I agree, it’s really for African-Americans to make the call whether they find it racist and offensive because it is that particular group which is targeted by the song. It’s not for either Limbaugh or me to say whether it is “racist” or not.

In the wake of the Imus scandal, Limbaugh’s actions do seem deliberately provocative. It is not as if the song makes a proper political point about Obama’s policies or anything like that, as far as I can work out. It just aims to offend and provoke.

Yes, sometimes claims of racism are used in a way which is disingenuous - your post about OJ Simpson claiming he’d not been served in a restaurant because he was black provides an example. I find OJ’s use of the “race card” cynical and awful as a whole. It detracts from those who have genuinely been discriminated against, and he does all African-Americans a great disservice, to my mind, because he allows people like Limbaugh to argue “Oh, racism is just a trumped-up claim.”

I forget, sometimes, that desegregation in the US only occurred relatively recently, along with the civil rights movement.

I have a hard time with a white person deciding what is or what is not “racist” or whether racism even exists. How in the hell would they know? (I’m “white” by the way). Of course, the claim of racism is used sometimes to bully, and intimidate. So are many issuess, but to use that as a reason to dismiss the issues altogether is nonsense. Some women falsely report rapes, does that mean all rapes are “falsely reported”?

The Right Wing in America has taken up the slack from the Democrats and are now the party that panders to racists in this country. Until the 1960’s, and the Civil Rights Amendment, that role was filled by Democrats. The amendment split the party and is a big reason, over the past 40 years, there has been a shift by the “Red States” away from the Democratic Party. In the South, there are still many people who remain angry over the Civil War.

I like the idea of your song.

We used to watch DangerMouse when we were kids - can’t remember my favourite episode clearly - but I do remember the thousands of Penfolds from the replication machine. And Penfold saying “Aw crumbs!”

Bruce,

If I were a political cartoonist, I’d love to draw the PM in a Penfoldesque manner. Politicians must be used to cartoons which exaggerate their worst characteristics! It’s part of the job description.

The latter is more funny (humor being relative of course). Actually, I can almost invisage the PM not minding the latter.

Freedom of speech is great, but there has to be a line somewhere. Well, unless we’re talking about me, and then there should be no line.

I say let him have his songs, and let the world decide for themselves. It definitely gives you insight to the kind of people who listen to and “resepect” him. A bloody high school drop-out, drug addict.

My favorite Danger Mouse episode was when Penfold got into a replication machine and there were thousands of Penfolds. I miss that cartoon.

All we get now are commercials disguised as cartoons.

Yes, I agree - the corollary of freedom of speech is that I have the freedom to say that I think Limbaugh’s song is stupid and puerile. If I really wanted to, I could even make a song called “Rush Limbaugh the idiotic loser” in response. (Not my style, but it would serve him right).

I must confess here in Australia I haven’t watched the presidential candidacy race so closely. I think there are more candidates than Clinton and Obama, but I don’t know who they are - the media has concentrated on those two.

I would not judge either of them on the basis of being female or black. As I said in a comment above, I don’t have any personal feelings yet about either of them as human beings. Just because the candidates are female or black doesn’t mean they are good candidates! Not at all. But I tend towards the Democrat candidates because I don’t like the Republicans and to my mind, anyone has to be better than Bush (white, black, female, male, gay, straight, you name it).

Nevertheless I’m pleased by any sign of diversity in the presidential race, because that diversity reflects the true diversity of the electorate. My hope is that a different approach might come from a person from a different background.

Still, that might be a vain hope. In my young and naive days, when I lived in the UK, my neo-Marxist friend was ranting about Margaret Thatcher. I hadn’t lived there long, and didn’t know much about UK politics. “But surely as a feminist you would think that it’s good to have a female Prime Minister?” I said, innocently. She just looked at me. She was judging Thatcher not on her “femaleness” but on her performance and policies. That’s how it should be.

As I have said over and over on this blog, I think it is important to judge people by their actions towards others, not by their religion, race, gender, sexuality, politics or anything else.

LE

Tolerate? Not at all.

Allow? All of it.

The whole point of freedom of speech is that you WILL hear things that you disagree with. You WILL be offended. This is guaranteed.

But in return, you have the right to call that speech offensive, or racist, or intolerant. If enough people agree with you, then the original speaker is marginalised. If the speaker is working for someone else (say a radio station), and their employer feels that their speech is detrimental to the business, they can be removed.

Supporting peoples rights is always easy when you are not affected. The trick is supporting other people’s right to do things that piss you off.

I’m disturbed by the nascent sexism/racism that is ‘I can’t choose whether to vote for the black or the woman’. How about you look at their policies, and judge them as human beings.

I knew that there was something about drugs and Limbaugh, but wasn’t quite sure of the nature of it.

So he’s a hypocrite as well as a schmuck.

Definitely some serious self-hatred going on there - but that doesn’t excuse him lashing out unfairly at other people too.

LE