http://donklephant.com/2007/04/12/imus-bias-devils-heaven/ Big Teeth. Huge Ass. Surprisingly Reasonable. Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:44:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.5 http://donklephant.com/2007/04/12/imus-bias-devils-heaven/#comment-305749 Ray Watkins Fri, 13 Apr 2007 01:41:28 +0000 http://donklephant.com/?p=3369#comment-305749 I don't buy this idea that we have entered an era of either/or and that if we want to fix things up we just have to start thinking in 'ands.' Imus is one important part of a long-lived and very dangerous backlash against both the civil rights and women's movements. He usually leaves the direct hate mongering to others-- he's a coward in that way-- but he has drawn on the same reactionary attitudes to get rich. It's bad enough to be hateful, but it is even worse to use hatefulness to become rich and famous. There is simply no way to fight these reactionaries unless we are wiling to call crap crap. Non-partisan politics is utterly beside the point. We can just hope that the firing of Imus suggests that the reaction is loosing steam. We might then start to hope for the politics we need, one that assumes that health care, living wages, and human rights are democratic givens not privileges. I don’t buy this idea that we have entered an era of either/or and that if we want to fix things up we just have to start thinking in ‘ands.’ Imus is one important part of a long-lived and very dangerous backlash against both the civil rights and women’s movements. He usually leaves the direct hate mongering to others– he’s a coward in that way– but he has drawn on the same reactionary attitudes to get rich. It’s bad enough to be hateful, but it is even worse to use hatefulness to become rich and famous. There is simply no way to fight these reactionaries unless we are wiling to call crap crap. Non-partisan politics is utterly beside the point. We can just hope that the firing of Imus suggests that the reaction is loosing steam. We might then start to hope for the politics we need, one that assumes that health care, living wages, and human rights are democratic givens not privileges.

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