How The Right-Wing Markets Faulty Ideas
by Dave BradleyAdvertising has been with us forever. Modern advertising began with the rise of mass production in late 19th and early 20th century. One of the keys to modern advertising is to repeat over and over the product name and action desired. I remember reading somewhere that an effective message must be repeated at least seven times over a short space of time. I believe the time space was an hour.
Most of you can relate to this. When we turn on the TV or radio we are inundated with commercials. Because of the repetitive nature of commercials many of us can still repeat commercials from our youth 20, 30, 40 even 50 years later. Plop plop Fizz Fizz… just as an example.
The reason I bring this up is because of the tragedy that took place in Arizona this last weekend. For the last couple of decades America has been subjected to a barrage of rhetoric from the right that has been increasingly violent. Day in, day out, morning and night, 365 days a year, right wing media has employed rhetoric which devalues their opponents and tries to make them seem less than human. They mix this with war and hunting rhetoric.
The very fact that it is carried on public media makes the violent rhetoric seem acceptable. That it is carried day and night is meant to drive these ideas into the psyche of its listeners and readers.
Amazingly, once this tragedy occurred, those in the right wing media and their apologists in public office claim this incendiary rhetoric has no connection with such an act.
My question to them is this: Why would companies spend good money on advertising and not expect an action in response to take place? Essentially, the incendiary rhetoric was advertising. Eventually, an action was bound to take place. Some event such as this has been anticipated for a long time.
The right wing media will now act like the mafia don who is never at the scene of the crime and therefore is not guilty of the crime. Yet had the right wing echo chamber not created an aura of acceptability, this crime may have never taken place.
To me one person who is especially guilty is Sarah Palin. Putting the sighting scope over people like Congresswoman Giffords was way, way over the line.
My expectation is that we will see the right wing media create a story line that totally absolves their involvement. I expect they will pull out their usual defense that their rhetoric does not have any influence.
I am hoping that Americans are finally ready to tell them to STOP! They can do this by turning off Fox News, by turning off the Hannitys and Limbaughs and calling the local stations that carry them that you will no longer be listening. These are small actions easily done. Please, please let those know who carry the hate shows that you will no longer support them.
And if you can, let their advertisers know that you will take your business to those who do not support the hate shows.
E-mail Dave here Dave Bradley is a self-describedretired observer of American politics “trying to figure out how we got
so screwed up.” An
Iowa City native currently living in West Liberty, Dave and his wife
Carol have two grown children who “sadly had to leave the state to find
decent paying jobs.“
Blog For Iowa 
Dave, I appreciate your take on this. It would be remiss of us as citizens if we were to continue to look the other way as these violent images and damaging rhetoric poliferate on the right, and, I must say, on the left. Though the vehemence of the right has come to the forefront in recent years, there is enough vitriol out there on both sides to be ashamed of. We can never truly know whether the tragedy on Saturday was directly influenced by such hate because the assassin is most probably insane, but we know as fair and decent people that these things are wrong. We have contributed to this as part of the crowd, but we must stand as individuals now and say no.
So, do we “turn the other cheek” and move forward as if these words and images are not dangerous? No, we protest by boycott, by our actions, by our words, and by our votes. We have looked away for years and it has done us no good. We must vote with our dollars, both against advertisers who sponsor such talk and for candidates who refuse to debase themselves. We must vote with our convictions by acts that promote civility and the use of facts rather than continue the onslaught of half-lies and hatred.
George Allen – Silver City
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George,
Thanks for the comment.
I agree that voting with your dollars would be the best and most effective way to protest, but it seldom works. Boycotts usually work in small very focused areas such as the Birmingham bus boycott.
Exposing the advertisers seems to be a bit more effective. Expose them to bad publicity has a few times in the past been effective. the most recent example would be the advertiser who dropped sponsorship of Glenn Beck.
I have seen half a dozen attempts at boycotting or exposing sponsors of Limbaugh, but so far it has not worked. Limbaugh brings a certain audience and they are loyal, many are rich and those who advertise on Limbaugh don't care.
Local radio stations who carry these shows have little invested in them. Most are owned by Clear Channel which has a vested interest in pushing the extreme right wing agenda. They could care less what happens to Des Moines, Davenport or Iowa City audiences.
The corporate ownership can hang on for the long haul, whereas even the best actions seldom hold together for long, especially these days.
Thanks for the suggestion. I will write on this and see what response it brings. Dave Bradley
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