MAD AS HELL, AND NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANY MORE!

….Many Americans have become like Howard Beale from the hit movie “Network”

The ground-swell for removing Rush Limbaugh from talk-radio continues.

 About a year ago, I wrote a few columns on how some Americans were rising up against the conservative talk-radio blow-hard, Rush Limbaugh.  I had written the first article regarding how the self-proclaimed “El Rushbo” had lost many sponsors after he had called a then unknown college student, Sandra Fluke, a 'slut' and 'prostitute' after she had advocated for insurance-paid birth control at a congressional hearing.

 

Limbaugh has shown for years just how much of a bigot and racist he is, but this time he had gone way over the line.

The attack against Ms. Fluke not only went viral on YouTube, MSNBC, CNN and broadcast TV, it also made Ms. Fluke an overnight celebrity.  Later on, Ms. Fluke just barely lost her election in running for a California state senator seat.  But I guarantee you, we haven’t see the last of Ms. Fluke.

But I digress.

What happened to Mr. Limbaugh after his attack on Ms. Fluke has continued to see Limbaugh losing radio stations and long-time radio sponsors.  There are also multiple sites where you can visit for helping take Rushbo off the air.  Those sites include petitions against Limbaugh and there are anti-Rush sites on Facebook and Twitter.  Here is just a short list of some of those sites:

    Sign: Limbaugh Sponsor & Clear Channel/iHeartPetition
    Visit/Like: BoycottRush Facebook Group
    Join: The Fight To Flush Rush
    Visit: StopRush.net for an extensive list of Limbaugh Sponsors
    Twitter: #FlushRush and #StopRush

After the Sandra Fluke debacle, the whole program against Limbaugh grew like a snowball rolling downhill, as it gathered more support and power.

As an example, last week, Limbaugh was dropped from another radio station where he had been on the air for 22 years.  The mid-west Indianapolis radio station, WIBC, and the station’s parent, Emmis Communications notified Los Angeles-based syndicator, Premiere Networks, that it would not extend its deal with Rush Limbaugh. Many other news/opinion sites covered the story, including IBJ (Indianapolis Business Journal). Most of the stories basically said the move was simply a long-term change in the station’s direction.

While some WIBC listeners may be disappointed by the change, having Limbaugh's program was causing the station to also lose sponsors.  The loss of Limbaugh will now open the station up for more local advertising opportunities. 

But along with a growing cause for getting rid of this radio “plague”, the IBJ local market manager has stated that the decision to drop Limbaugh was more than just a simple change.  They had been contemplating this move for the last 18 months.

 

It must be noted that for the last two years, Limbaugh's show has also been moved away from a number of major AM stations, to lesser Premiere Networks  local stations of lower broadcasting power,

I am bringing this up today just to show that the boycotts against Rush Limbaugh and his sponsors is not only working, it has become highly effective. It's finally beginning to change the face of conservative talk radio.  Today, one of the biggest problem with conservative talk radio is Limbaugh and the other conservative host's bigoted hate mongering. 

 

And for today's hundreds of thousands of Limbaugh boycotters, they couldn't be more pleased.

To give you an idea of how powerful social media has become with issues such as this, after the Sandra Fluke event, huge sponsors like Ford, GM, McDonald's, Subway & Carbonite, they all began pulling their ads from Limbaugh.  This occurred after these sponsors experienced the public's outrage.  Little by little, the good old days for Limbaugh were finally starting to slip away.

Oh, Rushbo's PR team has continued to make lame attempts to de-rail the boycott Limbaugh bandwagon.  Today, they are hitting search engines like Google with multiple RushLimbaugh.com stories each day, but it's been to no avail.  Apparently, do these as attempts for generating revenue.  But they aren’t getting very much from their remaining sponsors.

This has been a very slow, painful and agonizing fall for El Rushbo, and it's given the protestors some excellent victories and affirmations.

Some organizations like NOW (National Organization For Women), NARAL Pro-Choice America, and Planned Parenthood have been after Limbaugh for years. But today, the amazing StopRush.net and #StopRush on Twitter continues to be relentless. Other relentless protestors against Limbaugh include: Media Matters, Daily Kos, Liberals Unite, UniteWomen.org, Addicting Info, Daily Kos 'Sluts', Occupy Democrats, ReverbPress, The Smoking Gun, Alternet, Unite Blue, UltraViolet, Huffington Post… and more.

The most obvious movements against Limbaugh comes from both Facebook Pages and Facebook Groups.

Facebook Pages has 20 titles going after Limbaugh including: Boycott Rush Limbaugh's Sponsors To Shut Him Down, to: 1 Million Sluts Against Rush Limbaugh, and of course: Political Loudmouth.

Facebook Groups has over 24 groups and celebrities going after Limbaugh from: Flush Rush, to Stop Republican Laws Against Women.

The Facebook celebrities against Limbaugh include the following personalities: Gloria Steinem, Jon Stewart, Lewis Black, Rachel Maddow, Al Franken, Stephen Colbert, Peter Gabriel, Spike Lee, Andy Borowitz, Crystal Ball, the late, great George Carlin, Ed Shultz, Sandra Fluke, Ice-T, Jane Fonda, & Gloria Allred.

The Anti-Limbaugh Sponsor & Clear Channel / iHeart Petition, already has over 132,000 signatures and growing.

Credit needs to be given to the grassroots online organizations and everyday concerned citizens who are now being pro-active against Limbaugh via the internet.  These groups are exposing Limbaugh’s and other right-winger’s hate speech, racism, homophobia, and the misogyny that takes place every day

The reality of all this is that no one has paid a dime for making all this happen.  These results came to fruition from a volunteer “ground swell” of people that have just had it with Limbaugh's gross attitude.

As the character Howard Beale stated in the 1976 movie “Network”,  these anti-Limbaugh individuals are, “As mad as hell and aren’t going to take it any more”.

Very well said.

Copyright G.Ater  2015