Truth to Power

Ok, ya see what happens…

when you get me steamed:

Dear Sirs:

At some point on 8.15.2005, you paid Rush Limbaugh a small portion of his $30 million salary to say the following:

LIMBAUGH: I mean, Cindy Sheehan is just Bill Burkett. Her story is nothing more than forged documents. There’s nothing about it that’s real, including the mainstream media’s glomming onto it. It’s not real. It’s nothing more than an attempt. It’s the latest effort made by the coordinated left.

This might be the vilest statement I have ever heard uttered in the American mainstream entertainment industry. I confess I didn’t listen to the show in question, so I don’t know the context of the remark, but as quoted here, your employee, Rush Limbaugh, is calling the mother of a serviceman killed in action in Iraq a liar. This is morally repugnant. My father was a veteran. Rush Limbaugh has smeared not only the Sheehan family, but every person who is or has served in uniform. America is better than this. Better than this sneering contempt for anything different, better than this slanderous gibberish masquerading as “entertainment”.

Was it worth however much you garnered in revenue for this show to debase our country in such a manner? Was the extra tick on your stock price worth driving yet another rip of divisiveness into our national fabric, which has been strained so near to a breaking point? You evidently think so, since I have heard no mention of your employee being fired, suspended, or at least reprimanded for behavior that frankly, civilized people find abhorrent. And sadly, I doubt I will. This letter, and the others like it, will be ignored, tossed aside for yet another scan of the national ratings and your ad book. It is one thing for you and your odious employee Rush Limbaugh to profit by spewing hate filled rhetoric, it is entirely another to slander a dead American serviceman- all American servicemen- to do so.

You must know in your heart that such statements are beneath contempt, and should not be given encouragement in a decent society. You know that Rush Limbaugh must go, because it is the right thing to do.

And if you don’t- if you don’t recognize how wrong such statements are, then I’m afraid we’re much further down a path that is much darker than I feared. Rush Limbaugh must go. Our country and the honor of those that die in its name deserve more. Certainly more than Limbaugh, those that hired him, and those who pay his salary with advertisements. They deserve nothing but the contempt of a disgusted nation. You can start with mine.

James Mann

Yes, completely overwrought, but he’s disgusting. Sent to Limbaugh and the executives at Clear Channel. Who you can meet- and maybe email- from here.


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