Rush on the job site

“You are one of the only guys I know I’m kinda friends with that doesn’t like Rush.”

That’s a hard one. It’s meant as a compliment. Mike and I have been working side by side for a few weeks. I owe him more than a couple beers. He can do more in three seconds, and with more finesse, with a backhoe than I can do in ten minutes with a shovel.

But he listens to Rush Limbaugh while driving the backhoe, and Country music. My music, heavy guitar licks by Roy Buchannan or Pink Floyd, just don't cut it under the noon day sun. But I can’t stand the smooth new country, “Men in boots whining,” and I can’t stomach Rush. There are just so few ways to respond.

“Rush is just a mouthpiece for the people who want to own you. If you like your government telling you what to think, you are welcome to it.” When they were trying to sell us on a war, it was abusing patriotism to get us into Iraq. Now it is the jingoistic pitch against immigration. Being sold to a nation founded by immigrants.

But it is not the hypocrisy of bitter and sordid talk show hosts like Limbaugh or O’Reilly that is so offensive. It is the blatant manipulation. The subtle name-calling. The smirking, superior, “I am SO getting away with this,” lack of conscience, that is so galling.

30 years ago there was a TV show that featured Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker. Archie was laughed at by the left, his bigotry held up for ridicule. The thing is, Archie won.

Now we have a nation where about 45% of the population idolizes the politics Archie Bunker used to create laughs. We have a president who smirks like Archie, who came out in support of creationism, for crying out loud, and who manipulates hard working men and women who should be supporting labor rights and equal rights and supporting the individual over monopolies charging us to breathe clean air.

The Archie archetype himself got some polish and has radio stations and TV stations and employs Rush and Bill who spoon feed us hatred and bigotry right out of Karl Rove’s White House.

Not because Rove or Bush love war or hate Mexicans, but because by fanning hatred, outrage and bigotry, they control the discussion, they get reelected, and they can serve Pfizer and Exxon and ConAgra and all the others who buy them power.

Mike is a good man who knows how to work hard and takes care of his family. So am I. We have more in common than we don’t, but I sure wish he didn’t get his politics from talk radio.