Disney not Mickey Mousing around with Spocko

I always think of my best comebacks days after an argument is over. When I was engaged in debate on this post at the Moderate Voice , one of the commenters asked me, "How many bloggers lead militant terrorist organizations that saw off innocent people’s heads for propaganda videos, and have killed thousands of innocents in terrorist bombing against civilian targets?"

I should have pointed out that very few beheadings have occurred in the first place and in the second place, we were talking about language. There's no evidence that Zawahiri actually beheaded anyone himself, he merely verbally advocates wholesale killing of innocents to accomplish his goal. How is that different from Ann Coulter or Michelle Malkin or Little Green Goofballs or the spittle flecked rants of the legion of wingnut extremist radio hosts led by the likes of Limbaugh? Wingnutopia made a cottage industry out of promoting hate. Worse yet, they have corporate sponsorship for these vile spewings.

The Disney empire has joined the fray in support of hate speech by reaching into their deep pockets and shutting down a critic of Bay Area ABC affiliate radio station KSFO's American terrorists, cleverly disguised as talk show hosts. These schlock jocks daily echo the Wingnutopian refrains for tortue and death of American journalists, political figures and ordinary Americans.

Spocko of Spocko's Brain, is just a little blogger who had a big idea on how to stop them. He contacted the station's advertisers and politely enquired if they knew they were underwriting such hateful rhetoric [audio clips] and asked if the program's views reflected their corporate values.

Spocko succeeded too well. The big money sponsors, including Netflix, MasterCard, Bank of America and Visa, left in droves. Disney responded by getting Spocko's ISP to take down his blog for alleged fair use violations. Now blogging from exile, spocko tells us what we can do help him out. And as TRex points out we should all get involved.

This is an example of how we can effectively fight the tide of hateful bile that pollutes our airwaves and rots the brains of millions of overly credulous talk-radio listeners. We, of course, support the wingnuts' right to say whatever they want to say, but they must be prepared to face the real-world consequences of stoking the fires of ethnic, political, and religious hatred. If that means losing the support of their advertisers and cutting into their six-figure salaries, well, then, hurrah! We win.

Exactly. This is how you fight bad speech with good speech. We can decry the base indecency of the Wingnutopians until we're blue in the face, but the way to defeat it is pull the plug on the corporate funding of their vile bile. Thanks to Spocko for paving the way. Now please spread the word.

[graphic gratitude]