I just don’t understand the level of hate and vitriol that hurls out of Michael Savage’s mouth. This man, whose radio show The Savage Nation has over 8 million people tuning in to hear his filth each week, unleashed this beyond-the-pale horror yesterday (Media Matters):
SAVAGE: “San Francisco police are trying to determine whether the slaying of a transgender victim found naked near the Interstate 280 freeway is somehow linked to reports of a nude woman seen walking on the same freeway two hours later, authorities said. … [San Francisco police inspector Karen] Lynch said it appeared the victim had been in the process of becoming a woman.” Yeah, process of becoming a woman — psychopath, should have been in a back ward in a straitjacket for years, howling on major medication.Savage was signed by Hollywood firm Creative Artists Agency (CAA) but was dropped like a hot potato after he went on a diatribe about Melissa Etheridge and gay families raising children.…And what’s this sympathy, constant sympathy for sexually confused people? Why should we have constant sympathy for people who are freaks in every society? I didn’t say hurt the freaks. I didn’t say do anything to the freaks.
But you know what? You’re never gonna make me respect the freak. I don’t want to respect the freak. The freak ought to be glad that they’re allowed to walk around without begging for something. You know, I’m sick and tired of the whole country begging, bending over backwards for the junkie, the freak, the pervert, the illegal immigrant. All of them are better than everybody else. Sick. Everything is upside down.
Seriously, I want to know what sponsors think it’s great to have their ads heard alongside this crap? Yes, he’s the third highest-rated radio talker behind OxyRush and Hannity, but damn, this is bottom-feeder stuff.
Related:
* Michael Savage: same sex marriage, child-rearing, ‘makes me want to puke’
From Media Matters, some of the Best of Savage:
* On MLK Day, Savage called civil rights a “racket” designed to steal “white males’ birthright”
* Savage on the link between “the homosexualization of the media” and our descent “to a level below that of the apes”
* Savage: To “save the United States,” lawmakers should institute “outright ban on Muslim immigration” and on “the construction of mosques”
* Savage: Michael Richards’ “tirade” demonstrates “what liberalism really is”
* Olbermann awarded Savage “Worst Person” for claiming anti-gay remark will appear “in several of the blogs run by gays,” whom he compared to “drug addicts”
Hat tip, SuzyQ.
40 Responses to “Michael Savage calls transgender murder victim a ‘psychopath’ and a ‘freak’”
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Damn, and I was just about to become his 8,000,001st reader.
This is why I was touched when Michael Savage called for me and my fellow Minnesota Monitor reporters to be deported. Anytime Michael Savage hates you, you’re a-ok.
“…I didn’t say hurt the freaks. I didn’t say do anything to the freaks.”
See, he’s not such a bad guy. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone just for them to be ostracized, forcibly locked up and drugged against their will. (/sarcasm)
“You know, I’m sick and tired of the whole country begging, bending over backwards for the junkie, the freak, the pervert, the illegal immigrant. All of them are better than everybody else. Sick. Everything is upside down.”
If only he’d added communists and/or Arabs to his list, I think this might be the prototypical wingnut rant, which should be put under glass for study. It’s angry, fueled by hatred of those who’ve negatively affected Savage’s ‘life’ by simply exisiting, it’s illogical, it’s meant to excite self-pity in ‘regular folks,’ it gets brown people in there somewhere. It’s perfect.
I’m going to have to start lifting in order to slap this man as hard as he needs to be slapped.
I apoligize for being off topic, but I’m kind of surprised no one here at the Pandagon posted about SPR’s new report: “Prisoner Rape and the War on Drugs”.
http://www.spr.org/pdf/StoriesFromInside032207.pdf
http://www.spr.org/en/pressreleases/2007/03_22_07.asp
Michael Savage constanly mewls about “freaks”.
And yet conservatives are allowed to be out of the rubber room.
Michael Savage accusing someone of being a psychopath and a freak is akin to Rush Limbaugh accusing someone of being an addict…
Savage used the word “psychopath” wrongly. A psychopath is someone without a conscience. I think Savage fits that definition better than that. poor transwoman.
Jeez…Monster.
I really didn’t know that crew
had even approached this-far-gone abysmal.
Bull-throated rage, Full unleash’d hate.
I don’t even want to think about the blackened soul, what’s left.
[I’m generally happy…this stuff is stark]
This is proof that socially acceptable hate sells.
This is also a good example of why laissez faire capitalism is a bad thing. If all you’re concerned about is “does it make money?” then you’re willing to peddle poison and call it Kool-Aid. (Or, I suppose, in this case, insist that it’s not Kool-Aid.)
it’s not savage that i get pissed off with when i hear these outrageous stories about him frequently, because honestly i really think most of what comes out of his mouth is bullshit that even he doesn’t really believe in. i mean, seriously, listen to his show sometime. it’s actually really funny at some points, because the amount of absurdity that he asks his listeners to accept on a minute by minute basis when listening to him is almost too much for a rational brain to comprehend.
he is so far past a rational person, that he almost exists as some sort of uber absurd hybrid personality.
but the thing is, he knows it’s going to draw a lot of listeners and is going to make him even richer.
no, the people to get pissed off at when this stuff happens are the countless idiots who listen to him tim and again and scream ‘DAMN RIGHT!’ at the top of their self-hating lungs.
*headdesk*
So infuriating. Maybe some kind of letter writing campaign to the sponsors/asshats who advertise beside his show?
Or maybe we put him in in a female body and see how he copes when people are quite adamant he’s actually, really a woman, and could you think otherwise, you silly freak?
Gah. Where do these people come from?
It’s the same temper tantrum over and over from “conservatives” like Hannity: I just wanna hate. Why can’t I just hate and abuse the marginalized and powerless? I know it’s wrong… but it feels so right! If I’m not automatically entitled to privilege for being white and male, at least let me have the hate.
The thing that always gets me is that not so deep down, they *know* they’re sad and wrong.
lyle said:
Agreed, but I’d say less “pissed off” and more “scared”. He loves to say things like “America is a white, Christian nation, and we need to keep it that way”, but I think a lot of what he says is a sort of guerrilla art, seeing how far the rational discourse can be pushed without snapping altogether. For all his religion and race-bating, for example, he’s still cultural Jewish, and his constant rants about the sanctity and importance of the (Christian) Bible conflict with the fact that he is not himself Christian.
His audience that buys into these things doesn’t piss me off. They scare me. The only rational response to the violence and hatred he encourages is to turn it off, and the fact that 8 million people don’t is very worrisome. If we end up a fascist society, his listeners will be out front.
big love to the Freak®. get your Freak on. that’s what i say. Freak out. Freak it. Freak up and out forever and evah.
With mainstream society as sickened and harmful as it is today, I ain’t down with nobody unLESS they a freak. right on.
I think Michael Franti said it best:
Why hasn’t he scolded Ann Coulter, Harriet Miers and Condi Rice as “burnt out liberal hack women” and “human wreckage in high heels,” due to their marital status at their age?
Interesting. I thought a psychopath was somebody who hated and murdered for no reason (or solidly accepts such behavior to his own ends), not somebody who was in a bit of a plumbing crisis.
Can the Savage Idiot explain why the person who is minding his own business and does nobody else any harm is a psychopath, and the person who thinks murdering such a person is a-ok is not?
>>This is also a good example of why laissez faire capitalism is a bad thing.
Non sequitur. There are a lot of bad things about capitalism but this isn’t it.
You’re assuming this sh*t sells. It doesn’t. The right-wing blogosphere and the talk radio circuit, the right-wing book presses, these are all heavily financed by a few people with well-lined pockets (Scaife, etc). They finance this stuff at a loss to pollute the public discourse. They are not constrained by market pressures.
Noam Chomsky often says that on any point, if you poll the population you find out that the majority supports the ‘liberal’ of ‘left-wing’ viewpoint. But if you ask them if they think this is the majority opinion, they will tell you they feel they’re unorthodox or amongst the few who feel that way. This is the effect of the right-wing throwing away money in the media sphere. You don’t need people to buy your stuff, you just need them to think it sells.
“All of them are better than everybody else. Sick. Everything is upside down.”
I think this is a whine about him not getting enough respect, glorious (”normie”) human stain that he is.
“…the junkie, the freak, the pervert, the illegal immigrant. All of them are better than everybody else.”
Not necessarily, Weiner, but any freaky-pervert-junkie is a damn sight better than your repugnant squawk-hole…
Not a non-sequitur, but it is not quite what I intended either.
There are people who will say that it’s okay that Savage does what he does because He’s Making A Sound Business Decision, And Making Money.
Call it free market worship, maybe.
No, it’s not okay to do what Michael Savage is doing. It’s evil, it’s wrong; it’s morally repugnant to anyone who has eyes to see the damage it does.
But it does make money.
And there are plenty of people who would defend it based solely upon that.
Isn’t it odd how the law and order authoritarians like Savage have such a very long list of those NOT entitled to the protections of law and order.
Pam:
Yes the guy is a selfconsciously outrageous provocateur against almost any vestige of sympathetic treatment of other humans. I don’t notice much difference between his schtick and that of a certain crap-for-brains skanky blonde who has had a number of news papers drop her column recently. My suggestion since advertisers pay to keep his shows on the air, is to skip replaying his lies to us and to skip complaining or at least augment the complaining with pointers to actions we can take to unplug this rabid dog’s microphone. Link to a cesspage of his aired attrocities and just put a notice up here whenever a new turd has been delivered. The hissing and namecalling come naturally enough and fill up the thread but to some exent, that is just what this disease of person is seeking. If he does not go off the air, we will be back in a week or a month doing this all over again with a slight change of victim.
It is not like the rightwingers don’t already work over time to sabotage the media WE would otherwise listen to. And changing the mind of Savage’s audience members, should any such minds be found, is unlikely.
I don’t and I imagine few who read Pandagon do use a lot of the products advertised on typical outlets for Savage’s torrent of pus so calling or writing the station and sponsors to say you are offened by its brainless craving for ratings with the brownshirt demographic and will not not by the advertised products is not entirely empty talk. Savage makes a lot more money than most of us but his audience, ironically, does not, so voting ultimately may come down to pocketbooks. [not news to any Repbublicans I know]
Even more direct is to pick the advertisers off of the website of Savage’s snydicator
[note: had to link just the jpg above because pandagon previewer could not parse this URL properly:
http://mediamatters.org/items/printable/200610310008
]
BlackBloc:
You are probably right about the financial health of the hate speech outlets. ClearChannel has had to cut back drastically on staff and original content programs to keep from going broke over the last year. And Washington Times, not quite so rabid, is loosing the moonies 20 million a years
So that takes a little of the sting out my suggestions to Pam but still, if all the advertisers go away and the stations begin to sound more like the propaganda mills that they are ,I think the effect will be positive from our standpoint.
Dear Mr. Savage,
I am sorry to inform you that your services as a human being are no longer required. As of this notification, your position as a member of the human race is hereby terminated. Please gather your belongings and leave the species at once. Do not ask us for a reference.
Sincerely,
Humanity
You don’t have to support laissez faire capitalism to support Savage’s right to spew this bigoted garbage. Just the First Amendment.
“Everything is upside down.”
His outrage reminds me of the protagonist in the Flannery O’Connor story “Revelation.” I don’t know if Savage professes himself a Christian, but if he does, then he better get used to that whole “the first will be last and the last will be first” thing.
Elliot:
*YOU* are the only person who brought up his rights. I brought up the immorality of selling hatred. Yes, he has the right to do so; yes, it makes him money. Neither of those excuses the selling of hatred.
No one has a right to yell “fire” in a crowded theater, this I am sure you are aware. If anyone could prove that his “rants” cause more harm then good, then he doesn’t have a right to continue to spread this hatred. If one person is murdered because of his bigotry and rants then he needs to be removed from a position of authority on christian views.
Clarification, his position of spreading this hatred and diesease to the public from the radio.
greensmile - very true - the Washington Times is a huge money loser. As Moon’s propaganda organ, which he brags about using to mold the political climate in America, it has been very, very sucessful. It has been the backbone of the right in print for 25 years. Money is no object when you swindle cash by the hundreds of millions, have slaves to do your bidding the world over and have a fervent desire to bring the world to a right wing, theocratic, homophobic, authoritarian hell hole.
However, your loss estimate is way, way low. For a long time the estimated losses were in the billions but that has recently been put at 3 billion dollars - start up and about 100 million year.
find some on that here: http://baltimorechronicle.com/2006/122706Parry.shtml
Though he acquires cash which he launders into the USA to fund his operation here in many ways…it says a lot about Pruden and all for taking their paycheck from cash, at least a large chunk of which comes from swindling widows in Japan.
read some of that here: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/8/9/13513/46197
Good that ultra-right lunacy is tanking in the market. I was getting afraid that (to take a leaf from Pynchon’s Vineland), Disneyland would add a new section titled Wingnut Land, where you can blast away at strange fruit hanging from trees and be terrified by a ride through a simulation of drowning New Orleans, where black people raid the stately homes of the rich. I can’t come up with sick enough rides themed around feminists and gays and lesbians.
Vineland features Aggro World contests; one of the characters, DL Chastain, a motorcycle-ridin’ Deep South tough girl, won contests as Miss Animosity in her teen years.
Luckily, it’s set in 1984.
Ya know, one of the people I love most dearly in my life wrote a poem to my ex that fits quite nicely to this ball of hate that Mr Savage spewed.
http://wordplayground.com/index.php?id=119
for a friend…
december 04, 2004
i want to sit you down
ask three thousand questions
because
i don’t understand
where the hate comes from.
i don’t understand
how you put together
those words
in that order
to say the most hurtful
hateful angry things.
i don’t understand
how you’re making sense
of this
in your head.
i don’t understand
the sadness and isolation
lack of self or love
that must be rotting away
inside you.
please
show me the light
you’ve been using
in what i can only imagine
is the darkness
of your mind.
and if you won’t speak
if you can’t
explain justify rationalize
(anything please,
i’m begging you)
i’m going to open you up
climb inside and
search for some reasoning,
i need evidence
that something made you this way
and then
we’ll go about fixing it.
because
you presented your self
as human
but yet
i find no humanity.
i’m racking my brain
for a story
of how you came to be
and
in the archives
of my self, i find
only a single line,
which echoes,
pity this busy monster, manunkind
and i think
how can i pity you?
but mister e.e. cummings
hid the answer
on the next line
which didn’t spring
to mind so quickly,
his words were
pity this busy monster, manunkind,
not.
so please
give me some reason
to believe
you are not this
monster
because i don’t want to
hate
i don’t want to be
you.
The Savages, Coulters, Limbaughs and O’Reillys don’t believe any of the garbage they spout. They are in it solely for the money (and they personally are making out like bandits, even if their employers are not), and that to my mind makes them far worse than an “honest” hater like Tim Hardaway. Tim Hardaway is just ignorant. Savage, on the other hand, knows what he’s doing is wrong, and doesn’t care. For that he will end up in a far deeper circle of Hell than any of the “true believers” who make up his audience.
N:
Thanks for the pointers…I am just starting to wade into this swamp
Wait… Someone was killed and this idiot calls the victim a psychopath?
That is really fucked up right there.
[…] Daphne Gottlieb wrote this post about Ruby Rodriguez (Ordenana), the transwoman who was murdered in my hometown several days ago. (Here’s a much better article.) (Her death has already been covered by Pam over at pandagon.) sometimes language does not connote life, just the conditions which likely abetted death, make disappearance somehow make sense, lessen the loss, as if we all understand that of course transgender sex worker immigrants hooked on drugs die. as if we all understand violence. as if violence was as simple as a word, as a diagram. as if hate was. […]
It’s worth repeating.
Savage has a right to his opinion and apparently millions of people agree with him. We don’t want the US to become a third world cesspool unable to defend itself.