PHOTO: the out gay lesbian woman Rachel Maddow earns $7,000,000 per year for doing her MSNBC cable TV "The Rachel Maddow Show," which tops the salaries of some closeted straight men (i.e. heterosexual men who are presumably straight and have never come out as being heterosexual, such as Shepard Smith) in cable TV news, but not the salary of the Republicans' favorite rightwing conservative Bill O'Reilly, who makes $18,000,000 per year for doing "The O'Reilly Factor" on the Republican's favorite rightwing Fox News Channel on cable TV and talk radio. Note that the bigger cable TV network CNN pays the out and gay Anderson Cooper $11,000,000,000 per year -- is this due to sexism or just business reasons? (Source: TV Guide Magazine, Aug. 25-31, 2014, p. 27)
Less than 10 years ago, the only political opinion shows on talk radio and cable TV were rightwing Republican, "every man for himself" types who blindly supported the Bush Administration's policies of anti-gay marriage, big spending on waging wars and eliminating government regulations, which allowed Wall Street to cause a banking collapse and the Great Recession, which Republicans are now trying to blame on President Obama.
During the 2004 election year, when President George W. Bush was reelected, a few Democrats bankrolled the now defunct "Air America Radio" in an attempt to counter Bill O'Reilly and other successful talk shows that spread the conservative ideas of smaller government and individual liberty. Air America Radio had only a shoestring budget and so two of the hosts hired for cheap were the unknown Rachel Maddow and an unemployed "Saturday Night Live" TV show cast member and writer, Al Franken, and both of them did a heroic job countering Republican propaganda prior to the election of President Barack Obama.
Unfortunately, Air America Radio was unable to pay their bills and some its talent moved on to MSNBC TV on cable and local stations, but Al Franken took action and got himself elected as a Democratic Senator from the State of Minnesota. Rachel Maddow moved on to the then new and fledgling MSNBC (originally created by Microsoft and NBC TV network) and she has clearly become a success as an opinion leader in liberal Democratic circles.
It is amazing to think that less than 50 years ago it was forbidden to even mention the word homosexual, except in the context of a criminal investigation against suspected un-American homosexuals and Communists, and here we are today where both a gay woman lesbian can compete successfully against men who would have dismissed her just a generation ago.
This should give everyone hope that no matter how oppressive things are politically, there is always the hope and possibility that things can change for the better in terms of justice and equality for humans who are created equally in the eyes of the U.S. Constitution and law.
One final unrelated comment about the "new" design for the print edition of the TV Guide Magazine, which I hope to blog on later -- print publications are declining in circulation as the internet takes over, but older people are still reading printed magazines, therefore I was shocked to hear that the TV Guide decided to save money by shrinking its page size and type size, making it harder for their best customers to read. Other print magazines are also making this same mistake, which will only accelerate their demise. It reminds me of how shopping malls destroyed city downtown retail stores and now these same shopping malls are being destroyed by internet shopping, but the retail survivors have figured out how to cater to their best customers and stay in business.
