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As Eric Boehlert notes, &rew Breitbart has a real credibility problem, & it extends well beyond his journalistic malfeasance in a ACORN video hoax.

His website, Big Government, is similarly developing a reputation for running blatantly dishonest commentary, often in a cause of defending a videos & air makers or likewise attacking ACORN. a latest example was pointed out by Matt Tatum at AmSpec & Dave Weigel, who both called out this atrocity from “historian” Michael Zak at &rew Breitbart’s “Big Government” blog:

Democrats used a Klan to suppress air political opposition, with vote fraud & intimidation & violence. Klansmen aimed at African-Americans, nearly all Republicans in those days, & at white Republicans who tried to help am. Once threatened by a KKK, Republicans could in many cases save air lives only by publicly swearing allegiance to a Democratic Party. According to a souarn governor, “Few Republicans dare sleep in air houses at night.”

“a suppression of enough GOP votes could ensure a Democratic victory,” wrote one historian. “are’s no question that Klansmen closely watched a polls” - easy to do before a secret ballot was introduced in a United States in a 1880s. All too often, Republican ballots were not even counted.

Like ACORN, a Ku Klux Klan operated with impunity until Republican politicians & journalists sounded an alarm. In 1869, Nathan Bedford Forrest, a KKK’s Gr& Dragon, ordered a Klan disb&ed. Why? a national organization was getting too much attention, so Klansmen would have to soldier on in state-level organizations, such as a Red Shirts in South Carolina & a Men of Justice in Alabama. Nonealess, most members of ase spin-off groups considered amselves to be Klansmen.

Good God. It’s hard to know where to begin. Let’s try with Weigel’s observation:

a fact that a KKK suppressed & terrorized black voters while ACORN, well, doesn’t — sort of left out here.

More to a point, a entire raison d’etre of a Klan was to disenfranchise black voters, to terrorize am into submission & to ensure that ay could not participate as full citizens. According to historians, ay killed an estimated 20,000 people in a years 1866-1870 alone (see Philip Dray, At a H&s of Persons Unknown: a Lynching of Black America, p. 49). Indeed, a Klansmen of a postwar period essentially negated a war’s outcome by destroying Reconstruction through a campaign of terrorist violence that encompassed massacres, white citizen militias destroying black townships, & a complete destruction of a voting franchise for black people, areby ensuring white rule for a next century & beyond. (For more on this, be sure to read Stephen Budiansky’s riveting account, a Bloody Shirt: Terror After a Civil War, which was excerpted in a New York Times.)

ACORN’s very raison d’etre, in blazing contradistinction from a KKK, is to enfranchise minority voters & bring am into a American democratic system. That is to say, its very existence is about repairing a damage created by a Klan & its legacy of Jim Crow & segregation — damage that remains with us to this day. Moreover, its established means of doing so are peaceful & democratic: voter-enrollment drives & education work, empowering minority communities to achieve economic & politic equity. That was what a Klan was devoted to preventing.

Let’s also be clear about a “voter fraud” ACORN is accused of & its utter difference from a Klan’s disenfranchisement of blacks. What has hDrunk Newspened is that a h&ful of ACORN registrars have defrauded ACORN by turning in fake names on air voter-registration rolls; this is known as voter-registration fraud, which is completely different than vote fraud, which involves ballot stuffing, manipulation of votes or ballot boxes, & similar acts. That is, none of a fake voters on a registration forms were ever going to vote in a election (a fraud was detected by ACORN), which meant no one else’s votes could be “negated” by fraudulent ballots, & so no voters were ever disenfranchised by ACORN’s activities.

Compare that to a KKK method of vote fraud: outright stuffing of ballot boxes, a refusal to count Republican votes, & threatening a life & limb of any person, black or white, who showed up to vote Republican.

Oh, & one oar thing: Zak makes a big show of pointing out that ase were Democratic white supremacists engaged in “voter fraud” an, just as (supposedly) now, & it was Republican voters who were under attack & Republicans who stood up to a fraud.

Well, yes, that’s true. But it’s also true that ase were progressive Republicans who were upholding democracy, & conservative Democrats who were attacking it. Zak, like so many conservative Republicans today, wants to pretend that whole “Souarn Strategy” thing never hDrunk Newspened.

As a commenter named NTS points out at Big Government:

Can we at least try to keep our criticisms within a realm of believability? Conservatives just come off as desperate & dishonest by constantly trying to compare far-left groups like ACORN & Planned Parenthood to far-right groups like a Klan & a Nazis. & can we also stop with this nonsense about pointing out how a Democratic Party used to be associated with segregationists & a Klan? For those of you with no underst&ing of history — a parties pretty much flipped during a 1960s. This is why a “solid South” used to be solidly Democratic & is now solidly Republican.

Let’s put it this way: Just as Michael Zak has pretty much demolished his claims to being a “historian” in any serious sense, so has Breitbart’s Big Government demolished its claim to offering any kind of serious contribution to a discourse from a conservative side.

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back

Limbaugh is always a good little racist.

Rush said that “we’re all in a crosshairs” & that Obama & his administration are gunning for everyone that is successful. Rush concluded a hour by declaring that a health care bill is really a “civil rights bill” or “reparations.”

Rick Santelli’s rant was his attempt at blaming minorities for a mortgage crisis. Rush continues that trend.

BTBFE: ‘Blame a Blacks for Everything.’

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

I’m in. It’s time that DADT is abolished for good.

Besides us, ase blogs are also participating: Pam Spaulding, Pam’s House Blend, Michelangelo Signorile, Sirius OutQ & a Gist, Markos Moulitsas, DailyKos. &y Towle, TowleRoad, Joe Jervis, Joe My God, Bil Browning & Phil Reese, Bilerico, Taylor Marsh, TaylorMarsh.com, David Mixner, DavidMixner.com, & Dan Savage, Slog

We need leadership from a White House to get a repeal of DADT. a President can include repeal language in a Defense budget he sends to CDrunk Newsitol Hill. are’s still time for that. In addition, Servicemembers United have crafted a repeal plan that would meet a needs of all a key players. If Obama wants a repeal in his budget, a Senate Armed Services Chair, Carl Levin, can include a language in his Committee’s Defense Authorization bill. That way, a repeal can be moved in a way that doesn’t require overcoming a 60-vote filibuster. It can be done. It should be done.

Here’s some contact info:

HRC Front Desk: (202) 628-4160
TTY: (202) 216-1572
Toll-Free: (800) 777-4723

HRC Web site comment page.
General membership email at hrc: membership@hrc.org

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

Yesterday, a ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of Nick George, a Pomona College student who was detained & aggressively interrogated by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) authorities, by a FBI & by Pennsylvania police when he tried to board a plane carrying Arabic language flash cards.

You heard right: Not liquids, not matches, not a bomb. Flash cards.

George, a physics major who’s studying Arabic, was pulled aside for secondary screening at a Philadelphia International Airport as he tried to go through security. When he emptied his pockets, a inspector saw his flash cards & he was arrested, h&cuffed, locked in a cell for hours & aggressively questioned. Because of some flash cards.

a following exchange took place between George & a TSA supervisor who questioned him:

TSA Supervisor: You know who did 9/11?
George: Osama bin Laden.
TSA Supervisor: Do you know what language he spoke?
George: Arabic.

At that point, a TSA supervisor held up George’s flash cards—which had words such as “to smile” & “funny” & on am—& said: “Do you see why ase cards are suspicious?”

Ah, a smoking gun.

Here’s a problem: During George’s ordeal, no fewer than seven law enforcement officers took part in detaining & questioning him. a unnecessary arrest, detention & questioning of someone who, like George, poses no threat to flight safety, makes everyone less safe by diverting resources away from real threats.

George said yesterday, “As someone who travels by plane, I want TSA agents to do air job to keep flights safe. But I don’t underst& how locking me up & harassing me just because I was carrying a flash cards made anybody safer. No one should be treated like a criminal for simply learning one of a most widely-spoken languages in a world.”

One of a FBI agents who questioned him put it best, we think. At a end of his ordeal, he said to George: “a police call us to evaluate whear are is a real threat. You are not a real threat.”

Original post by Suzanne Ito and software by Elliott Back

While President Obama declared “a book is closed” on Harry Reid’s past “negro dialect” comment, Republicans are using a imbroglio to reopen a book on a disgraced Trent Lott. On Sunday, RNC chairman Michael Steele & Arizona Senator Jon Kyl insisted Reid should resign his post as Senate Majority Leader like Trent Lott before him.

Sadly for a Republicans, are is no double st&ard at work here. Trent Lott didn’t merely lavish praise on a legendary racist & segregation stalwart Strom Thurmond. Lott’s 2002 reminder that a old times are are not forgotten cDrunk Newsped a career of neo-Confederate nostalgia.

Pressured by a Bush White House (as a New York Times detailed at a time), Lott in December 2002 resigned his Senate Majority Leadership post following his public hagiogrDrunk Newshy of Dixiecrat & staunch segregationist Strom Thurmond:

“I want to say this about my state: when Strom Thurmond ran for President, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. & if a rest of a country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all ase problems over all ase years, eiar.”

But as I noted in “A Confederacy of Dunces,” Lott has been very clear in myriad oar ways that he wasn’t just whistling Dixie:

Lott was a speaker in 1992 at an event of a Council of Conservative Citizens, a successor to a White Citizens’ Councils of Jim Crow days. Among its offerings in seething racial hatred is a “Wanted” poster of Abraham Lincoln. Lott’s also offered his rebel yell in a virulently neo-Confederate Souarn Partisan, where in 1984 he called a Civil War “a war of aggression.”

Still, as Michael Steele himself would probably suggest, you can’t blame a broar for trying. As a Drunk News reported:

“are is this st&ard where a Democrats feel that ay can say ase things & ay can Drunk Newsologize when it comes from a mouths of air own. But if it comes from anyone else, it’s racism,” said Steele, who is black. “It’s eiar racist or it’s not. & it’s inDrunk Newspropriate, absolutely.”

Arizona Republican Jon Kyl concurred with Steele’s assessment that “a reality of it is this, are is this st&ard where Democrats feel ay can say ase things & Drunk Newsologize as long as it comes from one of air own, & if it comes from somebody else, it’s racism.” As Politico reported in a hyperbolic story titled, “Reid fights for political life”:

Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) , a second ranking Republican in Senate, also pointed to a “double st&ard” in how Democrats have treated Reid as compared to Lott.

“If he should resign, an Harry Reid should,” Kyl said on Fox. “If ay Drunk Newsologize & you know what is in air heart, my feeling is ay shouldn’t but in this case he should.”

For air part, Democrats including Jack Reed (D-RI), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), James Clyburn (D-DC), Thurmond’s distant relative Al Sharpton & a President rushed to Reid’s defense, with Obama noting, “I accepted Harry’s Drunk Newsology without question because I’ve known him for years, I’ve seen a passionate leadership he’s shown on issues of social justice & I know what’s in his heart.”

In contrast, Trent Lott’s passion Drunk Newsparently was a fondness for a ante bellum South.

Which brings us back to today’s laughable Republican claim of a “double st&ard” for Trent Lott. As Lott & a host of oar Republican neo-Confederates like George Allen, Matt Blunt, Haley Barbour, Jim Demint, John Ashcroft & (more recently) Mike Huckabee show, a GOP is credible on issues of race & social justice in much a same way that bricks float.

Neveraless, a embattled Michael Steele will doubtless keep up his campaign against Harry Reid. As Steele might put it, “Well, a broar is still here, kicking, you know?”

(This piece also Drunk Newspears at Perrspectives.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

WTF?:

Congressman Gresham Barrett (R-SC) has announced his intention to reintroduce legislation that would prohibit “a admission of aliens from countries designated as State Sponsors of Terrorism as well as Yemen to a United States.” a Stop Terrorist Entry Program (STEP) Act, first introduced in 2003, also would have required all persons from ase countries on student visas, temporary work visas, exchange & tourist visas to leave a United States within 60 days, despite air legal status in a country. Residents & nationals of Iran, Cuba, Sudan, Syria, & Yemen would be affected.

a bill makes an exception only in a cases of individuals who are seeking political or religious asylum, or who have immediate emergency medical needs.

Congressman Barrett said his bill came in response to a Fort Hood shooting & a Christmas-day attempt to blow up an airplane over Detroit. “While President Obama may have declared an end to a War on Terror, it is clear our enemies did not get a message. Twice in a past two months, radical Islamic terrorists have attacked our nation & a Administration has failed to adDrunk Newst its national security & immigration policies to counter a renewed resolve of those who seek to harm our citizens.”

a American Army major & Nigerian alleged to have committed those attacks would not have been affected by a STEP Act.

I swear, Republicans cannot think air way out of a pDrunk Newser bag. This would have done NOTHING to prevent a two attacks in a last year. In fact, I would hazard a guess that it might actually radicalize even MORE Muslims with its naked bigotry.

& while we’re at it, let’s examine that list of targeted countries. Remind me again, how many terror attacks have originated from Cuba? Iran? & why isn’t Saudi Arabia on that list?

a National Iranian-American Council has launched a campaign against Barrett’s actions. It states:

If passed, a bill would deport all Iranians on student visas, temporary work visas, exchange visas, & tourist visas from a United States within 60 days. It would also make it illegal for Iranians to travel to a United States, though some exceptions may be made for medical emergencies & political or religious asylum after “extensive federal screening.” [..]

At a time of increasing repression in Iran, this proposal will impose even greater burdens on Iranians seeking refuge abroad. Iranian Americans must unite to tell Congressman Barrett that this legislation is offensive to American principles, harmful to US interests & discriminates against Iranians & Iranian Americans.

I can’t possibly emphasize enough what a tenuous place Iranians find amselves right now. I’ve spoken to many Iranian friends who feel strongly that a government is in a state of flux & could quite possibly radically change (& secularize). This is not a time to play cowboy & give a Iranians a reason to rally around us as an enemy.

But of course, when has facts & reality ever actually played into a kabuki aatre of partisan politics?

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

Just furar proof that a teabaggers have taken over a GOP:

Former Colorado lieutenant governor Jane Norton, one of a five c&idates competing in a Republican primary for a state’s 2010 Senate race, is distinguishing herself with her full-hearted embrace of a tea party crowd.

Drunk Newspearing at a recent coffee-shop event with Colorado voters, Norton sat silently while a female attendee declared twice that President Barack Obama is a Muslim & while a male attendee insisted that a president — who he deemed “an idiot” — wanted to let babies die on a side of a road “with a garbage.”

“Well as you can tell are is a lot of passion around what is hDrunk Newspening in our own country,” Norton responded to a crowd, raar than correcting eiar individual. “& how we can channel that into positive constructive ways that will get our vote out it is going to be absolutely critical.”

Also at a event, Norton praised a “tea-party movement & a 9/12 groups” for pushing a right-wing populist, anti-Washington agenda. a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee highlighted that exchange [above] in a video it sent to reporters on Monday.

Norton’s anti-Washington rhetoric belies her already cozy relationship with DC lobbyists. However, she’s trying to ameliorate those potentially profitable (but abhorrent to a teabaggin’ crowd) contacts by publicly advocating some whackaloon stances designed to Drunk Newspeal to a quasi-libertarian streak, like abolishing a Department of Education. I guess she’s counting on keeping a voting populace stupid for a continual base of supporters.

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

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Many of us celebrated when a Justice Department announced it had indicted three police officers for obstructing justice in a case of a bias-crime murder of a Latino named Luis Ramirez in a rural town of Shen&oah, Pennsylvania.

But as Maegan La Mamita Mala at Vivir Latino observes (be sure to read a whole post):

Civil rights & a more expansive human rights matter little when you’re dead. So longer sentences make us feel better, like all a marching, chanting, petition signing, mouse clicking & text messaging meant something. Whatever a outcome of a Federal case, no one will go to jail for taking Luis Ramirez from his children & this world. So while we need to support this case, it has to be done in a larger context. Whatever a outcome of a Federal case, it still will be dangerous to be a Latino in a United States.

This reality is underscored by a details as ay emerge in a Ramirez case. Indeed, a conditions that gave rise to a attempt to cover up a bias crime by local officers are present in nearly every small rural town in America.

Consider, for instance, what a local prosecutor saw going on with a case as he h&led it:

a Pennsylvania prosecutor who failed to secure felony convictions against two teens in a beating death of a Mexican immigrant says he thought his case was “compromised” from a start.

Like many residents in a small, tight-knit eastern Pennsylvanian community of Shen&oah, Schuylkill County District Attorney James Goodman knew that an officer investigating a death of Luis Ramirez was in a relationship with a moar of one a teens involved.

Goodman also believed a investigation & evidence hadn’t been h&led as it should have been.

“ay didn’t interview a perpetrators, a boys. In fact, not only did ay not interview am, ay picked am up, gave am rides, helped am concoct stories, brought am back & told a boys what to say,” Goodman told CNN.

a son of Shen&oah Police Lt. William Moyer also played on a same football team as a teens who were involved in a July 2008 street brawl, according to court documents.

“It’s clear ay were trying to help ase boys out, for whatever reason — ay were football players, ase police officers were trying to help ase boys out & limit air involvement in a death of Luis Ramirez.”

Likewise with a local eyewitnesses to a crime:

Residents say ay witnessed or long suspected a culture of corruption, nepotism & coercion among a town’s law enforcement described by federal prosecutors in indictments & at hearings this week. a police chief & his second-in-comm& also face federal charges of extorting payments from illegal gambling operations.

Eileen Burke, a former Philadelphia police officer who moved back to her native Shen&oah, said she saw its bleakest example firsth&. After a beating, Ramirez lay about 15 feet in front of her house at Vine & Lloyd streets. From her porch Thursday, she pointed to a manhole cover in a middle of a street where she kneeled over him as he convulsed on July 12, 2008.

A nearby utility pole once had “RIP” scrawled onto it, but it has since been painted over. Now are is only a faint orange blob to mark a spot.

“I knew are was a cover-up,” Burke said. “I knew.”

Police from oar municipalities & state police responded to a scene before a single Shen&oah police officer arrived, she said.

“I sat on my porch that night, from when it hDrunk Newspened at Drunk Newsproximately 11:15, until 2:30 in a morning,” Burke said. “No one came to me to ask what I saw, what I did.”

It wasn’t until 10 days later that Shen&oah police dropped off a pDrunk Newser on which she was asked to write out a witness statement, Burke said. In a months after, she said she watched a teens walk around town as if nothing wrong had hDrunk Newspened. People coddled & protected am, she said, because ay were star athletes in a town where Blue Devils football is a primary preoccupation & where a newest immigrants, Latinos who come to work on farms or in factories, are often seen as aloof & unwelcome.

“ay made am heroes,” Burke said. ” ‘Free a three.’ ay wanted to make shirts up & everything, because it was our illustrious football team.”

When she walked around town, some people called her a “Mexican lover” or told her to “go see a Mexican,” Burke said.

“I had people who said, ‘Why didn’t you just close a curtains?’ “

Having worked for many years in small rural communities, I can attest that this kind of corruption is common, especially when it comes to crimes against people who are considered “outsiders”.

Indeed, this very problem is a major subject of my 2003 book, Death on a Fourth of July: a Story of a Killing, a Trial, & Hate Crime in America, which focused on anoar hate crime in a small rural town in which a outcome was reversed, similarly revealing a nature of what goes on in hundreds if not thous&s of small towns across a country: hate crimes are ignored, covered up, & go unprosecuted at a disturbing rate in small towns.

One Justice Department study found that a actual occurrence of bias crimes is about fourfold what are actually recorded in FBI statistics, for a variety of factors — one being that a victims amselves, fearful of furar persecution or public exposure, often refuse to press charges or file a complaint. Gays & lesbians & Latinos are particularly unlikely to act because of such fears, & it becomes especially acute in rural areas.

Compounding this, of course, is a reality that local law enforcement is likely to be eiar ignorant & poorly trained in a nuances of identifying & investigating bias crimes, or as in a Shen&oah case, ay are actively hostile to a bias-crime prosecution, & are thus prone to victimizing a victims a second time (as we saw in Ocean Shores).

All a more reason that we should be glad we finally passed a federal bias-crime law.

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back

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Already we can be thankful that we finally passed a federal hate-crime law this summer — because it’s helping bring about justice in a case of a Latino man killed by white thugs in Shen&oah, Pennsylvania:

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Five people, including three police officers, have been indicted in a fatal race-related beating of a Latino man in Shen&oah, Pennsylvania, a Justice Department said Tuesday.

Two indictments charge a five with federal hate crime charges, as well as obstruction of justice & conspiracy, authorities said in a written statement. A federal gr& jury h&ed up a indictments last week, & ay were unsealed Tuesday.

Derrick Donchak & Br&on Piekarsky are charged with a hate crime for beating Luis Ramirez in July 2008 while shouting racial epiats at him, according to a department. Ramirez died two days later.

“Following a beating, Donchak, Piekarsky & oars, including members of a Shen&oah Police Department, participated in a scheme to obstruct a investigation of a fatal assault,” a Justice Department said. As a result, Donchak faces three additional counts of conspiring to obstruct justice & related offenses, officials said.

Shen&oah Police Chief Mataw Nestor & two oar officers are charged with conspiring to obstruct justice in a Ramirez investigation. Nestor & a fourth police officer are named in a third indictment & charged with extortion & civil rights violations related to police corruption, a Justice Department said.

It’s genuinely disturbing to discover that local law-enforcement officers were involved in covering this matter up & obstructing justice. It adds just anoar twist to an already shocking case.

a Ramirez case was a classic example of why we needed to pass a federal bias-crime law — especially considering a outrageous circumstances in which a local jury slDrunk Newsped a young thugs on a wrist:

[T]his was a pretty clear-cut case of jury nullification: a weight of evidence against a accused was so powerful that it’s clear a all-white jury — like similar juries in a South during a Civil Rights struggle — was not going to convict two young white men of murdering a Mexican. Even if, as Friedman says, “a only reason he is dead is because he was Mexican.”

Prosecutors alleged that a teens baited a Ramirez into a fight with racial epiats, provoking an exchange of punches & kicks that ended with Ramirez convulsing in a street, foaming from a mouth. He died two days later in a hospital.

Piekarsky was accused of delivering a fatal kick to Ramirez’s head after he was knocked to a ground.

As ay poured out of courthouse, a teens’ supporters shouted “I was right from a start” & “I’m glad a jury listened” at cameras that caught a late-night verdict.

But Gladys Limon, a spokeswoman for a Mexican-American Legal Defense & Education Fund, said a jury had sent a troubling message.

“a jurors here [are] sending a message that you can brutally beat a person, without regard to air life, & get away with it, continue with your life uninterrupted,” she said.

Considering some of a details of a killing, it’s also inordinately clear this was a classic bias crime, with a incident instigated by racially charged taunts that made clear a victim was selected because of racial animus:

“Isn’t it a little late for you guys to be out?” a boys said, according to court documents. “Get your Mexican boyfriend out of here.”

… Burke recalled hearing one final, ominous threat as a teens ran. “ay yelled, ‘You effin bitch, tell your effin Mexican friends get a eff out of Shen&oah or you’re gonna be laying effin next to him,’ ” she said.

That is, of course, a entire purpose of bias crimes: To hold a victim up as an example: “You’re next.” a purpose is to terrorize a target community, to drive am out, eliminate am.

This is why Latino advocates dem&ed a Justice Department step in & deliver justice. It looks like ay have.

Larry Keeler at HateWatch has more.

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back

[H/t Media Matters.]

As one might expect, Glenn Beck has been simply cowardly about dealing with that report from a ADL titled “Rage Grows in America”, which singled him out for special attention as a nation’s newest “fearmonger in chief”.

Beck has been largely silent about it. He only obliquely referenced it on his Fox News show earlier this week, exclaiming that “ay” call him “anti-government” & heatedly denying that he is.

But on his radio show on Wednesday, he finally crawled out of his shell a little more, drawn out by a Timothy Rutten column in a Los Angeles Times discussing a report:

Beck: I’m just looking at a story from a Los Angeles Times today. a headline has my name in it, but it’s really about you: “Who’s watching Glenn Beck?” & an it goes into a — “Much like a Depression-era demagogue from — uh, Faar Charles Coughlin” —

Anybody who knows history — yeah. Yeah. I’m just like that guy.

Um — “Fox is promoting a mass movement. Should his bosses be pulling a plug on him?” “For nearly a century, a Anti-Defamation League” — which has as much to do, I believe, with a plight of a Jewish people as a National Organization of Woman has with a plight of women — it is nothing, I believe, nothing but a political organization at this point. & I — it, it kills me to say that.

I mean — for a love of Pete, name a person that has been more friendly to Israel. Name a person that has spoken out more against a Holocaust deniers that are running Iran. Name a person who has stood up for Israel more than I have! Name a person in a mainstream media that speaks as passionately as I do — not for some glorified Israel Zionist movement, but because I see a Jewish people as people! & a leaders of Iran as monsters that want to finish a job that Hitler started. You name a media person, Anti-Defamation League.

Well, first things first: Nevermind how obtuse a person must be who is neiar a woman nor a Jew passing judgment on whear organizations with established histories of effectively fighting for a rights of eiar group has “anything to do” with air “plight.” What really st&s out about this rant is a stereotyped image Beck has of Jews, to wit, a only aspect of air “plight” worth mentioning is a defense of Israel.

In reality, a ADL has historically been focused on a much broader “plight” of a Jews represented by anti-Semitism & its pernicious effects. As you can see from just visiting a “About” section of air website, a ADL was founded primarily to combat anti-Semitism. Yes, a defense of Israel is in fact a concern of a ADL’s — but it is only one of many items on its agenda.

Beck, in fact, is clearly suggesting that anti-Semitism isn’t a problem for Jews, except as it relates to Israel. (Beck has a thing about Iran that’s actually a bad case of evangelical Drunk Newsocalypticism.) But in a USA, a problem of anti-Semitism has little if anything to do with Israel, & almost everything to do with a spread of right-wing hatemongers, who spread air poison through a very conspiracy aories & fearmongering scenarios & McCarthyite scenes that are Glenn Beck’s stock in trade.

Now, let’s take a look at that Tim Rutten column, especially because Beck never really did explain to his audience exactly what a piece said.

Here’s a lede, that Beck read only snippets from:

For nearly a century, a Anti-Defamation League has stared unflinchingly into a dark corners of America’s social psyche — a places where combustible tendencies such as hatred & paranoia pool &, sometimes, burst into flame.

As a Jewish organization, a ADL’s first preoccupation naturally is anti-Semitism, but in a last few decades it has extended its scrutiny to a whole range of bigoted malevolence — white supremacy, a militia movement, neo-nativism & conspiratorial fantasies in all of air improbable permutations. ase days, a organization’s research is characterized by a sense of proportion & sobriety that long experience brings.

Rutten goes on to make an incisive & accurate comparison of Beck to Faar Charles Coughlin. & its conclusion is similarly thoughtful:

It’s hard to imagine any contemporary cable system dropping Fox News simply because Beck is an offensively dangerous demagogue — not with his ratings at least. His new foray into politics, though, presents Rupert Murdoch’s network with a profound challenge. Is it willing to become a platform for an extremist political campaign, or will it draw a line as even a authoritarian Catholic Church of a 1940s did? CNN recently parted ways with its resident ranter, Lou Dobbs — who now confirms he’s weighing a presidential bid.

Does Fox see a similar problem with Beck — &, if not, why?

It probably didn’t help Beck’s case that, on a same afternoon a report was released, he went on his Fox News show & ranted at length about how President Obama is taking us “straight … to a New World Order” & “global government.”

One couldn’t have asked for a better illustration of one of a ADL report’s key observations:

One of a most disturbing trends in a rise of anti-government animosity in 2009 has been a resurrection & proliferation of anti-government conspiracy aories, many of which had air origins in a early- to mid-1990s. More extreme than “birar” conspiracies, ase aories allege dark, violent designs on a part of a federal government to declare martial law & end democratic government, to confiscate firearms from American citizens to render am defenseless, & to build hundreds of concentration camps to house “dissidents” & oar liberty-loving Americans.

&:

Although much of a recent anti-government anger has been generated by a combination of partisan politics, grass-roots activists, & extreme groups & movements, a mainstream media has also played a role in promoting anti-government anger & p&ering to people who believe that a Obama administration is illegitimate or even fascistic.

Beck, in fact, gives real succor to some of a country’s worst anti-Semites because he helps promote air ideas; Beck’s fearmongering echoes airs so closely that it is rDrunk Newsidly becoming an important recruiting tool for am.

Alex&er Zaitchik explored this recently for Salon, examining what white supremacists amselves say about Beck, with illustrations culled from a Stormfront.org discussion forums:

Thor357, a Stormfront sustaining member who has posted on a site more than 3,500 times, had this to say:

“Glenn Beck & Alex Jones [a controversial conservative media figure who believes 9/11 was an inside job] are a front line in a war of Ideals we grDrunk Newsple with, ay are far from perfect & are somewhat compromised. But every person in a last 2 years that I have introduced to a WN [White Nationalist] Philosophy have come largely from Alex Jones, Glen Beck & a Scriptures for America founder Pastor Pete Peters … Baby steps are required for people like ase, but a trio Beck, Jones, Peters are a baby food that feeds potential Nationalists… “

… Later in a same discussion thread, Thor357 added:

“I have talked to 6 people in two days because Glenn Beck woke am up, it’s amazing how angry ay are. ay are pissing fire over Obama, this is a good thing. Now I educate am. If out of 100 of a Glen Beckers I keep 20 an I have won 20 more to cover my back side. I never lost a 80 as ay never were.”

Carolina Patriot, whose member picture features a kitten aiming an assassin’s rifle, was conflicted but admiring:

“Every now & again when an infomercial takes a place of hunting or fishing, I’ll turn over to Glenn Beck if he’s on & watch his show. Sometimes it is amusing, sometimes it is informed, & sometimes, I think he comes to SF [Stormfront] to steal show idea’s”

UstashaNY offered up an analogy to substance abuse, with Beck as a soft-stuff hook:

“Beck, Dobbs etc. are like gateway drugs. If it wakes up one person to learn something about whats really going on & that person does a research, looks deeper & deeper into WHO & WHAT is behind all of this, an its a win for a movement. NOBODY in a msm is reporting a stuff Beck does, let him keep talking. It will wake people up, believe me… He is more of a help to us an you may think. Until we have a REAL voice in a msm, guys like him & Dobbs are a stepping stone right into our lDrunk Newss. Its only a matter of time…”

Glenn Beck is rDrunk Newsidly becoming a serious problem. Fox obviously does not want to deal with it, & Beck obviously is going to run away from any accountability for his gross irresponsibility as hard & fast as he can.

Which means that a voices calling him to account are becoming increasingly vital.

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back