Threats of Insurrection, Violence Are Common on the Right

By Clavell Jackson

It is clear to me that there is a large segment of this country which is clinically insane -- and much of this madness is motivated by the election of President Barack Obama. There is even a term for this -- Obama Derangement Syndrome.

There is plenty of evidence of this on FOX News and AM radio, but that pales in comparison to the hard-core lunacy on web sites such as World Net Daily and Big Government. World Net Daily, also known as World Nut Daily, is home to conspiracy theories which warn that Obama is a foreign-born Muslim and also publishes the embarrassing work or real-life ditz and Saturday Live vet Victoria Jackson (no relation). Jackson's drivel is so factually and grammatically incorrect that even a high school paper would hesitate to publish her articles. One of her recent columns accused Obama of being similar to Hitler, because Hitler "had a white mother, had a secret army and hated Jews."

Right-Wing Watch, a web site funded by People for the American Way, tracks inflammatory comments from the Religious Right, a group that has always mixed madness with political intensity. A recent article on Right-Wing Watch about William Gheen of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, an anti-immigration group, said Obama is such a threat to White America that his group no longer accepts him as a legitimate president and was considering "extra-political activities that I can’t really talk about because they’re all illegal and violent." Yes, a political group just threatened a violent insurrection against the U.S. government.

Unfortunately, this is not uncommon. Over the last three years we have seen an increasing tide of disrespect and violent rhetoric coming from political figures and media commentators. Lunatic presidential candidate Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) once said that she suspected Obama of having anti-American views and former Nevada senatorial candidate Sharron Angle suggested angry voters should take up "second amendment remedies" if the polls didn't work.

Is it any wonder that many media sources reported that Obama was getting 30 death threats a day stretching the Secret Service to breaking point. Yes, many people are upset about the recession, but this is more than economically-motivated frustration. This is refusal to accept Obama as the nation's leader. America has been through tough economic times before when Franklin Roosevelt was president, but we didn't see this level of violent rhetoric. FDR did face an attempted coup from a group of oligarchs, including Prescott Bush, who wanted to install a fascist government. You won't find much information about the "Business Plot," in American history books though.

I have to believe that much of this is racial. Although the myopic GOP continues to say that is not, the evidence is in plain sight. FOX News has a long string of racial slights such as accusing Obama of "having hoodlums in the hizzouse," and "chugging forties." Glenn Becks rants were so offensive, FOX finally had to let him go. And there is a long history of racist comments from GOP politicians which include comparing Obama to a monkey, using the phrase "tar baby" and sending cartoons of the White House lawns festooned with watermelons. If you want to see really vile comments check out the commentary section on Foxnews.com. A recent story about Somalia referred to the country as "Niggadishu." Note to the GOP, if you can't see it, that's because you don't want to see it.

Many of the Obama haters will call him a communist, a Muslim, a liberal, even if he is none of those things. Obama has pursued largely moderate positions, to the point of alienating his liberal supporter. But it seems that some white people cannot swallow the idea of a black man in the White House. How dare Obama address the nation, how dare he go on vacation, how dare he take off his jacket in the Oval Office and how dare he fly on Air Force One? Like the other presidents didn't do any of the same things.

This hatred has sunk deep into the core of the political system. We now have an opposition party that will vote against any legislation if it has the hint of making Obama and the Democrats look good. As the recent debt crisis showed, Republicans are willing to crash the economy to achieve their political point.

The future does not look any better. If Obama wins a second term, and I believe he will, the GOP will try to impeach him. Presidential candidate Herman Cain has already said this would be a good idea! It will probably fail and cost the nation a lot of time and money, but as long as it gives the Democrats a black eye, the GOP is happy.

We are only in the Summer of 2012, we have almost a year of political campaigning ahead of us and I am already exhausted. We've got a bumpy ride ahead of us.

Right-Wing Pundits Strive to Keep Americans Dumb

Bill O'Reilly

I do not understand the American right wing. I don't understand how people who make less than $100,000 vote for policies that benefit millionaires, and I don't know why people who are on their third marriage constantly prattle about family values.

Much of the commentary coming from the right wing is baffling because it is glaringly inaccurate. Some would say it is blatant lies. Liberal media watchdog group Media Matters is constantly kept busy fact checking and stating the errors from the right-wing noise machine.

In many cases, it is obvious that the commentary is incorrect, so I must conclude that this is done deliberately. Right-wing commentators must know they are talking nonsense, but they continue to say it because they need the great unwashed masses to believe, and act on it.

For example, Americans are lead to believe universal health care is an evil socialistic plot . This message is constantly repeated in the right-wing media, yet European countries like Sweden, Norway, France and Britain, have socialized medical systems which are far superior to the U.S. The United Nation ranks France as having the most efficient health care system in the world. (The U.S. is ranked no. 37.) In addition, you don't see Canadians scurrying across the border to use our profit-driven health care system.

I was reminded of the fallacy of the right-wing media when watching Bill Maher's "Real Time," often the most intelligent hour on television. Right-wing commentator Margaret Hoover, a great-granddaughter of President Herbert Hoover, said that you could not compare Andres Breivik, the suspect in the Norwegian massacre, to Muslim terrorists. Hoover said that unlike Al-Qaeda, Breivik was not connected to an internationally terror network.

Huh? How can a commentator with a national stage spout such nonsense? There is a long trail of evidence showing that Breivik had connections with Islamophobes in America, such as Pamela Geller, author of the blog Atlas Shrugs, and the neo-fascist English Defense League in Britain. Geller has gained prominence for her virulent hatred of Muslims. She has also been given a platform on FOX News to promote wacky views such as accusing Jewish Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan of supporting Nazi ideology.

Commenting on Breivik's ties to the international Islamophobe network, Max Blumenthal writes: "Judging from Breivik’s writings, his hysterical hatred of the Labor Party’s immigration policies and tolerance of Muslim immigrants likely led him target the government-operated summer camp at Utoya. For years, the far-right has singled Norway out as a special hotbed of pro-Islam, pro-Palestinian sentiment, thanks largely to its ruling Labor Party In 2010, for instance, the English Defense League called Norway a future site of 'Islamohell,' where unadulterated political correctness has ruled the roost, with sharp talons, for decades.'"

And Slate.com writer William Saletan states: "In a manifesto posted online, the admitted killer, Anders Behring Breivik, praised Geller. He cited her blog, Atlas Shrugs, and the writings of her friends, allies, and collaborators—Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch, Islam Watch, and Front Page magazine—more than 250 times."

To add insult to injury, FOX News blowhard Bill O'Reilly said that the liberal media was eager to brand Breivik a Christian. According to O'Reilly, "no one believing in Jesus commits mass murder." Of course, as Bill Maher pointed out, anyone with a superficial knowledge of history can reel off a long list of "Christians" who have killed large numbers of people.

This is ridiculous. O'Reilly and other right-wing commentators must know what they are saying is BS. O'Reilly is not a stupid man, before he went down the FOX News hole, he was an Emmy-winning journalist and he also has a master's degree from Harvard -- one of those Ivy League colleges that he lambasts.

In a Playboy magazine interview Deepak Chopra says that O'Reilly is not as ignorant as he seems, and just plays a bigot on TV. And this may be true with other FOX commentators. A few years ago, Gretchen Carlson, a Rhodes scholars, said she had to go and look up what the word ignoramus meant.

So if we assume that FOX News commentators know what they are saying is incorrect, what is their goal? To keep the ignorant in the dark, if that is the case, they may be a method to their madness and it seems to be working.

A 2010 University of Maryland study described FOX News viewers as "the most consistently uninformed." The study said that FOX News viewers were more likely to believe blatantly incorrect statements like Saddam Hussein was behind 9-11 and President Barack Obama was largely responsible for the deficit. (All the facts point to the Bush tax cuts, two underfunded wars and the Medicare drug benefit as causes of the budget deficit.)

Is it any wonder that FOX News viewers constantly regurgitate these lies? And maybe that was Roger Ailes goal all along. Ever since his days in the Nixon White House he has dreamed of creating a propaganda network that broadcasts directly to American living rooms. Maybe FOX should change its motto to "We report the propaganda, you decide to believe it."

Political Violence Confirms We’re Living in Third World America

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords

Jan. 8., that was the day when Americans realized how screwed up their country really is. Left-wing journalist Arianna Huffington has been recently hawking her book called “Third World America,” and how can you argue with her? A Third World country is characterized by massive debt, (check), corrupt and broken elections (check), and a powerful ruling class (check.) And now we can add to that list political violence as seen in the Tuscon, Ariz. shooting that left six people dead and moderate Democrat Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in critical condition.

Of course, this is shocking but not surprising. In fact it was inevitable. For the past year I have been playing Cassandra and warning that the hatred coming from the right wing would eventually push people over the edge. We are in a precarious time in our country, with mass unemployment, home foreclosures, looming debt, foreign wars and a political system that has been strangled by corporate interests. It is easy for working class Americans to feel frustrated and want to lash out at someone.

After the 2008 elections, the right wing, realizing that working class was beginning to get riled up at the corporate class, diverted this anger to the Tea Party, which is funded by corporate interests. In a brilliant piece of bait and switch, the GOP, badly-tarnished by the disastrous Bush years, was re-branded as the Tea Party, which is essentially GOP 2.0 -- same bullshit, but in a different package.

So now, all those Americans who were angry about bailouts and government spending now are now mad at President Barack Obama, even though George W. Bush approved the bank bailout and ran up the budget with tax cuts to the rich and two unfunded wars. That would have been bad enough, but this rage wasn’t mere political annoyance, it was white-hot rage that had all the possibility of turning into violence. And the end product was politically-motivated terrorism that saw overweight seniors on Medicare screaming about how they wanted to keep government out of health care. During the 2009 health care debate, several Democratic legislators were targeted by violence, including having shots fired at their offices, having their offices targeted by racist graffiti and having gas lines cut at their homes.

Violence has been encouraged with demagogues like Sarah Palin calling for her followers to “reload” and putting Democrats, including Giffords, in cross hairs. Tea Party darling Sen. Sharron Angle suggested people take “second amendment remedies,” if the ballot didn’t work, and Rep. Michelle Bachmann, who is rapidly gaining a reputation as the nuttiest person in Congress, said she wanted her followers “armed and dangerous” about Barack Obama.

And of course there is the 24-hour stream of vitriol and disinformation coming from the right-wing media. FOX News regularly features commentators who accuse the president of being the anti Christ and warn of his government’s administrations attempts to destroy America. And FOX star commentator Glenn Beck has shot to prominence selling his brand of apocalyptic nonsense to people who fear that a black, moderate Democrat will destroy America as they know it.

Beck is the worst culprit and his acolytes have a considerable history of violence. In August 2009, Nancy Genovese was arrested outside an Air Force base along with a pair of binoculars, an assault rifle, shotgun and several rounds of ammunition. A year later Byron Williams, an unemployed carpenter and Beck fan, was arrested by the California Highway Partrol, while wearing body armor and carrying several guns. Williams was on his way to start a revolution by attacking the Tides Foundation, a little know left-wing non profit that was a regular target of Beck’s ire. After his arrest, Williams’ mother said her son was a regularly viewer of FOX News and Glenn Beck in particular.

What has been going on over the past 20 years is an increasing stream of eliminationist rhetoric directed at the left. According to David Neiwert, author of “The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right,” "Eliminationism is a politics and a culture that shuns dialogue and the democratic exchange of ideas in favor of the pursuit of outright elimination of the opposing side, either through suppression, exile, and ejection, or extermination."

This attitude was largely inspired by Rush Limbaugh, who did his best to turn liberal into a curse word, and carried on by harpy Ann Coulter, who has called for liberals to be executed and said The New York Times’ building needed to be blown up. Beck merely put the icing on the fruit cake.

Democrats have long warned of this. Former speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was ridiculed when she warned that right-wing rhetoric would lead to ‘60s style violence . Speaking to the Huffington Post, Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., who received death threats and racist literature for his stance against Arizona’s immigration laws said, “The climate has gotten so toxic in our political discourse, setting up for this kind of reaction for too long. It's unfortunate to say that. I hate to say that. If you're an opponent, you're a deadly enemy."

In April 2009, the Department of Homeland Security release a much-maligned report, warning of the danger of right-wing terrorism. Turns out they were all to right. We have seen the enemy -- and the enemy is us.

Meet FOX News' latest contributor - Ted Nugent

Sometimes it seems as if FOX News does not even attempt to be a legitimate news organization -- which it isn't. At times they seem to grab anyone off the street to talk about politics. Ray Stevens, author of the of culturally sensitive "Ahab the Arab," was called on "The O'Reilly Factor" to talk about political correctness. And now America's favorite neo-fascist Sean Hannity, has called on barely sane rocker Ted Nugent to bash the Obama administration.

Nugent accuses President Barack Obama of spitting on the flag, the Bill of Rights and the 10 Commandments. Nugent has also advocated executing Obama and Hillary Clinton . By the way wasn't it the Bush adminstration who decided to arrest American citizens and hold them indefinetly without trial?

The only thing he didn't accuse Obama of is raping an apple pie. Nugent's rant is highly ironic since he has multiple marriages behind him, a kid out of wedlock, and also dodged the draft. According to an interview with the British Independent newspaper Nugent literally crapped his pants to get out of going to Vietnam, Nugent's views are so far the right, he would fit perfectly in Nazi Germany. His solution to the Iraq war? "Nagasaki" them! And this is who FOX chooses to give political opinion?

FOX must believe that it's viewers are thick-headed enough to actually believe Nugent's B.S. I am not sure if he does, or if he is following the Glenn Beck method of saying mindless crap to sell books. Sorry Ted, if you ever want to be taken seriously, you're going to have to do better than that. Some of us actually read and check the facts, unlike most FOX News viewers.

FOX News Declares War on Columbia Journalism School...?

Roger Ailes

I guess the people at FOX News must have of lot of free time on their hands since they are avoiding real news stories like torture, the economy and foreign wars. Now the FOX brain trust has declared war on the Columbia School of Journalism, which is regarded as the Harvard of the Journalism business. I am not sure why Columbia has generated such hatred from FOX. Maybe it's because the professors at Columbia know FOX is anything but a news organization, and use FOX as a text-book example of what budding journalists should not do.

FOX is accusing Columbia's J school of being "out of touch" and part of that mythical "liberal elite." This is ironic because FOX's Bill O'Reilly, for all his blue-collar posturing, received a master's degree from Harvard. George W. Bush was a third-generation Ivy league graduate, and it does not get more elite than that.

In response, Nick Lemann, dean of the Journalism school, says FOX's attacks are great advertising. He said that he doubted if FOX President Roger Ailes had the skills to go out and cover a regular story. Judging by the new stories that come out of FOX, I am sure much of the on air- talent doesn't have the same skills either.

FOX is doing this to play to it's audience, which is 95 percent white, and largely rural. To people like that, New York is Sodom and Gomorrah, and not even part of America. After all Sarah Palin said that "real Americans," don't live in places New York.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/teaching-fox-news-a-lesson-and-upholding-the-spirit-of-pulitzer-1899389.html

poll by twiigs.com

Far-right News Site Says Obama is Planning Second Civil War

Someone once said that if you follow the extremes of both the left and the right, they will eventually meet. It might be true, because towards the end of the Bush administration, rumors were going around on the left that Dubya was planning to declare martial law and extend his presidency.

That turned out not to be true, but now we have a Democrat in the White House, the people on the right are scared because they think Comrade Obama is going to launch his private army against the United States. That is the gist of this story from the European Union Times, a web site that looks legit, but is actually a news organization supporting a white supremacist agenda. It also features stories talking about "European pride" and the dangers of the rising Muslim birth rate.

The European Union Times recylcles the idea of Igor Panarin, a Russian political scientist who has been pushing a 10-year old theory that economic pressures will cause the United States to fracture. Glenn Beck will be interested to know that he shares the same ideas as a Russian crackpot.

http://www.eutimes.net/2009/11/obama-orders-1-million-us-troops-to-prepare-for-civil-war/comment-page-5/#comment-4387

poll by twiigs.com

Right-Wing Blogs Run Fake Story About Muslim Terrorists

Did you hear the story about Tedd Petruna, who was got on a flight full of suspicious looking, porn-watching Arabs who didn't speak English? Then Petruna and a handy Texan managed to thwart the would-be terrorist all by themselves Well if it sounds like an episode of "24," that's not surprising because the whole thing was made up! But that didn't stop right-wing bloggers from running it like the gospel truth. It also made it to Glenn Beck's 9-12 blog, which is not surprising.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/12/fish_stories_more_risky_via_email.php