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.

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.

Standing Up To Bullies

As we grow up we learn that the only way to deal with bullies is to stand up to them, damn the consequences, because nothing else works. Every other path leads to more fear and more bullying. Keith Olbermann advocates for the President to do just that:

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Shirley Sherrod

I Wanted to make sure anyone who dropped by had the details on the controversy manufactured by a right-wing creep with the help of the right-wing media that led to the firing of Shirley Sherrod. Rachel has the details below:

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Now if you listened to the report you know the perpetrator of the defamation of Shirley Sherrod's character is Andrew Breitbart, a smear merchant whose credibility should be non-existent. That would be true in a world without Glenn beck Rush Limbaugh and Fox News - sadly those things all exist and he has a platform for his lies and fabrications. He was the man behind the lies about ACORN which, even though they proved to be false, helped to bring about that organization's demise.

Part of the reason for his success in taking on ACORN, aside from endless trumpeting of the so called scandal by the right-wing Wurlitzer, was that it took many weeks to completely debunk the story. By that time people had lost interest and moved on. One of the reasons we have hope that this will stick to Breitbart like s*** to a jackal's hide is that it all happened with a 24 hour news-cycle: The lie, the fake outrage, the realization that the video had been clipped and was out of all context, the firing, the apology, the media embarrassment, the walk-back and her vindication.

So people can witness and understand what happened in its entirety. David Frum spoke out against Breitbart and his ilk and tactics but he now represents a small minority in the conservative movement. Shirley herself laid the blame at the feet of Fox and Breitbart - but many will try to blame Obama and the administration who are not without blame but maybe could be excused for being overly sensitive to issues of race.