RUSH: All right, this is now about racial politics, folks. The Reverend Sharpton is out there saying, "This is only the beginning. This must be a walk that CBS now does. It must be a walk that others will do, then we must have a broad discussion on what's permitted and what's not permitted," and the Reverend Jackson and the Reverend Sharpton have been empowered as the final arbiters on this in the United States of America. How absurd and ridiculous. But they exist for one reason: liberal, white, plantation owner racists have created these two figures and have granted them power and authority as Democrats, and now, guess who have become the targets of the wrath of Sharpton and Jackson? For now it's the white liberal executives at CBS and NBC. So it's about racial politics. It's about racial politics, and when it comes to the lack of minority reputation of the big three networks, MSNBC as well as CNN, I have to agree that Reverend Jackson, Reverend Sharpton are right. On to something now that's the practical reality of all this. If it's about racial politics then what shall be the ideal percentage? This argument we've been having since the first affirmative action argument came up, the whole quota argument.
I made the point back in the early eighties, mid-eighties when this all started, "Affirmative action is about making sure that the race wars never end." You won't get 'em to come. That's why they hate the quota business. Because when you start saying, "Yeah, there should be quotas," then they're willing to put a finite number on the number of minorities can by anywhere and in any job, and that's not what this is about. This is about shakedowns. This is about keeping the premise of discrimination alive and well to be profited from, but if we just look at the population of the country, we now have more Hispanics in this country than we do blacks. The black population is 11%, 12%, something like that. So 89, 88% of the population is not black. So should we say in the guise of the racial politics here introduced by the Reverends Sharpton and Jackson, that the proper representation for blacks anywhere would be 11% -- football teams, basketball teams -- I know this is absurd, but I'm making a point here. Now stick with me, because this is not about merit. You have to understand, there's nothing about merit in anything these people are doing or talking about. It's pure racial politics. So if we go by the population of the country, there can never be more than 11% of blacks in any field.
Never. Let's look beyond the broadcast networks. Let's look at urban radio stations. Are they 89% non-black? No. Let's look at the content of the songs that are played on public airwaves. Sharpton has now said, dozens of times, and we gotta clean up the public airwaves. We've gotta detoxify the public airwaves. Well, look at some of the music and look at some of the lyrics played on the public airwaves being sung -- not spoken, by hosts, sung -- by recording artists and stars, and I don't hear the Reverend Sharpton concerned about that. In fact, I hear the Reverend Sharpton and the Reverend Jackson defending those lyrics as "art," ladies and gentlemen. I heard Snoop Dogg. How many times has he been indicted? Well, he's under charges. Snoop Dogg said the other day (paraphrased), "Look, don't come after us and our music and our art. This reflects the way we were raised, reflects where we were growing up. When that H-word is used by us, it means women who are fat and dumb in the projects who are just waiting to steal our money. We're not talking about basketball players at college. So don't lay this off on us."
Somebody said, "Wait a minute. Don Imus didn't just learn this phrase. He didn't wake up and have it come out of his own mind. He had to hear it someplace."
"Don't blame us for that," said the famous Snoop Dogg.
Anyway, if you look at the lyrics that are on radio, the public airwaves that need to be detoxified, where are the Reverend Sharpton and Reverend Jackson dealing with those lyrics, not just the words uttered by deejays and hosts. I mean after all they are the public airwaves. These songs should be banned now! If this is about cleaning up all this garbage, these songs need to be banned, and when we're done fixing TV and radio, folks, next we're going to move on to Hollywood, because a lot of pollution in popular culture is coming from and produced by, a bunch of white liberals in Hollywood. Of course, they never come under attack, by the same liberals who are now attacking me and others, saying we're next. "We've only just begun here. You people are all next!" We gotta straighten out Hollywood. We gotta make sure the rotgut garbage that sacrifices for pictures and dialogue in these movies that's offensive, gets stopped. They're poisoning the culture. It's public film. Public projectors. Go into a theater; it's the public there. When we're done with Hollywood, we move on to the publishing industry. We look at what percentage of authors are of a given race. Now, has Reverend Sharpton picketed anybody in Hollywood? Has Reverend Sharpton or Jackson picketed any urban radio stations?
Have Reverend Sharpton or Reverend Jackson picketed anywhere where these horrendous lyrics are toxifying the public domain? Chris Tucker? Chris Rock? These guys all need to be banned, folks. They make their living off stereotypes of whites and sometimes of blacks. Why should Sharpton and Jackson be the only two people deciding who can say what, when and where, and why should they be deciding who can and cannot be offended? As I've explained, the beauty of this is the libs have given us Sharpton and Jackson as the final arbiters. We're going to sit here and we're going to allow these two race hustlers to dictate to us? They have it figured out? They're always offended! They're always angry. They target certain individuals or events, and they and the lib media manipulate the outcome, and notice they're always dividing the country. They don't talk about people, they talk about race, and they want chaos, and they want tumult and they want people unsettled. They want the country divided. We can use whatever figure we want to. We can say 11 or 12%. We can go down the road and we can say, "Hispanics deserve more jobs in these places than blacks. They're a larger minority." If we're going to be fair about this, if we're really going to make this about racial politics.
Of course, censorship, that's also here. I want to say something for the record here, folks, and I want it to be recorded. Today, April the 12th, the day of the cigar dinner, let it be recorded that we conservatives are the ones standing for free speech. We conservatives are the ones standing for diversity of thought and honest communication. You do not hear a conservative anywhere suggest that anybody be taken off any radio station, television station, movies or what have you. We do not urge censorship because we are not afraid of the free flow of ideas. Liberals are. Thomas Sowell said something that is so brilliant. It's a brilliant insight. Dr. Sowell said, "The liberals' favorite argument is that there is no argument. Nothing uttered in opposition to liberal beliefs exists, in their minds, at least nothing worthy of their intellectual engagement." That's why global warming, we can't argue about it! There are global warming "deniers." We gotta shut up! We cannot have alternative views of global warming. There is no alternative view. There is only the liberal view. Liberals fail on talk radio because they can't make their case!
They don't dare make their case in public. They can't anyway. They can't argue it. That's why liberals fail in talk radio. It's why they fail anywhere where they don't dominate. It's why they refuse to go on Fox! There is no alternative to liberalism. They refuse to acknowledge it. They are the ones trying to censor. They're the ones trying to indoctrinate -- and it's now funny because one of their chosen ones, Don Imus, is the victim of liberalism, and he did his best to be one of them, but he was never a liberal with a capital L. He never really got in the club like he thought he was. His buddies are abandoning him left and right now. The people that enabled him, the people that propped him up, the people that looked the other way when they heard him say far worse than what he said about the Rutgers basketball team. Now they're acting like they never heard this stuff before. "I didn't know this, why, this is (grumbling)," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We conservatives talk of equal opportunity based on merit, not quotas, not pigment, not anything else. Liberals want to shut down radio programs. They want to shut down Fox News. They want to shut down political speech.
They want to shut down anybody who doesn't embrace their ideology, and they want to criminalize those who don't embrace their ideology. Today it's the race baiters. Tomorrow it's going to be some other cause, but liberalism is what it is, and it exists to silence people who don't agree. They can't win the debate, which they admit by their own actions. They don't want debate. Now, Imus is not the issue anymore. He's the catalyst for advancing their agenda. Listen to Jesse Jackson. He's long gone, long past Imus. If they can shut down talk radio -- and they'll try -- they'll shut it down tomorrow. Make no mistake. They cannot compete, folks. Air America was an embarrassing, blithering, total bomb-out of a failure. Every liberal talk show that's been tried is insignificant, at best. They can't silence their opposition, so they take a run at it here and there through proposals to renew the Fairness Doctrine or use intimidation or the threat of sponsor boycotts or whatever to demand the things they don't want to hear, not be allowed to be said. They can't compete in the open marketplace of ideas because their ideas are flawed and airing those ideas makes it clear that they are flawed.
They succeed politically when they conceal their true intentions during elections, as we have discussed. But there's no hiding on talk radio. When you're on the air for three hours, I don't care if you waste your time interviewing guest after guest after guest after guest, if you can't hide what you think on talk radio, you are going to be exposed, and when you cannot back up what you say, and when your ideas sound stupid, it's out there to be exposed for one and all, and that's why Air America and liberal talk radio doesn't get an audience because it's not worth listening to! People can't make the case -- and they do not think they should have to argue, because there is no alternative in their minds. I'll tell you what, Sharpton and Jackson have their eyes on talk radio. You know what's going to save talk radio? You know what's going to save this program is going to be you people because you have the depth of loyalty and a bond here. You and I have a connection, successful hosts do, and you understand it. You know the gig here. You know what's up. You're aware of how they're trying to shut people down, and you will not allow it to happen.
Nor will I, don't misunderstand, but this is what the left doesn't understand. They do not understand the connection that exists between me, the host of this program, and you. They don't understand it. You're mind-numbed robots. You're idiots. You're just like everybody else that's not a liberal. You really don't even exist! You're just a hayseed hick, a southern Christian or what have you. Whatever bigoted stereotype they have created, you will fall into one of them, as do I. But talk radio? Talk radio today is one of the last open markets for ideas -- and that's why it is a threat to the left. Talk radio, look at everybody who wants to get into it! All these television failures, all these stand-up comedians that lose their way, guess where they all want to go? They all want to go to radio! I wonder why? What's happening on radio lately that they see the opportunity for wealth and success, hmm? I wonder. Radio, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the last open markets for ideas. Newspapers aren't anymore. Television isn't anymore. Have you seen what the left is trying to do now? They're trying to say Imus is a conservative.
The LA Times had a piece quoting Media Matters for America, that Imus is a conservative. Imus, who supported Kerry and who is against the war, is no conservative. He wouldn't have the crowd of media guests that he has if he was, but calling him a "conservative" fits into their broader agenda. So we are defending speech here. We stand up for speech. We engage in it. We allow it when liberals call. We never demand anybody be censored. We are content to let the marketplace deal with liberals as it does on talk radio: it rejects them. One final question here. Since race is the sole criteria now, I want to know why Al Sharpton has not endorsed Barack Obama. I know the Reverend Jackson has. But I'll tell you why. Al Sharpton, who's making everything about race today, will not endorse the black candidate in the Democrat presidential primaries -- and why? Because Obama's name is not Sharpton. There is jealousy. There is outrage. Sharpton doesn't like the fact that Obama -- and, by the way, Sharpton has maneuvered an end run around Obama, in terms of the struggle. Sharpton talks about role models? We need black role models out there? Say what you want about Obama's politics, but apparently Barack Obama is not a good enough role model for Al Sharpton.