AlterNet Takes on Shock Jock Michael Savage and Gets Threatened With a Lawsuit

By Don Hazen and Tana Ganeva, AlterNet. Posted June 10, 2009.

REPOST BY ANOTHER USER BECAUSE THE ORIGINAL WAS HIJACKED: I AM NOT THE ORIGINAL ADMIN/CREATOR OF THIS GROUP, BUT I FEEL IT DESERVES TO BE PUT BACK.

NOTE: INVITE ALL THE ORIGINAL MEMBERS YOU CAN! WE NEED TO GET THIS BACK TO THE NUMBERS THE ORIGINAL HAD. IF THIS ONE GETS HACKED/REMOVED, THEN SOMEONE PLEASE CREATE ANOTHER, AND SO ON. YOU CAN'T STOP THE SIGNAL. AND I WILL OFFER NO RETRACTIONS AND NO APOLOGIES. FREE SPEECH IS UNIVERSAL. LIVE WITH IT, WEINERS...

Suing Runs in the Family

An eagerness to sue seems to run in the family. When Savage joined Fred Phelps on Britain’s "least wanted," a list of hatemongers banned from the country, he filed a lawsuit in Britain accusing the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, of "serious and damaging defamatory allegations,"

(Savage’s stand for the right to free speech, however, rings somewhat hollow, considering that the talk-show host has advocated jailing war protesters.)

Then there was Savage’s ill-fated (or not, considering the level of publicity it garnered) campaign against the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). In 2007, Savage accused CAIR of violating copyright laws by posting a 4-minute audio clip from Savage’s show. Savage also absurdly alleged that CAIR violated racketeering laws, “claiming that CAIR was a part of a criminal conspiracy silence critics of Islam," according to city media law. Not suprisingly, a federal district court in California dismissed the ridiculous lawsuit.

Apparently, these days, it is not enough for crazy right-wingers to intimidate through the airwaves. They also do so by threatening absurd lawsuits.

As for Rockstar: At this point, the company has become affiliated with Savage just by virtue of having engaged in similar intimidation tactics. Consumers deserve to know about the political affiliations of the products they buy. Or in this case, the horrifying hate speech associated with something as seemingly benign as an energy drink.

But in its campaign to muzzle critics, Rockstar has overplayed its hand; now, tens of thousands of new people will learn about its link to vicious hate-mongerer Michael Savage.

See more stories tagged with: right-wing, alternet, michael savage, hate speech, rockstar

Don Hazen is the executive editor of AlterNet.

Tana Ganeva is an associate editor at AlterNet.

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