Just because they disagree with you? Something wrong with being a 'traditionalist,' a 'conservative,' or a plain values person? If you want to make the point that the rhetoric gets shrill, I'd certainly agree. But their audience comes from somewhere. SOME people want more traditional values. I don't see anything wrong with giving voice to that.

wc, your logic is tragically flawed.

It's hard to imagine a country more torn than it has been over the last eight years, and, through it all, those vicious talking heads have been raking it in.

Truth be told, I've come to believe their real job is to make it possible for the religious right to go on believing they are, indeed, right.

I don't think Rush, et al are the be-all and end-all to the belief of the religious right, but your subjectivity is certainly showing. The Dems have their trash talk radio, also. They sell a product, and just like The Examiner, The Globe, The Enquirer, Access Hollywood, etc., have their following. It boils down to what people will listen to, watch and buy. This is not the media's fault, it's "we the people" who are buying into their irreverent raves and who can't get enough of the feeding frenzy of gossip columnists, magazines and TV.

Why do you think people love the Palin baby stories, love the name-calling, and salacious tales and gossip fodder with no real facts for confirmation? Personally, if I were to "fear" anything, it would be the subjective gutter minds of our country's citizens.

It's such a shame that you are spot on in your analysis. These merchants of doom and gloom are not happy unless they have a bogeyman to scream about. Their own lives are probably disasters and they are only happy when they are scaring everyone into following their rants as if they knew what they were talking about. Money pours in for their efforts making them believe that they are really all that important.

What is more unfortunate is that their listeners want to have something to take their minds off their own dreary and meaningless lives.

I used to ask clients to start every session by telling me what they did since the last session to make the world a better place. Most of them got what I was aiming at - when you take your mind off your own problems and do something for someone else, your problems no longer look so grand and important.

I remember one time a client who had an otherwise easy life of wealth and freedom from responsiblility came in complaining because his dog had deficated on his aubisson carpet. During the week since I had last seen him, my son had died suddenly. I decided not to tell him because he was the kind of person whose own problems, trivial though they might have been, were more important to him than if an earthquake had swallowed Kansas. What goes around comes around. He is now a resident of Club Fed. He was caught cooking the books of his Fortune Five Hundred Company! Well, he didn't do it personally. Like everything else in his life, he ordered someone else to do the dirty work!

Some people will never get it and they will always be fair game for the Rush Limbaughs of the world because he makes them feel like their trivial pursuits are sooooo important in the scheme of things.

I guess you still listen to AM music stations. FM is much better for music.

Or does your radio dial not have an FM band?

Radio was actually made for news and entertainment, like The Lone Ranger, Milton Berle and those guys.

http://www.radiolovers.com/

Scarecrow, I agree...lets go back to that :)

Your definition of "traditional" values may not be the same as mine. And therein lies the problem. I am tired of this "if you are not with us, then you are against us" attitude. Too divisive for me--and for the country.