Not many people can (or will) politicize a human tragedy like right wing talk show hosts do. First it was Glen Beck with his statement that the America haters in Southern California were losing their homes to the raging wild fires there. Now take a wild guess as to who Rush Limbaugh blames for these wild fires (hint: it isn’t global warming, drought or even an act of God).
Give up? Well, in Rush’s world it’s the “environmentalist wackos” and “Hollywood liberals,” along with (wait for it) Al Gore and Hillary Clinton, who are to blame! Really, that’s what he said, and I have the transcript from his own website to prove it:
Guys are trying to keep flames from coming underneath the door in their garages and so forth. And the people that were noticeably absent were the environmentalist wackos. Where were Greenpeace, Sierra Club and where were their bucket brigades, where do these people show up in time of disaster like this? They just love the wilderness, don’t they? It’s what they always say, “Save the species. Save the earth.” Well, Mother Nature turned a whole bunch of Southern California via a torch, and I didn’t see one Algore acolyte out there trying to help out. I’m sitting there watching this and I wonder how much CO2 and particulate matter got belched into the atmosphere from one fire, let alone five different fires out there. Talk about carbon footprint, try charcoal footprint. Well, it’s natural, but here’s the thing about Southern California. The left is going to claim, and a lot of people are going to claim, this is caused by a drought. Now, I lived up in California up in the northern part. I lived in Sacramento for a while before I moved to New York. I would go to LA for business reasons. There were always signs in the hotel, “Use as little water as necessary.”
There’s always a drought out there because it’s a desert. It is not naturally green. I don’t want to offend anybody out there, but the natural inclination would be when we’re out there discovering the country, “Don’t put a city here,” but they funnel water in from the northern part of the state. There’s always a big battle over that, too, and other western states where the water comes in. But it’s basically a desert. It’s basically a desert with a great view. It’s not naturally green. You look at some of the vegetation, chaparral, for example, that’s a real water-loving species. Pretty soon they’re going to put cactus out there, just to have something to put fires out with. It’s just an amazing thing to watch, you feel for everybody impacted by this. But fires happen. They happen regularly. These fires are an annual thing. This one is considered to be a little worse because of where it’s hitting. It’s hitting Malibu, which is an upper-crust, elitist enclave. So the class envy crowd ought to be somewhat happy with this. All the way up from San Diego, Santa Barbara is right between a couple of fires now. […]
… But, you know, Brentwood, where O.J. Simpson lived, that’s not far from Malibu. It’s not just a hop, skip, and trip, but it’s not far from Malibu. It’s close enough that people in Brentwood could have helped out if they wanted to. I’ll tell you why I mention this, is that while fires were raging out there in Malibu, Hillary Clinton was celebrating in Brentwood at the home of Meathead, Rob Reiner, on Saturday night, who was singing songs to her. It was a preliminary birthday party. Her big birthday party is going to be some shuck and jive event here on the East Coast. So the Hollywood crowd wanted to give her a pre-birthday bash, which is really nothing more than a fundraiser for Mrs. Clinton. While millions of dollars worth of homes and businesses and family members were literally going up in flames, the Hollywood elite at Meathead’s house, listening to him serenade Hillary Clinton. Actually, I made a mistake, folks. It wasn’t for her, because we all know Mrs. Clinton doesn’t care about money. The Clintons tell us this constantly. They don’t care about money. This was for her campaign, and that means it was for the children.
So having Meathead serenade Mrs. Clinton on Saturday night in Brentwood, not a fundraiser, but for the children. (interruption) I don’t think she did a flyover. I don’t think there was one expression of — well, I don’t know what was said inside there, but I haven’t seen Mrs. Clinton comment on the fires. […]
But this is all rooted in the mistaken belief of the environmentalist wackos that human beings are only intruders here, and that we are predators, and that we’re destroying the planet. Hell, I’ve got a story over here in the Global Warming Stack by Frazier Moore of the Associated Press, and it’s about a television show. “It’s a tough world, all right. Too bad it’s not tougher. Right now Earth is looking pretty fragile as it suffers from increasing human punishment.” We are punishing the earth! “This isn’t really news, of course.” Of course not! Why would the Drive-Bys question such a ridiculous proposition? It’s “not really news that we are punishing the Earth”? We are punishing the Earth? You see, the only thing we can do, folks, is die, or leave. We have to stop “punishing” the Earth. “It’s just so fragile. It is fragile, Mr. Limbaugh. It’s very fragile.” No, it’s not! It’s going to outlast us and whatever we do to it. God, the vanity that some of the people on this planet have. “But CNN has packed the two-night, four-hour Planet in Peril with information and images that give a familiar story new urgency. Here is an eye-opening, often heart-wrenching exploration.”
It’s just more of the same. Talk about propaganda. That is precisely what this is all about, designed to frighten and create fear in as many people’s minds as possible. This is all part of the hoax to make you feel as guilty as possible because you’re responsible. You are now punishing the planet, folks. You! You are punishing it. Those of you who are about to lose your homes or have lost your homes in fires in Southern California, and Idaho, you are punishing the planet. Mother Earth is just getting even with you because Mother Earth doesn’t want homes where you put them, and when a hurricane comes along and destroys your home on the beach, it’s Mother Earth getting even with you because Mother Earth doesn’t want homes on her beaches. Yes, so Mother Earth coming. If anybody is punishing anybody, it’s Mother Earth punishing us. But, no, we’re punishing Mother Earth. It’s designed to make you feel guilty because you’re causing this, and when some dingleberry comes along with the idea that you need to roll back your lifestyle and have your taxes raised, you’re supposed to — in order to absolve yourself of this guilt and sin — go right along with it. It’s about bigger government controlling your life and that’s what global warming actually is all about.
You see what I mean? Rush takes a human tragedy and turns it into a commercial for the destruction of the environment and the denial of global warming and climate change. And then he blames anyone who believes in environmental protection for this tragedy in the bargain! It takes a lot of chutzpah (or oxycontin) to make that connection, but hey what about the idiots in his audience who actually believe what this drug addled degenerate is spouting? What’s worse is that nobody is calling him on his own bullshit. Not the so-called liberal media which Limbaugh castigates on a regular basis, that’s for sure. Maybe it’s just part of his comedic routine, but I think the joke is getting a little stale by now, don’t you? Liberals are bad. Liberals are evil. Liberals are responsible for everything wrong in our world, even wild fires. What a laugh riot!
And wingnuts wonder why progressives want the return of the Fairness Doctrine? It’s poisonous tripe piped out day after day from the anal orifice of El Rushbo to his “dittoheads,” people who just want to be told who they should hate and scapegoat for all the misery in their lives, that has ruined our country’s political discourse and enabled the most corrupt Presidency, and (until Republicans lost their majorities last Fall) the most corrupt Congress in our history.
It’s beyond disgusting.
Well, having gone thru the Oakland Hills firestorm of ’91, this ain’t the time for anything other than unequivocal support in money, goods, open doors for victims and lots and lots of shoulders to cry on.
Nobody with a heart could ever do otherwise.
Of course it’s the usual Rush illogical ranting, full of self-inconsistencies, hatred and so on. But his initial analysis is actually pretty much true. I mean the part about building huge cities in deserts, and then putting in grass lawns and tennis courts.
Doesn’t the same apply, though, to where he lives?
In the above comment, I wrote “tennis courts” though meaning to write “swimming pools.” Makes a bit more sense, no?
LOL. yes. Sounds like a mistake I might have made. 😉
I commend whoever had the stomach to transcribe Rush’s comments. I can’t listen to such hate. It’s pure mind pollution, and my environment is polluted enough.
I noticed “OJ” in the middle of the rant. That’s how propaganda works. You stick it in there and subconsciously it all gets sucked into the mixmaster. Bill, Hillary, OJ, big fires. Brrrr, the blades chop it up and he pours it into the ears of his listeners.
Rush is a consummate propagandist. Much better than Glenn Beck, who didn’t seem to know that large swaths of the Southern California hills are occupied by well-heeled Republicans who are now watching their five million-dollar homes burn because the National Guard is killing women and children in Sadr City instead of building fire breaks. And there won’t be money to rebuild because, well, 200 billion will be going to kill more women and children.
Another cost of war. Your home in Malibu. And homeless vets have a head start for all good underpasses to sleep under.
Radical rightwing radio talk show nut Mark Levine is using the same tactic of blaming “environmental whackos” for the fires in California. He urged “conservatives” to “take the moral high road” and “quit appeasing environmentalists who are holding back on clearing brush and debris from abandon lots and from clearing out dead wood from forests”. He did not specificially target Al Gore or Hillary Clinton AFAIK.
Hi Steven,
I’ve read Rush’s transcript you put here but I haven’t found the line where he blames liberals for anything related to this tragedy. He mocks them for not being out there with buckets of water and mentioned that Hillary had nothing to say about the issue while in California. But, perhaps I missed something and it’s in there.
You say it takes a lot of chutzpah to connect this event to environmentalism but please take a look at what Senator Reid is saying today. Is he not doing the same thing here?
“”One reason why we have the fires in California is global warming,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters Tuesday, stressing the need to pass the Democrats’ comprehensive energy package.”
As an aside…the first year records of acres burned to be available was 1919.
1919-1920 26 million acres burned
1930-1939 39 million acres burned
1940-1949 23 million acres burned
1950-1959 9.4 million acres burned
1960-1969 4.5 million acres burned
1970-1979 3.1 million acres burned
1980-1989 4.2 million acres burned
1990-1999 3.6 million acres burned
Obviously we’re better at fighting fires today which could account for the lower acreage burning but the amount of fires per each time period shows no real trend. You can read the report here:
http://www.azcentral.com/specials/special38/articles/0527fireglance-ON.html
Senator Reid’s statement politicizes the issue as much as anyone else has and I can assure you the “comprehensive energy package” he speaks of simply means higher taxes which will do nothing but feed the unsustainable growth of the government.
I don’t agree with everything Rush has to say but I can understand the position he’s taking on this issue with statements like the above coming from Congressmen. I particularly agree with what he says about where we build. We’ve been guilty of populating areas we should not throughout recorded history but it’s becoming a real problem as popular areas get crowded. Construction companies will go where ever they can, it doesn’t mean we should live there though.
Take care,
Joe
Funny how these made-up “liberals” are in fact standins for Limbaugh’s best freinds of the Robertson-Falwell-Dobson kind, who can (could) always be relied on to tell us how everything from hurricanes to Sept 11 are “God’s” punishment for pissing him off. Substitute “Mother Earth” for “God” and it’s almost a transcript.
Best example yet of the neo-fascist golden rule: Everything we rant about the liberals doing is in fact the stuff we are doing. Every single time.
Rush is wrong about the dates (no Malibu fire on Saturday) and what people should do (officials were telling people to stay away). My blog post on the matter.