Truculent Tuesday

Decided that for the radio show I'd make Tuesdays the day to chronicle the goings on in American hate-radio and tea party/John Bircher madness. A couple of stories from last week while I was off seemed to be emblematic of the current state of divisiveness in American politics.

 One happened in Obion County Tennessee the house of the Cranicks caught fire and they fled their home, their neighbors alerted the county’s firefighters, who soon arrived at the scene. Yet when the firefighters arrived, they refused to put out the fire, saying that the family failed to pay the annual subscription fee to the fire department. Because the county’s fire services for rural residences is based on household subscription fees, the firefighters, fully equipped to help the Cranicks, stood by and watched as the home burned to the ground.

The selfish, heartless and soulless philosophy of the GOP and tea party types on display for all to see. Not surprisingly this was defended by Glenn Beck and all the writers over at the National Review. It's hard to tell from my perch up here in Canada how this is resonating with people other than the choir.

The second story involves a group of Missouri tea partiers who have decided to campaign against regulations that would mandate more humane conditions in the state’s puppy mills. Missouri’s Proposition B, which would place new regulations on puppy mills, including mandating that they provide “sufficient food and clean water, necessary veterinary care, sufficient housing, including protection from the elements, sufficient space to turn and stretch freely, lie down, and fully extend his or her limbs, regular exercise, and adequate rest between breeding cycles.”

It is ridiculous to even debate with the right at this point as they are not interested in having a debate on any issue. If a liberal is for it they are against it and that includes puppies. Like my sometimes blogging partner said, "I'm pro-puppy!"

On to the hate spewers, beginning with a story about the man who wanted to murder the people in the Tides Foundation and the ACLU and start a revolution. Spurred on by conspiracies he heard Beck relate on his show -- you can watch a sample of this for yourself:



Media Matters does a terrific job of chronicling the bile vomited up Beck in just a single month. It's astounding that Fox lets him do this -- the extreme violence suggested by his rhetoric and the outright fiction he peddles as truths are frightening. In another era they would not have been tolerated but are now standard fare on American hate-radio. At some point in the near future they will have blood on their hands. Go read the whole long list of Beck's so-called "...anarchists, Marxists, communists, revolutionaries, Maoists who have to "eliminate 10 percent of the U.S. population" in order to "gain control."

 Beck has other enablers, like Palin, and co-conspirators in his spreading of hate and lies like Rush Limbaugh, who is "ready for the overthrow of Imam Obama's agenda."

None of this would be possible without the enabling of the regular MSM. Time magazine's editor Mark Halperin demonstrates what makes Time worth ignoring even when it's free. Media elites like Halperin have been witness to the most unhinged and hateful and sustained attack on a sitting president in modern American history. Their take-away after nearly two years of this hate-fest? It's Obama's fault. And worse, it's his fault when he defends himself.

The hack who passes for a moderator on Meet the Press, David Gregory, distinguishes himself similarly as he bows before his corporate, republican masters and advances right-wing lies about the current state of Social Security solvency in this clip courtesy of the good people at C&L.

Bob Herbert of the NYT's believes the US is losing its soul and becoming a second rate power -- it's hard not agree.

Socialist Geese Consecrate Beckapalooza!

It must be getting a bit frightening for the immediate family of Glenn Beck. His megalomania and delusions make for an odd kind of entertainment but one wonders, how does this stuff look to people who have to live with him? Yesterday as he was mistily recounting the Saturday rally, he started to talk about some Canada geese that flew over the mall in a V shape just as Beckstock was getting under way and says it was likely a message from God. No, really!




The idiots in the MSM should be ashamed of themselves for treating this guy seriously. Maybe there is divine providence looking after him, after all John Stewart's on vacation for two weeks!

The Unbearable Whiteness Of Being

I'm at a loss for words as to what to say about a media that treats Glenn Beck's megalomania as worthy of coverage -- C-Span covered the whole thing and then replayed it! I also don't understand what this snake-oil salesman has done to merit any credibility. Having a TV show that plays to the rubes and bilks them is no great accomplishment. Watch this video collection of some of the most self-aggrandizing moments not featured on the WWE that you'll ever witness or hear:




Bonus link to a great kos diary with pics of the very white rally ( and some teabagger fools climbing all over a WWII memorial!) -- you might want to note that MLK's rally was about 1/4 white while Beck's was 1/1000th black. And because I love you, here's a clip from that movie Keith Olbermann is always referring to in his op-eds about Glenn Beck's alter-ego, Lonesome Rhodes.

Media Demagogues - First In A Series

At the top of the list of modern day media demagogues is self-styled spokesperson for all things Christian is Glenn Beck (even though he is a Mormon). He is getting ready to hold a rally on the anniversary of the "I Have A Dream" speech, and dishonour the name of Martin Luther King. I say self-styled because there is nothing about his behaviour that is remotely Christian. The event which he has claimed will be non-political, will be decidedly political with the NRA as sponsors and Americans for Prosperity, a major conservative political organization backed by right-wing billionaire David A. Koch of the oil giant Koch Industries, providing buses to rally. He will also encourage attendees to join the right-wing group FreedomWorks, which is chaired by former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey.

Listening to Beck discussing NYC Islamic center, he asks, "After you've killed 3,000 people, you're going to now build your mosque?" You have to wonder who the you in the question is. The people who want to build the community center didn't kill 3,000 people on 9/11 -- but it sure is a great way to tar 1.5 billion people and drum up hatred. What major religions would Jesus demagogue?

Glenn Beck even goes so far as to rail and campaign against "social justice" regularly on his program as if such an idea sprang from the devil himself instead of being an idea that runs throughout the Old and New Testaments and includes such virtues as "caring the for the poor and speaking about human rights.

He has helped to normalize this kind of vitriolic speech. Listen to Glenn below talking about rivers of blood:



Keith Olberman takes a look at the the delusions of Glenn Beck:

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A Quick Hitter

While I get ready to blog some news, here's a quick hitter from one of the most despicable characters on the American political landscape. This man is fomenting violence racism and hatred daily on his fox news program and hate-radio show. This should not be tolerated but instead earns him upwards of $32 million dollars per year.

Brief Hiatus

Had to take a couple of days off. Between the radio show and the blogging I got a bit burnt. Not so's you'd notice just enough for me to. I'm going on vacation next week and will spend the entire week doing research of a different kind. This morning's radio show was a mixed bag beginning with the hate-spewing monsters of talk radio in the US. Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.

When discussing the crazy propaganda the aforementioned hate-meisters spew, what's important to remember is no matter how crazy or untrue it may sound to you, it's effective if it's heard often enough and it will be believed. The right-wing media absolutely relies on that to be true. The conservative media dreamland, for instance, ensconces its audience in an impregnable bubble -- you eat breakfast with the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, you drive to the office with right-wing radio, you flit between Breitbart and Drudge at work, you come home to Fox News. The ideas bouncing around in this world -- say, ideas about the Obama administration allegedly favoring blacks -- don't seem like propaganda to those inside the bubble.

This holds true for the so-called debate about anthropogenic global warming. There is little debate about the science within the scientific community - 97% of scientists believe it is settled science. You can debate the models and the minutiae but global warming has a human footprint. To the public at large, it's not so cut and dried where only 26% are convinced and as you can see in the chart the media coverage mirrors public perception.

For those who don't have time to read the science or vet all the claims, you can understand their confusion. In the same day you can have an excellent must-read article about climate change, cause and effects published in the Washington Post, and something completely moronic printed in the former paper of record, The New York Times. The reverse could also happen. The MSM are driving people's understanding of the issue (or lack thereof) and as such are responsible for the lack of action taken thus far to stem the worst effects.

Of course they couldn't do it alone, there are organizations like the US Chamber of Commerce to help spread the disinformation. Increasingly there are signs that some within the Chamber want to distance themselves from their policies:  a breakaway group of local chambers is getting ready to publicly split with the business lobby's hardline stance against climate legislation. The new climate coalition, known as the Chambers for Innovation and Clean Energy (CICE), will press Congress to take stronger action on climate and energy issues. It has already signed up about a dozen chambers and will officially launch later this year. Hooray for a little sanity!

In economic news I went back down the memory hole to have another look at Robert Reich's Nation article  about how the wealthy are raking in an absurd portion of the wealth -- Median wages are continuing their downward slide, and those at the top continue to rake in the lion's share of income. That's why the middle class still doesn't have the purchasing power it needs to reboot the economy, and why the so-called recovery will be so tepid—maybe even leading to a double dip. It's also why America will be vulnerable to even larger speculative booms and deeper busts in the years to come.

About economists, Dean Baker over at Truthout writes:  It is amazing that angry mobs have not risen up and chased all the economists out of the country. While the greed of the Wall Street gang provided the fuel for the bubble, the economists played an essential role as enablers. This was most directly true for economists in policymaking positions, like Alan Greenspan at the Fed.

It's hard to summarize what's been going on in the Gulf this past week (Truthout gives it a good go) but the oil has been dispersed by toxic chemicals and everyone's trying to pretend that's a good thing. Recall that dispersant and oil are more lethal to the environment than just plain oil. So now as they get ready to kill the spill once and for all there are reports that there is a dead zone in the Gulf the size of Massachusetts.

The Narrative

One of my problems with the blogging thing is I've always looked at things from the perspective of the big picture -- macro. In doing so I often allow the minutiae to escape me. It's why I don't do short sharp posts, for the most part, like the blogs I love to read do. I'm always trying to fit everything into the bigger picture and for the last 19 months I have to admit the big picture has been scaring the crap out of me.

There are untold consequences to come for the kind of public discourse being allowed to happen in the public square -- hell, hate is not just being allowed, it's encouraged. Witness last week's attack on Shirley Sherrod by a scumbag named Andrew Breitbart. It was proven to not only be demonstrably false but a deliberate lie meant to turn what she said on it's ear and give her words the exact opposite meaning that were intended. Even being called out by their media colleagues doesn't do anything to stop the endless attacks. Maybe it's because guys like Breitbart have many, many, many enablers. And there's seemingly no depths they won't sink to.

The outcomes of such non-stop propagandizing and vitriol can only be guessed at. There's no way of determining what will result in five, ten, fifteen years from now as a result of a steady stream of hate being taught absorbed and taken to heart.

So I wander over to a link at MMFA and read that Glenn Beck's hate-mongering rhetoric nearly got him a demonstrable body count, and that only a bit of luck prevented Byron Williams, a right-wing, government-hating, gun-toting nut who had strapped on body armor, stocked a pickup truck with guns, ammo, and set off up the California coast to San Francisco in order to start killing employees at the Tides Foundation - an obscure organization continually targeted by Glenn Beck on his program. All this in the hopes of sparking a political revolution.

Thankfully, the planned domestic terrorist attack never came to pass because California Highway Patrol officers pulled Williams over for drunk driving on his way to his killing spree. Williams quickly opened fire, wounding two officers during a lengthy shootout. Luckily, Williams wasn't able to act out the ultimate goal of his dark anger -- fueled by the TV news he watched -- about how "Congress was railroading through all these left-wing agenda items," as his mother put it. Williams wasn't able to open fire inside the offices of the Tides Foundation, an organization "nobody knew" about until Glenn Beck started targeting it.

So, happenstance prevented Glenn Beck inspired murder and mayhem this time. It's not likely that we'll be so lucky next time. There is a way to head this off at the pass and that is for people to stand up and declare his speech intolerable and unacceptable in a civilized society. I often declare that we're living in the age of stupid - there's a lot of cowardice going around too.

Black Panthers Looking Forward to Seeing Glenn Beck

From Mediaite's Tommy Christopher, an exerpt of an exclusive interview with Malik Zulu Shabazz, the New Black Panther Party Chairman, who has plans of his own for August 28. He's not happy with Glenn Beck's choosing Martin Luther King's birthday as the date or the Lincoln Memorial as the place to hold his rally and promises to go see it himself. He calls Beck a sneaky little devil, a neo-racist and promises that there will be direct opposition to this rally from the New Black Panther Party. What could go wrong?



You can watch the entire interview here.

Gross Violations of Decency

Whenever Keith Olbermann includes Rush and Glenn in his daily feature, "Worst Persons in the World," he's going to have to rename it "Most Despicable People in the World!" Yesterday both made it into his trifecta that has been featured and posted all over the blogosphere. Yet for these two, the title seems so inadequate. With Limbaugh it's daily doses of putrid, bile belching racism that he not only he gets away with, they pay him millions to do it. He can even spew his venomous drool in the direction of the children of the poor and for Rush there are no consequences. No blowback or pushback or outrage or anything but more paychecks.

With Glenn it's creepier. He's paid the same kind of money Rush gets to be a paranoid, delusional, liar. The stomach-turning nature of the hatred he regurgitates can be heard below courtesy of MMFA, who do a great job of cataloguing the viciousness of today's Most Despicable People in the World!



Bonus hilarity: Bill Keller is saying Glenn Beck is not a Christian, stating he is in fact a member of a weird religious cult.

You Want Wankers?

I'm not even sure this is merely wankery anymore. I've called Glenn Beck the most despicable man in the world and I mean it. I put him on a par with child molesters and murderers. His kind of hate is lethal. Rush Limbaugh deserves to be counted as equal to Glenn. Today Rush was suggesting poor kids who are hungry should go dumpster diving.

Of course Rush didn't like Obama's speech - not really worth mentioning in the previous post but the best part was his attack on the "fraud" of global warming. The science on global warming is clear and indisputable except to idiots, liars and corporate shills.

One of the reasons Rush and Glenn get away with the crap they do is because of a compliant press.

The Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, may be releasing a new video soon which probably explains why American officials have stepped up efforts to locate him.

Fossil Fuel Addiction

Oil execs get grilled by Congress and admit they're not well equipped to handle disasters.

Cue speech from the President on need for real change. We're rooting for him. Let's hope he can be as good as his word. Remember one of the reasons he's going after BP hammer and tong is it's been 21 years and Exxon still has not paid even the piddling amount (for them) they were fined. In fact before dime one was ever paid as compensation to victims of Valdez oil spill, 8,000 of the potential recipients died.


President Obama’s Oval Office Address on BP Oil Spill & Energy from The White House on Vimeo.


Cue Republicans telling Obama not to use this fossil fuel disaster as an excuse to push for legislation that tries to end dependency on fossil fuels. They're so astoundingly anti-science on the right and in some cases just so stupid, that I wonder where their credibility comes from. Oh yeah, the corporate media enables these idiots by never making any connections between what we're witnessing, for example, extreme storms and global warming. The evidence can be right in front of them and still they deny it.

One of the Republican governors (Haley Barbour of Miss.) is always alluding to oil naturally seeping into the oceans and how that isn't the end of the world and so the spill in the Gulf shouldn't be either. Well, that's 'cause it's a different animal.

Here's 15 unsettling facts about wealth and inequality in America (spoiler: the rich have been getting way richer and the poor less than nothing).

The most despicable man in the world (Glenn Beck) lies some more.

The Most Despicable Person In The World

We are big fans of Keith Olbermann here at NM&P, particularly his daily "Worst Person In The World!" feature. He's generally got a good point to make and oft times it's a damned funny segment. Last night he included Glenn Beck in his segment and as always he's having sport - my only qualms are that I no longer think Glenn Beck is worthy of sport or needling or anything else that isn't dead serious about getting him off the airwaves. He's not only the worst person in the world he's the most despicable.

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The following words taken from Beck's radio program are not merely some sort of twisted entertainment - they are a call to his listeners for violence against a President whom Beck is calling a traitor to the US in so many words and he does it daily. Every day that there is no action, Beck seems to ramp up the demagoguery and the hate. This, as they say, is not going to end well.

BECK: Using his own words to describe his grandmother, that when you see a 'typical person' like the president of BP, he has a reaction -- um, you know -- to those people that has been bred into him. Ok. Alright. Now that actually kind of works, if you understand who his parents were. And who his grandparents were. Because they're not really the 'typical white people.' His mother - his mother wasn't. His mother was a revolutionary. His father wasn't. A revolutionary. His grandparents, they went to the communist Little Red Church just outside of Seattle. They had communist friends. So it's almost like Marxism has been bred into him.

BECK: And I think that's who she is. I don't know her at all, other than her own words. And her own words are not in sync with America. Americans are proud of their country. They may not like what's going on in their country under Bush, under Obama, under Reagan, under Clinton, it doesn't matter, we are not happy with the way that our country is run from time to time, usually most times. But we have an underlying belief in our country and love of our country. I don't think she does. Maybe she does, but her words say differently.