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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
 Posted - 07/18/2008 : 10:52:34
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I got this in an email from Media Matters and you can find the same at their web site: http://mediamatters.org/
Apparently Savage thinks the rise in autism and asthma are, in large part, from bad parenting and fraud, respectively.
On July 16, the No. 3 syndicated radio talk show host in the country, Michael Savage, made the following statement on autism:
"Now, you want me to tell you my opinion on autism? ... A fraud, a racket."
Savage went on to say:
Now, the illness du jour is autism. You know what autism is? I'll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is.
What do you mean they scream and they're silent? They don't have a father around to tell them, "Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, idiot."
Autism -- everybody has an illness. If I behaved like a fool, my father called me a fool. And he said to me, "Don't behave like a fool." The worst thing he said -- "Don't behave like a fool. Don't be anybody's dummy. Don't sound like an idiot. Don't act like a girl. Don't cry." That's what I was raised with. That's what you should raise your children with. Stop with the sensitivity training. You're turning your son into a girl, and you're turning your nation into a nation of losers and beaten men. That's why we have the politicians we have. |
During the same broadcast, Savage also attacked those in "the minority community" who suffer from asthma. He stated: "[W]hy was there an asthma epidemic amongst minority children? Because I'll tell you why: The children got extra welfare if they were disabled, and they got extra help in school. It was a money racket. Everyone went in and was told [fake cough], 'When the nurse looks at you, you go [fake cough], "I don't know, the dust got me." ' See, everyone had asthma from the minority community."
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Ok, is this guy a great big dumbass or is he intentionally misleading his millions of listeners? The Savage Nation reaches at least 8.25 million listeners, according to Media Matters. I LOVE freedom of speech, I really do, but shouldn't people with this big a voice have some kind of responsibility to be truthful, especially when vulnerable people's health is potentially at stake? I realize I'm giving this asshole the benefit of the doubt about his level of ignorance and I could be wrong....
Philisophically, isn't there a limit beyond which almost any freedom becomes a problem? More broadly, isn't the extreme of anything generally a bad thing?
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-Chaloobi
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 07/18/2008 : 13:04:39 [Permalink]
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But he's a much BIGGER asshole if he has reason to believe they are real but is still attempting to convince his audience they are not.
This reminds me of a former neighbor of mine (who was, incidentally, quite hot) who had bumper stickers on her car with slogans like "Savage is My President" or "Savage is God." I distinctly remember those because at the time I had never heard of Mike Savage, so I was thinking WTF? This was Pre-Bush, btw.
I don't know what she thinks now, but maybe something different since her job got outsourced/downsized during the Bush Economic Boom (heavy sarcasm there) in Michigan. She was a young professional whom I assumed had enough education to know better and I just can't get over the idea of this asshole whispering dog shit like this into hear ear every day.... |
-Chaloobi
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| Edited by - chaloobi on 07/18/2008 13:07:27 |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 07/18/2008 : 13:42:19 [Permalink]
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What Kil said, and I would like to add that Savage is a useless, leaky slop-bucket second only to Limbaugh. He's yet another of those too incompent to make a living with either his mind or his hands, so he makes one with his mouth, slobbering over a microphone like some drunken pedophile in a grade school bathroom.
He's an over-paid, conservative whore with mendacity as his pimp. He has neither neither wit nor wisdom, but relys upon volunm and vitriol to service his equally brain-dead johns. And those keep coming back to get their intellectual syphilis treated, scarcely realizing that that particular disease cannot be treated, only replaced with the latest, penicillin/logic/reason-resistant strain.
He has neither morals nor values and compensates with semi-coherent noise directed at those whom his cringing followers fear. Should that fear turn upon conservatives, he'll become the most liberal of all. As with all of these right-wing, drooling heads on the radio, his coat has many sides and he can turn them in a New York minute.
Barely intelligent enough to read a script or shake it out at the urinal, he must pander to the idiot fringe of our society, and he does it quite well. Indeed, it's his only talent, and if that fringe should at last come to its senses, he'll starve to death in the midst of plenty. And best of riddance to yet another chancre on the glans of American discourse.
Putz!
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2008 : 08:21:29 [Permalink]
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Nice Rant. 
Nobody has an opinion on limiting freedom of speech? Do you think this guy and limbaugh and others are too inconsequential to merit even the most limited limitation? Is nothing worth limiting speech? |
-Chaloobi
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| Edited by - chaloobi on 07/21/2008 08:25:07 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2008 : 10:56:57 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by chaloobi
Nobody has an opinion on limiting freedom of speech? Do you think this guy and limbaugh and others are too inconsequential to merit even the most limited limitation? Is nothing worth limiting speech? |
Freedom of speech already is limited. But you have to show direct harm before someone's speech becomes actionable. Slander and libel, for example.
Undoubtedly someone will be harmed by Savage's nonsense, but it's likely to be the child of someone who desperately wants what Savage says to be true, anyway, so they'll be unlikely to file suit. And the primary harm is going to be a bunch of autistic kids whose own parents call them morons and putzes in the mistaken name of "tough love."
Can we, as a society, legislate to prevent such harm to an unknown number of kids? Not without risking something else. Scientific truth doesn't give a rats' ass for what we think of it, and it's quite possible that some medical condition will have some sort of repugnant but effective treatment. I'm pretty sure this doesn't apply to autism, but we cannot silence the Savages of the world for fear that they might, someday, be right.
The answer to speech is more speech, not gag orders. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 07/21/2008 : 11:13:08 [Permalink]
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Well said, Dave.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2008 : 11:16:57 [Permalink]
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DAVE:
| The answer to speech is more speech, not gag orders. |
Is that an unintentional argument for a return to the fairness doctrine? |
-Chaloobi
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| Edited by - chaloobi on 07/21/2008 11:18:04 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2008 : 11:35:34 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by chaloobi
Is that an unintentional argument for a return to the fairness doctrine? |
Not at all. It is at best a subtle call for someone to figure out how to make a talk show about rationality be as (or more) popular as the dreck Michael Savage spews. (If I had that answer, I'd be a rich, rich man right now.) I'm enough of a free-marketer to think that entertainment should be allowed to rise or fall at the consumers' behests. Regulating fairness in talk shows will simply make them even more contrived and only the truly masochistic will listen to either side.
But really, the best one could hope for out of this situation is that letters are written to the advertisers and underwriters who support Savage's show, trying to get those companies with directors who know autistic kids to pull their ads. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2008 : 13:49:38 [Permalink]
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Filthy.....
| Savage is a useless, leaky slop-bucket second only to Limbaugh. He's yet another of those too incompent to make a living with either his mind or his hands, so he makes one with his mouth, slobbering over a microphone like some drunken pedophile in a grade school bathroom. He's an over-paid, conservative whore with mendacity as his pimp. He has neither neither wit nor wisdom, but relys upon volunm and vitriol to service his equally brain-dead johns.He has neither morals nor values and compensates with semi-coherent noise directed at those whom his cringing followers fear.As with all of these right-wing, drooling heads on the radio, his coat has many sides and he can turn them in a New York minute. Barely intelligent enough to read a script or shake it out at the urinal, he must pander to the idiot fringe of our society, and he does it quite well. Indeed, it's his only talent, and if that fringe should at last come to its senses, he'll starve to death in the midst of plenty. And best of riddance to yet another chancre on the glans of American discourse. |
Filthy, why in the hell don't you just come out and state clearly how you feel about Savage? Stop using these wussish, uncertain ambiguitues, drop the ambivilance, and tell us how you really feel!
Good work, Filth! Savage is by far the foulest Niagara of pure verbal vomit erupting in the cesspool of putrescent feces that constitutes right-wing "talk radio" |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 07/21/2008 : 14:44:30 [Permalink]
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| Filthy, why in the hell don't you just come out and state clearly how you feel about Savage? Stop using these wussish, uncertain ambiguitues, drop the ambivilance, and tell us how you really feel! |
Ok, really, the guy has a couple of useful things going for him; might make fairly good maggot bait. And he might serve quite well as the outlet hose of a septic tank pump -- seems he has a lot of experience at that. But from there, I draw a blank as blank as Savage's sense of community and his talent for communication. He's Limbaugh in withdrawal; Coulter with a yeast infection. He sows discord to no purpose beyond discord itself, fluffing his ego with his own, pointless anger. Like a vicious dog, he snaps and snarls, but brace him and he'll dive for the covering darkness underneath the porch. But don't get your hopes up; he goes to some lengths to ensure that he'll never be braced nor even called out. You'll never meet him closer than a length of telephone line.
Doesn't lend a hell of a lot of credence to his loyal listeners, does it?
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2008 : 06:11:16 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by chaloobi
Is that an unintentional argument for a return to the fairness doctrine? |
Not at all. It is at best a subtle call for someone to figure out how to make a talk show about rationality be as (or more) popular as the dreck Michael Savage spews. (If I had that answer, I'd be a rich, rich man right now.) I'm enough of a free-marketer to think that entertainment should be allowed to rise or fall at the consumers' behests. Regulating fairness in talk shows will simply make them even more contrived and only the truly masochistic will listen to either side.
But really, the best one could hope for out of this situation is that letters are written to the advertisers and underwriters who support Savage's show, trying to get those companies with directors who know autistic kids to pull their ads.
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IMHO I'd like to see the fairness doctrine returned. The theory behind it's abandonment was that there were plenty of media outlets in every market for people to get alternative opinions. Except people don't listen to news/talk radio that way. Since my earliest memories, my father has been listening to WJR in Detroit all day long. He listened to it at work, before he retired, and at home. Every time I visit, it's always on in the background.
Until the mid 1990's, when WJR picked up Rush Limbaugh, my father was a moderate conservative. He's been a frothing at the mouth conservative nut-job for about 12 years now and for a while I could not understand what the hell happened. I remember being taken totally by surprise - it was a rather sudden switch in manner and opinion. I didn't know at first he'd been listening to Rush and Savage and Hannity and whoever the hell else all day long. People who think these assholes are just entertainers and don't affect real people's real ideas and opinions are kidding themselves. It's insidious and very effective and I feel certain it underlies the major shift in American politics to the extreme right we've seen in the last 20 years.
In 1984, Limbaugh returned to radio as a talk show host at KFBK in Sacramento, California, where he replaced Morton Downey, Jr.[4] The repeal of the Fairness Doctrine which had required that stations provide free air time for responses to any controversial opinions that were broadcast by the FCC in 1987 meant stations could broadcast editorial commentary without having to present opposing views. Daniel Henninger wrote, in a Wall Street Journal editorial, "Ronald Reagan tore down this wall (the Fairness Doctrine) in 1987...and Rush Limbaugh was the first man to proclaim himself liberated from the East Germany of liberal media domination." [9]
On August 1, 1988, after achieving success in Sacramento and drawing the attention of a former president of ABC Radio, Edward F. McLaughlin, Limbaugh moved to New York City and began his national radio show. His show debuted just weeks after the Democratic National Convention, and just weeks before the Republican National Convention. Limbaugh's radio home in New York City was the talk-format station WABC-AM, 770 AM, and continues to this day as his flagship station.[4] |
Source: Rush Limbaugh article on Wikipedia. |
-Chaloobi
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2008 : 07:32:42 [Permalink]
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An update: Savage Stands by Autism Remarks
By JACQUES STEINBERG
Published: July 22, 2008
Michael Savage, the incendiary radio host who last week characterized nearly every child with autism as a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out, said in a telephone interview on Monday that he stood by his remarks and had no intention of apologizing to those advocates and parents who have called for his firing over the matter.
Skip to next paragraph My main point remains true, Mr. Savage, whose radio audience ranks in size behind only those of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, said in the interview. It is an overdiagnosed medical condition. In my readings, there is no definitive medical diagnosis for autism.
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Evidently, Savage has lost an advertizer or so over it. But yet, he remains an unapologetic intellectual dwarf, so common amongst the right-wing media.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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| Edited by - filthy on 07/22/2008 07:36:10 |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2008 : 08:35:39 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
An update: Savage Stands by Autism Remarks
By JACQUES STEINBERG
Published: July 22, 2008
Michael Savage, the incendiary radio host who last week characterized nearly every child with autism as a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out, said in a telephone interview on Monday that he stood by his remarks and had no intention of apologizing to those advocates and parents who have called for his firing over the matter.
Skip to next paragraph My main point remains true, Mr. Savage, whose radio audience ranks in size behind only those of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, said in the interview. It is an overdiagnosed medical condition. In my readings, there is no definitive medical diagnosis for autism.
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Evidently, Savage has lost an advertizer or so over it. But yet, he remains an unapologetic intellectual dwarf, so common amongst the right-wing media.
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He's trying to move that Overton Window away from medical funding to help people with Autistic children, and like diseases no doubt. (Thanks guys for putting a name to the concept). Indeed, it's probably much broader - move the window in US culture away from compassion toward people in need. Monstrous. |
-Chaloobi
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| Edited by - chaloobi on 07/22/2008 08:37:18 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2008 : 10:17:49 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by chaloobi
He's trying to move that Overton Window away from medical funding to help people with Autistic children, and like diseases no doubt. (Thanks guys for putting a name to the concept). Indeed, it's probably much broader - move the window in US culture away from compassion toward people in need. Monstrous. |
Towards poeple in need? Probably towards "we all pay less in taxes." |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2008 : 12:52:16 [Permalink]
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It ain't gonna happen but I like seeing them try. If nothing else, it'll give Savage (nee' Weiner, if what I've read is correct) bit of discomfort. The radio program of conservative "shock jock" Michael Savage has been canceled by one Mississippi network following his controversial claim that autism is almost always the result of "a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out."
"They don't have a father around to tell them, 'Don't act like a moron," Savage went on during his July 16 broadcast. "You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. ... Don't act like a girl. Don't cry."
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If that isn't the spit & image of a putz, and a pathetic one, tell me what is...
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Disease on the Rise or Fraud?
