Video: Glenn Beck's rhetoric grows increasingly racial, militaristic after low ratings month

[RamboLiberal]

By all records June was a horrible ratings month for Glenn Beck, and he seems to have responded in July by ratcheting up the tone of his rhetoric. As the video clips below illustrate, Beck is now focusing on stories about the new Black Panthers and a supposed future race war. While the country deals with high unemployment, the Gulf oil spill, and two wars Beck has decided to emphasize a story about two African-Americans outside a polling station in 2008.

The new Black Panthers were a relatively obscure organization until Beck and Fox News significantly increased their profile in the last month. At the heart of the controversy is a video showing two African-Americans standing outside a polling place during the 2008 presidential election. One of the men is carrying a nightstick. Conservatives, Beck leading the charge, have claimed the men represent a nationwide effort to intimidate white voters. They also claim the Obama administration is complicit in the effort.

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Despite the scant evidence supporting his theory, in the video clips below Beck warns his audience of an "army" from the "extreme left" which is preparing to "kill the cops." Later Beck would tell his audience the left "wants a race war" and that the President will "stand by and let them do it." Throughout the past few days, Beck has also been referring to hate speech of one new Black Panthers member who claimed he wanted to kill white babies. Beck claims this language is a "portal inside the mind of some that advice the President." For an explanation of the tortured, twisted, extenuated logic Beck uses to try and connect the new Black Panthers to the Obama administration click here.

Despite the focus on race and a coming race war Beck later claims that he is not really talking about race. It is worth noting that Beck actually made his high mark in television ratings after calling President Obama a "racist" with a "deep-seeded hatred of white people." Beck was routinely gaining a 3 million person audience following that controversy. Last June, Beck's ratings fell dramatically. At one point Beck drew only 1.39 million viewers (very good numbers for anyone else but a drop of more than 50% for Beck). Now, in July, Beck seems to be turning once more to race and a conspiracy involving the President's supposed vendetta against white people. Is Beck's sudden return to themes race and violence coincidence? It is possible, but the cynics may accuse Beck of going back to the well that helped him rise to his ratings summit.

http://www.examiner.com/x-5738-Political-Buzz-Examiner~y2010m7d12-Video-Glenn-Becks-rhetoric-grows-increasingly-racial-militaristic-after-low-ratings-month

Hard to believe 46 years after Freedom Summer that there are still sponsors and TV and radio networks who allow those like Beck, Limbaugh and their cohorts still stir up the racial hatred. Not to mention those who still harbor that hatred and bigotry. I was reading a bit of a new book - FREEDOM SUMMER The Savage Season That Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy - and imagining what it would've been like if we had the cable and radio RW haters on the air then. I'm sure they would've railed daily against the "outside agitators".

[Swede]

1. Maybe this is his "Have you no decency sir,at long last?" moment.

I hope so.

[RamboLiberal]

2. BTW - this is Faux News ne ACORN story

First, the whole story is phony. Completely bogus. Manufactured out of thinly-veiled racism and even thinner air. It doesn't even make rational sense - why would the Obama team, renowned for their political savvy, stick out their necks for an extremist hate group?

Second, you won't just see it on Fox News. You'll also see it on CNN. You'll see White House press secretary Robert Gibbs asked about it. Already conservatives are complaining that the media are ignoring the story. Before long you'll see other major media outlets reporting on the "controversy" and how the administration is facing accusations of "reverse racism."

The New Black Panther story is in the middle stages of the Fox Cycle -- the process by which the false, ridiculous ramblings of right-wing bloggers and partisan media hacks can, with a generous assist from Fox News, make it to the front pages of the New York Times.

Put simply, the Fox Cycle begins with the blogosphere. Conservative bloggers seize on a story and start twisting it and injecting falsehoods. Before long, Fox News catches on and, usually with Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity playing the lead role, devotes obscene amounts of coverage to the bogus story. The bloggers take Fox News' heavy coverage as validation of the story's veracity, and before long they join with the conservative network in carping that the rest of the media are ignoring it. Soon after, the rest of the media relent and start covering the story, at which point it becomes a mini-frenzy. Then the pundits chime in, crediting Fox News for giving the story legs and being ahead of the rest of media. Finally, long after the damage has been done and the media have largely moved on, the facts emerge and the story is confirmed to be junk.

It's a cycle that's been repeated over and over in the past, with varying degrees of success. The ACORN videos, Obama's "relationship" with William Ayers, and the "Climategate" non-scandal managed to make it all the way through the cycle, inflicting irreparable and unjustified damage to the community organizing movement and the reputations of respected climate scientists, not to mention the President of the United States, who was at one point accused of "palling around with terrorists."

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201007120007

Philadelphia Inquirer: No Sign Of Wrongful Dismissal in Black Panther Case

While Fox News seems to think the recent claims that an alleged voter intimidation case involving Black Panther Party members in Philadelphia was wrongly dismissed, the top local newspaper there seems to disagree.

The Philadelphia Inquirer on Friday ran an editorial that stated the dismissal of the case stemming from alleged actions on Election Day 2008 appears to be valid.

"Some critics say Obama and his black attorney general, Eric Holder, were lenient because they are biased," the editorial stated. "These critics equate the New Black Panther Party to the Ku Klux Klan in its heyday. In fact, the group is more accurately described by Abigail Thernstrom, longtime Republican member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, as a 'lunatic fringe.'

"That's not to say small hate groups aren't dangerous. But the scale of justice must be applied appropriately, and here it appears that it was. Attempts to inflate the incident to bash Obama must be seen for what they are."

Inquirer Editor Bill Marimow, meanwhile, said his paper has covered the recent claims by former Justice Department Attorney J. Christian Adams and his testimony before the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. But he sees no reason to investigate them further.

http://mediamatters.org/strupp/201007120023

Bush DOJ decided New Black Panthers no major case
5:12 pm July 12, 2010, by ctucker

Several of you have clamored for me to say something about the alleged voter intimidation case in Philadelphia, which involves a thuggish group who call themselves the “New Black Panthers.” (While I was no fan of the original Black Panthers, they don’t deserve to have their reputation further befouled by this group. The two groups are in no way related.)

I was loathe to comment since I know that no rational discussion will follow. How could it? It was clear from the beginning that this was not a case of voter intimidation against anyone who might vote for John McCain. As many observers noted on that day, no matter how badly those two New Black Panters were behaving (and the police were called and responded), it’s a HEAVILY DEMOCRATIC PRECINCT. As blogger Ben Smith noted way back then, “You don’t typically intimidate your own voters.”

But solid reporting from Media Matters and Adam Serwer of The American Prospect ought to put this nonsense to rest (it won’t, but it should). The charges against the New Black Panthers were downgraded by the Bush Department of Justice:

The decision not to file a criminal case occurred before Obama was even in office.

This means that the case was downgraded to a civil case 11 days before Obama was inaugurated, 26 days before Eric Holder became attorney general, and about nine months before Thomas Perez was confirmed as head of the Civil Rights Division.

http://blogs.ajc.com/cynthia-tucker/2010/07/12/bush-doj-decided-new-black-panthers-no-major-case/?cxntfid=blogs_cynthia_tucker

[Scurrilous]

3. K & R

:thumbsup:

[RamboLiberal]

4. And now Geraldo jumps in

Geraldo Confronts New Black Panther Chief About Glenn Beck ‘Restoring Honor’ Rally

Fox News host Geraldo Rivera continued his network’s conspiracy-defying publicity tour for New Black Panther Party Chairman Malik Zulu Shabazz this weekend, confronting him with a clip from Mediaite’s interview with Shabazz in which he promises “direct opposition” to Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally. While I agree that Glenn Beck has the right to “access the Lincoln Memorial,” Rivera uses some dissonant logic to make that point.

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First of all, I disagree with Shabazz that (among other things) Glenn Beck should not be allowed to have his rally. This is a free country, and unpopular speech is the most in need of protection. Whether Beck’s rally is an affront to the legacy of Martin Luther King, or not, is irrelevant.

But in making the case that white people have just as much right to access the Lincoln Memorial as black people (a straw man to begin with), Rivera seems to fairly boast that the “majority” of those who fought the Confederacy in the Civil War were white, and that white people put Abraham Lincoln in office.

First, to paraphrase Chris Rock, “You weren’t supposed to have slaves to begin with, you low-expectation-having motherf***er!”

As to his second boast, that a majority of those who voted for Abraham Lincoln were white, that is as true as the fact that the majority of home runs in the 1946 World Series were hit by white people. What, you want a cookie?

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/geraldo-confronts-new-black-panther-chief-about-glenn-beck-restoring-honor-rally/

[Andy823]

5. I watched a show on Hitler

Some time back on the history channel I believe, they had a program about Hitler and his rise to power. I reminded me so much of Beck! He is using hate and fear, just like Hitler did, to rally supporters. Beck is so infatuated with Hitler I really think he is trying to start a "military movement" with HIM as the leader. I honestly think Beck admires what Hitler did, and wants to do the same thing, use hate and fear to get people worked up tot he point they take thing into their own hands and resort to violence!

The only good thing is I think more and more people are seeing just how crazy Beck really is, and if the morons on the right, the teabaggers and the crazies can see through his con job, then he is in trouble. Sure he might keep some followers who are just as insane as he is, but his days may be numbered!

[RamboLiberal]

6. Yeah - Beck and his 100 year plan

Sound more like something out of Soviet Union, Communist China or the 1000 year Third Reich plans than anything patriotic and related to the founding of the United States.

Imagine if Obama, the Democrats, liberals, whatever had announced a "100 year plan". They'd be screaming Nazism and Socialism - well they are already screaming that.

[Catshrink]

7. That RW militia group was planning to ambush cops

The Hutarees were going to kill a cop then pull a massive operation during the funeral to kill a whole lot more. And Beck says the left is preparing to kill the cops?

Oh well, he's only an entertainer. Someone writes his script - the question is, who is he fronting for?

[Hubert Flottz]

8. PMS?

[lpbk2713]

9. Hate is big business for rethuglicans.

They literally thrive on it.

[izquierdista]

10. I've seen this before

He's just trying to be Rex Kramer - Danger Seeker!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwk6r8TJD2U

[RamboLiberal]

11. The white people Beck is trying to claim MLK's legacy for

would not have been the Freedom Riders. They would've been the ones calling them "outside agitatiors".

This is from a WPost Review of a new book - FREEDOM SUMMER The Savage Season That Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy By Bruce Watson

In the year of Freedom Summer, a book called "Mississippi: The Closed Society" was published by an uncommonly forthright and courageous professor of history at the University of Mississippi named James Silver. In it he said, among many other things, that the state was "as near to approximating a police state as anything we have yet seen in America," and the police were both solely and wholly there to uphold the racial status quo. Black Mississippians were vilified, denied the most fundamental rights of American citizens, clubbed and shot, disfigured and murdered. A place of at times heart-breaking natural beauty, Mississippi was in reality a hell hole.

This was what the young people from California and New England and other such places found when they began to arrive in June 1964. Watson focuses on four of them, three of whom are white: Chris Williams from Massachusetts, Fred Winn from California, and Fran O'Brien, also a Californian. The fourth, Muriel Tillinghast, was a bit older, a native of the District of Columbia and a recent graduate of Howard University. All were put to the test in various ways -- O'Brien's was the most violent and debasing -- but all came away with their convictions reinforced and deepened. All also were profoundly and lastingly impressed by the quiet courage and innate decency of even the poorest and most desperate black Mississippians whom they met and with whom they lived. It was a learning experience on both sides: The whites discovered the humanity and individuality of people who previously had been little more than a vague blur, while the blacks for the first time were in the company of whites who treated them with respect and admiration.

Whites -- not just in Mississippi but throughout the South -- referred to those who came from other places to work for civil rights as "outside agitators." Watson has found a lovely comment on this by a confident, outspoken Mississippi African American named Robert Miles, who welcomed a group of young volunteers as follows: "Y'all gonna hear a lot of different stories from white folks about what these people are and why they're down here. White folks are gonna tell you they're agitators. You know what an agitator is? An agitator is the piece in the center of a washing machine to get dirt out. Well, that's what these people are here for. They're here to get dirt out."

Things never got dirtier than on the night of June 21, when three young men -- two white outsiders and a native black Mississippian -- were arrested in Neshoba County, then released and not seen again until August, when their bodies were found buried under a dam in the same county. Their names were Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney. It took years for the full truth to come out -- they were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan, with the complicity and approval of Sheriff Lawrence Rainey and his deputy, Cecil Price -- but the case immediately woke the nation to the brutal facts about the closed society in Mississippi. Like the murders of four schoolgirls in Birmingham the previous year, this case created martyrs whose deaths awakened a complacent nation.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/02/AR2010070202276.html

[abbeyco]

12. Ol' Rushie has amped up his racial rhetoric, too

These dopes are follower, lemmings or whatever you want to call them. I think they pick a monthly theme and just go at it on full blast.

My guess is Glenn follows Rush's lead since he's too damn stupid to think for himself.

[rurallib]

13. Beck has enough people to have ratings?

Seriously - isn't this the way Senator McCarthy and Father Coughlin went out? Anteing up the rhetoric until even their own mothers couldn't stand them?

[costahawk1987]

14. He actually wrote a book

titled: "How to Argue with Idiots." It must be a series of interviews with people who have argued with him.

[JackRiddler]

15. And NPR today followed Beck's lead with a long segment on the NBP/Philadelphia story.

The psy-ops machine is bigger than Beck.