Two days ago I heard an interview with Immaculee Ilibagiza, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide and the author of Left To Tell. Both her parents and two of her three brothers were killed during the genocide, and she only survived by hiding inside a bathroom with seven other women for three months. At least half a million Rwandans, mostly ethnic Tutsis, died in the span of those three months. Here's my transcription of one question from the interview and Ms. Ilibagiza's response:

Laura Knoy When did you notice, Immaculee, that things were really getting bad? You know, beyond this sort of push by the government to make people very aware of their differences. When did you and your family start to notice that things were getting scary?

Immaculee Ilibagiza Things started to get scary about two years before the whole thing really started, when there was a radio which was ... after they called it "Hate radio," and on this radio the journalist was talk on radio used to make himself drunk. So he would come like, really drunk, and he couldn't talk well, and really we'd say that he was drunk, and then he would start to teach people how to kill Tutsis when the time comes. So, we were all laughing; they were making jokes, dirty jokes. So, everyone was listening to that radio...

So that radio from morning until night was just talking about how Tutsis were bad, how Tutsis were evil. They are snakes. They are cockaroaches.

A talk radio host who on the surface appears to be a mook --- a buffoon, a funny guy. Maybe he says he's got "talent on loan from God," or "I know these people like I know every square inch of my glorious naked body." Maybe he calls those he hates, "Red Diaper Doper Babies." Humor is disarming. It's hard to turn away in disgust when you're laughing.

But the laughter is a sugar-coating for the bad pill, a Trojan horse. The heartbeat of the show is the hatred of the "traitors." "What's good for al-Qaeda is good" for them. "To fight only the al-Qaida scum is to miss the terrorist network operating within our own borders." Now, nobody is saying, "Go out and kill them," but we all know the punishment for treason. Their sub-text remains barely under the surface.

So, do I think that genocide can happen here in the USA? Probably not. But if it ever does, I predict the survivors will say that things started getting scary when lots of people listened to Hate radio.