Incendiary, Racist, & Stupid

This pretty well sums up people like Glen Beck and his fellow idiots.
I can see why these cretins are entranced by Hitler and Nazism.


Yesterday afternoon Glenn Beck and two of his guests argued that Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party were "leftwing"; that "political correctness" led the committed white supremacist, James Von Brunn, to shoot a security guard at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC; and that ultimately President Barack Obama is the one responsible for the violence because his "bailouts" and "Socialistic" policies are engendering widespread anger. Beck denounced those who claim he is "churning the pot" because, he says, "the pot is already boiling."

Seeing this spectacle with subtitles at the gym led me to wonder if there are any laws on the books against using the public airwaves to incite violence. Because that is clearly what Beck is doing. I only caught about ten minutes of the show (about all I can stand) and it was a white reactionary tour de force -- incendiary, stupid, and racist.

In Beck's world President Obama brings "identity politics" and "political correctness" to the White House, and it's the "Left" that is "racist" because unlike conservatives, who judge people only on their individual merits and character (the three white men sitting at Beck's table nodding in agreement), all liberals see is people of different races and classes and genders, which "divides" America. And Obama's "socialistic" policies are leading people of dubious sanity to become unglued, and therefore the outbreak of right-wing violence is Obama's fault. Talk about spin! Only through a conscious and disingenuous effort could anyone link the shooting at the Holocaust Museum to President Obama.

Beck and his guests at the opening of his show all agreed that the Nazis were not rightwing but a bunch of leftwingers (like Obama and Nancy Pelosi). That is pretty weird when you think about how that tidbit of agitprop must disappoint a lot of white supremacists. All those white guys who hail Hitler and the Nazis because they were so good at kicking the crap out of Socialists, labor unionists, Communists and Soviets, women who didn't know their place, and even "degenerate" Dadaists and surrealists, and don't forget the Jews. What self-respecting Neo-Nazi or Ku Klux Klansman (or good ol' boy at the Council of Conservative Citizens) wants to hear that Hitler was like Michael Moore and Al Franken? But it doesn't matter because Beck is not appealing to his viewers' brains but to their guts. And all those "isms" sound the same to 'em anyhow.

And since this James Von Brunn guy targeted a museum where the murder of millions of Jews is memorialized Beck took the opportunity to run a short audio clip of an interview he had with Benjamin Netanyahu three years ago. He then segued into a riff on how our currently tough economic times will lead some people to scapegoat Jews and that means that Israel should bomb Iran right away. Somewhere behind Beck's talking points there is real thinking going on. No one should dismiss Beck as a hack or "entertainer." He is a propagandist.

It's also clear that Beck and his fans just can't get over the fact that a black man is now their president.

The television and radio producers behind Beck's shows are bright, highly educated Republican strategists at FOX News who are expert at calculating each talking point for the host to pull on the jingoistic heartstrings of his viewers. And it works. Beck's writers are creative people because they've found numerous ingenious ways to denounce Obama because he's black but in ways that don't sound racist.

Beck's good at what he does. I'm sure his viewers get fired up during every show. He's also dangerous. He talks up a grand conspiracy of liberals and "Socialists" who are destroying everything that makes America great and constantly uses alarmist rhetoric as if the whole country is falling apart around us. He does so by emoting on command and with practiced histrionics. If I were Beck I wouldn't have guests who bring up the Third Reich to elucidate their views about what America is currently going through.

Peter Irons - A People's History of the Supreme Court

This is a splendid history of the Supreme Court, appropriate because of the impending confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor. The approach of this book is progressive, focusing on the individuals whose lives intersected with the high court and led to the decisions that determine the way we live in this country.

The drift of constitutional intepretation in the US has been progressive. Conservatives will never admit it, but it is the truth.

Like all progressives, I favor an expansive interpretation of the Constitution, favoring the liberty of the individual over the power of the state. Conservatives these days certainly support an expansion of governmental power at the Constitutional level while phonily bemoaning "Big Government."

A "strict constructionist" by conservative standards means stick it to the individual and more power to big business. Let Big Business run the country says the strict constructionist.

I support the First Amendment. This is the cornerstone of our freedoms. Conservatives will whittle away at the First Amendment as much as they can.

We do have a living Constitution despite what Scalia says. Let us move forward and not slip back into the 19th century like the right-wingers wish.

Which is why

From Andrew Sullivan


10 Jun 2009 10:24 am
Quote For The Day
"What Fox did is not just create a venue for alternative opinion. It created an alternate reality," - Charles Krauthammer.

Which is true, and which is why I no longer talk to movement conservatives---the Obama bashers who bash him for irrational, uneducated, & nonsensical reasons for example---because they ARE in an alternate reality which is not real. Let's live in the real world based on facts, evidence, and reasoned discussion.

Seeing Senator McGovern

It was my distinct and delightful pleasure to attend a book signing in Montgomery yesterday featuring former Senator George McGovern. The Senator was at Capitol Book to autograph his latest book, a biography of Lincoln.

Senator McGovern is one of the great Americans of our time. He represented South Dakota in the Senate from 18 years until January of 1981 and he was the Democratic nominee for President in 1972. He was a decorated bomber pilot in World War 2. For all of his career he was one of our leading progressive voices. Too bad he wasn't elected in '72 because he was RIGHT about Viet Nam and who knows how many young Americans would be alive today if he had been elected.

Hunger has always been one of his primary concerns and at age 87 he is till working on this issue. He has an organization with Senator Bob Dole to fight world hunger amongst children.

George McGovern---Great American, Great Human Being!

About Writing

"We write to taste life twice, in the moment, and in retrospection."

- Anaïs Nin
qtd. in Write for Insight by William Strong

As If We Didn't Already Know that Bush and Rove are Liars

If George W. Bush is an avid reader, then I'm the King of England. Maybe Rove is an avid reader for all I know. I wouldn't know about Rove because I despise him and try NOT to think about him. I can, though, believe that Bush had the time to read in the White House because he obviously didn't work very hard.

Can Obama keep up with Bush's reading pace?

(CNN) — It appears President Obama has to step up his reading pace if he wants to beat his predecessor in one particular measure: how many books a president can polish off a year.
In an interview with the BBC Tuesday, Obama said he is currently reading Joseph O'Neill's 270-page novel "Netherland," a book Obama first said he began back in April.

If Obama is close to finishing the novel, that puts him on less than a 10 book-a-year pace, far less than the close to 100 books President Bush was reportedly able to finish in the same amount of time.

According to former top Bush aide Karl Rove, he and the former president engaged in a friendly wager every year to see who could read more books.

In 2006, Bush read 95 books to Roves 110: a Herculean pace of nearly two books a week — in an election year to boot — for the ex-president. But, according to Rove, Bush's reading slowed a bit in the final years of his presidency, finishing a not-too-shabby 51 books in 2007 and at least 40 in 2008.

And if that's not impressive enough, Rove also said Bush found time to read the Bible "from cover to cover" every year.

While Obama may have had to put aside “Netherland” last month in favor of pages of court briefs with a Supreme Court vacancy to fill, it nevertheless appears the president has some summer reading to do.
Filed under: President Bush • President Obama

Ron Rash - Serena (2)

Let me say unequivocally that this is a BRILLIANT novel. The author combines a compelling narrative with the historical flavor of the 1930's---the depression, Applachia, cutting timber from virgin land in the face of the beginning of the national forest system, greed, etc. One thing I should mention is the way Rash uses the locals, the poor people who put their lives on the line every day, to advance the narrative. This is quite effective.

One thing I wish is that I had not read the dusk jacket! Otherwise, I would not have guessed what was going to happen when Pemberton and Galloway went hunting at the end. But I knew what was coming because I was prepped beforehand. Bad!

The Coda is perfect! George does die; it is JACOB who gets the ultimate revenge at the end. Right?

Serena. Bad, bad, Serena. Ultimately this is a character study. Is she a sociopath? What is the appropriate word other than evil?