Where does all this anger come from? Why are there so many people who are reacting so violently to a health care bill passed by congress which they personally have no real knowledge of? Tea party members are not handing out copies of portions of this bill that really will destroy their freedoms. Why? Because it isn't really about health care after all.
This debate and the proposed reform is a palate upon which the vested interests of the very wealthy and very conservative have painted a picture of fear and hate to preserve the status quo (where they have the tax cuts and a monopoly on distribution) and avoid even minor accountability to the only tool society has legally, the US government. It is an exploitation of the very anger that comes from the victimization of these lower income, poorly educated and economically disenfranchised individuals.
First the corporate warriors on the right give away the farm to the robber barons of our age and then they tell those who no longer have an income that "it's the democrats fault" or "it's the government's fault" (some other dude did it, not me!) and thus the cycle of political life continues. What's wrong with these people? I would suggest that they are perfectly normal and that the real responsibility lies with the perversion of political discourse by those seeking to avoid exposure and truth. Victimization and exploitation; misdirection and gamesmanship are all tools of those who seek to exploit Americans economically and then, when that breeds enough anger, again politically. When crazy speech writers for Richard Nixon catch on, you know that there are some things that are obvious. But, to someone with limited education and limited access to factual news reporting it is easier to blame the great big bogey man than to take a look at what has really limited the freedoms they hold so dear.
You as an American are not a victim as much as a torch bearer of liberty. Are the jack booted federal guards rounding you up and taking your guns? No. And there is nothing in any health care legislation even remotely relating to limiting your free speech. Is it about the Constitution or the factory shutting down? Is it the government or the color of the president's skin? Dividing this country along racial and religious lines is similar to how the British ruled India for so long. If we are fighting amongst ourselves than no one is watching the store as corruption and endless greed empty the coffers. (Please note that the "bank bailout" bill was passed during the Bush administration and signed into law by good old W, a life long republican, himself.)
Is it health care or the frustration you have seeing your children having to compete with workers making less than 50 cents a day in some distant land? Who lied to you? Why can't grandma keep the house and afford her medication? Where does all the money go? Is that nationalism or simple economics? It was not Himmler or Hitler walking the barbed wire outside of Auschwitz, it was the average German soldier who truly believed, after an extensive media blitz and complete distortion of their economic fate during the Great Depression, that the evil Jews were the reason that they had come to such a crushing economic disaster. Both anger and hate are blind.
BTW, has Rush Limbaugh booked his flight to Costa Rica yet?
This debate and the proposed reform is a palate upon which the vested interests of the very wealthy and very conservative have painted a picture of fear and hate to preserve the status quo (where they have the tax cuts and a monopoly on distribution) and avoid even minor accountability to the only tool society has legally, the US government. It is an exploitation of the very anger that comes from the victimization of these lower income, poorly educated and economically disenfranchised individuals.
First the corporate warriors on the right give away the farm to the robber barons of our age and then they tell those who no longer have an income that "it's the democrats fault" or "it's the government's fault" (some other dude did it, not me!) and thus the cycle of political life continues. What's wrong with these people? I would suggest that they are perfectly normal and that the real responsibility lies with the perversion of political discourse by those seeking to avoid exposure and truth. Victimization and exploitation; misdirection and gamesmanship are all tools of those who seek to exploit Americans economically and then, when that breeds enough anger, again politically. When crazy speech writers for Richard Nixon catch on, you know that there are some things that are obvious. But, to someone with limited education and limited access to factual news reporting it is easier to blame the great big bogey man than to take a look at what has really limited the freedoms they hold so dear.
You as an American are not a victim as much as a torch bearer of liberty. Are the jack booted federal guards rounding you up and taking your guns? No. And there is nothing in any health care legislation even remotely relating to limiting your free speech. Is it about the Constitution or the factory shutting down? Is it the government or the color of the president's skin? Dividing this country along racial and religious lines is similar to how the British ruled India for so long. If we are fighting amongst ourselves than no one is watching the store as corruption and endless greed empty the coffers. (Please note that the "bank bailout" bill was passed during the Bush administration and signed into law by good old W, a life long republican, himself.)
Is it health care or the frustration you have seeing your children having to compete with workers making less than 50 cents a day in some distant land? Who lied to you? Why can't grandma keep the house and afford her medication? Where does all the money go? Is that nationalism or simple economics? It was not Himmler or Hitler walking the barbed wire outside of Auschwitz, it was the average German soldier who truly believed, after an extensive media blitz and complete distortion of their economic fate during the Great Depression, that the evil Jews were the reason that they had come to such a crushing economic disaster. Both anger and hate are blind.
BTW, has Rush Limbaugh booked his flight to Costa Rica yet?
In Class Warfare, Guess Which Class Is Winning
NOT long ago, I had the pleasure of a lengthy meeting with one of the smartest men on the planet, Warren E. Buffett, the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, in his unpretentious offices in Omaha. We talked of many things that, I hope, will inspire me for years to come. But one of the main subjects was taxes. Mr. Buffett, who probably does not feel sick when he sees his MasterCard bill in his mailbox the way I do, is at least as exercised about the tax system as I am.
Put simply, the rich pay a lot of taxes as a total percentage of taxes collected, but they don’t pay a lot of taxes as a percentage of what they can afford to pay, or as a percentage of what the government needs to close the deficit gap.
Mr. Buffett compiled a data sheet of the men and women who work in his office. He had each of them make a fraction; the numerator was how much they paid in federal income tax and in payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, and the denominator was their taxable income. The people in his office were mostly secretaries and clerks, though not all.
It turned out that Mr. Buffett, with immense income from dividends and capital gains, paid far, far less as a fraction of his income than the secretaries or the clerks or anyone else in his office. Further, in conversation it came up that Mr. Buffett doesn’t use any tax planning at all. He just pays as the Internal Revenue Code requires. “How can this be fair?” he asked of how little he pays relative to his employees. “How can this be right?”
Even though I agreed with him, I warned that whenever someone tried to raise the issue, he or she was accused of fomenting class warfare.
“There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
This conversation keeps coming back to mind because, in the last couple of weeks, I have been on one television panel after another, talking about how questionable it is that the country is enjoying what economists call full employment while we are still running a federal budget deficit of roughly $434 billion for fiscal 2006 (not counting off-budget items like Social Security) and economists forecast that it will grow to $567 billion in fiscal 2010.
When I mentioned on these panels that we should consider all options for closing this gap — including raising taxes, particularly for the wealthiest people — I was met with several arguments by people who call themselves conservatives and free marketers.
One argument was that the mere suggestion constituted class warfare. I think Mr. Buffett answered that one.
Another argument was that raising taxes actually lowers total revenue, and that only cutting taxes stimulates federal revenue. This is supposedly proved by the history of tax receipts since my friend George W. Bush became president.
In fact, the federal government collected roughly $1.004 trillion in income taxes from individuals in fiscal 2000, the last full year of President Bill Clinton’s merry rule. It fell to a low of $794 billion in 2003 after Mr. Bush’s tax cuts (but not, you understand, because of them, his supporters like to say). Only by the end of fiscal 2006 did income tax revenue surpass the $1 trillion level again.
By this time, we Republicans had added a mere $2.7 trillion to the national debt. So much for tax cuts adding to revenue. To be fair, corporate profits taxes have increased greatly, as corporate profits have increased stupendously. This may be because of the cut in corporate tax rates. Anything is possible.
The third argument that kind, well-meaning people made in response to the idea of rolling back the tax cuts was this: “Don’t raise taxes. Cut spending.”
The sad fact is that spending rises every year, no matter what people want or say they want. Every president and every member of Congress promises to cut “needless” spending. But spending has risen every year since 1940 except for a few years after World War II and a brief period after the Korean War.
The imperatives for spending are built into the system, and now, with entitlements expanding rapidly, increased spending is locked in. Medicare, Social Security, interest on the debt — all are growing like mad, and how they will ever be stopped or slowed is beyond imagining. Gross interest on Treasury debt is approaching $350 billion a year. And none of this counts major deferred maintenance for the military.
The fourth argument in response to my suggestion was that “deficits don’t matter.”
There is something to this. One would think that big deficits would be highly inflationary, according to Keynesian economics. But we have modest inflation (except in New York City, where a martini at a good bar is now $22). On the other hand, we have all that interest to pay, soon roughly $7 billion a week, a lot of it to overseas owners of our debt. This, to me, seems to matter.
Besides, if it doesn’t matter, why bother to even discuss balancing the budget? Why have taxes at all? Why not just print money the way Weimar Germany did? Why not abolish taxes and add trillions to the deficit each year? Why don’t we all just drop acid, turn on, tune in and drop out of responsibility in the fiscal area? If deficits don’t matter, why not spend as much as we want, on anything we want?
The final argument is the one I really love. People ask how I can be a conservative and still want higher taxes. It makes my head spin, and I guess it shows how old I am. But I thought that conservatives were supposed to like balanced budgets. I thought it was the conservative position to not leave heavy indebtedness to our grandchildren. I thought it was the conservative view that there should be some balance between income and outflow. When did this change?
Oh, now, now, now I recall. It changed when we figured that we could cut taxes and generate so much revenue that we would balance the budget. But isn’t that what doctors call magical thinking? Haven’t the facts proved that this theory, though charming and beguiling, was wrong?
THIS brings me back to Mr. Buffett. If, in fact, it’s all just a giveaway to the rich masquerading as a new way of stimulating the economy and balancing the budget, please, Mr. Bush, let’s rethink it. I don’t like paying $7 billion a week in interest on the debt. I don’t like the idea that Mr. Buffett pays a lot less in tax as a percentage of his income than my housekeeper does or than I do.
Can we really say that we’re showing fiscal prudence? Are we doing our best? If not, why not? I don’t want class warfare from any direction, through the tax system or any other way.
Asymmetrical class warfare
February 27, 2009 7:05 pm ET
The media are outraged at the "class warfare" supposedly present in President Obama's budget plans. In the past few days alone, Michelle Bernard said Barack Obama "was almost declaring class warfare" in his speech to Congress; CNBC's Carlos Quintanilla said, "I don't want to call it class warfare, although that's what it may end up being in the end, this debate over wealth redistribution"; the AP's Jennifer Loven asked White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, "Are you all worried at all that that kind of argument, that 'class warfare' argument could sink the ability to get some of these big priorities through?" Politico ran a Jeanne Cummings article headlined "Class warfare returns to D.C." And this afternoon, MSNBC joined the pile-on, with a segment asking: "Is there a war against the wealthy? Do we have a class war developing?" 
What sparked this sudden concern about "class warfare"? President Obama indicated that in order to fund things like health care, the very wealthiest Americans (individuals who make more than $200,000 and families making more than $250,000) might have to pay slightly more in taxes, via the expiration of President Bush's tax cuts for those earners. Under this plan, the wealthiest Americans (again, those making more than $200,000) would be subject to the same income tax rate they paid in the 1990s -- when, it should be remembered, the rich got richer and the economy did quite well.
If this plan -- raising taxes slightly on people who make more than $200,000 a year in order to pay for things like health care for people who don't -- sounds familiar, it's because Obama campaigned on it for roughly two years. Conservatives, amplified by the news media, ridiculed it with labels like "socialism" and "class warfare" and used all kinds of scary rhetoric. And the American people voted for it anyway.
So it's a bit odd to see all this media angst over the idea that Barack Obama's plans to do something he said he would do -- and something the American public supported.
Cummings' Politico article is the oddest of all, promoting the "class warfare" theme with a series of misguided and nonsensical grievances. She began by complaining, essentially, of being insufficiently surprised by Obama's plans:
Obama's creative juices seemed to run dry as he turned Thursday to his party's most predictable revenue enhancer: taxing the wealthy.It's too bad this bores Cummings so badly, but somehow I doubt that either Barack Obama or the American people consider "keeping Jeanne Cummings on the edge of her seat" among their top priorities.
The result: an instant revival of an old and predictable Washington debate.
Instead, most people probably want to know more basic things about Obama's plans: how they will be affected, whether it will work, what the gains will be, and at what cost. Sadly, despite writing more than 1,000 words, Cummings never comes close to answering any of those questions -- or even, really, to trying.
Instead, she opined that Obama's proposals brought "reminders of how fresh Obama's gains are and how fleeting they could become if he loses the aura of bringing a new style of leadership to the White House." It isn't particularly clear what that means, though presumably if Obama accomplishes universal health care and gets the economy moving, few will care about his "style" in doing so.
Later, Cummings reported that a think-tank policy expert said Obama had "argued that containing health care costs is essential to economic recovery." But is containing health care costs essential to recovery? Cummings didn't so much as hint at the answer. Actually, she didn't even acknowledge that it was a question.
Instead, Cummings continued to emphasize her boredom: "[N]o amount of spin or recalibration could fuzz up the flashback to previous Democratic administration's fiscal policy when Obama unveiled his spending plan."
Now, first of all, she hadn't identified any misleading "spin" previously, so that word is just tossed in as an unsubstantiated pejorative. But more importantly: Why does the "flashback" to Bill Clinton's fiscal policy need "fuzzing up"? It was, after all, rather more successful than the fiscal policies that followed. Cummings, of course, doesn't address the efficacy of that policy; she just complains that it isn't new and exciting. Well, fine, but few economists think the goal of fiscal policy should be to entertain Politico reporters.
Cummings' article actually got worse from there. Take, for example, this passage:
Some economists argue that the anticipation of a return to higher tax rates may be enough to thwart critical investments and purchases.It may be true that "some economists" argue that taxing people who make more than $200,000 at the rate at which they were taxed during the 1990s boom "may" thwart investments and spending. But Cummings doesn't tell us who these economists are or quote their arguments in any way. Nor does she tell us if this is a mainstream view among economists, or a fringe view. Nor does she offer the counterargument.
For instance, the White House has been working for months to get the nation's banks to begin lending again and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner recently announced a new government program aimed at getting loans to small business and to car and house buyers.
And who are the people out there today with the cash -- and confidence -- to spend? Most often they are people and families with earnings ranked in the top echelons and who will be subject to the Obama tax hike.
Though her next paragraph begins with the words "for instance," it doesn't actually provide an "instance" of the assertion that comes before it. And the third paragraph suggests that the key to economic stimulus is keeping money in the hands of the wealthy so they can spend it. This runs counter to the widely held view that the way to jump-start the economy is to ensure that the poor and middle class have money to spend -- because unlike the wealthy, who have enough money to both spend and save, the poor and middle class will actually spend it. That's why economists like Mark Zandi -- an adviser to John McCain's campaign, not a knee-jerk liberal -- say that things like food stamps and unemployment benefits are more stimulative than tax cuts.
But none of those basic facts make an appearance in Cummings' article; instead, she offers poorly considered platitudes on behalf of the wealthy.
Speaking of "the wealthy," Cummings doesn't bother to tell us who they are. She refers to "the wealthy" and "wealthy earners" and "people and families with earnings ranked in the top echelons" and "wealthy households," but never tells us what "wealthy" means. It means people who make more than $200,000. It is important to spell that out: A Time poll in 2000 found that 19 percent of Americans thought they were among the richest one percent of Americans, and another 20 percent expected they would get there one day. News reports that refer simply to tax increases on "the wealthy" or even "the richest 1 percent" don't really inform; they confuse. They lead large numbers of readers to incorrectly believe they will be subject to tax increases.
But the real problem with Cummings' article -- and with the rest of the week's news reports about "class warfare" and "redistribution of wealth" -- is that they frame Obama's proposals in such negative terms. It's hard to think of a single example of tax or spending policy that doesn't in some way "redistribute wealth." Some redistribute wealth upward, some redistribute wealth downward. But the media only seem to break out the "class warfare" and "redistribution of wealth" pejorative when the wealth in question is heading to those who are not already wealthy.
(At this point, it should be noted that big-name political reporters earn considerably more money than most of the people who read and watch their reports. According to Sean Quinn at FiveThirtyEight.com, one reporter asked after Gibbs' briefing yesterday: "Did you notice all the questions about taxes came from reporters making over $250,000 a year, especially the TV guys?")
Warren Buffett, who knows a thing or two about wealth, has noted that because of the way the tax code is structured, he effectively pays taxes at a lower rate than the secretaries who work for him, concluding: "There's class warfare, all right. But it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."
One reason they're winning is that the news media do not use the loaded phrases "class warfare" and "redistribution of wealth" to describe things like the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, or the home mortgage deduction (which favors those who are wealthy enough to buy homes over those who are not) or countless other policies that benefit wealthier Americans at the expense of those who are less fortunate. Instead, the media pretend this is a one-sided war -- as though the wealthy are being unfairly assaulted by an army of bullying waitresses and janitors and farmers and teachers.
Another reason is articles like today's Washington Post front-pager. The Post tells us in paragraph one that Obama plans to raise taxes on the wealthy and waits until paragraph 18 to reveal that he plans to make permanent a tax credit for low- and middle-income workers. A tax increase that applies to almost nobody -- that leads the article. A tax credit that applies to much of the nation's workforce? Buried 18 paragraphs in.
And like this Los Angeles Times article, which announces near the beginning that Obama's budget "would raise taxes, redistribute income, spend more on social programs than on defense" and quotes House Republican leader John Boehner saying, "The era of big government is back, and Democrats are asking you to pay for it" -- without making clear that this is true only if you are among the very small number of very wealthy people whose taxes would go up. In the process, the Times twice refers to income "redistribution" and quotes another Republican congressman invoking the specter of "class warfare."
They're winning, in large part, because they have the media on their side.
Jamison Foser is Executive Vice President at Media Matters for America.
Religion, guns have been backdrop for 'bitter' class for years
Billy C. Murdock - New Braunfels, TexasI am shocked by how some people are taking Barack Obama's statement from April 6 totally out of context ("Obama: 'Bitter' comments were ill chosen," USATODAY.com, Saturday).
Obama said at a private fundraiser in San Francisco that working class voters "get bitter" and "cling to guns or religion."
I would add that religion and violence have been the foundation for bitterness not just for the working class but for thousands of poor people for years. When gasoline prices are so high and groceries cost so much, the poor sometimes resort to violence. Other times they go to churches for food, counseling and prayer.
When Obama toured Pennsylvania recently, he saw people living in dire economic conditions. I'm sure that experience broke his heart.
And what happened?
He voiced his concern at a fundraiser, and Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York jumped on his words, which are being played as though the senator of Illinois lacks compassion toward working-class voters.
Wake up, working class
Ed Fitch - Lawrenceville, Ill.I live in a rural area where good jobs have gone south and likely will not return.
The very people who have suffered most still overwhelmingly vote for presidential candidates who pander to big business. The question that Barack Obama was trying to answer was why working-class Americans don't vote for him. His answer was insightful and true. Poor people seemingly vote for candidates based on reasons other than their own economic interests.
Their concerns over gun control, abortion, flag burning and prayer seem to trump their job pain. Obama explained all this eloquently.
My hope is that in the next election, common people such as myself will reject the red herring excuses and stop shooting themselves in the foot.
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 | COVER STORY: Hate Radio September 17, 2004 Episode no. 803 http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week803/cover.html
BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: In much of rural America, talk radio tends to be conservative --rarely liberal. And in some places, archconservative radio broadcasters rail against immigrants, environmentalists, the UN, and everything they think is liberal. Critics call them purveyors of fear and say they sow the seeds of hate. Defenders say it's a free expression of ideas. Lucky Severson reports. LUCKY SEVERSON: Traveling under the big sky of Montana requires some sturdy wheels, preferably a pickup truck, and a good radio, which usually offers FM music and AM talk. In this part of the world, on the airwaves conservative talk has a virtual lock. Odds are the talk will progress from Rush Limbaugh to someone even more conservative -- like John Stokes, owner of station KGEZ in Kalispell, Montana. JOHN STOKES (Radio Host, KGEZ, Kalispell, Montana, on Radio): When the Left extremists are out of power, they are vicious, and it is pure, unadulterated, satanic evil. And they may look like your neighbors. It's evil. SEVERSON: If you're in Montana, or much of rural America, you will hear very little of what people in these parts call "namby-pamby" liberalism on AM radio, and that's music to John Stokes's ears. Mr. STOKES: I think it's gone so far extreme to the left that there was a backlash, and that's where you're probably seeing more people come out of the closet and say, "Enough is enough." SEVERSON: He thinks talk radio is an outlet for America's aggravations. Mr. STOKES: This is the great thing about America -- is that you can still get on your soapbox and do something. These people say that I incite people to violence. That's the last thing I want. SEVERSON: But his detractors say some of his broadcasts have incited harassment and stifled public debate. Consider his program shortly after 9/11, when he equated environmentalists with terrorists. Mr. STOKES (On Radio): So when these left-wing lunatic liberals complain that I have somehow connected them to this, yes, you are responsible. The Green extremists out there, the Green Nazis. Look in the mirror; it's your political correctness that has caused these problems. KEN TOOLE (Montana Human Rights Network): People contacted us and said, "I've had things happen to my house, and I think it's because they talked about me on the program." Then you've got a problem, and that definitely affects not only the ability to have civic debate, but it also affects the decision making. SEVERSON: Ken Toole is a Montana state senator and program director for the Montana Human Rights Network. He has been critical of Stokes's talk show called THE EDGE. He says the rhetoric has pushed some listeners over the edge to harass targets of Stokes's attacks. That may be why Stokes refers to Toole as "king fool of the human rights nitwits." Mr. TOOLE: We went to Stokes and said, "You've got to knock this stuff off," and called him out on it. This is bullying. Does the schoolyard bully affect the schoolyard? I think so. Mr. STOKES: There hasn't been one incident of violence at all by anybody that's been related to this show. SEVERSON: How about harassing phone calls? Mr. STOKES: We get them. SEVERSON: How about some of these people who are mentioned on your program -- do they get them? Mr. STOKES: I wouldn't know about that. MARIA ARRINGTON (Quaker): Since he came into the valley, I'm seeing bumper stickers that are totally offensive to me, that literally say, "Kill the Green Nazis," and from their definition of a Green Nazi, here I am. Do you want to kill me? SEVERSON: Maria Arrington and Jean Hand Triol are both Quakers and self-described liberals living in the Kalispell area. Ms. ARRINGTON: I don't think there's any problem having conservative talk radio. My problem with the stations that we're talking about right now is that they're sowing the seeds of hate and fear, and that is dividing the community. JEAN HAND TRIOL (Quaker): Even if we had different political views, we could have a dialogue, and now a lot of people are afraid to even express a liberal view. SEVERSON: There is, of course, the other point of view, one you might hear from many of the men in this Bible study group. They call themselves "dirt bags" instead of "sinners," and they meet every Friday morning for Scripture lessons at a local casino. JOHN CREAMER (Bible Study Leader): Father, we thank you for good health, for this beautiful place ... SEVERSON: The "dirt bag" Bible discussions are conducted by John Creamer. He's a friend of John Stokes and has a religious program on Stokes's radio station. Creamer thinks talk radio is good for the community because it gets the juices flowing. Mr. CREAMER: I think it stimulates a lot of thought and discussion, and it may not be the best way to do it, but what is a better alternative to get people thinking about what they should be thinking about? SEVERSON: But the expression of views on talk radio is almost exclusively one-sided. That's been the trend since the demise in the 1980s of the fairness doctrine that required giving voice to opposing opinions. There are differing views on National Public Radio, but Montana NPR stations play mostly music during the day. By and large, radio talk is coming from local personalities like John Stokes and nationally popular right-wing hosts like Michael Savage. MICHAEL SAVAGE (On Radio): And the Democrats are now functioning like old Soviets before the fall of the wall. And I do believe that they're finished. That's why they're getting this desperate. Akron, Ohio: Joe, you're on THE SAVAGE NATION ... SEVERSON: In this part of Montana, dozens of timber mills have closed, costing hundreds of jobs. Many locals blame government regulations, and especially the environmentalists, Stokes's so-called Green Nazis. Mr. STOKES (On Air): This hue and cry now that you're starting to hear from the environmentalists, the Green Nazis: "We need have a dialogue. We need to sit down and understand each other." Don't. We need to finish them off and make sure they don't have babies. SEVERSON: This is a scratchy picture of John Stokes's Earth Day protest. He is burning the swastika, his symbol for Green Nazis or environmentalists. He says a thousand people turned out to join his protest against the United Nations, where they shot the UN flag full of bullet holes. Mr. STOKES: America is in peril. We are under threat of imminent attack. You know, we are being invaded. You can't get anything changed unless you can get people excited about the issues. SEVERSON: But it's not only issues. It's gays, African Americans, all illegal immigrants, and others. Montana Human Rights Network director Ken Toole: Mr. TOOLE: We very regularly bring a Holocaust survivor to Montana to talk about the Holocaust, to talk about bigotry and intolerance and take them through the schools. Stokes referred to him as a whore doing the work of the Human Rights Network. SEVERSON: Researchers have reached different conclusions as to whether biased talk radio simply reinforces listeners' values or causes them to take action. So how influential can a station like KGEZ be? Stokes says he has about 20,000 listeners in a market of around 100,000. But Ken Toole says the size of the audience isn't that important. Mr. TOOLE: Despite the fact people say, "Oh yeah, he's wacky. It doesn't matter. Nobody listens to him," we think people do hear it. It's not that they do agree. It's not that they're fans, but it is that those kinds of hosts tend to cast how the community debates occur. SEVERSON: The Reverend Donna Schram of the Flathead Valley United Church of Christ is concerned about the chilling effect of Stokes's brand of discourse. Reverend DONNA SCHRAM (Flathead Valley United Church of Christ): It's pretty hard, I think, to live that Christian life of give and take of love when you're constantly looking over your shoulder and being in a fearful state. SEVERSON: The reverend's church is part of the Montana Association of Churches, which has begun asking members to get more involved in civic affairs to counter the influence of talk radio. Mr. STOKES: The Association of Churches is one of the most leftist, communist organizations in Montana. They put stuff out in churches to boycott all my sponsors. I mean, they're an extremist group. SEVERSON: Stokes's defenders contend that talk radio is nothing more than a gauge of small-town America's pent-up frustrations. Mr. CREAMER: It's one of the first times that there has been a measurement taken of the people's temperature, and it's frightening to some people what that temperature is, and it's like, "Oh my gosh, we need to put this thermometer away because it's showing much too high of a temperature." SEVERSON: Jean Triol agrees that the temperature is much too high, but blames talk radio for elevating it. Ms. TRIOL: Everyone I speak with is concerned about the same thing and kind of ashamed that they're hunkering down and, you know, not out there with their opinions. It's a bad feeling. Mr. STOKES (On Car Radio): Good morning on THE EDGE. What do you want to bet that when all is said and done, the foundations that fund our local environmental terrorists are also the primary foundation behind the Taliban? There will be a connection. SEVERSON: And if you don't agree with him, John Stokes says there is a solution. Mr. STOKES: Anybody who doesn't like what I'm doing can turn the radio station off. Turn the dial. SEVERSON: For now, Stokes says his audience keeps getting bigger and bigger. For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I'm Lucky Severson in Kalispell, Montana. March 24, 2010Donate a dollar, send Rush Limbaugh to Costa Rica OK. It's not often that politics and travel cross lines - unless you count immigration - but this little viral movement caught my interest. A couple of New York guys are trying to help Rush Limbaugh make good on his vow to leave America if the health care legislation passed. You see where I'm going here? The duo, who claim not to have health insurance, have set up a Web site - aticketforrush.com - where they are collecting $1 donations to buy Limbaugh a one-way, first-class plane ticket to Costa Rica. Why Costa Rica? I'm not sure, but I think it might have come for Limbaugh himself, although he seems more of an Eastern Europe group tour kinda guy to me. But whatever. Or wherever. The Web site has raised more than "Mike and Patrick, two dudes living in Brooklyn," who created the Web site, pledge to donate the money to Planned Parenthood if Limbaugh turns down the ticket or if they raise a lot more than the airfare. For those who are skeptical - count me in this group - the guys clearly state on the site that "we can't give you anything other than our word" that they will donate the money and not buy themselves a beach vacation or health insurance. But if they are true to their word and Limbaugh is true to his, he might want to start packing. UPDATE: Limbaugh says he doesn't fly commercial. This collection might go on for awhile if a private charter is required. $2,000 wouldn't even pay for an hour of time on the smallest exec jet. Associated Press Photo | |||||
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