One of the most polarizing men in America is at it again. But this time one of the victims of his latest smear job is standing up to the bully in an essay on Salon.com.
Valerie Kaur and her dad used to be Rush Limbaugh fans. No more.
“In mid-May,” she writes, “I played an Iraqi prisoner in the opening night of the play Abu Ghraib, an original student production at Harvard University… My father called to wish me luck. Imagine his disappointment when I told him what Limbaugh had said about me in his radio program that day:
“‘Here you have these dunces … at Harvard now doing a playing on the travesties of Abu Ghraib, and you know this is going to get back to the people in Baghdad, the insurgents and this sort of thing. It’s just typical. These people hate the country, folks. I’m telling you: There’s an anti-American bias in the American left.'”
“My dad, who has voted Republican all his life, was shocked. ‘But this is beyond partisan politics!’ he said. ‘Has he seen the play?'”
“No, and Limbaugh still has not seen the show. Neither… has Bill O’Reilly, who lambasted the play on his television program… ”
Abu Ghraib, which has a cast of 15 students, was written and directed by Harvard sophomore Currun Singh. It tells the stories, “of a soldier whose friends were killed in war, of an insurgent filled with hatred for Americans, of the sergeant who turned in the incriminating photographs from Abu Ghraib.”
Kaur, who is studying ethics at the Harvard Divinity School, reports that these are “factual accounts.”
“My character,” she writes, “is based on a real Iraqi prisoner, Huda Alazawi, arrested by American soldiers in December 2003 after she inquired after her missing brother. They detained her at Abu Ghraib overnight, and in the morning they threw his dead body at her feet.”
Thanks to Valerie Kaur for her courage in standing up to Limbaugh and O’Reilly — and to Salon.com for giving her the space to tell her story.
[Crossposted from FrederickClarkson.com]
Broadcasters on the public airwaves have a responsibility to the public. Rush Limbaugh is not only polarising, but he has a reckless disregard for the truth.
Some of his defenders say that he is not a newsman, but an entertainer. That may be so. It may also be that some people find lies and demagoguery entertaining.
It seems to me that broadcasters can do much better than this — and that the public deserves better.
Not to mention, that it is the people who commit atrocities in American uniforms and that order those atrocities, that have no regard for America, or for America’s history and legacy.
You betcha. And one way we can express our displeasure is to encourage advertisers on stations that air Rush that broadcasting apologists for torture is good for neither the nation nor thier business.
How are Fat Rushturd’s ratings? Are they declining steadily like O’Loofa’s and Faux News? I have to say that I’m really encouraged by these events, and I hope that “the love” is spread around to Rush as well…
It turns out that Limbaugh is also picking on high school students — and they are fighting back too. Kate N. Grossman, a reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times wrote that Limbaugh recently claimed “that Evanston Township High School students ‘don’t know anything about World War II’ and ‘they’ve probably never heard the name Adolf Hitler’ because they’re so focused on a multicultural curriculum.”
“The comments prompted a response Friday from ETHS Superintendent Allan Alson, who wrote in a letter to the Review that Limbaugh ‘spoke inaccurately and unconscionably about Evanston Township High School and its students….'”
“Some Evanston kids want to show Limbaugh what they know. They want to debate him on American history.” http://archives.pioneerlocal.com/cgi-bin/ppo-story/archives/localnews/2005/ev/05-19-05-588377.html
standing next to Rush Limbaugh. Phew!
I always laugh at this argument:
“Here you have these dunces … at Harvard now doing a playing on the travesties of Abu Ghraib, and you know this is going to get back to the people in Baghdad, the insurgents and this sort of thing.”
Wow. Even though 24 to 25,000 civilians — the most conservative estimate available — have been killed, literally countless injured, even though Abu Ghraib happened, even though there are tens of thousands of incarcerated Iraqi’s with no process to determine anyone’s guilt or innocence, even though the entire country is FUBAR, if word of this play gets back to the people in Baghdad…they could get really pissed off.
Yeah that play is going to keep the whole misguided war in Iraq AND Afghanistan going right? The ‘insurgents’ are going to stop what they are doing every day for a few hours and scour US papers for entertainment news on college campuses. You know to give them something to keep fighting for. Cause you know that things are winding down in Iraq and everything is starting to be just peachy-keen there.
And all of us anti-americans here on this site, well I sure hope the ‘insurgents’ don’t start reading Bootrib or the world will just go up in flames, don’t ya know. Oh right, it is already isn’t it?
There are day’s when I hope that ratbastard would simply loose his voice, nothing too drastic just that he would permanently loose his voice.
Nothing could please me more than standing with Limberger in a room, just one on one, it would only take a split second, but then, that would not be long enough, so I would have to stretch it out, for about 30 seconds, to give him time to think, ????
What? time to think, naaaaahhh, he’s not capable of a remorseful thought, and besides, I don’t think I would be able to restrain the delight of having him in my hands more than 5 seconds ; )
I’m pretty laid back, but when it comes to Limbaugh, O’Reilly, and Hannity, I beleive they should be punished with the maximum penalty for war crimes, in a place that would make Gitmo look like a Sunday School social ; )
After all, propaganda is as bad as the act itself, for it is the catylist that starts the blaze. All this for personal gain, greed, and being the “Star”. A star that in my opinion, should shine in HELL.
heh heh…you can tell those folks mentioned above, just bring out the very best in me ; )
The whole bunch such as the likes of limbaugh(won’t EVER listen to him)O’Lielly, and especially Hannity should be banned from television and radio for lying, propaganda and incitement of the wingnuts.
I think the scarey thing for me is that fact that ANY dissent is looked at as un-Patriotic these days. Pay attention people we are going to have a test later.
Debating Flush Limturd would be liking kissing your grandmother. This moron isn’t capable of any thought that is not shoved into his tiny little brain by Karl “the fat man” Rove. I used to have to listen to Flush whenever I had to repair a Prof’s computer at the University where I used to work. He would go on and on and on and on about what a great American Flush was and wasn’t it a shame that liberal’s had and continue to destroy the very fabric of American society. I looked right at him one day and said, so you think I destroy the fabric of America? He was shocked, his eyes got like saucers and he said, ” No, you are not a liberal”? I said yes a card carrying member of the Democratic party, you know the party that brought about unions so you could be paid more than minimum wage for your services. The party that brought about help for those who could not help themselves. You know one of those liberals that is tearing apart the fabric of America. He just looked like a ton of bricks fell on him and I fixed his computer and left. After that he would turn Limpturd off whenever I came in to fix any of his computer problems. I personally find Limpturd so revolting and disgusting, everytime I hear him, I feel like I need two showers to not feel infected.