Comment and Opinion

Hal Turner Show
This site disappeared in mid-2004, but reappeared early in 2005. It was reinvented in 2008 as a blog, probably because running a blog doesn't cost any money and Hal was always crying poor.

This site won an Encouragement Award in the 2003 Millenium Awards. The award citation read:

They object too much (18/5/2002)
I sometimes find myself having a small chuckle at web sites which really should appal and offend me. The usual reason for this is that something is so outrageous that the site starts to look like parody. These sites are actually less dangerous than the ones which present bigotry or lies in a calm, dispassionate manner, but they often attract a lot of attention. Two examples floated past me this week, although both have been listed here for a long time. The first is the famous Westboro Baptist Church, better known as "God Hates Fags", owned by Fred Phelps. This site used to be a lot crazier than it is now, but it is still pretty badly unhinged. The second site is The Hal Turner Show owned, obviously, by mad radio announcer Hal Turner. While Fred is a single-issue hater and ranter, Hal is a bit more eclectic and adds racism to the religious bigotry and homophobia. (Hal seems to be having some trouble deciding whose side he is on in the Middle East at the moment. As he hates both Arabs and Jews, he doesn't know quite what to do about the Palestinians.) I'm not condoning or supporting what either Phelps or Turner has to say (although I will defend etc – Voltaire), but I think the attention and reaction they get is out of proportion to the harm they can cause. The ones we can laugh at are far less dangerous than the slick, reasonable sounding ones who politely spread hate on talk shows, in books and on the Internet.

Hal's back! (30/8/2003)
For the last few weeks rabid racist Hal Turner has been begging on his web site for money to keep his site and radio program going. The deadline was about a week ago, when all the money was going to run out, the site was going to go 403, the radio show was going to be set to just a low whistle, and the free world was going to be vulnerable to being overrun by hordes of faithless, depraved, unwhite abortionists. Luckily for us all, it seems that someone has come up with the necessary cash.

Hal seems to have worked out the answer to another of his problems as well. As Hal is an equal-opportunity racist, he appeared to be having some trouble at one time deciding who he supported in the conflict in the Middle East: the disgusting, hook-nosed kikes or the stinking, depraved, rag-headed savages. He is now firmly in one camp, but a new dilemma has arisen. Hal is not too sure what to think about Arnold Schwarzeneggar. On the one hand, Arnie is being criticised by some people because he bothered to learn English (or something like it); on the other hand, Arnie once admitted to a casual bit of miscegenetic sex with some woman not his wife; on the third hand the woman was black so she probably doesn't count; on the final hand, people are saying that Arnie's father was a member of the Nazi Party. I suspect that for Hal, the last point will clinch the argument and Arnie will be declared a Hal Turner endorsed Good Guy. And he killed a lot of people in films too, which is what Hal wants to have happen in real life.

Note to potential complainers – I think that Hal Turner is a ranting lunatic and the world would be better off without his vile site. Having said that, I don't think that people like him are as dangerous as some might believe. His site is so close to parody that it is unlikely to influence anyone's opinion. Anyone who would agree with him is already unhinged, and most of them would have trouble with the big words he uses anyway.

Schadenfreude Corner (14/8/2004)
The web site belonging to racist radio announcer Hal Turner has been missing in action for several weeks. Whether this means that he has finally joined the human race, lost all his listeners and visitors or he just ran out of money is not known, but he will be missed. Not because his ideas had any worth, but because he was a great example of how bigotry can become a parody of itself when it is taken to extremes. As an example of Hal's work, the advertisement at the left is for some coffee mugs which he had for sale at one time. Further comment on the design is unnecessary.

Here is the tasteful design for a t-shirt which was once on sale on the Hal Turner web site. The Latin words mean "Long Live the White Race".

Hal's back! (2/4/2005)
One of the funniest racists and bigots on the 'net is back. Hal Turner seems to have overcome the financial problems which closed his web site and radio program last year, and he is back in business. You might ask why I find him funny when what he says is outrageous. It is because he is so over the top. If he were subtle he might be a danger, but anyone this foam-flecked can only be an object of ridicule, and I am just the person to do the ridiculing. Actually, ridiculing him is difficult, as he does such a good job of making himself look like a parody. Here is an example news item from his front page today:

RUMOR: CARDINALS MAY SELECT AN AFRICAN OR LATIN AS NEXT PONTIFF TO REACH OUT TO THE THIRD WORLD
If they do, it will rightly mean the total destruction of the Catholic Church
Non-Whites can never be Pope because they are not of God's Chosen; Jews have been trying to steal the title of "God's Chosen" for centuries, but those of us who understand the Bible know that only whites constitute God's Chosen. It says so in the Bible, Book of Genesis

The new, plumper 2009 version of Hal.