Cry Me A River…

I want­ed to wait for a while before say­ing any­thing about the pass­ing of one of the most vapid­ly tox­ic fig­ures to influ­ence our nation­al discourse.
I speak of Rush Limbaugh, the insid­i­ous big­ot who passed away days ago at 70 after a bat­tle with lung can­cer. But the hypocrisy of the media in not describ­ing Limbaugh in the way he deserves, prompt­ed me to break my silence.
Despite the hate, misog­y­ny, and xeno­pho­bia that Limbaugh rep­re­sent­ed, the main­stream media gush­es over him as if he was some­one who left a lega­cy of good.
God is still work­ing on me, so I still pray that he con­tin­ues to lead me onto the path he wants me to trod, like the new tes­ta­ment teach­ings, which ask me to be of pious sup­pli­can­cy. One who turns the oth­er cheek when my ene­my spite­ful­ly assaults me, love them, and be good to them?
Or fol­low the Old Testament teach­ings, hon­or­ing war­riors like David who asked God to deliv­er his ene­mies into his hands, slew them, and progressed.
Rush Limbaugh must be remem­bered for what he tru­ly was, a can­cer. But we must also take note of those who enabled him, The media hous­es that gave him the plat­form to spew the garbage he did, so that they could rake in the prof­its from his decades of preach­ing hate.

Criticize me all you want, but since he is not fin­ished with me yet, I will shed not one drop of tear for an insuf­fer­able big­ot whose pass­ing left the world a bet­ter place today, than it was before he died.
I refuse to play nice to a glo­ri­fied clown who used the pub­lic air­waves to sow hatred and divi­sion, turn­ing neigh­bors against neigh­bors, mak­ing Americans see their fel­low Americans not as peo­ple who dis­agree on prin­ci­ple, but as ene­mies to be reviled and hat­ed. If refus­ing to be def­er­en­tial to that kind of insid­i­ous trash is a vice, col­or me the new viceroy.
Rush Limbaugh built an empire on hatred and divi­sion; at the very best, Rush Limbaugh was noth­ing more than a dem­a­gogue with a micro­phone, a wannabe come­di­an who was every­thing but fun­ny. It was no sur­prise that Donald Trump rose to the pres­i­den­cy on the hatred and divi­sion that Limbaugh per­pet­u­at­ed and promulgated.
It was no sur­prise that Trump, anoth­er racial dem­a­gogue saw fit to bestow the pres­i­den­tial medal of free­dom on Limbaugh. So much for the val­ue of those going forward.

Limbaugh died, leav­ing a mas­sive for­tune, report­ed­ly to the tune of $600 mil­lion, derived from spread­ing hatred for every­one who was­n’t white and male. He could­n’t take a pen­ny with him, nei­ther could it save him, which brings to mind, Matthew 16-26, Yeshua asked, what good it is for a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul?
Limbaugh is gone, nev­er to be heard from again, but the seeds of hatred and divi­sion he left behind will be hard to erase, if ever at all. His seeds of hatred all but splin­tered the coun­try, pit­ting broth­ers against broth­ers, sis­ter against sis­ter, par­ents against chil­dren, chil­dren against their par­ents, and neigh­bor against neigh­bor. Again here we see the word of God man­i­fest­ing right in front of our eyes, in plain sight, yet we ignore it.
Mark 13 ‑12, “Brother will betray broth­er to death, and a father his child. Children will rebel against their par­ents and have them put to death.

Rush Limbaugh’s life was about stir­ring up hatred and divi­sion, sow­ing lies and dis­cord; it result­ed in the rise of the king of lies and dis­in­for­ma­tion to the high­est exec­u­tive office, and we have seen how that turned out.
Limbaugh’s cam­paign of deceit includ­ed spread­ing lies that Barack Obama was not an American. He told his lis­ten­ers that the Affordable Care Act (Obama Care) would result in death pan­els; they gob­bled it up. He argued with a black caller to his show, telling him quote; “take that bone out of your nose and call me back.”
He asked his lis­ten­ers if they ever noticed that all com­pos­ite sketch­es of want­ed crim­i­nals looked like the Reverend Jesse Jackson. He invit­ed a guest on-air who sang “Barack, the Magic Negro” to the tune of “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” In 2016, he read an essay on air that a well-known white suprema­cist had penned.
He labeled Feminist women ‘Feminazis’. While speak­ing about the geno­cide of America’s indige­nous peo­ples, Limbaugh said, “Holocaust 90 mil­lion Indians? Only 4 mil­lion left? They all have casi­nos; what’s to com­plain about?”(salon)

Limbaugh fre­quent­ly mir­rored white nation­al­ist talk­ing points when dis­cussing Latino immi­grants, whom he described as lazy and depen­dent on the gov­ern­ment. He called migrants at America’s south­ern bor­der an “inva­sion.” He den­i­grat­ed Gays and Lesbians,’ the best way to stop the spread of the virus was to “not ask anoth­er man to bend over and make love at the exit point,” he asserted.
This guy was noth­ing but a blight, a poi­son, can­cer to the body politic, one that metas­ta­sized and inex­orable result­ed in Donald Trump and, worse, the storm­ing of the nation’s citadel of leg­isla­tive power.
The death of this guy is a bless­ing; no one should pre­tend to show def­er­ence to such a vile crea­ture, know­ing with­out a shad­ow of a doubt that the world is a bet­ter place today, than it was with him here.
We were all vic­tims of his hate; those who dis­agreed with his vile doc­trine, and those who agreed with him are equal vic­tims who now need redemption.
May God save their souls before it becomes too late for them too.?

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.