Drug-addicted (Limbaugh) mocks civically engaged young Alaskan

[marmar]

from Grist Magazine's Gristmill blog:



Just another day in the right-wing media
Drug-addicted philanderer mocks civically engaged young Alaskan

Posted by Nathan Wyeth at 5:06 PM on 06 Nov 2007


We already knew that right-wing commentator Mark Steyn of the National Review enjoys belittling children's health problems and that right-wing bloggers attacked Graeme Frost's family when he spoke up for children's health insurance. But it seems that being mean to kids is becoming a kind of bizarre hobby of the right-wing media.

This weekend, 5,500 students from across the nation came to the nation's capitol for Powershift 2007, the first national youth summit on climate change -- and the solutions to it. Yesterday, upwards of 3,000 people packed into the offices of members of Congress to press them for action to stop climate change with clean energy development that'll create 5 million new green-collar jobs. More on that in a later post.

Representative Ed Markey invited five young people to testify before the House Select Committee on Global Warming and Energy Independence, one of which was 18-year-old Cheryl Charlee Lockwood, a Yup'ik Eskimo from the community of St. Michaels on the Bering Sea. (Footage available here.)

Here's what she told the committee:

Just through my lifetime, I have seen so many changes in our community that it just hurts to not be able to have our -- it's really scary to live -- lose our tradition, our culture, and we've been living here for thousands of years.

Rush Limbaugh played her testimony on his radio show yesterday and proceeded to mock her:

The Republicans are going to cut my school lunch money, too. I don't know what to do, Congressman Markey. Wah, wah, wah, wah.

So, things that don't particularly concern Rush Limbaugh: Tradition. Traditional culture. Community. Family. Homeland. Yep -- he is really making some strong arguments here. He's a parody of himself:

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.

Some people might come to that conclusion, yes. But here's the most important thing: Limbaugh said all this to accuse the Democrats of "exploiting children" to further their agenda -- although Cheryl is an 18-year-old adult, not a child. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/11/6/145140/186

[Wapsie B]

1. So it would be safe to say that she's not in a key gop demographic.

If she was a fundie Pigboy would be fawning all over her. I applaud her for testifying. Good for her!

[Canuckistanian]

3. She had never even heard of him before

But when asked, she said that she was taught not to disparage others.

What a classy response!

[riverdeep]

2. There are times when I wish I believed in Hell.

This is one of them. To think of the Limp one being tormented throughout eternity like the Hell scene from the Hieronymus Bosch painting, would be sweet.