[Marxism] Paul Harvey

[Louis Proyect]

March 1, 2009
Paul Harvey, Talk-Radio Pioneer, Is Dead at 90
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CHICAGO — Paul Harvey, the news commentator and talk-radio pioneer whose 
staccato style made him one of the nation’s most familiar voices, died 
Saturday in Arizona, according to ABC Radio Networks. He was 90.

Mr. Harvey died surrounded by family at a hospital in Phoenix, where he 
had a winter home, said Louis Adams, a spokesman for ABC Radio Networks, 
where Mr. Harvey worked for more than 50 years. No cause of death was 
immediately available.

Mr. Harvey had been forced off the air for several months in 2001 
because of a virus that weakened a vocal cord. But he returned to work 
in Chicago and was still active as he passed his 90th birthday. His 
death comes less than a year after that of his wife and longtime 
producer, Lynne.

“My father and mother created from thin air what one day became radio 
and television news,” their only child, Paul Harvey Jr., said in a 
statement. “So in the past year, an industry has lost its godparents, 
and today millions have lost a friend.”

Known for his resonant voice and his trademark radio feature called “The 
Rest of the Story,” Mr. Harvey had been heard nationally since 1951, 
when he began his “News and Comment” feature for ABC Radio Networks.

He became a heartland icon, delivering news and commentary with a 
distinctive Midwestern flavor. “Stand by for news!” he would tell 
listeners.

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http://www.fair.org/blog/2009/03/01/the-rest-of-paul-harveys-story/
The Rest of Paul Harvey's Story
03/01/2009 by Jim Naureckas

On the death of radio's Paul Harvey, it's hard for me not to think of 
his June 23, 2005 broadcast as his most revealing moment.

That's the episode where he delivered this memorable rant (Extra! 
Update, 8/05):

     After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Winston Churchill said that the 
American people…he said, the American people, he said, and this is a 
direct quote, "We didn’t come this far because we are made of sugar candy."

     And that reminder was taken seriously. And we proceeded to develop 
and deliver the bomb, even though roughly 150,000 men, women and 
children perished in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. With a single blow, World 
War II was over.

     Following New York, September 11, Winston Churchill was not here to 
remind us that we didn’t come this far because we’re made of sugar candy.

     So, following the New York disaster, we mustered our humanity...and 
we sent men with rifles into Afghanistan and Iraq, and we kept our best 
weapons in our silos.

     Even now we're standing there dying, daring to do nothing decisive, 
because we’ve declared ourselves to be better than our terrorist 
enemies--more moral, more civilized.

     Our image is at stake, we insist.

     But we didn’t come this far because we’re made of sugar candy.

     Once upon a time, we elbowed our way onto and across this continent 
by giving smallpox-infected blankets to Native Americans. That was 
biological warfare. And we used every other weapon we could get our 
hands on to grab this land from whomever.

     And we grew prosperous. And yes, we greased the skids with the 
sweat of slaves.

     So it goes with most great nation-states, which--feeling guilty 
about their savage pasts--eventually civilize themselves out of business 
and wind up invaded and ultimately dominated by the lean, hungry 
up-and-coming who are not made of sugar candy.

To Harvey, in other words, failing to use nuclear and biological weapons 
because we feel guilty about genocide and slavery means that we're "made 
of sugar candy." And this will mean the end of U.S. civilization.

It's hard to know how to respond to that worldview, or to the fact that 
the person who promulgated it was one of the most popular and 
longest-running personalities, other than to note that he was taking 
Churchill out of context.   Churchill followed up his observation--which 
was made about the "peoples of the British empire," not about 
Americans--with the vow that "we shall never descend to the German and 
Japanese level," meaning the Nazis and the World War II-era Japanese 
Empire. Harvey seemed genuinely worried that we wouldn't descend to that 
level soon enough.

See also Extra!: "The Right of the Story: Harvey Peddles Tall 
Tales--With a Conservative Kick" (9-10/97) by Dan Wilson.