Failure Before Success

     Rush Hudson Limbaugh III born in 1951 in Missouri to a Republican family.He was a mediocre student who failed Speech 101 and decided to brke three generations of Limbaughs and opted not to pursue a law career.  Instead after going to college for a year at Southeast Missouri State ge took a job in McKesport, Pennsylvania/  He'd been hired to flip records at a station but just couldn't resist putting in his two sense.  And the impulsion soon got him fired.
     The 70's Limbaugh lived the gypsy life of small-time radio.  He worked at four small stations in Pennsylvania and Missouri.  And of course was fired for not "accomodating to station management."
     After a decade of failure Limbaugh left radio and worked as a public assistant for the Kansas City Royals baseball team.  Doing remedial work such as putting together pocket schedules to arranging tickets for children's birthday parties.  Despite all the crappy work he stuck with it longer than any job he ever had.
     But Limbaugh couldn't stay away from the airwaves for that long.  He returned in 1983 in Kansas City.  Inititally he was only supposed to read the news and was later on given the chance to prove himself as a commentator and talk-show host.  He first experimented with outrageous on-air insults.  His incomporable remarks foreshadowed his unique shtick that eventually would make him a household name.  Most noteworthy was his mock about what might happen to the country every twenty-eight days ofg Democratic vice-presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro became president.

Limbaugh's tenure at the station lasted ten months.

Talk Radio--- What Message Are You Sending?

I would definitely say I'm sheltered.  For one I don't even listen to the radion because they play the same damn songs over and over again.  And when I do I turn on K104.7 morning show and they never talk politics.  They'll play some games, talk about the weather, and obviously talk celebrity gossip.  That is what popular radio stations have turned into today.  You have to turn on a specific station that specifically talks about the news.

All talk radio is closely the same.  Politics.  Economics.  Government.  Some disc-jockeys know how to catch their audience well with the words that they speak.  Unlike others who want to push their beliefs and ideals onto their listeners, Father Coughlin, causing immense controversy for themselves.  While others just want to talk their talk, Rush Limbaugh, and spark debate around the nation.

I feel that Coughlin was on a mission.  He wanted to start some sort of army, National Union for Social Justice.  Limbaugh wanted to talk about the issues at hand in the government.  He wanted to spark discussion.

In the end to attain an audience it is all about what message you are trying to send.

Picture from Gord's Poetry Factory http://gordspoetryfactory.blogspot.com/2009/06/father-coughlin-father-of-american-hate.html

You Really Wanna Go There?

It wasn't long after mentioning comments like "Jews hoarding gold" and "bad international Jews" on his radio show that the bigotry discussions began.  Publications like The Nations and The New York Times called him "the most vicious propagandist in the United States having planted an anti-Semetic seed in the fertile minds of his millions of followers," and went on to name him things like "demagogue," rabble-rouser," and "false prophet."  But silly comments wouldn't stop the Radio Priest.  In the days and weeks after Kristallnacht, Coughlin defended the state-sponsored violence of the Nazi regime, arguing that Kristallnacht was justified as retaliation for Jewish persecution of Christians.  He explained to his listeners on November 20, 1938 that the "communistic government of Russia,""the Lenins and Trotskys... atheiststic Jews and Gentiles" had murdered more than 20 million Christians and had stolen "40 billion (dollars)... of Christian property."

In a 1938 broadcast Coughlin helped inspire and publicize the creation of the Christian Front, a militia-like organization that excluded Jews and promised to defend the country from communists and Jews.  The Front organized "Buy Christian" rallies throughout the country.  Policemen in New York City arrested several of the militiamen for harassing Jews on the street, many of them being seniors, women, and children.  The group made headlining news in 1940 when FBI arrested 18 members in Brooklyn, NY for suspicion of conspiring to overthrow the government.  And they continued to attract headlines  during the early 1940s for violent acts against Jews.

The "Radio Priest"

     Charles Edward Coughlin was born into an Irish heritage family in Ontario, Canada in 1891.  And after a childhood of Catholic schooling he went on to get his Bachelor's degree from St. Michael's College and his divinity degree from St. Basil's seminary, both in Toronto, in 1916.

     Coughlin was assigned to be a pastor in a new church in the suburbs of Detroit in 1926.  Having trouble expanding his congregation Coughlin approached Detroit radio station WJR and asked to broadcast a weekly sermon about the news events and issues of the day.

     The moment Coughlin stepped to the microphone his broadcast became a huge success.  Within only a few months he was receiving letter and contribution towards the broadcast.  And he was anointed the title the "Radio Priest."  In 1930 Coughlin then signed a contract to broadcast nationwide on CBS radio.  It wasn't long before the Father's show stirred up some controversy as well.  Not every listener applauded his caustic blows on the nation's political leaders and economics institutions.  Al Smith, a Catholic and former governor of New York told the New York Times "When a man addresses so great a number of listeners as Father Coughlin, he assumes the responsibility of not misleading them by false statements or poisoning their judgements with baseless slanders."  After all the bad publicity CBS denied renewing the "Priest's" contract.  Coughlin, complaining that the networks were denying his freedom of speech, hired his own station and paid for everything himself.  One might ask:  How dear Watson did Coughlin get all this money to buy 60 stations panning from Maine to Colorado?  Well it must be from his early days when guppy listeners just poured millions of dollars into his radio show because they were so enamored with his "golden voice."

     As Coughlin's popularity and rhetoric grew he expanded beyond the radio waves to print by founding his own weekly tabloid magazine: Social Justice.  Coughlin has grown to be a national political force.  He became the driving force behind a third political party.  Which he has aimed to capture the White House.  Due to the fact he was born a Canadian, he himself couldn't go through with his plans but he found a Republican Congressman, William Lemke, to head the Union Liberty ticket.  Their campaigning seemed promising.  And Coughlin even said that if his party didn't win at least 9 million votes he would retire from broadcasting.  Well in the end Lemke only pulled through with about one tenth of that, and as promised the "Radio Priest" withdrew from radio.

     Although I would have loved the next part of the story to say he went back to normal life, giving sermons in his Detroit church; I am sadly mistaken.  Coughlin of course couldn't stay away from the mic.  His failure in the election meant he has to change his theme to hold on to his army of followers.  What he chose would ultimately have a devastating impact on American society.




Picture attained from Obit magazine http://obit-mag.com/articles/father-coughlin-pioneering-hate-radio
Quotes taken from Mightier Than the Sword by Rodger Streitmatter

Jews=Money

Aware his failure in the election in 1936 Coughlin had to push himself to come up with a new theme to grab his listeners.  Although Anti-Semitism had not been a large commentary in Coughlin's shows he had mentioned "Jews hoarding gold" and "bad international Jews.  In one show he proposed to "speak upon a subject related to money."  And then went on to spend the whole program summarizing the entire history of the Jewish people.

     Not only did Coughlin speak on his radio show about the "traffickers of gold" but in 1938 he expanded his audience with a publication, Social Justice.  In a series of articles published in Social Justice during 1938, Coughlin lambasted “Jewish” financiers and their control over world politics, culminating with a story recounting his own version of the infamous 20th Century forgery, the so-called Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which indicated to be minutes of meetings of Jewish leaders as they plotted to take over the world.

Protocols of Zion book picture from http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007058
Gelt picture from http://www.jon22.net/adventageous/

"Naziism is a defense against communism!"

     Streightmatter chooses to start the section of "Defending the Nazis" with the line "In late 1938, Coughlin took a stand that was nothing short of FANATICAL...."    Because the legendary Radio Priest defended  the Nazi persecution of Jews.  I can't agree with Streightmatter's choice of wording, in reference to fanatical, I don't think fanatical even begins to explain the malevolence that is Father Coughlin.
     According the Coughlin it was the Jews the brought communism to Russia and pushed the Germans to come up with the concept of Naziism as a desperate attempt to save Germany from communism
     But Coughlin wasn't going to get away with these heinous lies so easily.  Many radio stations that had broadcast Coughlin's horrible defense of the Nazis immediately denounced it.  The first to start denouncing his lies was WMCA in New York.  The second after the broadcast the station told its listeners, "Father Coughlin has uttered certain mistakes of fact." WMCA asked Coughlin to submit his scripts to them 48 hours before he aired them and when he refused WMCA dropped him from its schedule.  Schedule other stations did the same.     But of course Coughlin just wouldn't be stopped.  After defending the Nazi persecution of Jews 6,000 New Yorkers gathered outside the WMCA station to show their support for him.  After still refusing to air his scripts his faithful supporters organized massive picket lines in front of the station, with 2,000 people demanding that the station keep their favorite radio voice on the air.

Anti-You

It's hard having the feeling that you don't belong.  It's even harder to think that it was actually illegal or the whole country actually hated you and wouldn't let you be you.  As a woman and a Jew I have a close relationship with the chapters Slowing the Momentum for Women's Rights and Father Coughlin: Fomenting Anti-Semitism via the Radio.

As a woman I have to work twice, if not even more, as hard as as man to get where I want to be in life.  Whether it be in the workforce or in school or even in a social network.  It is sad to say in the year 2010 that there is still discrimination based on gender.  But the truth is: there is, everywhere.

It is even sadder to say that in the year 2010 that there is Anti-Semitism everywhere I go.  It was minute and some what under the rug when I was younger, but as I got older and my peers began to get older and slyer it became worse and and way more harsh.  The worst experience was having pennies rolled at me in the hallways.  And it didn't stop in high school.  In one of my college classes one of the major holidays fell on a weekend and my professor assigned homework, that he informed us was important and was to be graded, and I explained I couldn't do because of the holiday.  He began to bash me asking me all these questions, in front of the class, about why I couldn't do the work. Landing on "Oh well you can't eat, oh you can't have sex?." He, as well as well as the rest of the class began to laugh.


It's a sad reality that I live with daily but I'm proud to deal with because I would never change being a woman or a Jew.  I believe being both has made me the person I am today.