I don't know if anyone has come up with the correct answer yet, but here it is:
In the early days of Rush's national syndication, he was a sudden, unexpected blaze of light in the unrelieved darkness of the leftist media monopoly.
It's hard to describe how happy -- and astonished -- some of us were to finally hear someone saying what we had been thinking. Thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of us thought we were the only one left who held to those beliefs, because there was no Internet and no communication with like-minded others. Many of us felt like we were the last man alive at Fort Desolation.
Hell, back in the early 1980s, even other Naval officers would give me the, "What a nutball" eyeroll if I talked about liberal media bias.
And then, like Jan Sobieski at the gates of Vienna, here was this man with his unabashed, bold, confident, humorous expression of the things that made us the ugly ducklings in an ocean of liberal hegemony.
I've only succeeded in communicating a fraction of what I would like to say about that...it was like being liberated from a Gulag. Free at last; free at last; thank God, I'm free at last! There was a feeling of immense joy and gratitude.
People would say, "Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for smashing the liberal blackout of conservative thought in the media."
To get some idea, go to the Bakesale clips on the best of Rush on TV at 24/7. I watched them yesterday, and it almost brought tears to my eyes, remembering those heady days.
In the early days of Rush's show, caller after caller would spend time trying to express the thoughts I've touched on above. This was taking time away from the issues, so finally he said, hey, we all understand it, it's been said many times, so just use "ditto" as shorthand for all that.
Und dot's da real story.
I never knew the basis of 'ditto', and now that I do, I LOVE IT!
I share you experience, I first heard of Rush from my hubby. He had come home to our house in Gechingen, GE. (We lived there for seven years as he worked at Patch Barracks, second to NATO, an all service command just outside Suttgart in a community called Vahingen.)
He was kind of excited, said everyone was talking about this radio show at work, and that we could catch the hour of the show on the overseas military network (AFN) carried at midnight.
We listened.
We were hooting and howling during that first small portion of his show that we could capture.
Our conversations, political activism and love for this nation have gone only upwards as a result of FINALLY understanding that we were not alone.
You truly, cannot imagine, what bill klinton and his snake of a wife had done to damage the moral of our military. WE SAW IT UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL.
Rush was like a wind under our wings, and he blew through Patch Barracks, lifting spirits everywhere.
And until we were transfered back home, his show was main source of information (fighting against the horrific mainstream media and their damaging, hurtful attitude towards our military) and inspiration.
I stand with you 100% on your post.
And I believe that hitlery, should she ever become president, would go after this website with such a vengeance (probably making it some kind of impossible to overcome money threat).
She is keenly aware of FReepers, as are moveon and MANY organizations that despise this forum.
FR not only hashes out the news, we are often up front in reporting the news as well as finding factual FAULT with the news....we are a great BIG thorn, stuck deeply and painfully into their fatuous bums.
Which is just about where I want to be.
I've only succeeded in communicating a fraction of what I would like to say about that...it was like being liberated from a Gulag. Free at last; free at last; thank God, I'm free at last! There was a feeling of immense joy and gratitude.
That's how my husband and I feel listening to him.
It's hard to describe how happy -- and astonished -- some of us were to finally hear someone saying what we had been thinking. Thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of us thought we were the only one left who held to those beliefs, because there was no Internet and no communication with like-minded others. Many of us felt like we were the last man alive at Fort Desolation.
LOL. Now if I have to go a day without FR, or a few days without Rush, I feel like I'm stuck in Soviet Canukistan with no hope.
Your description of the media in the '80's is exactly what we still have in Canada. We also have the Canadian Broadcasting Company, (the CBC), which is taxpayer funded to the tune of $1 Billion per year, in order to feed us constant Liberal government propaganda.
We did get Fox last year, but it's only available to satellite subscribers, and digital cable subscribers.
God bless Jim Robinson, and Rush Limbaugh!