity they would be emulating those who took part in the GI rebellion some thirty five to forty years ago both at home and abroad and at military bases in and around Viet Nam. As former Staff Sergeant and Green Beret Donald Duncan noted in the powerful documentary Sir! No Sir!:
"I was doing it right but I wasn't doing right."
If only the soldiers today serving in Afghanistan and Iraq could finally reach the same epiphany that Staff Sergeant Duncan did regarding his experience in the jungles of Viet Nam.
The best way to halt a war is to have it happen from within.
Afghans-resist the American empire.
First world Governments the globe over, are actively trying to dumb down their people.
It's only in developing countries who are desperately relying on an educated populace to lift them out of poverty where education is valued by those with the power to do something about it.
Thanks for that information Chris/getplanning.
Remember that hatred broadcast over the airwaves is what they used to incite the violence in Rwanda. The result of which was uncontrollable and virulent violence -- on an almost unfathomable scale -- a vicious and brutal slaughter that swept over the entire country in an mindless attempt to butcher, violate and ultimately eliminate an entire race.
My grandfather, who in his daily life was an unrepentant and virulent anti-Catholic, would sit in front of his Philco on a Sunday night and rah rah the Priest who he wouldn't have given the time of day to in his private life. Hate sells...and works in mysterious ways.
What an Epic dewsh bag. I couldn't hardly understand where his moaning was going. They won't give it up till they are completely beaten. I wanna see an Epic Exile on Rush Limbaugh.
Comparative mindsets and media:
02/05/09 - Michael Savage, "Where is God? > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZwdLNWoPTw&eu...
Free thinking individual mindsets"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdVucvo-kDU&eu...
There are many things we know are true and so many more things to learn are true, as well.
Study the symptoms not the virus...
yeh he was an asshole but that was his right and people who wanted to listen to him could if they wanted to or not if they didnt.
the recent call to return to the fairness doctrine is one of the more horrifying things the obamanoids have put forward.
all speech must be protected.
Rush will tell you his success is about triumphing in the marketplace of ideas.
But somehow, the brilliance of his ideas will be diluted or silenced by the fact that someone else gets an equal share of airtime.
And who's calling for the return to the Fairness Doctrine? The only people wetting their pants about it are Rush, Beckazoid, and the Crazy Lady from Wasilla.
monopoly. democracy and a protected soapbox that size cannot coexist.
limbaugh and sons have been using a monopoly of PUBLIC airwaves from a 1000 stations constituting the biggest soapbox this country has ever seen. and those stations are mandated to serve the public interest and instead, with just limbaugh, hannity, and savage, for instance, get 9 hours of global warming denial to communities who are facing increasing extreme weather events that will effect crops and lives and pocketbooks. yet they have a monopoly and have call screeners to protect them from real calls and the local station management and ownership know their stations are essential to the GOP flat earth version of reality.
What about yelling "FIRE" in a movie theater?
Study the symptoms not the virus...
What if there is a fire in the theatre?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_and_presen...
Brandenburg v. Ohio http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio
Snip - Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969), was a United States Supreme Court case based on the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It held that government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless it is directed to inciting and likely to incite imminent lawless action.
"The doctrine states that speech that will cause, or has as its purpose, "imminent lawless action" (such as a riot) does not have constitutional protection. As of 2008, "imminent lawless action" continues to be the test applied in free speech cases."
Study the symptoms not the virus...
I rode my bike through our neighborhood's local fire department yesterday yelling "MOVIE!"
...is that wrong?
anyone?
Study the symptoms not the virus...
I would guess that depends on the movie.
I notice, you said... "...is that wrong?"
Being a matter of opinion is one thing, law another.
Though Law and opinion are relative.
PS. Enjoy your movie... :-)
Study the symptoms not the virus...
hee haw
the talk radio oudmouths that dominate the PUBLIC airwaves, and the fairness doctrine didn't limit free speech, no matter how often limbaugh and hannity tell you that.
double post plz delete <3
then break it down for me...
whats the fairness doctrine do other than legislate what can be said in the media?
btw the only time i see/hear limbaugh or hannity or anyone on fox is when i come to this site.
to what was dominating your radio airwaves since reagan killed the fairness doctrine we wouldn't be in this disaster. did it give you a headache? were you around? music is so much easier.
FD requires broadcasters on the public airwaves to give a chance at rebuttal
This discredited hate-monger would not have been silenced by the Fairness Doctrine. Nor would Rush Limbaugh or others. The Fairness Doctrine would only require an equal number of voices put up against those voices. Sure, those opposing voices could attempt to discredit the haters, but the hate filled message would still be out there.
What we need is an Accuracy Doctrine. News organizations, reporters and anchors must be able to back up their stated "facts." Obviously, their opinions and conclusions are just that, opinion and cannot be fact checked, but the tactic is usually to present skewed facts or manufactured "evidence" to back up a predetermined opinion. Broadcasting lies and inaccuracies should be fined just as swear words are fined by the FCC. Licenses should be revoked for repeat offenses. The rules should apply to cable/satellite as well as broadcast.
An Accuracy Doctrine would take away the #1 tool for these people - lies.
At the very least, you cannot call yourself a news program if you do not relate actual facts.
caused a great reaction from people to.
Study the symptoms not the virus...
Father Coughlin also paved the way for hate politicians such as former Senator Joseph McCarthy who, as David Oshinsky points out in his excellent work A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy, effectively convinced most Americans during the hysterical times of the early 1950s that there was practically a communist lurking under each American bed as well as having infected the State Department [despite the fact that no one who was ever accused of being a communist was ever convicted of being a spy in the State Dept.].
we could have real debates about the problems and solution as opposed to having to go back in time with the flat earthers in the GOP and media who are only there because 1000 stations preach bullshit to a crowd the size of the one that voted for obama, many of whom have no alternatives for politics and current events at work or driving (no, not everyone has a satellite radio or ipod yet).
the talk radio monopoly has enabled the take over of the GOP and turned it into the arty of limbaugh, who is at this moment, after telling the country the economy was sound even late last year, ranting about how the economy has tanked because obama was elected- just look at the drop in the stock market. and almost all AM talk megastations blast that crap out every day.
...Bill Donahue listened to this guy as a kid.
I suppose I'm being sort of unfair. In truth, I sincerely like Bill and consider him an inspiration to the millions of retarded people around the country who'd like to get politically involved.
Having to rely on hooch and maybe some coca leaves.
Now right wing nut folks have Dr. Feelgood pushing out lots of all kinds of drugs!
Please just stop it, stop it, stop it.
Just gawd damn STOP IT!
Why is it that every gawd damn liberal writer feels a need to throw in a "to be fair" in all their writings?
There is no need or no reason what so ever for us liberals to be fair to the repub, fascist scumbags, so just stop it.
Please, just stop it.
Don't you see that it is your need to always "be fair" that provides at least half the fuel that makes them keep going.
SO JUST STOP IT!
Lighten up Francis.
Thank you, Amato, and thank you, Gordon Skene, whoever had the idea of bringing you onto the C&L team. Love it, love it, love it. What a great way to bring some historical context to a modern debate, and how better to illustrate how the hell we got where we are now than with wtf people were watching then...
I often think of Father Coughlin when I read about Rush Limbaugh et al. But we don't want to give people the idea that "it's always been this way." Yes, hate radio existed before the Reagan era and the 1987 rescinding of the Fairness Doctrine, but the elimination of the latter helped reverse the groundswell of progressive sentiment in the public that had been growing since the 60s, a really remarkable achievement the equivalent of which for his own times I don't think Father Coughlin even approached.
And, yeah, he had style, but back then US society in general valued being articulate and appearing learned more than US society today does. It was before Reagan's mass defunding of education and consequent dumbing down of the population. Today, US audiences just wanna see who can lob the most offensive insult, content be damned.
Thanks for posting this. As a student, I did some research on Coughlin. It's funny that he defended "Americanism," since he was born in Canada.
(Not that Canada isn't part of North America: I think Coughlin was referring to the U.S. when he spoke of "Americanism.")
Hitler used the radio to spread his message. It was a new medium and could reach a large group of people.
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