Paul Harvey Thinks Slavery and Genocide is OK
The progressive media watchdog group, Fairnesss and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) has called for action in response to an ugly broadcast by longtime conservative radio personality Paul Harvey, whose commentaries are broadcast by Disney/ABC.
FAIR reports that Harvey, "one of the most widely listened to commentators in the United States, presented his listeners on June 23 with an endorsement of genocide and racism that would have been right at home on a white supremacist shortwave broadcast."
Here is what Harvey said:
"We didn't come this far [as a nation] because we're made of sugar candy. Once upon a time, we elbowed our way onto and across this continent by giving smallpox-infected blankets to Native Americans. That was biological warfare. And we used every other weapon we could get our hands on to grab this land from whomever.
"And we grew prosperous. And yes, we greased the skids with the sweat of slaves. So it goes with most great nation-states, which--feeling guilty about their savage pasts--eventually civilize themselves out of business and wind up invaded and ultimately dominated by the lean, hungry up-and-coming who are not made of sugar candy."
FAIR has a list of action ideas.
FAIR reports that Harvey, "one of the most widely listened to commentators in the United States, presented his listeners on June 23 with an endorsement of genocide and racism that would have been right at home on a white supremacist shortwave broadcast."
Here is what Harvey said:
"We didn't come this far [as a nation] because we're made of sugar candy. Once upon a time, we elbowed our way onto and across this continent by giving smallpox-infected blankets to Native Americans. That was biological warfare. And we used every other weapon we could get our hands on to grab this land from whomever.
"And we grew prosperous. And yes, we greased the skids with the sweat of slaves. So it goes with most great nation-states, which--feeling guilty about their savage pasts--eventually civilize themselves out of business and wind up invaded and ultimately dominated by the lean, hungry up-and-coming who are not made of sugar candy."
FAIR has a list of action ideas.
posted by Frederick Clarkson at 4:44 PM
2 Comments:
Come on Fredrick, where's your objectivity and analytical abilitties? Paul Harvey was simply stating facts of history, not endorsing such practices as acceptable.
Jim mettenbrink
To Richard and Anonymous: Yes, Harvey was claiming to make observations from (a limited reading of certain) history. But his implications go much further than that. Even in the short selection cited here, Harvey implies that these things were okay because they got the United States where we are today, and that "sugar candy" who limit themselves from doing such things will "civilize themselves out of existence" by "feeling guilty about their savage pasts."
However, in his full comment that day, Harvey explicitly called on pulling our "best weapons" out of our silos and to stop taking it from the Sunni Muslims. "We didn't come this far because we're made of sugar candy" -- that's not merely a historical observation (and, as I said, rather limited at that), it is a call to further similar action, even if savage and uncivilized, in order to save our civilization.
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