Laura Schlessinger, who may have a doctorate just not in psychology or psychiatry has been spewing hatred and bigotry towards LGBT/TQ people for years.
For those of you unfamiliar with this self appointed dispenser of advice from the fetid swamp land of ultra right wing hate radio and television Dr. Laura has had a radio show for years.
During that time she has told women it is their own fault if they suffer spousal abuse but that they will go to hell if they divorce. Unlike so many for whom I use the label of Christo-fascist Dr. Laura is different, she is a Judeo-fascist.
This makes her an oddity as there is this incredible history of Jewish support for so many truly progressive causes here in America. The neo-con movement has been the exception rather than the rule.
In some ways right wingers have been given a pass for their spewing of hate. I guess it sells in Peoria, a mythical standard of heartland America.
The reality is the full force of the state has been used and abused in the silencing of nearly every progressive cause that has reared its head in America. This has included laws that make it difficult if not impossible to form labor unions capable of wielding power equal to that of the corporations.
The labeling as Red of anyone who dares speak the dreaded word “equality” or stand for the subversive cause of social justice. Speaking of the labeling of people as “communist”. why is there no equivalent of Godwin’s rule regarding red-baiting?
Dr. Laura is part of a tradition of hate speech on the radio and television, protected because it sells products without too much “blow back”. What makes Dr. Laura different from many of the spewers of bigotry is that she is not some dubiously credentialed fundamentalist preacher spewing misogyny and homophobia from the sanctity of the pulpit, nor is she some ignorant pundit reading ultra right wing neo-Nazi talking points that pass as political analysis to gown and hood wearing bigots stoked on “White Panic” and “Gender Panic”.
While working on this I received a bulletin from Media Matters for America that had two parts related to this essay: http://mediamatters.org/research/201008180029
Malkin, other conservatives voice support for Dr. Laura
Following Laura Schlessinger’s announcement that she will end her radio show in the wake of widespread criticism for her use of a racial slur, Michelle Malkin and other conservatives have responded by praising Schlessinger and her comment that, by quitting the show, she will regain her First Amendment rights.
Michelle Malkin, aka “the rabid Shihtzu” is engaging in a typical right wing tactic of lying with regards to the First Amendment. Freedom of Speech is no guarantee of a platform. Were this defense of Dr. Laura but a thread in a tapestry, a history of defending free speech on the part of the “rabid Shihtzu then perhaps it would not be such an egregious distortion. But I have never once seen or heard anyone on the right wing ever once support “Free Speech” for anyone on the left. I’m not referring to a commercially financed platform for where one gets paid for speaking their piece. No, I’m speaking about the right wing defending say the rights of protesters to gather, march and present their position.
If anything the right wing spewers of hate use their platforms to not only belittle the opinion of their opposition (much the same way as I use my platform to belittle them) but they use state power to deny their opposition any platform at all. It has long taken great courage in this nation to support progressive cause such as equality and social justice. Too often people on the left have had to face blacklisting, spurious laws enforced by the state, police state type tactics directed at even the most innocuous of groups (hence my using the example of “Quaker Vegans for Peace” as organizations subjected to fascist police state tactics). Too often demands for equality and social justice for people who Dr. Laura slurred by use of the N-word have been met by Concerned Conservative Christian Citizens and their lynching rope.
Schlessinger announces end to show after racial rant
Schlessinger: “I articulated the ‘n’ word all the way out — more than one time.” On August 10, Schlessinger launched into a racially charged rant, during which she — in her own words — “articulated the ‘n’ word all the way out — more than one time.” Among other things, Schlessinger told an African-American caller that she had a “chip on [her] shoulder” and later stated: “If you’re that hypersensitive about color and don’t have a sense of humor, don’t marry out of your race.” The next day, Schlessinger apologized.During an August 17 interview on CNN’s Larry King Live, Schlessinger announced that when her radio contract expires at the end of the year, she will not renew it. She said that, following her racial rant, “my First Amendment rights have been usurped by angry, hateful groups.”
I can’t help but wonder how one can cry censorship when one is not being forced to resign as a result of engaging in the spewing of hateful speech, when in point of fact one has had an entire career of many years and has earned big bucks getting paid to spew misogyny, homophobia and other right wing garbage that has contributed to a hate movement that has denied LGBT/TQ people their equal rights. How is voluntarily not renewing one’s contract, censorship?
Would anyone care to bet that Dr. Laura has another even more highly paying platform to preach hate from lined up and awaiting her signature on a new contract? Contrast that with the victims of the right wing black list of the Hoover and McCarty eras. Those people had their careers destroyed not for preaching hatred and bigotry but for taking stands that supported among other things, opposition to Franco, support for labor unions and support for racial equality.
No… Dr. Laura’s use of the N-word was not some sort of courageous stance taken in the defense of free speech. It was simply a public airing of what is all to often voiced among those claiming to support “traditional values’ those who wrap themselves in the flag in order to hide their swastikas and Klan robe.
Dr. Laura let her sanctimony slip and revealed her true face. One that is as ugly as Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitism or the racism of Aryan Nation.
Were it only true that Dr. Laura would be reduced to Blogging without sponsors and supporting that blogging working in a Big Box Store.
Women Born Transsexual 