I'm told I need to have compassion for Rush Limbaugh. He's dying of cancer. Everyone's dying of something and yet millions of people don't make their livings being racist, sexist asshats on a daily basis. Sorry, I'll save my compassion for someone who deserves it. Maybe kids in cages on our border…or the families of high school students who don't come home because some mentally ill person has easy access to a weapon of war….or maybe our soldiers who we send off to do our dirty work and then frequently abandon when they come home damaged. Rush Limbaugh has spent his life's work saying reprehensible things about people…and now I'm supposed to have compassion for him? Yeah, I'll get right on that. Father Matthew Fox, a Catholic priest wrote an open letter to Limbaugh this week. Considering Rush was right back to his homophobic ways this week, I'm betting that it will all be dust in the wind.
Dear Mr Limbaugh,
Here we are at a low point in the history of American democracy and on the eve of the acquittal of Mr Trump from wrongdoing by a compliant Senate that seems as married to the god Chronos (who ate his children as all climate-deniers are doing) and to the idolatry of power. And the news comes out that you are facing a showdown with cancer.
Jeick
at
English Wikipedia
.
As human being to human being, I feel for your struggle ahead but of course we all live our lives and do our work in the knowing of our mortality and the coming of death. Only now it is becoming more real for you surely (and for me too since I am entering my 80th year and that too is a reminder of my own mortality).
As a priest I am with you in this latest journey of yours.
But I also want to invite you, as you look back on your life and work (and so much of our lives is our work) to consider making these last months on earth the most useful possible. You might want to consider leaving behind some
healing
and
gifting
to balance out the immense amount of division-making and hatred, shaming and name-calling of others that you have built your sad but profitable career on.
Clearly you are a gifted individual but clearly also you have not used your gifts to spread healing or love or justice. There is a certain karma in hearing about your present condition on the eve of the fake acquittal in a sham trial of a president who, with your urging and cheerleading for years, has shown his complete disregard for truth and for human respect, for future generations (by denying climate change) and for our constitution which he clearly violated time and time again.
One can make a list of your tirades over the decades (see
http://www.msnbc.com/politicsnation/rush-limbaughs-most-outrageous-moments-25
) One that sticks out to me is your calling feminists “feminazis” which may make for clever radio parlance but which reveals a very sick sense of masculine superiority and violence against women seeking their god-given wisdom and freedom.
What most stands out is the primal role you have played in creating the divide that now exists in the body politics of our country. A divide completely at work in the current Senate sham impeachment trial. Your decades of spewing hate and division over the airwaves is now bearing its poisoned fruit. Yes, your party now owns the senate and therefore the impeachment future of our president but unfortunately their ethics will mirror yours just as Mr. Trump’s do.
You are not alone of course but you and your ilk created Trump in the sense that you spread the message of Resentment throughout this country for decades. A friend of mine years ago drove across the country and said there were often times when he could not get NPR on the radio—but there was
no place
where he could not get Limbaugh on the radio.
No doubt that news may feed your ego. But dying is of course about letting one’s ego go so now might be the right time to reflect on your life from a more-than-ego viewpoint. What you are leaving behind is a lot of wreckage. You may want to repent of that and get your (inner) house in order before you leave us. Consider all the copycats that have cashed in on your wayward ways beginning with Rupert Murdoch who has brought your notion of Hate Radio to his Fox News Channel so now we have Hate Television too. And a propaganda tool—just like Hitler and Goebbels created for their Resentment Agenda—disguised as Fox News.
What does it mean to be dying knowing that you have left such institutions of Hatred behind you that will supposedly flourish wherever the idolatry of money reigns, and where lies and falsehood hold sway over truth?
What might you do to cleanse your soul before you die? There are many options and you, being an intelligent and creative person, can surely come up with your own. But here are a few suggestions:
- Why not go on the air and apologize for the Hatred and Divisions and Lies you have spread?
- Why not go on the air and apologize for the racism and sexism and homophobia you have spread?
-
Why not leave your mansion to the homeless and poor to live in after you are gone just as Pope Francis just did by taking a nineteenth century castle near the Vatican and turned it into a home for the homeless? (see
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/19th-century-vatican-palace-turned-homeless-shelter-pope-francis-behest-n1123246
) - Why not take some of your ill-gotten millions of dollars in wealth made off of a media success story built on Hatred and Resentment and bequeath it to some non-profits who are doing good work on behalf of the poor?
- Why not go on the air and apologize for demeaning science and future generations of humans and more-than-humans and admit your sins of denial about climate change? Read Pope Francis (whom, as bullies do, you called a “Marxist”) for his encyclical “Laudato Si” that warned us all about climate change.
There is so much you can be doing that flows from facing your own life story and learning, in the face of death, as you become “stripped to the literal substance of yourself before God,” as Howard Thurman puts it, that much of your life has been a sorry excuse for a human being. That your many talents were not put to good use but to evil use.
It is never too late to change your ways. That’s what choice promises. Why not die with a smile on your face? The smile of love triumphing over hate and truth over lies? The future of your planet taking precedence over silly games of one-up-man-ship and egoism and advanced reptilian brain syndrome? This might make your next journey far more meaningful and helpful to others than your present one has been.
Dying is a time to take stock. Use your remaining time wisely.
Best wishes that your journey deepens,
Sincerely,
Matthew Fox,
fellow human and your elder
Some stories to piss you off today…..
The mis-information campaign to re-elect the President. Read it
here
You probably already know Trump is profiting off his presidency.
What you might not know—because it’s never been reported in one place—is how every corner of Trump’s administration has enabled it.
We found 19 policies. Seriously, read them all
:
https://citizensforethics.org/trump-administratio…
“The rule of law is a construct. It was made by people — and is nurtured and preserved by people. It can also be destroyed by people…. we either safeguard it or we surrender it. That's the choice.” -Chuck Rosenberg
https://washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/12/thi…
“The Rule of Law is gasping for breath, being suffocated by Trump and his personal henchman Bill Barr. Not even a pretense of legality. They’re doing it because they can. It’s raw, naked, unprincipled, immoral power.”Lawrence Tribe
https://twitter.com/politicususa/status/1227406080…
.”Friends, I cannot overstate how dangerous this is. Under William Barr's stewardship, the Justice Department has become nothing more than a political tool for Trump to wield against his enemies and withdraw against his friends. This is how dictatorships are built.”-Robert Reich
“Bottom line. Donald Trump ordered our Attorney General to go easy on Roger Stone. Remember. Stone is the guy with the Nixon tattoo who lied to Congress and threatened to kill a witness’s dog. All for Trump. All coverup the Trump campaign links to Russia.”-Jennifer Taub
https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/122764241865006…
“If the issues that @BernieSanders has been raising have such broad appeal, why then is he considered “too liberal”? The answer has a lot to do with how he’s covered by media outlets that often go out of their way to portray Sanders as “too extreme.”-John Nichols
https://thenation.com/article/politics/bernie-sand…
“The mistake that AG Barr and the @SenateGOP and all his colleagues and staff including the many currently in prison made is that a person who demands blind loyalty is always the least loyal person on sweet sweet planet Earth.”-Sarah Silverman
“It’s really missing the story to say that Trump is interfering for his friends. He’s interfering for Stone and Manafort, the two top witnesses who went to jail rather than tell what they know about Trump, Russia, and Wikileaks.”-Jesse Lee
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrum
Important fact getting lost:
“Trump moved Jessie Lui out as US attorney in DC in January to nominate her for another position. AG Barr moved in a close crony Timothy Shea who will preside over Flynn, Stone and cases against Trump’s enemies. Trump pulled Lui nom yesterday.”-Amy Siskind
“William Barr’s stupid theory of executive power leads to the absurd result where @TheJusticeDept is no longer carrying out justice; rather it is carrying out the whims of one man, @realDonaldTrump. The Justice Department should change its name to The Corruption Department.”-Ted Lieu
https://twitter.com/joycewhitevance/status/1227343…
“Warren is the only candidate hammering Trump’s criminality and that’s why the media can’t deal with her because running her speeches involves confronting how we have all allowed organized crime to swallow us all alive, we were so naïve to think we were immune to the mafia.”-David Warren
https://twitter.com/proudresister/status/12274708…
“Elizabeth Warren has the third most delegates (8) after Buttigieg (23) & Sanders (21). Some 99.9% of black & brown voters haven’t voted yet. It takes 2,376 of 4,750 delegates to win the nomination. Can pundits please slow down the pronouncements on the outcome based on Iowa & NH?”-Steven Beschloss
“Rush Limbaugh calls Trump “Mr. Man,” while mocking Pete Buttigieg for being gay. Last I checked, sexuality doesn’t make a man. All I know is that “Mr. Man,” was so much of a sissy that he faked bone spurs while “that gay guy,” was risking his life fighting for America.”-Ms. Krassenstein
