Why Does Rush Limbaugh Call My Momma Names

My momma worked in the shipyards in Evansville, Indiana, right before I was born, building ships to fight the Nazis. She rolled up her sleeves and worked hard, side by side with other women, and men. She continued to work after the war; she ran a laundry and worked in factories in my home town.

From about age seven on, I was a latch key kid. Both parents worked hard trying to make a living, and I was responsible in the mornings for cleaning out the clinkers from the stove that sat in the middle of their bedroom, recovering the fire that had been banked overnight, taking out the ashes, and bringing in more coal. In the afternoon I came home from school by myself, cleaned out the clinkers, took out the ashes, brought in more coal, did my homework, played outside, and waited for my parents to come home.

It was not Ozzie and Harriett, folks.

My mother was not a good cook. My mother was not a good housekeeper—our house was always a mess. I almost never saw my momma wear makeup. Or a dress. She grew up on a farm as a tomboy. She was a chain smoker. She drank mass quantities of iced tea. She could cuss when the spirit moved her. She would take a drink when it pleased her. She did not shave her legs except when she wanted to.

She was a very strong “union man”, often saying to me, “There’s only two kinds of people in the world, Democrats and scabs.” She, in the heat of the moment, once hit her boss as he tried to cross a picket line.

She did not believe she was inferior to men.

Her friends who worked with her in the plastics factory seemed to be very much like her. I worked with them as well for a couple of summers. They, too, were working to support families. Some had husbands, some did not. They, too, were very strong, opinionated women who did not neatly fit into pre-established boxes.

My sister did not fit the box either. She worked most of her life while raising two kids, mostly on her own. As she divorced her third husband, she famously said, “I don’t need me no more damned men. Hell, I’ll be better off with a good cucumber.”

My mother taught me to cook—I needed to feed myself at dinner time and supper time when she worked second or third shift. She taught me to clean house: My logic was “she’s not really interested in housework, and she’s working her butt off at the factory, so if the house ain’t clean enough for me, it’s my problem, not hers.” I did not clean very often, truth be told, but I did learn how to do it. She taught me to wash my own clothes, iron, and take care of myself. She did not sit me down and say, “Now son, these are skills you need to have.” On the other hand, neither she nor my daddy said to me, “Hey, that’s wimmens’ work.”

My mother, cigarette in one hand, coffee in the other, died while having just told a dirty joke on the phone.

My sister taught me how to write “I love you” on a valentine to that one girl in my first-grade class. My sister taught me how to die well—strong to the end.

I watched my momma live her life. I watched my sister live her life. From a distance, I watched Reba, Castela, Dean, Nora Belle, Kathryn, Govenenna, and a whole host of other women in my home town live their lives.

These women were feminists. They did not call themselves that. I’m calling them that.

From my momma and my sister and those women in my home town, I learned to become a feminist, and proudly, as a 67+ year old Southern boy, so label myself.

I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh quite often. As an amateur student of propaganda, I found his radio show instructive. He developed himself into a propaganda artist, with a lot of intelligent followers. As the years went by my interests moved on to other topics and artists, and now I only listen to him when I’m driving through Kansas, bored, and tired of satellite radio.

As I listen, I continue to wonder why he calls women like my momma and sister “femi-Nazis”.  My momma was a feminist-behaving woman who did more than her share of work to defeat the Nazis.  Why would he find this worthy of condemnation and misguided attempts at humor. What is objectionable about people who believe in and fight for the rights of women in a world that has continually sold women short?

I guess I do sort of understand why he does it, strictly from a propaganda perspective—if he can get people to equate feminists (women who don’t kowtow to men) with Nazis (right-wing conservatives who tried to take over the world), he can evoke fear, especially from us bald-headed old men who are scared of women to start with. Calling women who don’t kowtow to men right-wing conservatives doesn’t quite make sense, but the word Nazi does evoke fear (except in extreme right wing conservatives of course).

But, he says he is an entertainer, and it is on that level that I don’t understand it.

I wonder how does Rush Limbaugh get pleasure from and enhance his entertainment value by calling my dead momma a femi-Nazi?