this is why i have to stop reading the snark comms and cnn

For those who haven't seen this yet and have a problem with low blood pressure, so skyrocketing it would be a good idea:

GLAAD calls for apology from "Rob, Arnie & Dawn Show" for encouraging the beating of transgender or questioning children



Okay. I get that conservatives aren't--as a group--sociopathic. But there's something about radio that turns conservatism into a fairly interesting DSMIV category, and maybe we can blame like, radio waves cooking their brains, but I really want to know in a very non-ironic way--do liberals call for the beating and humiliation of transgendered kids?

I grew up in a Reaganseque conservative lower middle class family--you do not get more conservative than that, because if there's one thing my class is good at, it's fucking itself over and I think we make up like, the entire Republican base. Not just conservative--we're rural conservative from rural Texas and I'm four generations off a guy who showed up in Galveston from Berlin on a tiny boat. My Dad's a believer in neoconism like religion and if it were conservative to marry a man, he'd be Rush Limbaugh's boyfriend, you see where I'm going with this? So it's not like I've never seen a conservative. I live and cook and hang out with them and probably dated at least one and my family is stuffed with them. In the normal way of things, I should damn well be one.

When I was in eighth grade, my teacher told us that boys wanted their wives to be virgins. When I was in eleventh grade, my Spanish teacher compared girls having sex to a piece of tape, and that having too many partners meant we wouldn't bond with our husbands like mothers do with their children--I am not fucking with you, she had a piece of tape she kept smashing into the blackboard to illustrate it.

So as you can see, my liberal started quite early.

So it's not like I don't have context here when I say--we cannot judge a party by its most extreme members and its shock jocks, except really, what else are we going to do? They own the Republican party. We have whackos. They weren't speakers of the fucking House of Representatives. We have crazies. They're not (usually) invited to speak at mainstream Democratic conventions as guests of honor. We have incredibly stupid people that do stupid things, like all people everywhere; we are not special. But in general, we don't kill doctors in the house of God, we don't bomb clinics, and we don't advocate beating transgendered children on a public radio station. I don't even think we advocate beating children at all. Maybe?

I'm not even denying liberals have a healthy amount of crazy, it's not like I don't wince at radical environmentalism, but look at that list and tell me which one of these things is not directly linked to professed conservative values.

I'm not saying that conservatism is a group that's made its mark by being the last, best hope for fear and intolerance. I don't have to. Your extremists are saying it for me. And they're the only ones who seem to be talking.

Contact info at Unfunny Business for KRXQ-FM.

We can't take back the bullet that stole Dr. Tiller's life and there's no way to reverse the clinic bombings that have stolen lives, health, and tried to break women all over this country; what's been stolen by fear and violence can never be replaced, only mourned. We can't stop people from fearing what they do not understand, but I'm okay with compromising and shutting them the fuck up.

ETA: From comments:

Snapple, Sonic, and Chipotle Pull Advertising From KRX

KRXQ Advertisers

Comments

[amireal.livejournal.com]

Newest post on unfunnybusiness raises blood pressure even more.

http://www.journalfen.net/community/unfunnybusiness/118745.html

[seperis.livejournal.com]

It's not that I don't have words. I do, but mostly helpless sounds.

[fyrdrakken]

On the plus side, this wench is making it that much harder for the "pro-lifers" to argue that one nutjob's actions shouldn't be used to tar a whole movement and that they really had nothing at all to do with Tiller's murder.

[solar-cat.livejournal.com]

For a while, I was wondering if my perception of conservatives was too colored by my own liberal-ness, as far as just how f-ing crazy the conservatives seemed. There were times, fairly recently (as I did a lot of thinking about my own views, politically, socially and otherwise, during the recent election season), where I wondered if we liberals had just as much crazy, but because I was on "their side" I was somehow blind to it or didn't register it like I registered the conservative crazy.

Recent events have disabused me of the notion. The problem is so very not mine. (Which I feel like I should be happy about, but it's actually more depressing to think that it wasn't just me being overly judgmental or biased, that there are people out there who are actually like that.)

On the plus side, the crazier they get, the more moderates they lose to our side of the voting field, if not necessarily the ideological field.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Recent events have disabused me of the notion. The problem is so very not mine.

I had to stop and think about it too, and I mean, I'm not into radio all that much anyway, but I've listened, and I read, and I just haven't seen a lot of beating children and murdering doctors going around.

There should be a statistical study on this one.

[inteligrrl.livejournal.com]

Reading the excerpts from their show (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rowe/krxq-sacramento-radio-hos_b_210637.html) quite literally made me ill. These men are quite vocally advocating verbal and physical abuse towards children. I realize that "shock jocks" are supposed to push the envelope, but advocating criminal abuse towards five and six year old children is about six miles over that line.

I'll be sending an email to the station's general manager, John Geary. jgeary@entercom.com
I'm also going to snoop around their website and figure out some of their advertisers that I can also email about the issue. In general I don't believe in going after someone's livelihood, but the fact is that these people are heard by thousands of listeners each day and they have a responsibility at the very least not to advocate criminal actions. I will be including in my email to the station manager that I will be sending letters to their advertisers asking them to pull their financial support unless these asshats are let go. I don't want to be placated. I don't want an apology. What I want is to never hear about some another nine year old who hangs himself due to homophobic bullying at school. What I want is to never read another report on the statistics of abused gay children. What I want is to be able to expect some level of decency from my fellow man. All these things are not going to happen, but I will settle for NEVER hearing from these bottomdwelling scumsuckers again.

(Here is the page that lists their advertisers (http://www.krxq.net/pages/293097.php)).

When I was looking for their advertisers I ended up in their show web page. Right on the front there is a link to the audio of their response to the controversy. First they defended themselves saying "most the complaints they got were from people from out of state" (as if that makes a difference in the days of internet radio. I regularly listen to stations in Seatle (KEXP) and San Diego (91x)). Then two minutes later, after defending the guy by saying "he's homophobic and is not comfortable with transgendered people", the oaf who made the child-beating comment stated that he's "not apologizing" because apparently he doesn't think he did anything wrong.

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

Some of the advertisers have already withdrawn their contracts--I'll get a link for ya!

[hollyxu.livejournal.com]

I'm guilty of picturing (and basically condemning) conservatives as a mass of craziness that should be quarantined and maybe prevented from procreating, or at least passing their ideas on.

But I think that's just as bad as advocating to hit kids who crossdress, though it feels much more satisfying. OTOH you have liberals who torch SUV dealerships or custard-pie politicians, but it feels less malicious somehow.

Maybe it's something in the nature of conservatism that makes it easy for people to go off the rails.

(I'm wondering, does this also happen across the pond?)

[seperis.livejournal.com]

OTOH you have liberals who torch SUV dealerships or custard-pie politicians, but it feels less malicious somehow.

Yeah. It makes me wonder if idealogy is as important to examine as a person's potential for extremism. I do tend to think that liberalism, in general, in America, has less opportunity to create extremism leading to body counts.

Snapple, Sonic and Chipotle have pulled their ads

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

More info here (http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/11310/snapple-sonic-chipotle-pull-advertising-from-krxq).

Re: Snapple, Sonic and Chipotle have pulled their ads

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

*heh* I should have read teh whole thread--I posted about the three companies that pulled their ads too! Ah, well!

[cat-77.livejournal.com]

The fuck? No, seriously, what the fucking fuck of fuckitude is this?

Adults being asses to adults is one thing (the magnitude of the assitude is another thing all together), but you do not go after children. Ever.

Yeah, I might be biased here. I'm a lesbian with bi and trans friends and a one son who is flamingly gay and one who is flamingly straight. My partner works at a co-op full of people who think she's too conservative and I work for the Bankruptcy department for a major bank full of people who fucking cheered when Wellstone's plane went down. That said, her work didn't have partner benefits until last year and many there don't understand that accepting differences means accepting differences that don't line up with your own. My work has had partner benefits for 12 years and threatened to fire someone for making comments against the GLBT and Muslim groups.

Rambly post is rambly, but what I mean to say is that you can't assume anything about any group based on one or two morons. They fuck it up for everyone and, unfortunately, rile everyone up on both sides and encourage the next fuck to try to one up them until you get to shit like this.

What kind of internal reasoning can these fuckers have to even think that okaying violence against children is acceptable?

[seperis.livejournal.com]

They are very special radio personalities. yeah, I got nothing. Maybe radio really does bake your brain or something.

[spankys.livejournal.com]

I just emailed the Sacramento radio station calling for Rob and Arnie's firing. I was thinking that someone should put this on LJ and then I saw your post. Great!

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*crosses fingers* I hope they get inundated.

[archaeologist-d.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty liberal. Yes, there are wackos on both sides. People calling for the release of all zoo animals into the wild or bombing whaling vessels on the extreme left and I shake my head. Beating children who can't help being what they are and murdering people because they perform legal abortions - is that what conservatives really want? Is that what they want people to think is okay? It would seem so from the radio talk show hosts. I have to wonder when people are going to stop listening to them - because that's the only way they will lose their powerbase.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

We can hope. A lot.

Karma

[cat-77.livejournal.com]

Made a screenprint of the page from the main link because, really, I think the Fates had a sense of humor here: Link (http://pics.livejournal.com/cat_77/pic/0008cqyy).

Re: Karma

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Oh my GOD.

*falls over* That's--poetic.

[porntestpilot.livejournal.com]

I'm seeing people say this is a joke, and it's how these guys roll but if I can traipse through fanwank, 4chan, b0g, efuckt, and fark mostly without issue and still find this a level of douchebag that needs a cockpunch, I don't know what else to say.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Srsly. I read Encyclopedia fucking Dramatica.

(granted, ED sometimes feels like I'm actually taking a really obscure linguistics class. it's--weird.)

[omnipresentdmat.livejournal.com]

I just sent them an e-mail at rad@robarnieanddawn.com. I'm guessing a lot of other people have probably done the same, but I feel like it's something that needs to be done.

[skadi.livejournal.com]

I came out of a conservative Christian family as well. I agree that liberals have their share of the crazy. But the level of hatred for humanity and hypocrisy from so-called compassionate conservatives ... it's scary. My dad once told me (after I had switched parties) that when I got older and more mature, I'd become more conservative like a lot of his generation did. That was maybe seven years ago.

I know I have plenty of more maturing to do, but I'm a queer woman dating a trans person. I'm a feminist and I want to have kids and I want to save the environment. And I can't imagine the kind of changes I would have to go through to become a conservative. I would have to become a radically different person, one who values none of the things I currently care about.

I hear what you're saying. Your above example is sickening. I really don't understand what goes on in the heads of some people.

[ribbon-purple.livejournal.com]

Ugh, this makes me want to cry (or be sick). If these people honestly think they're being funny...they should watch Jane Anderson's film Normal. Maybe then they might see how entirely not funny their commentary really is.

[lazar-grrl.livejournal.com]

When we heard about Tiller's murder, mom, an OB/GYN who will not perform abortions, dissolved into a bilingual rant for half an hour about the stupidity and hypocrisy of people like the murderer. My father, life-long Republican that he is, agreed with her.

I wonder how many people extremists alienate like that. My parents will never support abortion, but they have a disgust for the extremes of conservativism that advocate murder and bombings that only grows with time. While they may have spanked their children, they never beat them, and would no more have tried to "cure" me of my lesbianism than they would have tried to cure my sister of her straightness. And while they may occasionally spout a party line, both have volunteered extensively for charities supporting immigrants and low-income families. I know that most of the other conservatives in my family are just the same.

One has to question how long the Republican Party can last before it splits or revolts, and just how much damage it will inflict upon this country before it does. I also think that the leadership may have badly overestimated just how many people the far-right extremists actually appeal to, given a choice between a hard-line nutjob and more moderate conservativism. But when the only choice is between "the other side" or a crazy extremist viewpoint, I think most people will stick with their own side. And unfortunately, the RP leaders seem to be going for sound, fury, and violence rather than reason.

[thoracopagus.livejournal.com]

I have too much RAGE for the subject at hand to really say anything on it, but DUDE the TAPE THING IN ABSTINENCE EDUCATION, I remember that in my school and in my church youth group, it was so fucked up. And I swear, none of us ever asked what women should want from their husbands and it just makes me sad to wonder how many girls WOULD at that age.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Oh my God that is like some kind of fucked up official example? I was hoping that was isolated crazy.

*shudders* Man.

[puckling.livejournal.com]

Oh god. That's just. Yeah.

*goes off to write email*

[(Anonymous)]

I should probably preface what I'm about to say with my own quick bio so you know where I'm coming from. Mom's family: Texans (here from before Texas was a state, even!) Dad's family: Southern Baptists from Alabama where everyone joins the military (Hai! Iz armee brat!) (Every one of my 1st and 2nd cousins on his side joined or became married-to.) So, Republican family and conservative background? MAJOR check! This has allowed me to hear a great amount of Republic inner-working as both of my parents have helped Republican campaigns. However, before I registered to vote, I researched both major parties and several of the larger small parties. After going WTF over some of the party 'goals' for each of the parties, I said 'you are all crazy' and registered as Independent. I've voted in every election since then (not just the 'big ones' but the small, local ones as well), and I've always voted based on a review of what the candidate has done, not what s/he says now. (I'm a strong believer in 'actions speak louder than words.') I definitely show a strong Democrat leaning in voting, however. I freely admitted to my family that, why, yes, I voted very enthusiastically against Bush! Twice even! That man should never have been President. *grumbles* I'm also a strong believer in universal health care and believe that the trends show that we will get there; it'll just take another decade until the then-retiring baby-boomers realize their health insurance doesn't cover all their bills. :) OK, now:

The biggest problem in all politics is that the extremists are usually the loudest. Those who aren't extremists can usually at least pretend to be calm and rational, while extremists... can't. The more people are 'meh' on a subject, the louder extremists get, as if sheer volume (in both senses, that of loudness and amount) could persuade someone else that their position is correct. The problem with the current Republican party is that to a certain extent the extremists have drowned out the more moderates. This is why so very many Republicans stayed home on the last Election Day. The extremist have pulled the party away from it's foundation: power should rest with the states not the federal gov. That's it. That was the upholding tenet of two of the most famous Republicans (that people seem to have forgotten were Republicans) Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. (This last election really boggled my mind, let me tell you.) It's the extremists have added extra junk to it (like anti-abortion, anti-gay, ect). The non-extremist Republicans are currently in disarray because their best chance of cleaning out the extremists will never have a chance to be elected President. So what can they do? Right now they haven't a clue and thus are essentially sitting back and waiting. This, in turn, allows the extremists to continue being loud and obnoxious unchecked. Which means I have to hear. All. About. It. (X_X) (It's my g-ma's b-day this weekend, and I just know my uncle and my dad are going to start up. Again. *sigh*)

[seperis.livejournal.com]

God, do I hear you. *winces*

[beck-liz.livejournal.com]

I hear you about the conservative family; probably 95% of my family is conservative except for my one cousin and her husband, who shocked the family Christmas 2007 by announcing she was voting for Hillary Clinton. *snort* My mother, who is generally a wonderful person otherwise, still listens to Rush Limbaugh on a daily basis. I shudder to think about the kinds of things she believes due to listening to him. But none of my family would ever do what those whackjobs on that radio show did. And I realize that half their job is to be whackjobs and get attention for their station, but there's getting attention, and then there's advocating physical violence and more. It just seems like it keeps getting worse, and I keep wondering when some conservative is finally going to put on the brakes and it keeps Not Happening. It is worrisome.

[allzugern.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying that conservatism is a group that's made its mark by being the last, best hope for fear and intolerance. I don't have to. Your extremists are saying it for me. And they're the only ones who seem to be talking.

THIS. Exactly.

[ifeedformula.livejournal.com]

I'm not exactly liberal and I'm not exactly conservative, but even I went "WTF?".

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Yeah, even the neocon leaners in my family were actively uncomfortable. And you konw, they're okay with waterboarding, so you know something's gone wrong.

[niqaeli]

I'm not really liberal; I'm pretty hardcore minarchist libertarian.

(Minarchist: someone who believes in the need for minimal government; only as much as is necessary. Because anarchism does not work because nature hates a vacuum and human nature will inevitably lead to totalitarianism or other fun and horrible power structures taking the place of the vacuum. And I disagree pretty vehemently with most other libertarians/minarchists on how much government is necessary (hint: a lot more than they think!).) Mostly I feel the government and everyone else can stay the hell out of everyone's lives, except where explicitly and actively invited in.

Anyway. As someone who is in an odd moderate position, I can say yes, they're crazy. But here's something that I think is really, really important to do, though: define our terms.

The neocons are not, in fact, conservative in the social sense of the word (as opposed to the American political sense of the word which has come to have nothing to do with the social sense of the word). Conservatives want to maintain the status quo, to keep things as they are. There's a reason there's a correlation to conservative behaviour/beliefs and older people -- people want to stay with what they're familiar with; as they age, they tend to want to stay with what their golden age of youth was like. So they become more socially conservative.

But the neocons don't want to maintain the status quo. They want to smash it to pieces and bring forth a -- I don't even know, theocracy? Whatever; they want to abandon some of the most basic things this country was founded on and there's -- really, there's the very definition of the radical. The changes they want are radical and severe.

And radicals are always, always dangerous. Necessary in bringing societal change, and maybe you think that a given societal change is important and necessary -- but no matter what change they're working to bring about, they're always dangerous. Extremism always is.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

The thing is, in nature (politics and society), conservatism *should* be a good balance with change--as in, they slow it down and force thought before action, and basically act more as speedbumps than outright iron curtain. In some things, even socially, I'm conservative in the sense of do it slowly and correctly and for that reason, the difference between what it should be and what it is acting as now is frustrating. I'm fairly conservative by nature in that I'd prefer everything be done after it's been hashed out and thought about and planned for so it's done well, so it's against pretty much all my instincts to want to just *ram* some social changes down people's throat, because otherwise, it won't get done.

I mean, in one sense, I understand it, but in another, it feels like our balances are so off that it makes it impossible for either side to get anything done. It's--human nature, but God is it frustrating.

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

Yes. This.