14 Propaganda Techniques Fox "News" Uses to Brainwash Americans

Saturday 2 July 2011
Dr. Cynthia Boaz, Truthout
http://www.truth-out.org/14-propaganda-techniques-fox-news-uses-brainwash-americans/1309612678

There is nothing more sacred to the maintenance of democracy than a free press. Access to comprehensive, accurate and quality information is essential to the manifestation of Socratic citizenship - the society characterized by a civically engaged, well-informed and socially invested populace. Thus, to the degree that access to quality information is willfully or unintentionally obstructed, democracy itself is degraded.

It is ironic that in the era of 24-hour cable news networks and "reality" programming, the news-to-fluff ratio and overall veracity of information has declined precipitously. Take the fact Americans now spend on average about 50 hours a week using various forms of media, while at the same time cultural literacy levels hover just above the gutter. Not only does mainstream media now tolerate gross misrepresentations of fact and history by public figures (highlighted most recently by Sarah Palin's ludicrous depiction of Paul Revere's ride), but many media actually legitimize these displays. Pause for a moment and ask yourself what it means that the world's largest, most profitable and most popular news channel passes off as fact every whim, impulse and outrageously incompetent analysis of its so-called reporters. How did we get here? Take the enormous amount of misinformation that is taken for truth by Fox audiences: the belief that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and that he was in on 9/11, the belief that climate change isn't real and/or man-made, the belief that Barack Obama is Muslim and wasn't born in the United States, the insistence that all Arabs are Muslim and all Muslims are terrorists, the inexplicable perceptions that immigrants are both too lazy to work and are about to steal your job. All of these claims are demonstrably false, yet Fox News viewers will maintain their veracity with incredible zeal. Why? Is it simply that we have lost our respect for knowledge?

My curiosity about this question compelled me to sit down and document the most oft-used methods by which willful ignorance has been turned into dogma by Fox News and other propagandists disguised as media. The techniques I identify here also help to explain the simultaneously powerful identification the Fox media audience has with the network, as well as their ardent, reflexive defenses of it.

The good news is that the more conscious you are of these techniques, the less likely they are to work on you. The bad news is that those reading this article are probably the least in need in of it.

1. Panic Mongering. This goes one step beyond simple fear mongering. With panic mongering, there is never a break from the fear. The idea is to terrify and terrorize the audience during every waking moment. From Muslims to swine flu to recession to homosexuals to immigrants to the rapture itself, the belief over at Fox seems to be that if your fight-or-flight reflexes aren't activated, you aren't alive. This of course raises the question: why terrorize your own audience? Because it is the fastest way to bypasses the rational brain. In other words, when people are afraid, they don't think rationally. And when they can't think rationally, they'll believe anything.

2. Character Assassination/Ad Hominem. Fox does not like to waste time debating the idea. Instead, they prefer a quicker route to dispensing with their opponents: go after the person's credibility, motives, intelligence, character, or, if necessary, sanity. No category of character assassination is off the table and no offense is beneath them. Fox and like-minded media figures also use ad hominem attacks not just against individuals, but entire categories of people in an effort to discredit the ideas of every person who is seen to fall into that category, e.g. "liberals," "hippies," "progressives" etc. This form of argument - if it can be called that - leaves no room for genuine debate over ideas, so by definition, it is undemocratic. Not to mention just plain crass.

3. Projection/Flipping. This one is frustrating for the viewer who is trying to actually follow the argument. It involves taking whatever underhanded tactic you're using and then accusing your opponent of doing it to you first. We see this frequently in the immigration discussion, where anti-racists are accused of racism, or in the climate change debate, where those who argue for human causes of the phenomenon are accused of not having science or facts on their side. It's often called upon when the media host finds themselves on the ropes in the debate.

4. Rewriting History. This is another way of saying that propagandists make the facts fit their worldview. The Downing Street Memos on the Iraq war were a classic example of this on a massive scale, but it happens daily and over smaller issues as well. A recent case in point is Palin's mangling of the Paul Revere ride, which Fox reporters have bent over backward to validate. Why lie about the historical facts, even when they can be demonstrated to be false? Well, because dogmatic minds actually find it easier to reject reality than to update their viewpoints. They will literally rewrite history if it serves their interests. And they'll often speak with such authority that the casual viewer will be tempted to question what they knew as fact.

5. Scapegoating/Othering. This works best when people feel insecure or scared. It's technically a form of both fear mongering and diversion, but it is so pervasive that it deserves its own category. The simple idea is that if you can find a group to blame for social or economic problems, you can then go on to a) justify violence/dehumanization of them, and b) subvert responsibility for any harm that may befall them as a result.

6. Conflating Violence With Power and Opposition to Violence With Weakness. This is more of what I'd call a "meta-frame" (a deeply held belief) than a media technique, but it is manifested in the ways news is reported constantly. For example, terms like "show of strength" are often used to describe acts of repression, such as those by the Iranian regime against the protesters in the summer of 2009. There are several concerning consequences of this form of conflation. First, it has the potential to make people feel falsely emboldened by shows of force - it can turn wars into sporting events. Secondly, especially in the context of American politics, displays of violence - whether manifested in war or debates about the Second Amendment - are seen as noble and (in an especially surreal irony) moral. Violence become synonymous with power, patriotism and piety.

7. Bullying. This is a favorite technique of several Fox commentators. That it continues to be employed demonstrates that it seems to have some efficacy. Bullying and yelling works best on people who come to the conversation with a lack of confidence, either in themselves or their grasp of the subject being discussed. The bully exploits this lack of confidence by berating the guest into submission or compliance. Often, less self-possessed people will feel shame and anxiety when being berated and the quickest way to end the immediate discomfort is to cede authority to the bully. The bully is then able to interpret that as a "win."

8. Confusion. As with the preceding technique, this one works best on an audience that is less confident and self-possessed. The idea is to deliberately confuse the argument, but insist that the logic is airtight and imply that anyone who disagrees is either too dumb or too fanatical to follow along. Less independent minds will interpret the confusion technique as a form of sophisticated thinking, thereby giving the user's claims veracity in the viewer's mind.

9. Populism. This is especially popular in election years. The speakers identifies themselves as one of "the people" and the target of their ire as an enemy of the people. The opponent is always "elitist" or a "bureaucrat" or a "government insider" or some other category that is not the people. The idea is to make the opponent harder to relate to and harder to empathize with. It often goes hand in hand with scapegoating. A common logical fallacy with populism bias when used by the right is that accused "elitists" are almost always liberals - a category of political actors who, by definition, advocate for non-elite groups.

10. Invoking the Christian God. This is similar to othering and populism. With morality politics, the idea is to declare yourself and your allies as patriots, Christians and "real Americans" (those are inseparable categories in this line of thinking) and anyone who challenges them as not. Basically, God loves Fox and Republicans and America. And hates taxes and anyone who doesn't love those other three things. Because the speaker has been benedicted by God to speak on behalf of all Americans, any challenge is perceived as immoral. It's a cheap and easy technique used by all totalitarian entities from states to cults.

11. Saturation. There are three components to effective saturation: being repetitive, being ubiquitous and being consistent. The message must be repeated cover and over, it must be everywhere and it must be shared across commentators: e.g. "Saddam has WMD." Veracity and hard data have no relationship to the efficacy of saturation. There is a psychological effect of being exposed to the same message over and over, regardless of whether it's true or if it even makes sense, e.g., "Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States." If something is said enough times, by enough people, many will come to accept it as truth. Another example is Fox's own slogan of "Fair and Balanced."

12. Disparaging Education. There is an emerging and disturbing lack of reverence for education and intellectualism in many mainstream media discourses. In fact, in some circles (e.g. Fox), higher education is often disparaged as elitist. Having a university credential is perceived by these folks as not a sign of credibility, but of a lack of it. In fact, among some commentators, evidence of intellectual prowess is treated snidely and as anti-American. Education and other evidence of being trained in critical thinking are direct threats to a hive-mind mentality, which is why they are so viscerally demeaned.

13. Guilt by Association. This is a favorite of Glenn Beck and Andrew Breitbart, both of whom have used it to decimate the careers and lives of many good people. Here's how it works: if your cousin's college roommate's uncle's ex-wife attended a dinner party back in 1984 with Gorbachev's niece's ex-boyfriend's sister, then you, by extension are a communist set on destroying America. Period.

14. Diversion. This is where, when on the ropes, the media commentator suddenly takes the debate in a weird but predictable direction to avoid accountability. This is the point in the discussion where most Fox anchors start comparing the opponent to Saul Alinsky or invoking ACORN or Media Matters, in a desperate attempt to win through guilt by association. Or they'll talk about wanting to focus on "moving forward," as though by analyzing the current state of things or God forbid, how we got to this state of things, you have no regard for the future. Any attempt to bring the discussion back to the issue at hand will likely be called deflection, an ironic use of the technique of projection/flipping.

In debating some of these tactics with colleagues and friends, I have also noticed that the Fox viewership seems to be marked by a sort of collective personality disorder whereby the viewer feels almost as though they've been let into a secret society. Something about their affiliation with the network makes them feel privileged and this affinity is likely what drives the viewers to defend the network so vehemently. They seem to identify with it at a core level, because it tells them they are special and privy to something the rest of us don't have. It's akin to the loyalty one feels by being let into a private club or a gang. That effect is also likely to make the propaganda more powerful, because it goes mostly unquestioned.

In considering these tactics and their possible effects on American public discourse, it is important to note that historically, those who've genuinely accessed truth have never berated those who did not. You don't get honored by history when you beat up your opponent: look at Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln. These men did not find the need to engage in othering, ad homeinum attacks, guilt by association or bullying. This is because when a person has accessed a truth, they are not threatened by the opposing views of others. This reality reveals the righteous indignation of people like Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity as a symptom of untruth. These individuals are hostile and angry precisely because they don't feel confident in their own veracity. And in general, the more someone is losing their temper in a debate and the more intolerant they are of listening to others, the more you can be certain they do not know what they're talking about.

One final observation. Fox audiences, birthers and Tea Partiers often defend their arguments by pointing to the fact that a lot of people share the same perceptions. This is a reasonable point to the extent that Murdoch's News Corporation reaches a far larger audience than any other single media outlet. But, the fact that a lot of people believe something is not necessarily a sign that it's true; it's just a sign that it's been effectively marketed.

As honest, fair and truly intellectual debate degrades before the eyes of the global media audience, the quality of American democracy degrades along with it.

Dana Milbank Red-Baits the People's Budget

04/14/2011
Peter Hart
http://www.fair.org/blog/#post-17976

Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank seems to like to mock progressives almost as much as he likes to go after Glenn Beck. So it's no surprise that he turned out to "cover" the unveiling of a budget plan by the Congressional Progressive Caucus (4/13/11).

Milbank seems to think that little explanation is needed--these crazy ideas are just obviously crazy:

Among the highlights: a $4 trillion tax increase over 10 years. An increase in the top tax rate to 49 percent. A $2.3 trillion defense spending cut--and an increase in domestic spending. Oh, and they would revive the "public option" to offer government-run healthcare.


Putting "increase" in italics is Milbank's way of saying, "Can you believe these people?!" And it's worth pointing out that the "public option" isn't "government-run healthcare," but these are details.

He goes to present the nightmare vision of the future:

Still, it gives a sense of how things would be if liberals ran the world: no cuts in Social Security benefits, government-negotiated Medicare drug prices, and increased income and Social Security taxes for the wealthy. Corporations and investors would be hit with a variety of new fees and taxes. And the military would face a shock-and-awe accounting: a 22 percent cut in Army soldiers, 30 percent for the Marines, 20 percent for the Navy and 15 percent for the Air Force. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would end, and weapons programs would go begging.


Keeping Social Security as is, reducing Medicare drug prices, raising taxes on corporations, ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.... I'm sorry, are these ideas supposed to sound absurd on their face? Someone should tell the people, since much of this would be broadly popular. At least, that seems to be the case when the people are asked what they think.

Better watch our language, though--Milbank points out that this talk about "the people" is a little creepy:

Their oft-repeated slogan, "The People’s Budget," conveyed an unhelpful association with "the people's republic" and other socialist undertakings.


An "unhelpful association" made by the writer. Glenn Beck might be leaving Fox, which might open up some room for others in the media to ferret out the socialists among us.

Fox Dumps Glenn Beck

Officially, that's not what happened, but that is what it amounts to.

Yes he lost nearly 40 percent of his peak audience over the last year, but he still had an audience of 2 million. So why dump him? Thanks to ad boycotts and the fact his audience was a demographic loser. Roger Ailes is no fool: getting less of an audience nobody wants while losing key advertising is not a winning strategy for cable news victory...

Glenn Beck's Shtick? Alex Jones Got There First

'He rips me off and spins the information, often injecting lies into the truth,' says Jones
Alexander Zaitchik
March 4, 2011
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/glenn-becks-shtick-alex-jones-got-there-first-20110304

Long before he inadvertently brought an end to a popular sitcom by hosting last week’s mega-viral interview with Charlie Sheen, talk-radio host Alex Jones established himself as a giant in America’s conspiracy subculture. The godfather of the 9/11 Truth Movement, Jones is the most popular chronicler of what he believes is a New World Order plot to enslave the global population.

Until recently, he was a lonely and little-known voice in the short wave and Internet radio wilderness. But as his audience has grown, other talk show hosts have taken notice — and cues. Among his most ardent imitators is Glenn Beck, whom Jones has accused of stealing his ideas, guests, and research. Last week, Jones posted a video clip on his site, InfoWars, offering evidence of this theft.

“He rips me off and spins the information, often injecting lies into the truth,” says Jones.

So, is Alex Jones really the invisible senior writer of Beck’s TV and radio shows? If the below is any indication, the answer is “Yes.”

1. “Inside-Job” Terror

Alex Jones was the first 9/11 Truther. Two months before the attacks took place, in July of 2001, Jones warned that the U.S. government was planning to blow up the World Trade Center and blame Osama bin Laden. More recently, Jones and his websites have been sounding the alarm, based on mainstream press clippings, that the Obama Administration might find political gain in the tragedy of a “new Oklahoma City Bombing” or a 9/11-style attack. Jones had been making this argument for several months when Beck began to hit a very similar note shortly after the midterms last year. “They are setting up an Oklahoma City. They are claiming that one is coming and they’re already marked the one who caused it,” Beck said in November, referring to himself. Unlike Jones, however, Beck continues to harshly criticize those who entertain or believe similar actions could have occurred during the Bush Administration or past governments.

Scorecard: Rip-off and redirection. Beck takes a page from Jones in discussing state-sponsored terror, but twists it for use against Democrats — ignoring Jones’ more radical theory that both parties are historically capable of heinous acts against their own people.

2. Martial Law, Food Riots & Pentagon Planning for Domestic Unrest

For the past several years, Glenn Beck echoed Alex Jones on the Doomsday themes of looming economic disaster and subsequent societal collapse. What’s more, Beck often relies heavily on guests who first appeared on the Alex Jones Show to discuss the same topics. For example, on October 13, 2008, Beck discussed the “threat of martial law” with frequent Alex Jones guest and former Senate candidate Peter Schiff. During the same program, Beck went on to discuss what he considered “coercive” and “manufactured fear” — classic Jones themes. Similar echoes can be found on Beck’s website, The Blaze, which often cover subjects shortly after Jones, such as the Pentagon’s plans for civil unrest and a possible food crisis triggering martial law.

Scorecard: Beck is caught red-handed here — stealing ideas, language and guests. Incidentally, the more Beck has incorporated themes of social collapse into his show, the more his online advertising roster resembles that found on Jones’ site, which has featured survivalist gear and products for more than a decade.

3. New World Order & Global Currency

If any one term defines the career of Alex Jones, it is the New World Order. Beck, who used to make fun of N.W.O conspiracy, now covers it frequently and has incorporated the term into his show. This began while Beck was still on CNN. On Oct 9, 2008 he declared, “New world Order is the endgame.” That February, he hosted longtime Alex Jones guest Ron Paul on his Fox News show to discuss world government. He has also borrowed language from Jones when expressing his fears about the creation of a global currency and sterilants in the water.

Beck’s Scorecard: The mother of all rip-offs by Beck. He again leans heavily on Jones’ trademark New World Order language, but deemphasizes or ignores the role played by corporations, which are prominent in Jones’ more sweeping critique.

4. Fabian Socialists, Eugenics and George Bernard Shaw

Alex Jones and his guests have long covered the history of eugenics, including the role of George Bernard Shaw, the playwright and unabashed eugenicist. Alex’s 2007 documentary film Endgame takes an in-depth look at Shaw, who has been discussed on-air many times, including here. In January, 2010, Glenn Beck’s documentary The Revolutionary Holocaust included the exact same clips of Shaw as those discussed or shown on The Alex Jones Show. Later, Beck would revisit the subject to link eugenics and Fabian Socialists to the London School of Economics and his favorite new target, George Soros.

Scorecard: Classic example of Beck stealing material from Jones and stripping it of context so as to better attack Beck’s progressive straw-men — in this case George Soros and other usual suspects found on Beck’s chalk board.

5. Egypt Revolution Staged Destabilization of Mideast Region

From the beginning of the recent unrest in Egypt, frequent Alex Jones guest Dr. Webster Tarpley was often on-air discussing the destabilization of Egypt and other nations in the region. In these interviews, Tarpley and Jones discussed the role of U.S., British and Israeli intelligence agencies in the creation and backing of the Muslim Brotherhood. Glenn Beck was soon on TV and the radio giving a similar explanation for the Egyptian protest, with one key and all-too typical twist: In Beck’s telling, it was a leftist-oriented and -inspired revolution led by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Scorecard: A textbook example of Beck echoing information recently aired on Jones’ show, but with the information narrowly deployed to provide ballast for Beck’s nakedly partisan politics.

6. Google Boycott & Google’s Ties to U.S. Government
Alex Jones has been calling out Google as a front and ally to the NSA and other U.S.- backed intelligence since at least 2006, when he had expert Robert Steele on to discuss Google’s founding and funding. Lately, in an offshoot of his theory regarding tumult in the Mideast, Beck has begun to blast Google’s ties to the government, as well as alleged leftist ties to the revolution. But he has not condemned systematic, universal spying and cataloguing of data by Google. This quickly drew Jones’ ire.

Scorecard: Once again, Beck seems to be taking a critique from Jones and reverse engineering it as a weapon to attack the left, ignoring its more sweeping condemnation of Google or its activities under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

7. The Google Bomb

On Feb. 3, 2011 Beck told viewers to search “caliphate.” They did, and the term went to No. 3 on Google Trends. Where did Beck get the idea? Likely its innovator, Alex Jones, who has initiated more than 50-60 Google Trends that have become #1 search terms.

Scorecard: Innovation begets imitation. Beck saw Jones’ successful Google Bombing initiatives and decided to borrow the idea to drive traffic to his own websites — where Beck’s fans can digest bastardized versions of theories and facts originally found on the Alex Jones Show.

Separated at Birth

Jared Lee Loughner & Glenn Beck...

Beast of the Year 2010: Glenn Beck

The votes are in, and The Konformist readers have spoken. Glenn Beck is your choice for the 2009 Beast of the Year - a choice that is well deserved.

One of the two big stories in the year following Obama's first 100 days was the rise of an extremely far right - and an often extremely crazy - movement given the label of "Tea Party" by some, or (more appropriately) "Teabaggers" by others. Point Zero of the Teabagger movement was Glenn Beck and his multimedia empire. Of course, there is nothing new here: during the Clinton years, Rush Limbaugh became a powerful media voice in his own right, and during the era of George W. Bush, Beck's current employer Fox News fueled the rise of Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, while Ann Coulter became a shrill media commentator in her own right (among others.) So mark Beck down as the latest example of the right wing media darling, the only question being if this self-described rodeo clown will become a harmless buffoon who becomes a self-parody, or if he becomes a figurehead for a frightening reactionary movement. Stay tuned...

Runner-Up: Ben Bernanke

In the unlikely event that Beck can no longer fill its duties as Beast of the Year, Ben Bernanke is ready to take over the crown. Rest assured the BOTY trophy is in good hands either way. As the other big story of the past year has been the continued enrichment of the giant banking monoliths by the US government after the election of Obama, Bernanke, as head of the Federal Reserve, is ground zero of this vast larceny.

In any case, we salute you, Glenn and Ben. Congratulations, and keep up the great work!!!

The Little Bill That Could

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/timothy-karr/the-little-bill-that-coul_b_798768.html

Timothy Karr
Campaign Director, Free Press and SavetheInternet.com
December 19, 2010
The Little Bill That Could

Little noticed but extremely important to progressives, on Saturday afternoon Congress also passed the Local Community Radio Act.

This legislation opens up radio spectrum to hundreds, if not thousands, of local independent radio stations (also known as LPFM).

Its passing will bring new choices and voices on the radio dial nationwide, but is especially relevant to a broadcast area reaching 160 million people who lived in areas where these stations had previously been barred from local airwaves.

Anyone tracking the rise of radio personalities like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage understands the primary political significance of gaining access to spectrum.

With the opening of the airwaves to LPFM stations, progressives can gain a small but consequential spot on the radio dial. The challenge now is to organize local groups to gain access to licenses. Follow and support the Prometheus Radio Project to learn more.

Shaming the lobbyists

This bill would not have passed without the tireless work of a small, but dedicated corps of radio activists who faced down one of the most powerful corporate lobbies in Washington -- the National Association of Broadcasters.

After ten years of pushing and broad-based organizing these activists got broadcasters to yield on Friday.

With the corporate lobby out of the way the bill passed both the House and the Senate in little more than 24 hours.

This is what's possible.

Our Founding Fathers Were Liberal, NOT Conservative

http://www.politicususa.com/en/founding-fathers-liberal

Our Founding Fathers Were Liberal, NOT Conservative
December 18, 2010
Ray Medeiros

A lot has been said about our founding fathers in recent years. The Tea Party has all of the sudden become historical scholars. They have become the defenders of our Country and our Constitution. Glenn Beck is their proverbial historical professor. Unfortunately their knowledge is fairly limited to specifically what their Fox News comrade regurgitates.

In 1797, Paine wrote a pamphlet called “Agrarian Justice“. It was his last great pamphlet and it was addressed to the French legislature, itself in the throes of revolution. While he addressed the pamphlet to the French legislature, he meant the plan in it to be universal, as he said in his accompanying letter:

The plan contained in this work is not adapted for any particular country alone: the principle on which it is based is general. But as the rights of man are a new study in this world, and one needing protection from priestly imposture, and the insolence of oppressions too long established, I have thought it right to place this little work under your safeguard.

Paine starts his proposal by discussing poverty. First of all, he says poverty is not natural:

“Poverty, therefore, is a thing created by that which is called civilized life. It exists not in the natural state. On the other hand, the natural state is without those advantages which flow from agriculture, arts, science and manufactures.”

Paine decries the disparity of income just I have and many other liberals have today:

“Civilization, therefore, or that which is so-called, has operated two ways: to make one part of society more affluent, and the other more wretched, than would have been the lot of either in a natural state.”

He accepts as a basic principle that:

“the condition of every person born into the world, after a state of civilization commences, ought not to be worse than if he had been born before that period.”

This thought is the same type of thought that we have today as Americans, We want the next generation to have a better standard of living than we had.

When Thomas Paine wrote this, unfortunately, this was not the case in 18th century Europe.

It is a position not to be controverted that the earth, in its natural, cultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race. In that state every man would have been born to property. He would have been a joint life proprietor with rest in the property of the soil, and in all its natural productions, vegetable and animal.

Thomas Paine in the next paragraph plans how to solve this problem:

Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated lands, owes to the community ground-rent (for I know of no better term to express the idea) for the land which he holds; and it is from this ground-rent that the fund prod in this plan is to issue.
The property owners owe rent to those who do not own property for the privilege of cultivating the land, and taking away the natural ownership that all people have.

In my view, Thomas Paine is calling for Property taxes, and the the use of property tax to help the community as a whole.

In fact, Paine directly challenges the justification for pure private property with no community responsibilities:

There could be no such thing as landed property originally. Man did not make the earth, and, though he had a natural right to occupy it, he had no right to locate as his property in perpetuity any part of it; neither did the Creator of the earth open a land-office, from whence the first title-deeds should issue.

Paine proceeds to justify private property on the common grounds that cultivation is important, but not without community responsibilities in exchange for permission to cultivate:

Cultivation is at least one of the greatest natural improvements ever made by human invention. It has given to created earth a tenfold value. But the landed monopoly that began with it has produced the greatest evil. It has dispossessed more than half the inhabitants of every nation of their natural inheritance, without providing for them, as ought to have been done, an indemnification for that loss, and has thereby created a species of poverty and wretchedness that did not exist before

And just as today’s liberals continue do argue against the idea that they are simply trying to institutionalize charity or welfare, Paine rejected the idea that he was advocating for charity at all. Instead, he was advocating for a positive right.

In advocating the case of the persons thus dispossessed, it is a right, and not a charity, that I am pleading for. But it is that kind of right which, being neglected at first, could not be brought forward afterwords till heaven had opened the way by a revolution in the system of government. Let us then do honor to revolutions by justice, and give currency to their principles by blessings

In other words, Paine considers a primary purpose of government to be remedying the problems of the marginalized poor as a fundamental right not as a form of institutionalized charity or welfare state.

In case you think this was all just an hypothesis, Paine finishes off with a detailed plan of how to move forward. His proposal:

To create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property:

And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that age.

This proposal sounds like a national pension plan, similar to Social Security. Later on, Paine also argues for the same 10 pound payment to be made to the disabled. By comparison, a housewife could make between 6 and 8 pounds for a year.

But how is a country expected to raise enough money to give every citizen that much money upon turning 21, and pay living expenses for the elderly and disabled? The answer is an estate tax, inheritance tax or as the conservatives like to call it the DEATH TAX.

Taking it then for granted that no person ought to be in a worse condition when born under what is called a state of civilization, than he would have been had he been born in a state of nature, and that civilization ought to have made, and ought still to make, provision for that purpose, it can only be done by subtracting from property a portion equal in value to the natural inheritance it has absorbed.

Various methods may be proposed for this purpose, but that which appears to be the best is at the moment that property is passing by the death of one person to the possession of another. In this case, the bequeather gives nothing: the receiver pays nothing. The only matter to him is that the monopoly of natural inheritance, to which there never was a right, begins to cease in his person. A generous man would not wish it to continue, and a just man will rejoice to see it abolished.

Paine covers what kind of “revolution” he would like to see.”

It is not charity but a right, not bounty but justice, that I am pleading for. The present state of civilization is as odious as it is unjust. It is absolutely the opposite of what it should be, and it is necessary that a revolution should be made in it. The contrast of affluence and wretchedness continually meeting and offending the eye, is like dead and living bodies chained together. Though I care as little about riches as any man, I am a friend to riches because they are capable of good.

This quote by Thomas Paine is very similar to what I believe. Unfortunately through trickle down economics of the past
30 years we have seen people lose their jobs through outsourcing in order to increase the affluence of a few.

“I care not how affluent some may be, provided that none be miserable in consequence of it. But it is impossible to enjoy affluence with the felicity it is capable of being enjoyed, while so much misery is mingled in the scene.”
Many on the right call for charity to help the poor rather than society. While it has it’s good intentions, it is simply not enough.

Here Thomas Paine explains:

There are, in every country, some magnificent charities established by individuals. It is, however, but little that any individual can do, when the whole extent of the misery to be relieved is considered. He may satisfy his conscience, but not his heart. He may give all that he has, and that all will relieve but little. It is only by organizing civilization upon such principles as to act like a system of pulleys, that the whole weight of misery can be removed.


In other words, government, through taxation, and proposals such as the one he’s outlining here, are the only solution to the problem. In fact, he argues that a prime purpose of government is to resolve vast income inequality.

Again arguing for this plan as part of the French Revolution, Paine points out that by helping the poor, France will be better off in the end:

A plan upon this principle would benefit the revolution by the energy that springs from the consciousness of justice. It would multiply also the national resources; for property, like vegetation, increases by offsets. When a young couple begin the world, the difference is exceedingly great whether they begin with nothing or with fifteen pounds apiece. With this aid they could buy a cow, and implements to cultivate a few acres of land; and instead of becoming burdens upon society, which is always the case where children are produced faster than they can be fed, would be put in the way of becoming useful and profitable citizens.

In other words, we can resolve the burden on society by vast poverty by simply making it easier for the impoverished to start life with something, instead of being trapped in the cycle of poverty. Almost sounds like a modern-day liberal, doesn’t he?

Further, he argues that it’s not enough to help the poor once they become poor–we must fundamentally alter the conditions that unjustly produce poverty.

It is the practice of what has unjustly obtained the name of civilization (and the practice merits not to be called either charity or policy) to make some provision for persons becoming poor and wretched only at the time they become so. Would it not, even as a matter of economy, be far better to adopt means to prevent their becoming poor? This can best be done by making every person when arrived at the age of twenty-one years an inheritor of something to begin with.

It is cheaper to fix the larger problem of poverty than it is to apply failing band-aids on top of the problems of the impoverished.

This particular quote, Thomas Paine responds in advance of the wealthy who will most likely attack him for advocating for a social safety net. He did this by telling them that they were in favor of war, which costs more in taxes than the Social Security, disability payments, and inheritance that he is proposing.

It is from the overgrown acquisition of property that the fund will support itself; and I know that the possessors of such property in England, though they would eventually be benefitted by the protection of nine-tenths of it, will exclaim against the plan. But without entering any inquiry how they came by that property, let them recollect that they have been the advocates of this war, and that Mr. Pitt has already laid on more new taxes to be raised annually upon the people of England, and that for supporting the despotism of Austria and the Bourbons against the liberties of France, than would pay annually all the sums proposed in this plan.

So, you see or forefathers like Thomas Paine were not conservative in a sense of advocating for Economic Darwinism and individualism. There are many more quotes from various founding fathers all the way to today’s leaders and advocates.

Today we are still fighting the fight that led to Thomas Paine writing this pamphlet and we must continue, no matter what the cost.

Videogame of the Week

Brave New PacMan

http://www.bravenewpacman.com/

Where PacMan battles Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Sarah Palin...

Poll: Hillary Would Crush Obama

http://nation.foxnews.com/hillary-clinton/2010/11/08/poll-hillary-would-crush-obama

November 08, 2010
Poll: Hillary Would Crush Obama

Hillary Clinton would trounce fellow Democrat President Barack Obama by a 20-percentage-point margin in a head-to-head race for the presidency, according to a Newsmax/SurveyUSA poll conducted after Tuesday's midterm elections.

Newsmax conducted the survey to find out how several well-known political and celebrity figures, ranging from Clinton, Sarah Palin, and Bill Gates to Warren Buffett, Donald Trump, and Glenn Beck, would fare if they ran against Obama for the White House.

The survey of 1,000 registered voters was conducted Nov. 3-4, after Republicans won the House and gained six seats in the Senate - results widely interpreted as a rejection of Obama and raising questions about whom the Democrats might field as a candidate in 2012.

In the poll, respondents were asked: "If there were an election for president of the United States today, and the only two names on the ballot were Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, whom would you vote for?"

The poll found that, overall, 60 percent of respondents chose Secretary of State Clinton, while 40 percent chose Obama.

Stewart/Colbert rally preaches compromise and complacency

http://wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/stew-n01.shtml
Stewart/Colbert rally preaches compromise and complacency
By Joseph Kishore
1 November 2010

On Saturday, US comedic television hosts Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert organized a demonstration that drew over 200,000 under the slogan “Rally for Sanity.”

Participants included many young people, along with families and retirees. The general mood was one of hostility toward the right wing, and the rally was in part organized in response to one held by Fox television host Glenn Beck in August. The event was heavily promoted by liberal supporters of Obama, including the Huffington Post, which spent $250,000 to bus people in.

Many of those participating were drawn from relatively insulated layers of the middle class for whom the rally’s central theme—that there is not much to be angry about—resonated, at least to some extent. However, insofar as Stewart and Colbert are associated with a certain antiestablishment sentiment, the demonstration attracted broader layers.

The widespread support that Stewart and Colbert have among young people in particular is an indication of the general disillusionment with the political system and the mass media. One cannot think of a political figure who could draw a similar attendance, as there is no one in either party that has a significant base of support. At a rally on Sunday in Cleveland, Ohio, for example, Obama was greeted by 5,000 empty seats in a stadium intended to seat 13,000. The Stewart/Colbert rally was also about three times larger than the Beck rally organized in August.

Stewart and Colbert attempted to portray their event as “nonpartisan” and the comedians are not directly political figures. However, there was nevertheless a definite political line underlying it: support for the Obama administration and the Democratic Party.

Under conditions in which the majority of the American population is increasingly disillusioned by the pro-corporate and pro-war policies of Obama and the entire political establishment, the basic theme of the event was the need for a political consensus between the two parties in Washington and their allies in the media.

This generally corresponds with the aims of the Obama administration itself. Indeed, at the end of a generally favorable episode-long interview with Obama on Stewart’s “Daily Show” three days before the rally, the US president gave his endorsement to the weekend event, saying he wished it had been held two years ago.

Stewart spoke about his own conceptions behind the event in his closing remarks on Saturday. He expressed the hope that behind every political conflict is some sort of misunderstanding that can be resolved through reasoned discussion. “We can have animus and not be enemies,” he said.

Stewart directed his main criticisms against the media, repeating his analysis that the problem is that media pundits are too partisan and extreme, that they inflate problems and hinder resolutions. “The country’s 24-hour politico pundit perpetual panic conflictanator did not cause our problems, but its existence has made solving them that much harder… If we amplify everything, we hear nothing,” he complained.

If drivers with different political views and backgrounds can merge in an orderly fashion in a traffic jam, Stewart said, then certainly everyone in Washington DC should be able to work together to get things done.

This is first of all an utterly false portrayal of the real state of affairs in the American media and political system. The mudslinging among media pundits is intended more to distract from the real problems facing millions of people and to draw attention away from the fact that the political establishment as a whole is in basic agreement on all fundamental issues.

At the same time, Stewart’s “politics of the golden mean” is a facile one, devoid of any understanding of the social forces driving politics, including the significant corporate financing behind the promotion of an extreme right-wing movement in the United States. Stewart expresses the attitude of the relatively comfortable middle-class supporters of the Democratic Party who are constantly trying to reach some sort of accommodation with the right.

The basic sentiment that Stewart sought to cultivate was one of complacency. The rally was called in the midst of the greatest economic crisis in generations, but there was absolutely no mention—either before or during the event—of the desperate situation facing millions of people. There was nothing about the ongoing wars carried out by both political parties that have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands. There was no hint of the unprecedented attack on democratic rights in the United States.

According to Stewart’s analysis, the immense divisions that are emerging in American society are little more than a media creation. The outlook is in fact preposterous.

There was also an ugly element to the rally, a deliberate attempt in particular to blackguard and delegitimize any left-wing opposition to the policies of the ruling class. On a number of occasions, Stewart lumped together left-wing opponents of Obama with the extreme right, declaring, “Why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our constitution? Or racists and homophobes who see no one’s humanity but their own?”

The attempt to equate socialists with racists and homophobes is a deliberate attempt to render illegitimate any argument that the political system is dictated by the interests of the corporate and financial elite—a sentiment in fact shared by millions of people.

The call for all Americans to come together as one was combined with a nationalist and at time jingoist subtext to the entire demonstration, beginning with the singing of the national anthem by US military veterans. Later, Stewart and Colbert covered themselves in American flags, and Stewart accompanied musician Jeff Tweedy to sing that America “is the greatest, strongest country in the world. There is no one more American than we.”

While Stewart and Colbert have at times in the past leveled some sharp barbs at the political establishment, the media, and the corporate elite, their criticisms have generally been of a limited and superficial character. Their shows have become fixtures of the same political system that they have at times scorned. All manner of politicians—including the president himself—have allowed themselves to be interviewed. Last year, Colbert was given access to top military figures as part of a trip to Iraq, during which he whitewashed the disaster inflicted on that country by the US government.

While there were no doubt many people in attendance this past weekend who looked to the demonstration as a way of expressing their opposition to the direction of US policy, nothing of the sort was provided by Stewart and Colbert.

Jon Stewart and the left

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_6532.shtml

Jon Stewart and the left
William Blum
Online Journal Guest Writer
Nov 4, 2010

The left in America is desperate; desperate for someone who can inspire them, if not lead them to a better world; or at least make them laugh. TV star Jon Stewart is sometimes funny, especially when he doesn’t try too hard to be funny, which is not often enough. But as a political leader, or simply political educator for the left, forget it. He’s not even what I would call a genuine, committed leftist. What does he have to teach the left? He himself would certainly not want you to entertain the thought that Jon Stewart is in any way a man of the left.

He billed his October 30 rally on the National Mall in Washington, DC, as the Million Moderate March. Would a person with a real desire for important progressive social and political change, i.e, a “leftist,” so ostentatiously brand himself a “moderate”? Even if by “moderate” he refers mainly to tone of voice or choice of words why is that so important? If a politician strongly supports things which you are passionate about, why should it bother you if the politician is vehement in his arguments, even angry? And if the politician is strongly against what you’re passionate about does it make you feel any better about the guy if he never raises his voice or sharply criticizes those on the other side? What kind of cause is that to commit yourself to?

Stewart, in fact, appears to dislike the left, perhaps strongly. In the lead-up to the rally he criticized the left for various things, including calling George W. Bush a “war criminal.” Wow! How immoderate of us. Do I have to list here the 500 war crimes committed by George W. Bush? If I did so, would that make me one of what Stewart calls the “crazies”?

In his talk at the rally, Stewart spoke of our “real fears” -- “of terrorists, racists, Stalinists, and theocrats.” Stalinists? Where did that come from, Glenn Beck? What decade is Stewart living in? What about capitalists or the corporations? Is there no reason to fear them? Is it Stalinists who are responsible for the collapse of our jobs and homes, our economy?

Writer Chris Hedges says, “Being nice and moderate will not help. These are corporate forces that are intent on reconfiguring the United States into a system of neofeudalism. These corporate forces will not be halted by funny signs, comics dressed up like Captain America or nice words.”

Stewart also grouped together “Marxists actively subverting our constitution, racists and homophobes.” Welcome to the Jon Stewart Tea Party. In his long interview last week of President Obama on his TV show, Stewart did not mention any of America’s wars. That would have been impolite and divisive; maybe even not nice.

He billed his rally as being “for people who are politically dissatisfied but who are not ideological.” (Democracy Now, November 1, 2010) Really, Jon? You have no ideology? To those who like to tell themselves and others that they don’t have any particular ideology I say this: If you have thoughts about why the world is the way it is, why society is the way it is, why people are the way they are, what a better way would look like, and if your thoughts are fairly well organized, then that’s your ideology, even if it’s not wholly conscious as such. Better to organize those thoughts as best you can, become very conscious of them, and then consciously avoid getting involved with individuals or political movements who have an incompatible ideology. It’s like a very bad marriage.

William Blum is the author of “Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2,” “Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower,” “West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir” and “Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire” He can be reached at: BBlum6@aol.com.

The Phantom Left

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_phantom_left_20101031/ Oct 31, 2010
Chris Hedges

The American left is a phantom. It is conjured up by the right wing to tag Barack Obama as a socialist and used by the liberal class to justify its complacency and lethargy. It diverts attention from corporate power. It perpetuates the myth of a democratic system that is influenced by the votes of citizens, political platforms and the work of legislators. It keeps the world neatly divided into a left and a right. The phantom left functions as a convenient scapegoat. The right wing blames it for moral degeneration and fiscal chaos. The liberal class uses it to call for “moderation.” And while we waste our time talking nonsense, the engines of corporate power—masked, ruthless and unexamined—happily devour the state.

The loss of a radical left in American politics has been catastrophic. The left once harbored militant anarchist and communist labor unions, an independent, alternative press, social movements and politicians not tethered to corporate benefactors. But its disappearance, the result of long witch hunts for communists, post-industrialization and the silencing of those who did not sign on for the utopian vision of globalization, means that there is no counterforce to halt our slide into corporate neofeudalism. This harsh reality, however, is not palatable. So the corporations that control mass communications conjure up the phantom of a left. They blame the phantom for our debacle. And they get us to speak in absurdities.

The phantom left took a central role on the mall this weekend in Washington. It had performed admirably for Glenn Beck, who used it in his own rally as a lightning rod to instill anger and fear. And the phantom left proved equally useful for the comics Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, who spoke to the crowd wearing red-white-and-blue costumes. The two comics evoked the phantom left, as the liberal class always does, in defense of moderation, which might better be described as apathy. If the right wing is crazy and if the left wing is crazy, the argument goes, then we moderates will be reasonable. We will be nice. Exxon and Goldman Sachs, along with predatory banks and the arms industry, may be ripping the guts out of the country, our rights—including habeas corpus—may have been revoked, but don’t get mad. Don’t be shrill. Don’t be like the crazies on the left.

“Why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution or racists and homophobes who see no one’s humanity but their own?” Stewart asked. “We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is—on the brink of catastrophe—torn by polarizing hate, and how it’s a shame that we can’t work together to get things done. But the truth is we do. We work together to get things done every damn day. The only place we don’t is here [in Washington] or on cable TV.”

The rally delivered a political message devoid of reality or content. The corruption of electoral politics by corporate funds and lobbyists, the naive belief that we can somehow vote ourselves back to democracy, was ignored for emotional catharsis. The right hates. The liberals laugh. And the country is taken hostage.

The Rally to Restore Sanity, held in Washington’s National Mall, was yet another sad footnote to the death of the liberal class. It was as innocuous as a Boy Scout jamboree. It ridiculed followers of the tea party without acknowledging that the pain and suffering expressed by many who support the movement are not only real but legitimate. It made fun of the buffoons who are rising up out of moral swamps to take over the Republican Party without accepting that their supporters were sold out by a liberal class, and especially a Democratic Party, which turned its back on the working class for corporate money.

Fox News’ Beck and his allies on the far right can use hatred as a mobilizing force because there are tens of millions of Americans who have very good reason to hate. They have been betrayed by the elite who run the corporate state, by the two main political parties and by the liberal apologists, including those given public platforms on television, who keep counseling moderation as jobs disappear, wages drop and unemployment insurance runs out. As long as the liberal class speaks in the dead voice of moderation it will continue to fuel the right-wing backlash. Only when it appropriates this rage as its own, only when it stands up to established systems of power, including the Democratic Party, will we have any hope of holding off the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party.

Wall Street’s looting of the Treasury, the curtailing of our civil liberties, the millions of fraudulent foreclosures, the long-term unemployment, the bankruptcies from medical bills, the endless wars in the Middle East and the amassing of trillions in debt that can never be repaid are pushing us toward a Hobbesian world of internal collapse. Being nice and moderate will not help. These are corporate forces that are intent on reconfiguring the United States into a system of neofeudalism. These corporate forces will not be halted by funny signs, comics dressed up like Captain America or nice words.

The liberal class wants to inhabit a political center to remain morally and politically disengaged. As long as there is a phantom left, one that is as ridiculous and stunted as the right wing, the liberal class can remain uncommitted. If the liberal class concedes that power has been wrested from us it will be forced, if it wants to act, to build movements outside the political system. This would require the liberal class to demand acts of resistance, including civil disobedience, to attempt to salvage what is left of our anemic democratic state. But this type of political activity, as costly as it is difficult, is too unpalatable to a bankrupt liberal establishment that has sold its soul to corporate interests. And so the phantom left will be with us for a long time.

Politics in America has become spectacle. It is another form of show business. The crowd in Washington, well trained by television, was conditioned to play its role before the cameras. The signs —“The Rant is Too Damn High,” “Real Patriots Can Handle a Difference of Opinion” or “I Masturbate and I Vote”—reflected the hollowness of current political discourse and television’s perverse epistemology. The rally spoke exclusively in the impoverished iconography and language of television. It was filled with meaningless political pieties, music and jokes. It was like any television variety program. Personalities were being sold, not political platforms. And this is what the society of spectacle is about.

The modern spectacle, as the theorist Guy Debord pointed out, is a potent tool for pacification and depoliticization. It is a “permanent opium war” which stupefies its viewers and disconnects them from the forces that control their lives. The spectacle diverts anger toward phantoms and away from the perpetrators of exploitation and injustice. It manufactures feelings of euphoria. It allows participants to confuse the spectacle itself with political action.

The celebrities from Comedy Central and the trash talk show hosts on Fox are in the same business. They are entertainers. They provide the empty, emotionally laden material that propels endless chatter back and forth on supposed left- and right-wing television programs. It is a national Punch and Judy show. But don’t be fooled. It is not politics. It is entertainment. It is spectacle. All national debate on the airwaves is driven by the same empty gossip, the same absurd trivia, the same celebrity meltdowns and the same ridiculous posturing. It is presented with a different spin. But none of it is about ideas or truth. None of it is about being informed. It caters to emotions. It makes us confuse how we are made to feel with knowledge. And in the end, for those who serve up this drivel, the game is about money in the form of ratings and advertising. Beck, Colbert and Stewart all serve the same masters. And it is not us.

Chris Hedges, who writes every Monday for Truthdig, is the author of the new book “Death of the Liberal Class.”

Democrats Running Scared

http://blackagendareport.com/?q=content/freedom-rider-democrats-running-scared
There should be no mystery to why Obama and the Democrats have failed to stir the passions of the party’s traditional base. Obama flounders because he tried to obey corporate directives while simultaneously “marketing himself as an agent of progressive change.” But Obama has delivered far more to the Right than to the Left. “He truly believes that black Americans and other progressives are less worthy of making political demands and having seats at the political table” than the rich.

Freedom Rider: Democrats Running Scared
BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
Wed, 10/20/2010

“It is the Democrats who are in power and the Democrats who must be called to account.”

All signs point to Democrat losses in the upcoming congressional elections to be held on November 2nd. In 2006 and in the presidential election year of 2008, the decline of the Republican Party as a brand gave Democrats decisive victories in the House and Senate. These are all about to be undone by the usual Democratic propensity to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

President Obama looks like a man running scared, unsure of how to stop the oncoming flood. He has appeared on vacuous television shows such as The View, making his case for Democratic support by chatting with Barbara Walters and Whoopi Goldberg. Next he shows up at backyard barbecues and in high school auditoriums, and of course he always hobnobs with wealthy donors while loudly proclaiming his displeasure with the progressives who largely stood down and did nothing to oppose him.

The president’s latest sad attempt to stave off the inevitable is a bizarre, whiny interview in the New York Times magazine. The man who tried to straddle the fence of obeying the directives of the corporate interests who run the country while simultaneously marketing himself as an agent of progressive change, is of course floundering. He and his senior staffers claim not to have known that Republicans would obstruct his every move, while also claiming that Republicans will be more amenable to compromise after whipping the Democrats at the polls.

“Obama truly believes that black Americans and other progressives are less worthy of making political demands and having seats at the political table.”

The nonsense has some degree of logic because Obama is a true believer in political consensus, which favors the powerful. He truly believes that black Americans and other progressives are less worthy of making political demands and having seats at the political table. The deeply flawed health care bill is but one example of his modus operandi of cutting deals with the conservatives he feels more in tune with, while simultaneously asking progressives to stand down and let him do whatever he wants.

Even as he crisscrosses the country in an effort to pull off an upset victory, his true self emerges. He made this stunning statement at a town hall meeting:

“I set up a bipartisan fiscal commission that is made up of Republicans and Democrats to sit and meet over the last several months to start looking at how we generally start reducing our debt and our deficit so we’re not leaving it to the next generation. They’re supposed to report back to me after the election because we specifically designed it so they wouldn’t get caught up with silly season and would be able to just focus on what makes sense.”

Obama revealed more than he perhaps intended to with this statement. His Cat Food Commission has been designed to release its bad news of benefit cuts after the election. What the president calls the silly season, citizens making informed decisions when they vote, is inconvenient when politicians are planning to take actions which are harmful to the interests of the people.

“Insurance companies across the country are using the health care so-called reform plan to drop coverage.”

While Obama and White House insiders scratch their heads and wonder why no one loves them as much as they think they should be loved, insurance companies across the country are using the health care so-called reform plan to drop coverage. It is true that children cannot now be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions. Insurance companies were willing to support a plan which gave them what they wanted, millions of new customers, but they are still for profit companies, and they have responded by dropping children-only plans.

If the Obama administration had worked for a single payer, Medicare for all reform plan, Democrats could now run for office boasting of the good deal their party had brought home to their constituents. Instead there is a patchwork of good and bad and most of it won’t even go into effect until 2013. Democrats in tough races are disavowing the plan, the president and their own party because they have no good news for voters. The smarty pants Obamaites outsmarted themselves, and on election day they will find out just how badly they messed up.

Should the Republicans take control of Congress, there must not be a repeat of 1994, when the Newt Gingrich-led victory over Bill Clinton created never before seen levels of Democratic support for that president. The Obama administration has consistently left progressives off of their agenda and publicly humiliated them with diatribes against the “professional left” and never passing up opportunities to make it clear that their demands will never be met.

“The Obama administration has consistently left progressives off of their agenda and publicly humiliated them.”

Democratic control of Congress didn’t save ACORN from destruction, hasn’t stopped wars, or eliminated the anti-gay don’t ask don’t tell policy in the military. It has given us a health care plan that may be worse than no plan at all, the continued transfer of public funds to Wall Street, and no end to the unemployment or housing crises.

If the Democrats go down to defeat, they should hear a loud “We told you so.” The obsessive interest in Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh ought to disappear. It is the Democrats who are in power and the Democrats who must be called to account for the state of the nation and their own inability to provide a platform which gives voters a reason to support them.

Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley@BlackAgandaReport.com .

Glenn Beck Mocks Fire Victims, Reaches New Depths of Awfulness

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/glenn-beck-mocks-fire-vic_b_753193.html

Bob Cesca
Host of the Bob and Elvis Show
October 6, 2010
Glenn Beck Mocks Fire Victims, Reaches New Depths of Awfulness

I've probably written and rewritten this opening paragraph about Glenn Beck and his morning zoo sycophantic sidekick Pat Gray four or five times with various sequences of compound obscenities and ad hominem insults. But I'm opting for more restraint at this point, even though neither of these jackals deserves it. Especially so, considering their latest hand-in-hand plunge into all new depths of awfulness.

By now, you've probably heard the news about Gene Cranick and his family, and how the South Fulton, Tennessee fire department stood by and allowed the Cranick house to burn to the ground, destroying everything and killing the family's dogs and cats. All because the Cranicks failed to pay a $75 fee. While a raging brush fire neared his home, Cranick begged the fire chief to stop the fire before it engulfed his house. He even offered to immediately pay the $75 fee, but the chief refused and the house burned to the ground.

As a survivor of two house fires (technically, one was a gas explosion) my heart goes out to the Cranicks and the nightmare they're enduring today. But my own experiences are incidental -- you don't have to have survived a pair of house fires to recognize the unapologetic callousness of Beck and his squishy Quatto-from-Total-Recall parasitic twin Pat Gray.

Here's what happened.

Yesterday on his radio show, Beck and Gray not only defended the fire department's refusal to save the Cranick's house, but they also accused Cranick of "sponging" off his neighbors -- all the while mocking and ridiculing Cranick's rural accent.

And the takeaway quote from Beck:

If you don't pay the 75 dollars then that hurts the fire department. They can't use those resources, and you'd be sponging off your neighbor's resources.

That's right. A matter of days after losing everything they owned, including their home, their pets, family photographs -- everything -- and all because of a delinquent $75 fee, Gene Cranick and his family were excoriated, scolded and teased by multimillionaire celebrity televangelist Glenn Beck in front of a radio audience estimated at upwards of 10 million listeners.

Gray is real pip, too, isn't he? I'm trying to figure out why it's especially hilarious to do an impersonation of Cranick. Although it's easy to understand why Gray thought it would be funny to go there -- mainly because Gray is the deep-voiced equivalent of the late Bruno Kirby's comedy-impaired "Lt. Hauk" character from Good Morning, Vietnam. Talking in a silly voice is so funny. Doesn't matter who or why. It's a silly voice, after all. That crazy rube and his burned down house. Mock-worthy! Crowd pleaser. If I may, a brief comedy lesson for Pat Gray here. Generally, when actual funny people mock someone's accent or voice, it's because the mockee has done something awful or bizarre enough to deserve the mockery. Someone in a position of authority, perhaps. Who's next in your madcap repertoire of voices, Pat? Stroke victims? Cancer patients? Abused homeless children? Whoever it is, I bet it'll be comedy gold. One for the "Best of Pat Gray" showreel.

Back to Beck himself. It takes a truly brave man to aim high and take on a defenseless working class family whose entire world was just destroyed over a $75 fee. What kind of a man hectors and pillories an average, innocent American family during their darkest hour and in front of 10 million radio listeners, all for the sake of ratings, personal profit and a few super-cheap laughs? Not a serious man. Not a "man" at all, in fact. Certainly not a man of integrity or honor -- or a man of God, as he so regularly claims to be. Really courageous, this Glenn Beck guy. What a hero.

As unforgivable and shocking as it might be, it's all part of an ongoing thread among far-right radio hosts, cable news talkers and wingnut bloggers. They can't seem to distinguish between actual targets and noncombatants, and generally believe that anyone and everyone is fair game. The creepy stalking and swift-boating of 12-year-old coma victim Graeme Frost, for example. Or a private school in Northern Virginia that was targeted by Beck on his TV show as a facility for "terrorist indoctrination." Or when broader wingnuttia went after those kids who sang a song about President Obama. Or all the times when Bill O'Reilly has stalked and accosted school officials. Or the time when Fox News Channel targeted and exposed a 12-year-old girl who dared to ask the president a question at a town hall.

Nothing like going after the hard targets, guys. The big names. The real killers. The evildoers.

Beck, Gray and the others are hyenas. Scavengers. Bottom-feeders who routinely wield the power of the most-viewed cable news network and one of the world's biggest entertainment multinational corporations to attack children and house fire victims. But I suppose they'll continue to do so as long as there are advertisers to sponsor their hard-hitting investigations of $75 delinquents. Though I'm not sure how mocking fire victims is good for branding and sales, but okay. As long as they can sleep at night knowing what brand of crap their products are associated with.

Somehow I still hear from people who insist that if we just ignore Glenn Beck, he'll go away. He won't. So while he's broadcasting such nonsense in the guise of this ridiculous googly-eyed character he's playing, we have no choice but to be tenacious about calling him on his awfulness, especially given the size of his audience. Meanwhile, when the karma for this Cranick bit comes back around to Beck, we can only hope it stings and itches.

Okay, fine. So my attempt at restraint wasn't so successful.

Never Forget: Bad Wars Aren't Possible Unless Good People Back Them

Today's OpenMike blog by Michael Moore September 15, 2010

I know we've been "free" of the Iraq War for two weeks now and our minds have turned to the new football season and Fashion Week in New York. And how exciting that the new fall TV season is just days away!

But before we get too far away from something we would all just like to forget, will you please allow me to just say something plain and blunt and necessary:

We invaded Iraq because most Americans -- including good liberals like Al Franken, Nicholas Kristof & Bill Keller of the New York Times, David Remnick of the New Yorker, the editors of the Atlantic and the New Republic, Harvey Weinstein, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer and John Kerry -- wanted to.

Of course the actual blame for the war goes to Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz because they ordered the "precision" bombing, the invasion, the occupation, and the theft of our national treasury. I have no doubt that history will record that they committed the undisputed Crime of the (young) Century.

But how did they get away with it, considering they'd lost the presidential election by 543,895 votes? They also knew that the majority of the country probably wouldn't back them in such a war (a Newsweek poll in October 2002 showed 61% thought it was "very important" for Bush to get formal approval from the United Nations for war -- but that never happened). So how did they pull it off?

They did it by getting liberal voices to support their war. They did it by creating the look of bipartisanship. And they convinced other countries' leaders like Tony Blair to get on board and make it look like it wasn't just our intelligence agencies cooking the evidence.

But most importantly, they made this war (and its public support) happen because Bush & Co. had brilliantly conned the New York Times into running a bunch of phony front-page stories about how Saddam Hussein had all these "weapons of mass destruction." The administration gleefully fed this false information not to Fox News or the Washington Times. They gave it to America's leading liberal newspaper. They must have had a laugh riot each morning when they'd pick up the New York Times and read the nearly word-for-word scenarios and talking points that they had concocted in the Vice President's office.

I blame the New York Times more for this war than Bush. I expected Bush and Cheney to try and get away with what they did. But the Times -- and the rest of the press -- was supposed to STOP them by doing their job: Be a relentless watchdog of government and business -- and then inform the public so we can take action.

Instead, the New York Times gave the Bush administration the cover they needed. They could -- and did -- say, 'Hey, look, even the Times says Saddam has WMD!'

With this groundwork laid, the Bush crowd ended up convincing a whopping 70% of the public to support the war -- a public that had given him less than 48% of its vote in 2000.

Early liberal support for this war was the key ingredient in selling it to a majority of the public. I realize this is something that no one in the media -- nor most of us -- really wants to discuss. Who among us wants to feel the pain of having to remember that liberals, by joining with Bush, made this war happen?

Please, before our collective memory fades, I just want us to be honest with ourselves and present an unsanitized version of how they pulled off this war. I can guarantee you the revisionists will make sure the real truth will not enter the history books.

Children born when the war began started second grade this month.

Kids who were eleven in 2003 are now old enough to join up and get killed in Iraq in a "non-combat capacity."

They'll never understand how we got here if we don't.

So let me state this clearly: This war was aided and abetted by a) liberals who were afraid to stick their necks out and thus remained silent; and b) liberals who actually said they believed Colin Powell's cartoon presentation at the U.N. and then went against their better judgment by publicly offering their support for the invasion of Iraq.

First, there were those 29 (turncoat) Democratic senators who voted for the war. Then there was the embarrassing display of reporters who couldn't wait to be "embedded" and go for a joy ride on a Bradley tank.

But my real despair lies with the people I counted on for strong opposition to this madness -- but who left the rest of us alone, out on a limb, as we tried to stop the war.

In March of 2003, to be a public figure speaking out against the war was considered instant career suicide. Take the Dixie Chicks as Exhibit A. Their lead singer, Natalie Maines, uttered just one sentence of criticism -- and their career was effectively dead and buried at that moment. Bruce Springsteen spoke out in their defense, and a Colorado DJ was fired for refusing to not play their songs. That was about it. Crickets everywhere else.

Then MSNBC fired the only nightly critic of the war -- the television legend, Phil Donahue. No one at the network -- or any network -- spoke up on his behalf. There would never again be a Phil Donahue show. (Little did GE know that, when they soon filled that 8pm hour with a sports guy by the name of Keith Olbermann, they would end up with the war's most brilliant and fiercest critic, night after night after night.) There were a few others -- Bill Maher, Janeane Garofalo, Tim Robbins and Seymour Hersh -- who weren't afraid to speak the truth. But where was everyone else? Where were all those supposed liberal voices in the media?

Instead, this is what we were treated to back in 2003 and 2004:

** Al Franken, who said he "reluctantly" was "a supporter of the war against Saddam." And six months into the war Al was still saying, "There were reasons to go to war against Iraq ... I was very ambivalent about it but I still don't know if it was necessarily wrong (to go to war)."

** Nicholas Kristof, columnist for the New York Times, who attacked me and wrote a column comparing me to the nutty right-wingers who claimed Hillary had Vince Foster killed. He said people like me were "polarizing the political cesspool," and he chastised anyone who dared call Bush's reasons for going to war in Iraq "lies."

** Howell Raines, editor-in-chief of the "liberal" New York Times, who was, according to former Times editor Doug Frantz, "eager to have articles that supported the war-mongering out of Washington ... He discouraged pieces that were at odds with the administration's position on Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction and alleged links of al-Qaeda." The book "Hard News" reported that "according to half a dozen sources within the Times, Raines wanted to prove once and for all that he wasn't editing the paper in a way that betrayed his liberal beliefs..."

** Bill Keller, at the time a New York Times columnist, who wrote: "We reluctant hawks may disagree among ourselves about the most compelling logic for war -- protecting America, relieving oppressed Iraqis or reforming the Middle East -- but we generally agree that the logic for standing pat does not hold. ... we are hard pressed to see an alternative that is not built on wishful thinking."

(The New York Times is so left-wing that when Raines retired, they replaced him with... Keller.)

** The New Yorker, the magazine for really smart liberals, found its editor-in-chief, David Remnick, supporting the war on its pages: "History will not easily excuse us if, by deciding not to decide, we defer a reckoning with an aggressive totalitarian leader who intends not only to develop weapons of mass destruction but also to use them. ... a return to a hollow pursuit of containment will be the most dangerous option of all." (To cover its ass, the New Yorker had another editor, Rick Hertzberg, write an anti-war editorial as a rebuttal.)

Some of the above have recanted their early support of the war. The Times fired its WMD correspondent and apologized to its readers. Al Franken has been a great Senator. Kristof now writes nice columns (check out last Sunday's).

But the support of the war by these leading liberals and the majority of the Democrats in the Senate made it safe for the Right to let loose a vicious and unchecked tirade of hate and threats on anyone (including myself) who dared to step out of line. It was not uncommon to hear the media describe me as "un-American," "anti-American," "aiding the terrorists," and being a "traitor."

Here are just a couple of examples of what was said about me over the airwaves by two of the nation's leading conservative commentators:

"Let me just tell you what I'm thinking. I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out -- is this wrong? I stopped wearing my 'What Would Jesus Do' band, and I've lost all sense of right and wrong now. I used to be able to say, 'Yeah, I'd kill Michael Moore,' and then I'd see the little band: 'What Would Jesus Do?' And then I'd realize, 'Oh, you wouldn't kill Michael Moore. Or at least you wouldn't choke him to death.' And you know, well, I'm not sure." (Glenn Beck)

And:

"Well, I want to kill Michael Moore. Is that all right? All right. And I don't believe in capital punishment. That's just a joke on Moore." (Bill O'Reilly)

(Ironically, O'Reilly made his threat/joke the night after Janet Jackson's breast was bared at the Super Bowl -- which got CBS fined over half a million dollars because, you know, nipples are far more frightening than death threats.)

So that's how I'll personally remember the early war years: living with a real and present danger caused by the hate whipped up by right-wing radio and TV. (I've been advised not to recount certain specific incidents that happened to me, as it would only encourage other crazy people.)

So I dealt with it. And I'm still here. And I know many of you went through your own crap, standing up against the war at school, or work, or at Thanksgiving dinner, taking your own blows for simply saying what was the truth.

But how much easier it would have been for all of us if the liberal establishment had stood with us? We didn't own a daily newspaper, or a magazine with a circulation in the millions. We didn't have our own TV show or network. We weren't invited on shows like "Meet the Press," because they simply could not allow our voice to be heard.

The media watchdog group FAIR reported that in the three weeks after the war started, the CBS Evening News allowed only one anti-war voice on their show -- and that was on one night in one soundbite (and that was four seconds of me in a line from my Oscar speech) -- even though in March of 2003 our anti-war numbers were in the millions (remember the huge demonstrations in hundreds of cities?). We were around 30% of the country according to most polls (that's nearly 100 million Americans!) and yet we had no way to communicate with each other aside from through the Nation and a few websites like CommonDreams.org and Truth-Out.org.

But that was no way to build a huge mass movement of Middle Americans to oppose the war. Unless you had just lucked out and been handed an Oscar on live television in front of a gazillion people where you had 45 seconds to say something before they cut you off and booed you off the stage (hahahaha), you had no public platform. (Jeez, I sure did get booed a lot that year: simply walking through an airport, or eating dinner in a restaurant, or sitting at a Laker game where they suddenly put me up on the Jumbotron and the place went so angry-crazy that Larry David, who was sitting next to me, felt that maybe for his own safety he should perhaps slide a few seats down or go get us a couple of wieners. Instead, he stuck by my side -- and his skillful ninja moves got us out of there alive after the game.)

I know it's hard to remember, but when this war started, there was no YouTube, no Facebook, no Twitter, no way for you to bypass the media lords so you could have your own friggin' say.

Too bad for the bastards, those days are over.

The next time around, it won't be so easy to shut up a country girl band or try to silence someone while he accepts his little gold statue -- or completely ignore the millions of citizens in the streets.

So now we can hope that one of our wars is over. Too bad we lost. I hate to lose, don't you? But the fact is, we lost the very day we invaded a sovereign nation that posed absolutely no threat to us and had nothing to do with 9/11. We lost lives (over 4,400 of ours, hundreds of thousands of theirs), we lost limbs (a total of 35,000 troops came back with various wounds and disabilities and God knows how many more with mental problems). We lost the money our grandchildren were supposed to live on.

And we lost our soul, who we were, what we stood for as a once-great country -- lost it all. Can we now ask for redemption -- for forgiveness? Can we be... "America" again?

I guess we'll see. The vast majority of the country eventually came around to the Dixie Chicks' position. And we elected an anti-Iraq-war guy by the name of Barack Hussein Obama.

But, please, promise yourselves never to forget how our country went crazy 7 1/2 years ago -- even though, to many people at the time, it seemed completely normal. And I'm here to tell you, no matter how much better it's gotten, no matter how normal you may think things are now, we're still halfway nuts. Just listen to the new batch of "sensible pundits" as they start to beat the drums about what we should do to Iran. One war down, one (or two or three) to go.

C'mon, Mr. President, not one more kid needs to die overseas wearing a uniform with our flag on it. We can't win like this. Let's dig a few thousand wells in Afghanistan, build a few free mosques, leave behind some food and clothing, fix their electrical grid, issue an apology and set up a Facebook page so they can stay in touch with us -- and then let's get the hell out. Your own National Security Advisor and your CIA Director have told you there are less than 100 al-Qaeda fighters in the entire country. 100???

100,000 U.S. troops going after 100 al-Qaeda? Is this a Looney Tunes presentation? "A-ba-dee-a-ba-dee-a-ba-dee -- That's All Folks!" Let's get real. I'm glad one war is "over." But I know how we got there -- and I'm willing now to fight just as hard to stop these other wars if you won't, Mr. Obama.

Your call.

Yours,

Michael Moore
Mike@MichaelMoore.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. Just a thought, Mr. President. Can I ask that you go back and watch this movie I made -- "Fahrenheit 9/11." There might be some answers there. I give you my permission to download it for free by going to this site: TorrentHound.com. Don't tell the studio I said it was ok! They've only made a half a billion $$ on it so far.

P.P.S. To everyone on my list: Thanks to your thousands of generous donations, we've raised over $60,000 for the Muslim community center near Ground Zero. This has made news around the world, that there are Americans who believe in our stated American principles.

Burn, Witch, Burn!: America Rages Against Islam

http://revoltoftheplebs.wordpress.com/2010/08/27/burn-witch-burn-america-rages-against-islam/

Burn, Witch, Burn!: America Rages Against Islam
by Keith Johnson
8-27-2010

Islamophobia is sweeping the nation—and it couldn’t have come at a better time. Just when the American people were starting to become distracted with trivial issues like the potential stock market crash, the re-branding of the war in Iraq, and the ongoing environmental disaster in the Gulf—along comes a crisis of Biblical proportions, that threatens to destroy the moral fiber of America itself, and deliver its Christian population into the diabolical hands of an Islamic dictatorship ruled under the precepts of Sharia law.

Oh, foolish man. What can you not be made to believe?
~Adam Weishaupt~

By now, it should be quite obvious that the hysteria centered on the proposed construction of an Islamic cultural center—a full two blocks from Ground Zero—is nothing more than an engineered distraction, designed to take the focus away from serious geopolitical and domestic issues as we head into the November elections.

Late last year, we watched in horror as the Tea Party movement was infiltrated by certain personalities from the GOP establishment. Glenn Beck, Dick Armey, Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, and others of that same ilk—all dressed down to mingle with working class folks— and let them know that the Republican party shares their pain. Before these clowns got involved, the focus of the Tea Party was on big government, compulsory health insurance and Wall Street bailouts. But over a period of time—as these Johnny-Come-Latelies sunk their fingers deeper into the pie—they used their influence to diffuse the ire against Wall Street and redirect those energies to support the GOP war agenda.

Now we are starting to see large swaths of Tea Party factions taking up the war banner at their events—complete with metrosexual cowboys singing war anthems in the background—and stirring up racial tensions the likes of which we have not witnessed since before the civil rights movement of the 1960’s.

No longer is Wall Street feeling the hot pangs of public anger breathing down their necks. These terrorists have been left to their own devices, with free reign to continue their raping and pillaging of the American dream. Now, cab drivers wearing turbans have more to fear than the bankster gangster riding in their back seats.

From New York City to Southern California, large groups of paranoid warmongers gather outside Islamic places of worship to parrot the lies fed to them by the mainstream media. Much of their ammunition comes straight out of a likely source: FOX News.

On August 16, disgraced former congressman Newt Gingrich made an appearance on the morning program, FOX and Friends, and said, “Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust museum in Washington. We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor. There’s no reason for us to accept a mosque next to the World Trade Center.” Is that right? Well, according to that line of thinking, and assuming that America is a Christian nation (like so many people claim it to be), would it not be just as wrong for us to expect the Japanese to accept a Christian church in Hiroshima or for the Germans to accept one in Dresden? You, Mr. Gingrich, may think that these are entirely different circumstances. But I’d waged that there are thousands of Germans and Japanese who would beg to differ.

Later that week, on the same program, host Brian Kilmeade asserted his fear that the Islamic Cultural Center in New York City would be the future site of a new “Hamburg Cell.” In case you didn’t know, the “Hamburg Cell” was where three alleged hijackers reportedly cooked up the 911 plot. Two of the three men were tried in Germany, but the cases were dropped when the U.S. failed to provide any incriminating evidence that linked them to the attacks.

Other FOX propagandists, like Dick Morris, claim that the center will be used to ‘train and recruit’ future terrorists. “Shariah law mandates jihad” blurted Morris. “And it mandates terrorism and suicide bombing. So this is really a juridical center that is being established to study and promote and train and recruit Shariah law advocates, which will become terrorists. … We’re establishing literally a command center for terrorism right at the 9/11 site.” This kind of B.S. brings to mind that famous Arte Johnson line from ‘Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In’: “Very interesting…but stupid!”

Recent evidence suggests just the opposite of Morris’ line of thinking. According to a recent New York Times article, “A two-year study by a group of academics on American Muslims and terrorism concluded that contemporary mosques are actually a deterrent to the spread of militant Islam and terrorism. The study was conducted by professors with Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy and the University of North Carolina. It disclosed that many mosque leaders had put significant effort into countering extremism by building youth programs, sponsoring antiviolence forums and scrutinizing teachers and texts.”

But this won’t stop the likes of Gingrich, Kilmeade and Morris from spreading their message of intolerance. They have an agenda, and that agenda is to stir up a deep-seated hatred against the Muslim community in order to rally support for a war on Iran. And they’ve been very effective. Their rhetoric is being picked up and repeated by Islamophobes all across the nation. For them, it’s all about the fear of Shariah law, disrespect to 911 victims, and the paranoid assumption that all Mosques are staging grounds for future terrorist attacks.

In Murfreesboro, Tennessee—opponents of a proposed Mosque spray-painted the words “Not Welcome” on a sign that marked the construction site, and later tore it to shreds. They also brought dogs to intimidate Muslims as they worshipped in the modest office space they’ve been using as a prayer room. One man—sounding a lot like Newt Gingrich—told a CNN reporter that “In Islam, a mosque means ‘We have conquered this country,’” And where are they? They’re in the center of Tennessee. They’re going to say, ‘We have conquered Tennessee.’” Oh, boy! First Tennessee…then the world!

In Temecula, California—plans by the Islamic community to build a mosque on a four-acre parcel of land has sparked a similar protest. Pastor Bill Rench, of Temecula Calvary Baptist Church, echoed Kilmeade and Morris when he stated, “There is a concern with all the rumors you hear about sleeper cells and all that. Are we supposed to be complacent just because these people say it’s a religion of peace? Many others have said the same thing.” Yes, Pastor Rench, many others have said the same thing. I think you would be hard pressed to find a religion which has not been used by some greedy tyrant as a pretext to wage war…including Christianity.

A website for a group calling itself ‘We the People—Citizens in Action’ called on their members to attend a rally in Temecula and to “bring your Bibles, flags, signs, dogs and singing voice.” At the event, demonstrators held up signs that read ‘No Sharia Law’ and ‘Muslims Danced For Joy on 9/11.’ Apparently they haven’t learned that the “so-called” dancing Palestinians they’re referring to were actually paid to perform in front of the camera with candy and cakes supplied to them by the Israel Ministry of Defense. The whole thing was staged.

What was not staged were the five dancing Israelis arrested on 9/11, who were reported to police after being seen cheering and ‘high-fiving’ as they watched the towers come down. They’d been shooting video of the disaster from a short distance away. They were later released by police and deported back to Israel, where three of them admitted on Israeli TV that they were in New York City that day to “document the event.”

In Bridgeport, Connecticut—a dozen “so-called” Christian demonstrators angrily screamed, “Islam is a lie” and “Jesus hates Muslims” at worshippers of a local Mosque. One demonstrator even confronted a group of children and called them “murderers.” Have these people even read the scriptures? Where can Jesus be found to say that he hates Muslims? Muslims weren’t even around during the time Christ walked the Earth. Islam began almost six hundred years after the death of Christ. There is not even one biblical passage that eludes to Islam or mosques or Muslims.

We haven’t seen this level of ignorance and superstition since the Salem Witch Trials of the 1600’s. There are many parallels that be can drawn from that time and now. During that era of American history, the colonies suffered from severe enviromental and economic troubles. Severe weather changes resulted in crop failures which devastated livestock and the ability for families to put food on the table. What made matters worse was the influential and fervently religious Puritans, who were very active politically, and attributed all adversity to the wrath of God. The economic woes, coupled by a belief that all bad things are a result of supernatural punishment for unrepentant sin, fostered a climate of suspicion that sent many in search of the source to their problems. Someone had to take the blame and be held to answer for all the troubles they inflicted upon everyone else. While the fanatically religious clung to their superstitions in pursuit of justice, many others took advantage of the hysteria and used it as an opportunity to eliminate bitter rivals and steal coveted and valuable pieces of property.

What we don’t understand, we fear. What we fear, we judge as evil. What we judge as evil, we attempt to control. And what we cannot control…we attack.

We see the same thing happening today. As we fall deeper into our own economic crisis—aggravated by enviromental disasters and poor money policies—the ignorant masses are susceptible to clinging to a simple explanation for their troubles. In this case, it is Islam. They are the modern day witches, whose behavior is foreign and therefore a threat that must be exterminated. Our modern day equivelent to the Puritans are those fervently religious and politically active Judeo-Christians who cling to a politicised perversion of Biblical scriptures. They have been led to believe that allegiance to the state of Israel is critical to their salvation. If Islam is a threat to Israel, then Islam is the enemy that must be defeated. Then, of course, there are those who are simply taking advantage of the hysteria. These are our politicians, who will send our children to die in these most unholy of wars, and clean up whatever spoils those wars have wrought.

Contrary to popular perception, none of the victims of the Salem Witch Trials were burned at the stake. However, the victims of these latest witchhunts have not had it so easy. Entire villages have burned to the ground in Afghanistan, white phosphorus has been dropped on Palestinian children in Gaza, and talks of a strike on Iran may very well place a mushroom cloud over Tehran in the not so distant future.

Here at home, violence has already begun to show its ugly face. In New York City, a Muslim cab driver’s throat was aledgedly slashed by an irate Islamophobe, and elsewhere, several prayer rugs were urinated upon by an angry drunk shouting racial slurs. Is this the beginning of even greater violence that we should expect to witness as the rage against Islam escalates out of control?

This frightening trend is indeed a crisis—but to both Democrat and Republican candidates seeking office in November—this is a god send. For the Republicans, the mosque controversey is a good prop, like the paper mache’ mask that the “Wizard of Oz” lit on fire and waved around to scare Dorothy into taking on the Wicked Witch of the West. For the Democrats, bringing attention to the frenzied hysteria of the reactionary right provides a good opportunity to lure back disgruntled dissenters, who have been suffering a bit of buyers remorse since Obama took office.

It’s a sad thing to watch. Just when the time was ripe for the people of this nation to unite in opposition to the established government, we are now beginning to see them part ways… and herded back into their respective corners.