Monday afternoon, June 22nd, a caller called into a popular radio talk show and proposed a rather absurd conspiracy theory about the BP oil spill. The theory was the most far fetched I had heard, and I expected the radio host to put the guy in his place. The host did not; he snickered, and then said (as always I am paraphrasing:)
“You think that is bad. What is with these environmentalists now being ANTI-BP? Before the spill, tree hugging dirt worshipers praised the energy company for being the industry leader in clean, alternative energy, such as wind and solar. And isn’t it ironic, that now they are all against BP now.”
Talk about trying to one up the absurd. This segment was much longer than my brief paraphrase.
First, the host uses classic redirection. The caller’s conspiracy had nothing to do with environmentalists but the host directs the conversation from the oil spill to the environmentalists. Listen to these radio hosts sometime. They redirect the conversation to set up a straw man, knock the straw man down, then pontificate as if they have made some awe inspiring point.
Secondly, why does he think it is “ironic” that environmentalists are now suddenly against BP, the leader in clean energy. He used ‘ironic’ to imply a contradiction; a flip-flop. Environmentalists were not praising BP, but praising BP efforts. The host fails to make the distinction, but his kind do with other issues. Take homosexuality – ‘they don’t hate the sinner, they hate the sin.’ I bet the radio host praises his children for good behavior, and punishes them for bad behavior. This is exactly what the environmentalists are doing, but he finds it “ironic” not rational.
Of course the caller did not point out the radio hosts’ inconsistency. His conspiracy theory? Maybe I should mention the caller’s comment which drew the radio host’s above response. The caller stated he used Google and the following were indisputable facts:
1) BP is the biggest “Anglo-European” oil company (the caller’s words, not mine.)
2) Barack Obama is a Muslim President
Therefore, the caller deducted that, Obama is an opportunistic evil Muslim using this oil spill to bankrupt BP so Muslim OPEC can dominate the oil industry. So in response to such an absurd idea, the radio host responded as I have noted above.
What gets me is that hundreds of thousands listen to this radio host everyday; his audience is expanding – people are not listening, thinking and then turning him off. The host is paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to talk for 4 hours everyday – and I will get a lot of email calling me a Van Gogh listener, cherry picking what I choose to write about. Truthfully, these articles usually are derived from listening to a program for less than five minutes, so I must just have the best luck choosing to listen when they are the most absurd. yeah, that’s it. I am a liberal cherry picking, taking things our of context. Where is the other side? Who is saying the radio hosts are cherry picking and taking things out of context?
Me. And I am not taking advertising money.
