Posted on 11/28/2005 5:03:33 PM PST by mastercylinder
Edited on 11/28/2005 5:07:49 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Al Franken and the other liberals are probably still wondering why they had such little luck in their efforts to start a talk-radio network to bash George Bush from the left. They didn't consider the obvious explanation. George Bush has his left flank nicely covered. It's on the right that he's weak.
That is the theory of Michael Savage. Savage is the most right-wing of the right-wing talkers on the national airwaves at the moment. He is based in San Francisco, but he can be heard in the New York area on WOR in the evenings. He is a welcome change from those Karl Rove clones Hush Bimbo and Sean Vanity.
"Hush Bimbo" and "Sean Vanity" are the names Savage has pinned on Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity of WABC. In doing so, he has sparked a war between the members of his "Savage Nation" (slogan: "Borders, language, culture") and the so-called "Bushbots," that sizable number of gullible Americans who can be convinced that whatever policy Bush adopts is a conservative policy.
"What makes Bush a conservative?" Savage asked when I got him on the phone the other day. "On the economy, Bush has got more governmental workers than anybody before him. He's ballooned the government."
As regards the so-called "war on terror," Savage points out that you can't win a war when you're afraid even to name the enemy.
"He's never mentioned Islamofascism," said Savage.
No, he hasn't. Even the French have been more willing to defend their borders, language and culture than Bush. He's a multiculturalist and a mushy one at that. Instead of reducing the reach of Islamic fundamentalism, Bush has managed in Iraq to get 1,700 Americans killed in a war that will create yet another Islamic republic. Just yesterday we learned that the new constitution in Iraq will incorporate sharia, Islamic law.
That's why we right-wing commentators believe the Iraq war has been the biggest blunder in America's military history. As for Bimbo and Vanity, if I may employ Savage's labels, they are simply too uneducated to realize that the Iraq war represents a failed liberal exercise in nation-building.
"There is no college in Rush. There is no college in Hannity," said Savage. "He's a high school dropout. It's like listening to an uneducated, unthinking man on the radio."
Savage has a Ph.D. from Berkeley in epidemiology, an extremely challenging field. That makes him a bit overqualified for the verbal pro-wrestling matches that make up talk radio. But it also makes him interesting.
The Bushbots don't think so. On their Web sites, they call Savage a bigot and a racist, two terms the employment of which generally indicate that the speaker is losing an argument. Savage is a hero on those Web sites that attack Bush's open-borders approach to immigration. "Rush Limbaugh is a direct link to his president, El Traitor, Senor Bush," wrote one blogger. "The invasion by illegals has been going on now for a long time."
"You are 100 percent correct," said another of Limbaugh and Hannity. "They are nothing but blind, rubber-stamping followers of El Presidente Bush."
All of this is a lot of fun if you don't take it seriously. I certainly don't. But I do find talk radio to be a good barometer of the nation's mood. And the nation is slowly figuring out that the Bush-neoconservative-Troskyite- internationalist view of foreign affairs has not worked out so swimmingly for the good old U.S. of A.
"Bush is melting down our borders and making us into a polyglot nation in which no one speaks the language," says Savage.
Savage hears a lot from people who say that any criticism of Bush is a mark of disloyalty to conservatism.
"I can't stand listening to people who want me to be a lapdog for Bush," he told me. "We're supposed to be watchdogs, not lapdogs."
As for the rest of the radio talkers, "They may as well work for the Republican Party. There's nothing interesting if you can predict what a man's going to say by just going to the GOP Web site."
He's certainly got that right. Listening to an endless rehash of Karl Rove's talking points, leavened by a few Teddy Kennedy-is-a-drunk jokes, is not very entertaining.
As for the Al Franken approach, how can a nation-building, internationalist multiculturalist get any traction by criticizing another nation-building, internationalist multiculturalist? John Kerry had that problem as well, you might have noticed.
When you attack the Bush-Rove spin from the right, however, you realize that the neocons' grand social experiment has been tried most visibly in Iraq and has failed most visibly there. People are starting to notice. Eventually even the Bushbots may get a clue.
The exact moment when all this started was when Gore Vidal called Bill Buckley a crypto-fascist and Buckley threatened to punch him out.
I'd pay $34.95 to see that one on Pay Per View! ;-)
Ask and you shall receive...
http://www.pitt.edu/~kloman/debates.html
Ah you uh Nooyawkuh??? LOL
Born and bred.
A lot of these extremists spiral into themselves and start believing their own spiel.
Playboy used to be a great magazine.
You're absolutely correct. Based upon what I've heard in the ten-odd years I've been listening to his show, my opinion is that "Savage" is a character created by Dr. Wiener to present the ugly truths about our country in an entertaining way. Those who listen to the show carefully will detect a calm current of genuine wisdom beneath the ratings-grabbing foam.
What is a nation? A nation is a group of people who are united by a common culture and who usually live in proximity to one another. Culture, in turn, is a combination of cult (i.e. religion), customs, and language. Therefore, what defines "America" as a nation is its culture -- its borders, language, and Judeo-Christian religious tradition -- not its form of government (the State), its flag (its Symbol), or its constitution (the Law). These things are derived from the nation, but they do not define it.
The reason "Savage" is so cordially hated by many on FR and in the GOP is that he represents a genuinely nationalist point of view.
Nationalism -- the dedication to one's nation above all but God -- has been heresy in the GOP since the failure of the Goldwater campaign. To the New Republicans, nationalism is bunk. Libertarian in outlook, utilitarian in philosophy, the brave new GOP counts individual freedom, not the national commonweal, as their highest ideal. Freedom, freedom above all, the New Republicans cry, and never mind the good of the nation or the preservation of the nation. This idolatry of Individual Liberty is the new cult that stands at the center of the New GOP, and at odds with traditional conservatism. (The Democrats are no more nationalist than the Republicans; instead of deifying the Liberty and the Sovereign Individual, they deify the Law and Sovereign State.) To the average Republican of today, the nation is the enemy -- a hindrance to free trade, free expression, and free love. The ideal world is a world where might makes right, where markets take the place of nations, and all values are market values. (To the Democrat, the nation stands for chauvinism,intolerance, and theocracy; their ideal world is the ultimate bureaucracy -- a single, atheistic global superstate, where values are determined by "the Will of the People".)
As a nationalist and patriot, I oppose both the Republican dream of godless global mercantilization and the godless bureaucratic dreamworld of the Democrats. I support the preservation of the American nation -- our national borders, our English language, and our Judeo-Christian culture above all other worldly goods. The free market, civil rights, wealth, fame, fortune -- all have their place; but without her borders, her language, and her culture, the American nation ceases to exist. Oh, the American State might continue on, but once the borders become meaningless and he culture dies, the nation dies, no matter how many scurrying drones may inhabit the national anthill in Washington.
This is why I listen to "Savage". He's the only real conservative on the radio. He's the only one who still believes in the American nation. Sure, the Flatbush Avenue schtick gets tired at times, but behind the Borscht Belt comedy lies a truly American spirit -- the American Spirit that survived the Depression, that beat the Nazis and the Japanese, and that landed men on the Moon. That spirit is what keeps me coming back. That's what keeps his ratings high.
I have nothing against Limbaugh and Hannity. They do their job (shilling for the GOP) well. I have no opinion on Dr. Wiener as a man. He may have ugly skeletons in his closet; I don't know. He may be a cynical entrepreneur out to make a buck; I've seen it before. He could be a genius or a total nutcase -- I have no idea which. All I can do is judge what he says. And despite all the froth and vitriol, what he says is, more often than not, the truth.
That's what savage says also. I guess he doesn't listen to them either.
You are absolutely, 100% correct.
The short story by Walter Tevis that eventually grew into the novel/movie The Hustler was originally published in Playboy. The Oriana Fallaci, the John Wayne, the Jimmy Carter interviews are classics. Hefner came out of that whole Esquire literary magazine tradition.
Works for me. When someone realizes that 'Dr. Michael Savage' is an alter-ego, and a character, for Mike Weiner, and has a bit of a sense of humor, the rest falls into place.
A lot of people don't get the joke. Millions do, though. It all works out.
Savage is just not politicly correct i think sometimes people forget what its like to speak your real Mind instead of being afraid of hurting someones precious feelings.
If someone is offended by what savage says its their problem not Savages.
I wish GWB wasn't so PC it's refreshing to hear someone who is not if you want to see right wing whacko listen to Alex Jones he's a real Whackjob !
Real intellects speak to "the better angels of our nature." They don't pander to the most primal.
I remember talking to some guy a couple years ago and he said, "I love Howard Stern because he says what I only think..."
All I could answer was, "What the hell is wrong with you? Are you a moron?"
"Breaking news: Michael Savage is a KOOK."
BORDERS, LANGUAGE, AND CULTURE........Too bad we don't have a similar "Kook" in the White House.
I've said for many years now that the worst advice out there on the pop cultural landscape is 'be yourself.' I prefer 'be better than yourself.' :-)
My galpal often says when I meet people she knows "Don't be yourself! Just this once, be someone else!" So I know what I am talking about! ;-)
I make it a firm rule to never, ever tell anyone to "be themselves." You don't know what kind of monster will escape the bonds of commonsense, basic manners and the ability to regulate alcohol intake.
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