„I`m sorry some of my people broke toilets in the BIA. Some of our young bucks are just a bit over-exuberant. Doesn`t it resemble the senseless slaughter of the buffalo? But I`m sure those urinals and washbowls will be replaced.
Has anyone ever thought of how our early Native Americans felt when the millions of game, birds, and all the beautiful wildlife were just as exactly destroyed, but never to be replaced? If you restore our natural land and wildlife, maybe we`ll forgive you and fix your toilets.“
– Martin SenecaRush Limbaugh: Anti-Indian Propaganda With a Smile
The Angryindian
Since the beginning of the year, the characteristically ill-tempered disposition of the avowed right-wing American corporate punditry apparatus has been dealing with unusual media watchdog scrutiny for their vociferous disdain for everything from political correctness to non-European immigration. This conservatives say this is evidence of a vast liberal, sometimes communistic left-wing conspiracy to destroy America from within. A war it seems that is continually ongoing and always teetering on the edge of utter disaster for true-blue red-blooded heterosexual Christian Americans. The U.S. media mainstream as a whole has been duly demonstrated to be firmly ensconced in this all-encompassing organism of aggressive Europocentric paradigms and they extend far beyond its admittedly one-dimensional focus. It is nearly impossible to find programming that has not been filtered in one way or another through Europocentric cheesecloth to render the material, often than not peppered with decidedly non-European elements, more palatable to sensitive White racialist pathologies.
Mired within the bounds of this colonialist culture of European socio-political entitlement and sub-continental ethnocentric pre-eminence exists the cable-channel personalities and AM talk-radio hosts that claim to „speak for the common man“ and go on to express that imaginary partisan demographic to a global audience on a national media platform that like it or not, empirically represent internationally a perception of American social realities, not its marginalising and race-based silent modus operandi.
Especially when it concerns First Nations peoples indigenous to North America.
While American Indians serving in the colonial U.S. military forces are being killed in Iraq assisting White America in the takeover of yet another nation of brown and significantly poor people sitting atop the rich natural resources western capitalists can`t seem to live without, the high-priest of White capitalist propaganda insulted Indigenous peoples and dismissed the looming danger of climate change with one pusillanimous wave of his racist hand.
On his nationally syndicated November 5th radio programme, neo-conservative advocate Rush Limbaugh reported to his loyalist ditto-headed radio rabble that protecting Aboriginal territories from the damage of global warming is not only a waste of effort, but is only playing into the hands of „Crying Indians“ whining because their „homelands“ are melting away. (1)
After the airing of a selection of testimony by Cheryl Charlee Lockwood, Yup‘ik , an Alaska Youth for Environmental Action program representative addressing the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, Limbaugh mocked the speaker who was giving an emotive plea to the committee saying:
„A lot of communities in trouble over a lot of things. Go to New Orleans. How about losing homes? Wah, wah — sorry. I‘m just reminded here of the old — remember the old television PSA that used to run back in the old days when we were kids? Iron Eyes Cody (2), the Indian — the Native American, sorry — standing by the roadside as, you know, worthless Americans drive by on the way to their trailer parks and so forth, and throwing trash out of the window of the car — and they zero-in on Iron Eyes Cody, a founder of the country, a true founder — a Native American. Turns out he wasn‘t — he was an actor, made up. But, doesn‘t matter. A little tear starts rolling down his cheek over what the white Europeans have done to his country. This stuff is — it‘s oppressive. It‘s always been around.“
Limbaugh finally ended his racist tirade with:
„Nobody wants a child to cry. It‘s just an attempt here to tug at people‘s heartstrings. And, you know, to do whatever we can to make sure the child stops crying. And what do we gotta do? Well, we gotta stop global warming so the child‘s spiritual connection to her homeland and her communities and so forth doesn‘t melt away into the Arctic. But we‘ve all had to move for a host of reasons.“
Enough is enough. The Inteligentaindigena Indigenismo Novajoservo blog http://angryindian.blogspot.com/2007/11/boycott-rush-limbaugh.html
is calling for a nationwide boycott of the Rush Limbaugh radio show (3) by the Native American community and all people who give a damn about accountability in media. I am calling on Native Americans to have enough respect for ourselves to stand up and call those who use such tactics to insult and diminish Aboriginal peoples and our struggles what they are. And I am also calling on White Americans to prove their professed detestation of anti-Indian racism and treaty rights by turning Limbaugh off.
Information provided by: Media Matters.org
Rush Limbaugh
rush@eibnet.com
Premiere Radio Networks
Premiere Radio Networks, Inc.
15260 Ventura Blvd. 5th Floor
Sherman Oaks, CA 91403
Main: (818)377-5300
Fax: (818)377-5333
Toll Free: (800)533-8686
The Rush Limbaugh Show
1-800-282-2882
rush@eibnet.com
fax: 212-563-9166
The Rush Limbaugh Show
1270 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
—————————————————-
This is not the first time Limbaugh has attacked Native Americans. During a taping of his short-lived television show some years ago, I remember watching him present his version of „Uncle Tomahawk“, a caricature depicting a thick lipped and bug-eyed person of mixed Africa/Native America ancestry dancing in an outfit adorned by bones, beads and topped by a Plains Indian war bonnet. I was not amused but his studio audience could stop laughing and they continued to chuckle until the middle of the next segment.
Recently during his August 17th broadcast of his radio show, Limbaugh referred to Native Americans as „Injuns“ (4) suggesting that Aboriginal Hawaiian nationalists seeking passage of the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act (5) or the ‘Akaka Bill` of „…Simply trying to duplicate the actions taken by the American injuns, and get themselves set up so they have casinos over there?“
That`s just one illustration of the madness of Rush Limbaugh. Jose‘ Barreiro writing for Indian Country Today points out that Mr. Limbaugh has a long history of disparaging Aboriginals on his radio show (6) from stating that „The American Indians were meaner to themselves than anybody was ever mean to them“ to, „The people were savages. It‘s true, they damn well were. Scalping people.“
The expected „responsible“ retort to such blatant ethnic bias by White males in mainsteam media is to say how misguided and wrongheaded Mr. Limbaugh is, to call for his immediate upbraiding perhaps even his firing and the usual pleas for „let`s all come together“ posturing rather than let`s all address the real problems of White privilege and power in America and the colonial situation of North American First Nations inclusive of our ancestral connection and claim to our environment. As Mr. Barreiro makes clear in his award winning editorial, the animosity is two-fold and serves more than one purpose:
„What Limbaugh is doing is transparent. It is part of the lining up of forces. Since Native peoples` issues often and naturally coincide with environmental concerns, Native peoples themselves must be attacked. As environmentalists are increasingly recognizing, interest in Native peoples and causes offers a convergence point where ecological issues can be creatively conceived. Native peoples` traditions are not made up by counter-culturalists or academic theorists – they are long-standing human ways that speak to the relationship to the natural world and can form the core of a realistic discussion among broad sectors of the population. Native traditional knowledge is sometimes abused or trivialized, but it is now widely accepted as a base on which to develop a true environmental philosophy.“
So by disparaging Native claims to the right of existence, Limbaugh also dismisses as preposterous any sensible regard for environmental concerns that affect us all.
I go further. Since it is ridiculous to disassociate the existence of blatant anti-Indian bias in his remarks over the years, his reference to non-Native actor Iron-Eyes Cody as a literal representative of the „bogus“ claims Aboriginals rightfully possess to pre-Columbian America should be seen for what it is. I maintain that even if climate change were not a concern, Limbaugh along with Michael Medved and others would still employ American revisionist ju-jitsu to the history of the European presence in the Americas with all the grace of a jitterbugging Gestapo officer. (7)
Instead of kissing NIKE`s Southeast Asian slave-using arses in gratitude for „Air Native“ (8), or basking in the glow of colonialist empire-building while at your cousin`s military funeral, spend ten minutes to consider how much longer Native people must endure insult after insult after insult from the White establishment. We have lost everything to the European onslaught. Our lands, our languages, our identities have all fallen to the wayside for the convenience of White folks. We dress like them, eat like them and pray like them. We fight for them before we fight for ourselves, we argue on their behalf when their integrity is brought into question and we ignorantly honour their flag at our gatherings before Grand Entry even begins. On top of this we all aside from a small population of Dine` elders speak English and even Ebonics when necessary. So the question remains, why are White people still not satisfied?
How much more must the Indian swallow to appease the Great White Father? Do we not die for you? Do we not allow you to pretend that we never existed until you „saved us from ourselves“? Like the Africans ferried here to power the colonial economy, we have undergone 500 years of ethnic modification to please the Great White Father to no apparent effect. It is obvious that until the last real blood Indian is dead and the surviving populace of African males utterly destroyed, White society will never experience any peace within their consciousness abut how this menagerie they call American came to be. It clearly is a problem of the White conservative mind since they can`t seem to stop talking about how victimised they are by feminists, Gays, ethnic and religious minorities, immigrants and atheists just waiting to pounce on an unsuspecting yet divinely-inspired European race sent to the Americas by Providence to rescue the fertile un-used lands from those who did not know how to capitalise from it.
Non-Indian America, European America for the most part, endures a long and sordid history of laying blame for the abuse of marginalised populations on the targeted population subject to the maltreatment in the first place. If the Indians were not „Indian“ it has been said, there would be no problem. In socio-political terms the ramifications of such attitudes, freely expressed across a wide swath of media, qualifies the domination of First Nations peoples and resources by Europeans or their proxy and reinforces the colonialist proviso of ultimate control over Native peoples and populations without reservation, (pun intended). Presenting the „known“ world pedagogically as one in which White power is as natural and inevitable as the sunrise and theologically mandated by the European-version of an ancient Palestinian Rabbi`s politically revolutionary cult and you have all the ingredients for a race-based colonialist state that can promote one version of human liberty abroad while hypocritically denying human rights to a people forced to endure ethnic and moral capitulation as a reality of day to day existence.
Such sentiments emanate from an unquestioned and complex institutional assumption of dominance that is tenaciously adhered to by oppressor and oppressed alike. Even amongst the conjectural „liberal“ threat neo-conservatives whine about incessantly and irritatingly, the alchemic concentration on equalisation and tolerance within colonial-capitalist structures as opposed to a radical rooting of the base causes of such issues serves to perpetuate the very systems they seek to reform. Playing by the rules as laid out by the oppressor, liberals, White or otherwise, are really saying that the core of the system is correct, White people on top, others in a descending order populating the lower regions of the social hierarchy. It is presented as the only form of social organization that makes sense and chides suggestion of alternatives that contradict this uniquely Europocentric perspective.
Many will say that my analysis is greatly overstated and without context within the accepted barometers of traditional progressive circular discourse. This policy is as understated as it is vicious in that it also denies the Aboriginal realities of a desire for First Nations self-determination and freedom of semantic genocide by the town criers for an intolerant and fearful White mainstream. If the subject of Mr. Limbaugh`s invective were aimed at the testimony of a teenaged American Ashkenazi activist seeking to morally justify Israel`s war of genocide against Palestine`s Indigenous population the outcry would be deafening and the retribution swift. Insulting Aboriginals from Alaska only earns the stations that carry Limbaugh ad revenue and pats on the proverbial back from insecure White people not content with physically dominating the entire landmass.
It`s time to call White America on its rhetoric. Boycott Rush Limbaugh.
Since the White-owned and operated mainstream corporate media will not say anything to Limbaugh, we can. Boycott every station that airs this anti-Aboriginal bigot and those who continue to advertise on his shows. Spread the word that Natives and all people who give a damn about racial justice reject the racism promoted by Rush Limbaugh and his compatriots in American media.(9)
Form committees to inform, educate and discuss solutions to fighting institutional racism in media and the continual insult of negative media representation of Aboriginals. Discuss with your children the history of ethnic marginalisation and genocide and how these words relate to today‘s Indian people. Do not expect or plead for assistance from the non-Native community. Get your own thing together and stop the genocide.
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(1)
http://mediamatters.org/items/200711060006?f=i_related
(2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Eyes_Cody
(3)
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/
(4)
http://mediamatters.org/items/200508180006
(5)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akaka_Bill
(6)
http://www.rushlimbaughonline.com/articles/bigotshtick.htm
(7)
http://rushlimbaughshow.blogspot.com/2006/01/dittoheads-guide-to-adult-beverages.html
(8)
http://www.indianz.com/News/2007/005095.asp
(9)
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2005/050705paulharvey.htm