In our daily meditations lately we have been discussing evil and its presence among us and within us.
In 1987 the Reagan administration erased the Fairness Doctrine enforced by the FCC since 1949. I believe Hate Radio took off at that point, followed by the success of Rush Limbaugh and his many copycats, including Fox News.
So hearing that he was in the news lately, I wrote him a public letter, part of which I reproduce here.
Dear Mr Limbaugh,
Here we are at a low point in the history of American democracy and on the eve of the acquittal of Mr Trump from wrongdoing by a compliant Senate that seems as married to the god Chronos (who ate his children as all climate-deniers are doing) and to the idolatry of power. And the news comes out that you are facing a showdown with cancer.

As human being to human being, I feel for your struggle ahead but of course we all live our lives and do our work in the knowing of our mortality and the coming of death. Only now it is becoming more real for you surely (and for me too since I am entering my 80th year and that too is a reminder of my own mortality).
As a priest I am with you in this latest journey of yours.
But I also want to invite you, as you look back on your life and work (and so much of our lives is our work) to consider making these last months on earth the most useful possible. You might want to consider leaving behind some healing and gifting to balance out the immense amount of division-making and hatred, shaming and name-calling of others that you have built your sad but profitable career on.
Clearly you are a gifted individual but clearly also you have not used your gifts to spread healing or love or justice. There is a certain karma in hearing about your present condition on the eve of the fake acquittal in a sham trial of a president who, with your urging and cheerleading for years, has shown his complete disregard for truth and for human respect, for future generations (by denying climate change) and for our constitution which he clearly violated time and time again.

President Donald J. Trump and Rush Limbaugh at the Trump International Golf Club, West Palm Beach, FL, 4/19/2019. Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian on Wikimedia Commons
One can make a list of your tirades over the decades—one that sticks out to me is your calling feminists “feminazis” which may make for clever radio parlance but which reveals a very sick sense of masculine superiority and violence against women seeking their god-given wisdom and freedom.
What most stands out is the primal role you have played in creating the divide that now exists in the body politics of our country. A divide completely at work in the current Senate sham impeachment trial.
Your decades of spewing hate and division over the airwaves are now bearing their poisoned fruit. Yes, your party now owns the senate and therefore the impeachment future of our president but unfortunately their ethics mirror yours just as Mr. Trump’s do.
You are not alone of course but you and your ilk created Trump in the sense that you spread the message of Resentment throughout this country for decades.
Excerpted from Matthew Fox, A Public Letter to Rush Limbaugh on Hearing He Has Terminal Cancer. (This is only the first third).
Banner Image: The bright light at the end of the tunnel. Photo by Mohammad Hoseini Rad on Unsplash
Queries for Contemplation
Put yourself in Rush Limbaugh’s position—you have received notice that your have a few months to live. Looking back on your life, what would you like to improve on in the time you have left?
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7 thoughts on “Evil and Our Legacy to the World”
Dear Matthew,
And yet again, your thoughts are put forward with sincerity and courage.
Thank you.
Sister Theresa Young
Thank you for writing, Theresa. We appreciate hearing from you.
Gail Sofia Ransom
For the Daily Meditations Team
I think you are absolutely right about the genesis of hate speech in the media stemming from the Reagan years, which started the rush to deregulation that is helping to ruin the physical environment and the political environment. I pray that your call to repentance works. Only God can turn around such an arrogant man.
Dear Sue
Thank you for responding to this meditation. It is easy to forget the moments, the votes, the personalities that initiate these small shifts that become seismic over time. Perhaps there is another shift happening now that will itself become seismic. THere is increasing energy around honoring the earth and addressing this crisis in creation.
Perhaps only God can turn things around, if that means the God that is in all of us that is constantly evolving and illuminating the good. Evil has done its part. Now it is time to do ours. Keeping up with the discipline of these meditations, as you are, is a way to be ready when divine intention invites us to act.
Gail Sofia Ransom
For the Daily Meditation Team
So grateful for your courage to highlight how evil is contributing to the detriment of humankind. Injustice must be named and responsibility addressed and your calling truth to power reminding humans to strive for good with graced gifts is imperative. With appreciation on such a convoluted issue in divine timing,
Thank you, Elizabeth, for your confirmation of Matt’s letter to Rush Limbaugh. While many of us knew that Reagan’s trickle down theory of economics was a cover for racism and greed, Limbaugh seemed a bit player over in the corner wallpapering our rooms with hate. Now we see that there was an arc of evil coalescing that now must be stopped by people like you and me. TOgether.
Gail Sofia Ransom
FOr the Daily Meditation Team
I wrote a few minutes ago, but it just went somewhere before I finished. I just want to thank you for the letter you wrote to Limbaugh. May he be moved by it and do some ‘repair’ work before he leaves the planet. He is still loved by a loving and forgiving God who never stops loving us . . . no matter what we’ve done. I do find it hard to send love, and I find it easier to send compassion and Light.
blessings, Matthew.