Political Correctness for Dummies

Over the years I have written extensively on this issue, here is a political correctness chapter of the book. Let us begin by going back to 1979 when we had what so many wish for these days, an honest Born Again Christian President who is now known as the Failed President. What happened was a triple whammy; President Jimmy Carter's infamous "malaise" speech which the conservative PR machine jumped on to for evermore define liberals as what Spiro Agnew a decade earlier had called The Nattering Nabobs of Negativism. Add to that the taking of hostages in Iran and the failed rescue attempt it lent "weak" and "loser" to the formula. Within a year a new term was added to our American lexicon, Reagan Democrats.

After Walter Mondale was so soundly trounced by Ronald Reagan who won 49 states in the 1984 election, "loser" was added to the definition of "liberal" (tolerance) and the word soon embraced such a negative context it became the kiss of death for any politician to be so labeled, as such another phrase was written into our language, The L Word which expressed such angst that it could no longer be spoken out loud in mixed company.

During Reagan's second term a little known disc jocky in Sacramento, California was making a name for himself by reading off the names of gay men who had died from AIDS each week while pushing the applause button and laughing (Character Matters.) The success of taking so much joy in so much innocent suffering made Rush Limbaugh the most popular voice on California radio. Limbaugh rode the low road to then take on local lesbian groups, he sparred with GLADD up in San Francisco and soon expanded his mysigony to include all women who wore shoes and were not pregnant. As luck would have it, the spokesman for NOW (The National Organization for Women) at the time was an old, often nasty unattractive woman named Molly Yard, an easy mark for Limbaugh. A caller to his show tossed out the phrase "feminazi" and Limbaugh ran with it to syndication in New York a few months after the Fairness Doctrine was rescinded. Almost instantly he became the top radio personality in America which put feminazi into the dictionary. Within a few years AM Radio had become the most ubiquitous Right-wing propaganda machine in the world.

With Republican control of AM radio began the most successful public relations campaign in American History began with the advent of the phrase, Political Correctness. From the late 1980's through today the variations of PC whether; political correctness, political incorrectness, politically correct, or politically incorrect flowed through radio, television and print thousands of times a day, everyday for most of 20 years. By incorporating the term feminazi and defining tolerance or concern for minorities as McCathyism, PC became universally equated to Nazism.

An example of how entrenched this has become note that Richard Melon Scaife has for many years been pouring money into David Horowitz's organization that is the clearing house for moving political correctness into the mainstream media. Across American campuses both Horowitz and the Cato Institute use Right-wing student groups to search out any and all examples of PC they come across, which they send to Horowitz who exaggerates them and moves them on to Right-wing AM radio. Thousands of conservative radio hosts grab hold, exaggerate it further and push it for weeks until the main stream media has to pick up on it or be labeled... Remember, it can't be said where children may overhear... The L Word.

Over the past generation working class people pull straight Republican tickets against their own self interest as this emotional issue of Politicial Correctness causes more damage to the Democratic Party than abortion, guns, flags, queers, and God combined (those people are going to vote straight GOP tickets anyway). Down here in my exburb of Dumbass, Texas I have heard the refrain that has been driving it everyday for twenty years. It may be a little different depending on region but it's the same angry toot.