Crazed wingers hoping Osama bin Laden can save America
... by attacking us, preferably with a "major weapon." Seriously. You know, when you get called out by people at the Free Republic and Little Green Footballs, you know you're on the wrong track. Here's crazy Glenn Beck and his Fox News guest, former head of the CIA's Bin Laden unit (seriously...) and self-described "lifelong Republican," Michael Sheuer, who appears to have been driven mad by the revocation of Bush-era rendition, torture and domestic spying policies. (And note how Beck does his best to channel Osama's thoughts):
... Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and others have appeared from time to time on { } shows. ...
Unfortunately, these episodic, and usually fleeting, appearances do not begin to match -- let alone to counteract -- the incessant drumbeat of { } victimization, anti-{ } vituperation and approval for acts of violence thus justified when perpetrated by terrorists.
Who do you suppose that passage is referring to? What about this one?
"It is a professional institution but it is a militant institution that wants to convey an ideological Jihadi message..."
If you answered Al Jazeera, score one for you. The first is from a strikingly Goebelesque Frank Gaffney post on the Fox News website at the height of the Iraq invasion in 2003 (a piece in which he was advocating bombing Al Jazeera out of existence, and taking over Iraqi television ourselves, to broadcast pro-American messages directly to the Iraqi people. Hey, it's Frank "Destroy the Arabs" Gaffney....) The second is a quote from Fox terrorism analyst Walid Phares (who was actually "discovered" by one of my mentors at NBC 6, Ike Seamans, back in the day) quoted in a "news story" about the dangers of PBS picking up Jazeera content. Phares was also describing Al Jazeera. But with a few tweaks, either man could have been describing Fox News itself, America's home grown right wing extremist network, broadcasting to the right's very own '"qaida" (the base.)
Keith Olbermann dismantled Fox tonight, for just one of its extremist veins: its jihad against the now very dead Dr. George Tiller. Keith's recommendation? Quarantine the bastards, just the way the right believes that an Arab news station which it says broadcasts extremist propaganda (though actually, Al Jazeera turns out to be more "fair and balanced" than Fox...) would have us do. In fact, they tried.
Barack Obama is an evil Muslim socialist dictator who isn’t even a citizen! He is going to ration health care so people die, remove his enemies from the radio airwaves, impose communism, cripple businesses, slash defense, put terrorists on the streets, put Capone-like Chicago criminals in charge of the government, take everyone’s guns, force women to have abortions, rig the census, put our children in Communist indoctrination camps, and send gays in to destroy our army, invalidate all straight marriages and make all our wives whores and our children bastards!
... what might you do?
And what would you call the channel that incited you?
After quizzling like a girl and nearly wetting his pants on "The View" yesterday when he was called a lying sack of dog mess for making up an Amtrak fable about Whoopi and Barbara ... and once he had repaired to the safety of his radio studio and was no longer actually in the room with them, our once-again feisty friend Harold Hill Glenn got all feisty and tore into those women like only a real man would ... when the women aren't there (ahem.)
Yeah, the Barbara-Whoopi vs. Glenn "lying sack of dog mess" smackdown was satisfying, but what's up with Glenn Beck not being able to answer the question, "what are your convictions?" Watch, and cringe:
From the Nut Files: I thought Glenn Beck was crazy, until I heard Alex Jones
So this weekend, I'm driving along, and this being South Florida, there was absolutely NOTHING worth listening to on the radio. I happened to pop over to the business station (Salem owns it, so really I should be boycotting it just based on WorldNutDaily alone, but that's just how slim the pickings are around here...) and what did I hear? The Alex Jones radio show. You know, Alex Jones: the guy from InfoWars and PrisonPlanet, and at one time, a leading purveyor of alternate 9/11 theories (and apparently, a David Koresh devotee, too.) Well ... um ... I had become increasingly convinced that Glenn Beck has gone insane, his Obama Derangement Syndrome having finally driven off the cliff of sanity (him, and all his winger friends...) but now that I've heard Alex Jones, who is a screaming, shrieking, conspiracy theorizing HOT MESS (hell, even the FReepers think he's nuts...) I'm ready to re-admit Beck to polite society. Okay, almost ready...
In a nutshell, Jones believes:
1. The government IS preparing to put us all in prison camps (even Beck has backed off that one) and that Glenn Beck's "investigation" of the supposed FEMA camps was a classic case of misdirection, since Beck is clearly a decoy employed by THEM...
2. The government IS spreading these so-called "chem trails," which I had only previously heard from religious cultists (including a very dear friend of mine who is caught up in one of those Yahweh cults.) And the latest iteration of this horror is the Obama administration's cover story -- fighting global warming by cooling the atmosphere.
3. The governmetn IS preparing to confiscate everyone's firearms.
4. The government is run by Satan worshippers who are operating as part of a one-world secret society based alternately at Jordan Grove and the Bilderberg group.
5. The U.S. has already handed over American sovereignty by a one-world currency, and is preparing to be complicit in the creation of a worldwide DNA database that is being accomplished through arrests at which DNA is taken, the "forced" immunization of our children, including teenaged girls who are being induced to be vaccinated with Gardasil, and on and on, all of which I believe have been previous plots on "The X Files."
It goes on from there, complete with black helicopters, and all the nuttery that has become, unfortunately, more and more common AM talk radio -- only Alex Jones combines the SS-like shrieking of Michael Savage with the mind-numbing conspiracy craziness of, well, Alex Jones. Throw in pathetic true-believer callers, like the young man who called in this weekend, saying he was a college student who was recently laughed down by his class for trying to present the chem trails evidence to his teacher and fellow students, then throw in Jones' literal screaming, at the top of his lungs: "YOU'RE ALL SHEEP!!! THEY'RE COMING TO GET YOU!!!!!" and you've got the craziest damned thing I've ever heard on the radio, including Glenn "Harold Hill" Beck.
And that's saying something.
I must admit I paid only vague attention to Jones (and never heard his radio show) during the Bush years, when he was accusing the Bushes of everything from participating in the JFK assassination, to plotting the New World Order and being complicit in 9/11. Crazy people probably sound less crazy to you when you share a common foe (and the idea that the Bush administration had either foreknowledge or some part in 9/11 is not an implausible theory.) But now that I've heard him, Jones' demeanor alone makes everything he writes or says incredible (meaning not credible, not "incredible.") He really ought to take some medication. Hey, maybe he could borrow some from Rush Limbaugh...
Glenn Beck's 9/12 project is calling on all bunker-dwelling Bud drinkers to arm themselves with buckshot and await the call to revolution. Well. This guy may have answered the call:
PITTSBURGH – A gunman wearing a bulletproof vest and "lying in wait" opened fire on officers responding to a domestic disturbance call Saturday, killing three of them and turning a quiet Pittsburgh street into a battlefield, police said.
Richard Poplawski, 23, met officers at the doorway and shot two of them in the head immediately, Harper said. An officer who tried to help the two also was killed.
Poplawski, armed with an assault rifle and two other guns, then held police at bay for four hours as the fallen officers were left bleeding nearby, their colleagues unable to reach them, according to police and witnesses. More than 100 rounds were fired by the SWAT teams and Poplawski, Harper said.
They were Eric Kelly, a 14-year veteran of the force and married father of three daughters, and a pair of two-year department veterans, partners Stephen Mayhle, a married father of two daughters, and Paul Sciullo III, who was engaged to be married.
One friend, Edward Perkovic, said the gunman feared "the Obama gun ban that's on the way" and "didn't like our rights being infringed upon." Another longtime friend, Aaron Vire, said he feared that President Obama was going to take away his rights, though he said he "wasn't violently against Obama."
... Vire, 23, said the gunman once had an Internet talk show but that it wasn't successful. Vire said his friend had an AK-47 rifle and several powerful handguns, including a .357 Magnum.
This is the third mass shooting with an automatic weapon in a month, that we know of, and not counting the epidemic of street sprayings by AK47-wielding street gangs all over the U.S., including here in Florida, not to mention south of the border, where American guns are fueling the drug wars (a fact which by the way, is the current rationale for the right's Obama-baiting.) By the way, all three recent mass murderers bought their assault weapons the NRA way: legally. Which brings us to our buddy Beck. As one Pennlive commenter points out re Poplawski:
So he straps on a bulletproof vest, causes a domestic disturbance, and lies in wait for the cops to arrive so he can unload all of the assault weapons against agents of the government.
Sounds like the calls of Glenn Beck and other prominent conservatives for armed revolution are getting through to some mentally imbalanced folks.
And the weepy 9/11 family hater is hardly alone in advocating armed revolution by his winger followers. Crazy-train conductress Michelle "Re-education Camp" Bachman, Sean Hannity and others are doing the same thing. Hell, at this point, Rush seems the sane one! Media Matters has a chilling rundown of the right wing/Fox News call to arms.
And sure, maybe our Pittsburgh gun-man didn't open fire and kill three family men because he thinks the Beckster wanted him to, but then again...
as Neiwert noted this morning, the conservative Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ran a story just three days ago about "speculation that President Obama might pull the trigger on tighter regulations for gun ownership." The article quoted a gun-store salesman raising the specter of a "confiscation of firearms" from the government.
Not that nutty gunmen read the morning paper ... right? The bottom line is, the right has been whipping up pretty scary anti-Obama hysteria since the campaign, when supporters of GOP standard-bearer John McCain, or more correctly, of his gun-totin' running mate Sarah Palin, felt compelled to scream "terrorist!" and "Kill Him!" at campaign rallies. Now the right, on talk radio, online, and on Fox News, is whipping this small but scary crowd of AM radio devotees into a brand new frenzy, complete with literal calls to get "armed and dangerous" to fight the president of the United States. On its worst day, you never heard that about George W. Bush from the left.
Look, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that with all the other crap going on, from the economy and job loss to the usual stresses of life, compounded by this kind of rhetoric, some crazies are going to take the rodeo clown's rantings deadly seriously.
NewsBusters conveniently catalogs the I think, pretty obvious reaction from the sane part of the blogosphere here. Meanwhile, the Beckster says "who??? ME???" and then he and Newsbuster editor, Noel Sheppard actuallyentertain the crazy gunman's beliefs, advising that President Obama could stop the killings tomorrow, if he just reassured the crazy gun nuts that the black helicopters aren't coming...
SHEPPARD: But I think one of the -- but I think one of the other aspects here is: Under the current administration with a Democrat-controlled Congress, knowing what Obama's positions were, as a senator and also as an Illinois senator, is it an irrational fear of any gun owner at this point --
BECK: No.
SHEPPARD: -- to think that gun laws are going to be changed? The answer is no!
BECK: No! It's not irrational at all. They have said it.
... BECK: Well, OK, look, if the president wanted to calm people down, but there's no reason to in the first place because what we're talking about is a crazy man on Saturday.
But if he wanted to calm anybody who had any fears he would have said, "This is such a tragedy and let me reassure, the 2nd Amendment is the 2nd Amendment, and I will not infringe on those rights in any way, shape, or form. But he won't say that because he can't say that. Because he will slowly but surely take away your gun or take away your ability to shoot a gun, carry a gun. He will make them more expensive; he'll tax them out of existence. He will because he has said he would. He will tax you gun or take your gun away one way or another.
So to sum up: Glenn's advice to the president is that he respond to this incredible tragedy by defending the Second Amendment? Only on the right, folks.
Related Beck talking point: When an illegal immigrant shoots a cop, well, that's a whoooole nother matter. Nothing "not irrational at all" about that...
The NYTimes profiles Beck, and includes this pretty good summation:
The conservative writer David Frum said Mr. Beck’s success “is a product of the collapse of conservatism as an organized political force, and the rise of conservatism as an alienated cultural sensibility.”
“It’s a show for people who feel they belong to an embattled minority that is disenfranchised and cut off,” he said.
... in that he shocked the hell out of me today. Beck, one of the better broadcasters on the right but one whose views I usually find completely objectionable, took his own callers to task this morning, telling one guy who tried to bring up Barack Obama's birth certificate for the umpteenth time to "get off my phone!!!" and lecturing another, who said he refused to accept Obama as president, on being a good American. The convo went something like this:
CALLER: I don't accept him as my president.
BECK: Then you're not a good American.
CALLER: I AM an American.
BECK: How do elections work in this country? When one guy wins, is he the Democratic president, the Republican president, or the American president?
CALLER: He's the guy who won for president.
BECK: But is he the Democratic president, the Republican president, or the American president?
CALLER: He's the president, but I don't accept ...
BECK: He's the American president. I want to hear you say the words.
CALLER: Well I don't accept ...
BECK: Then you're not a good American.
It went on like that for a couple of minutes, in which Beck stated that though he did not support Obama, he considered him to now be HIS president, and all Americans should pray for him, and help him to succeed, without compromising their own values. He also took to task Democrats, who after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of George W. Bush in 2000, refused to accept Bush as president, and he very fairly characterized the need for all Americans to accept the results of our elections, and give the new man a chance to govern. He excoriated people who want to protest, and burn down the house because their guy didn't win. He blasted the bloggers and Facebook fiends on the right's lunatic fringe who are already calling for Obama to be impeached (the Spectator has a bit of fun with them here.) And I applaud him. Beck isn't right about everything, but he gets kudos for standing up to the wingers on this one. (Read Beck's "No pity party" post, with a squinty eye on the Marxist crap, here.)
Charlie Gibson, who must be bracing himself for four years of pure crazy at FNC for the next four years, was similarly reasonable on Imus this morning. Yes, I listen so that you don't have to.
