Media Matters - "Post-Hutaree: How Glenn Beck and Fox News spread the militia message"

[TomCADem]

It is interesting to remember how right wing critics complained about how rap music and video games promoted violence, yet they deny any responsibility for the rise in right wing terrorist by folks repeating their incendiary talking points. This Media Matters provides some great analysis of how the current right wing extremist movement has become much more mainstream than it was during the Clinton years.

http://mediamatters.org/columns/201004060005

The truth is that the daylight separating the radical, anti-government militia movement from self-styled mainstream conservatives is growing dimmer by the day. Like the fact-free Obama birthers, the militia remains a radical subset that today's right wing refuses to part ways with. That sad fact was highlighted when scores of far-right media voices initially downplayed the Hutaree arrests last week, or even defended the militia members and -- disturbingly reminiscent of Waco -- cast the FBI and the federal government as the over-reaching bad guys.

And at Fox News, it's not just Beck. The cable "news" channel's militia-flavored message (beware gun-toting IRS agents!) has been as simple as it's been relentless: Obama is destroying this country and he's doing it intentionally. It's not that people disagree with Obama and don't like what they call his "liberal" policies as applied to the economy and health care reform, etc. Instead, the conflict is much more dire. Obama is not just misguided in this political and legislative agenda. Instead, Obama is the incarnation of evil (the Antichrist?), and his driving hatred for America, as well as for democracy, runs so deep that he ran for president in order to destroy the United States from within.

Right on cue last week, Rush Limbaugh, who serves as sort of a militia godfather theses days, issued this back-against-the-wall warning: "Our country is being overthrown from within."

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In a way, I wonder why militiamen bother to form groups anymore if Fox News is willing to embrace and broadcast their fervent, anti-government New World Order rants on a daily basis? The militia flourished on the fringes in the 1990s, in part, because those on the far-right felt like their government-hating message was being ignored. But today it's celebrated and broadcast nationally. Talkers like Beck have trumped the militia movement. They've completely co-opted the message and made the groups increasingly irrelevant as Fox News cuts out the middleman -- the militia groups -- and hijacks their insurrectionist, government-hating rhetoric.

[protest_dude]

1. Stand up to these Tea Party Fascists!!!!!

Stand up to these nuts! We can't ignore them, we've got to confront them.

Stand Against Tea Party Extremism!

On Sunday April 11th, the “Tea Party Express” will be bringing their message of racism, sexism, Anti-LGBT bigotry, open calls for terrorist violence, and total de-regulation of capitalism to the Cleveland Area.

Those of us in Cleveland who oppose this ugly movement that shouts racist and homophobic slurs at members of Congress, and engages in terroristic acts of violence against those fighting for a better world will be rallying against this right-wing show of force.

It is incorrect for the forces of social progress to stand by and allow dangerous ultra-rightist elements hijack the outrage of working people in this economic crisis and channel our anger in a racist direction . We must counter the Tea Party extremists, and make it clear that they are not a real alternative to the status quo, and do not offer a hopeful program for the future.

The local chapters of Fight Imperialism – Stand Together, Bail Out The People Movement, Workers World Party, and other progressive organizations say “Be there! Stand up for freedom, equality and justice against ultra-rightist and proto-fascistic elements rallying under the ‘tea party’ banner!”



JOIN US! FIGHT BACK!

April, 11th, 2:30 PM

Across from the Cuyahoga County Fairgrounds on Bagley Rd., in Berea, OH.

SET UP ONE IN YOUR AREA!!!!!

[TomCADem]

2. The Tea Party Should Just Be Called The Fox News Channel Party

Fox News practically founded them in cooperation with RNC operatives like Dick Armey running corporate lobbying groups like Freedom Works. If Fox News was not providing hundreds of hours of free promotion, this so-called movement would not have made it out of a garage. Heck, Sarah Palin, the patron saint of the Tea Party, is a Fox News paid "contributor." It is absolutely pathetic the degree to which News Corp is essentially dictating what Republicans things, by recasting the same old Republican message as a new movement.

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