This isn’t about the shooter winning...

The Center for Constitutional Rights – or CCR – is going after the Glenn Beck program. Beck recently directed his conspiracy theory fear machine at 78-year-old City University of New York professor Francis Fox Piven – accusing her of trying to “intentionally collapse our economic system”.
It all boils down to an article Piven wrote 46 years ago about how to help poor people in the country by overwhelming welfare rolls and forcing the government into action to address poverty. Beck has since targeted this article dozens of times on his show and deemed Piven a threat to our nation. And - in response – Piven has received numerous death threats from Beck supporters. CCR wrote a letter to Fox News President Roger Ailes – asking him to force Beck to tone down the rhetoric and end the false accusations against Piven before someone carries out one of these deadly threats. Fox denied the request and said, ‘The Glenn Beck Program,’ probably above and beyond any on television, has denounced violence repeatedly.”
And - in an interview over the weekend – new GOP Senator Mike Lee flat out rejected calls for renewed civility within Congress. When challenged whether or not it was appropriate for Members of Congress to engage in violent, heated rhetoric after the Tucson shooting – for example calling President Obama’s health reform law the “job-killing health care bill” – Senator Lee responded, “The shooter wins if we, who’ve been elected, change what we do just because of what he did”. This isn’t about the shooter winning. This is about Republicans – with the help of their commentators on Fox News and talk radio - trying to win elections…by any means necessary.
Comments


Please, help me understand this:
"CCR wrote a letter to Fox News President Roger Ailes – asking him to force Beck to tone down the rhetoric and end the false accusations against Piven before someone carries out one of these deadly threats."
Okay, so in this case, you agree that it's a good idea to use a corporation to silence free speech?
"This is about Republicans – with the help of their commentators on Fox News and talk radio - trying to win elections…by any means necessary."
I see. So this is only about Republicans "trying to win elections...by any means necessary." By this logic, we should completely ignore unethical abuses of voter manipulation when Democrats do it?
It is fascinating to me that there seems to be a complete unwillingness -- by both sides -- to ignore things when they are perpetrated by their own side. If one wants to see "any means necessary" carried out in practice, look no further than organized labor and the tactics they employ during election campaigns.
To address the Piven issue, there is more in question than the articles she wrote 46 years ago, considering she has recently advocated "an effective movement of the unemployed will have to look something like the strikes and riots that have spread across Greece."
In other words, she advocated violence for political gain. Less than a year ago. Where were the cries for "toning down the rhetoric" when she wrote that?

You can't fix stupid.

Here is historical evidence that caustic rhetoric leads to violent behavior.
In Robert Bonfil's "Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy," the same tactics were used with the same tragic results:
"But the preachers were not always so explicit in their sermons. Frequently ambiguous, they were not above playing upon double entendres, thereby encouraging the climate of violence without openly preaching it." "However ambiguous they might be, the semantics of the terms "usury" were sufficiently clear as to leave no doubt as to their immediate target: the Jews."
The above citation is not an attack on a particular religion as a whole. It's provided as an example of how invective, if not held in check, will cause harm.
Now the target seems to be anyone who disagrees with certain ideas, and plenty of lables are applied without examing sources, contexts and the actual practices of the accused.
This is an actual example of how media personalities who use these tactics are fostering an environment of hate and violence in our day. Many times calling their targets "nazis, marxists, etc." Do they ever point out what exact ACTIONS are being taken by their targets that make them "nazis, marxists, etc."? Do they ever admit that similar if not identical actions were taken by members of their own political party? Are the labels applied to Democrats, liberals, progressives, leftists applicable to Republicans who agree with or have taken the same actions?
Now another high profile Republican is going about insinuating in the same 'round-about way, that Obama, liberals, leftists and such are un-American/anti-American. Same tactic again.
Let's see now, what about the vehement anti-government rhetoric spewing forth from these people? It's our government, of the people, by the people and for the people. Could they be considered un-American/anti-American subversives for talking about dismantling the insitutions of the people, for the people and by the people?
Dismantling our institutions will leave a vacuum that would most likely be filled by interests not held accountable to the people. Our government can be has been changed, we do it every election cycle. It appears that some want to replace it with that which will not be held accountable to the electorate.
Tea Party folks need to be careful in what they wish and are fighting for.

Politicians haven't been challenged for their lies and idiot remarks on TV since Tim Russert died and, you know, if they are, never show up again on Chris Matthews or whoever. Ailes and Murdoch are laughing their butts off, as are Disney, Comcast - they've won! Maybe not all, but Congress, the Judicial Branch and the Executive are full of finger puppets. I badger my congressional delegation until postage costs break me on two issues only. Reform campaign financing. Rewrite and reform corporation laws.

What happened to we all have a voice in "our" democracy.
I forgot Glen Beck;s rule 1, not if we can stamp you out first.
What a terrible bunch these people are, just mean and nasty, oh I forgot, and so Christian. My opinion is Jesus would have little to do with this bunch, they are all as un-Christian as it gets.

this "thinking" is a parallel to that which sustained the illegal Iraq war -that we couldn't let the terrorists win when we bombed, invaded and devastated a country that had done nothing to us. We invaded to control their oil, the lies were told, were escalated and the lies continue now. The fact that we constantly spawn more terrorism has fallen on deaf, stupid ears. With regard to the shooter, the NRA has allowed anyone to buy semi automatic weapons which are solely for killing people. For people to play chicken with words under these circumstances is not only stupid, but irresponsibly dangerous.

Mama grizzly commited assault when she wrote her hit list.
Becky incites violence everytime he speaks, every reference boils down to "grab yur guns and yur beef jerky cause the commie socialist cannibals want to take yur money and give it to brown people".
Deer in the headlights bachman calls for her followers to be armed and dangerous.
First amendment rights being taken away from people who can't stay out of the media spotlight for twenty four hours, talking about second amendment solutions.
They all make noise about removing illegitimate government, and toss around words like rebellion and revolution, but lest they forget they are the very people on top and that is not a good place to be during a revolution. Just ask Marie Antoinette.
Best thing about it is that CCR's letter to Fox News President Roger Ailes and their response is now too documented. Bittersweet.

Glenn Beck likes to flip flops on issuers. No clue what his bag is. I guess it depends on which way the wind blows, for his excitement and publicity of public attention. This is what sells you know.. People buy his books, watch his shows, jump up and down cheer him on and fly off their seats.. By the way, That's a Good way to exercise you know. Anyway, He is making his money and selling his books and He has you to be thankful for. I think as a skilled entertatainer he would be much better fit if he became a dancer because I do not know why anyone would listen to him anyway, Could you imagine how cool he would look doing the cool jerk. It fits! NO! That would be much more suitable for him in my opinion, Or perhaps a cartwheel now and than across the floor.

Looks like Beck is right.
On Dec. 22, 2010, Frances Fox Piven wrote an article for The Nation entitled "Mobilizing the Jobless". In the article she writes,[28]
- "Second, before people can mobilize for collective action, they have to develop a proud and angry identity and a set of claims that go with that identity. They have to go from being hurt and ashamed to being angry and indignant...
- Local protests have to accumulate and spread -- and become more disruptive -- to create serious pressures on national politicians. An effective movement of the unemployed will have to look something like the strikes and riots that have spread across Greece in response to the austerity measures forced on the Greek government by the European Union, or like the student protests that recently spread with lightning speed across England in response to the prospect of greatly increased school fees.
- Protests by the unemployed led by young workers and by students, who face a future of joblessness, just might become large enough and disruptive enough to have an impact in Washington. There is no science that predicts eruption of protest movements. Who expected the angry street mobs in Athens or the protests by British students? Who indeed predicted the strike movement that began in the United States in 1934, or the civil rights demonstrations that spread across the South in the early 1960s? We should hope for another American social movement from the bottom -- and then join it."

I believe in Beck's right to say what he wants. However, common decency dictates not talking about shooting and killing people. Also, at a certain point, if it crosses over to advocacy of killing someone, it is probably a crime.
Regarding his comments about Piven wanting to to break the government, it is kind of ironic because that is what the Norquistians and others in the regressive movement want to do with their continuing call for tax cuts. My belief is that they want a government so weak it can't act as a balance to corporate malfeasance.
Unfortunately, the bipartisan corporatization of America and Second Gilded Age has already led to a representative corporatocracy. We need democracy, not corporatocracy.

We will only win this one by not fighting it.
In the words of the Hopi Prophecy, we need to "abolish the word struggle from our vocabulary"
As is said in the Dhammapada, "Hate is not conquered by hate, hate is conquered by love."
This one is not going to be won by legislating to make better people or to contain foul behaviour. Trying to impose any top down solution will only excite more oppositionality in these already childish people.

She said "an effective movement of the unemployed would have to look something like the strikes and riots in Greece." That may be a neutral fact. It is arguable that the civil rights movement required both non-violent and other confrontation to succeed.
Beck is a shill for big business and is against the people gaining power and challenging what a friend of mine who defected from the Soviet bloc in the 80's called the "privat diktatur" (private dictatorship) of capitalist societies. He's against Piven, Cloward, Saul Alinsky and anybody who wants to give power to the people against big business.

If the government is not democratic it is ilegitimate and should be broken. We must watch, however, false popular - "astroturf" - movements like the Tea Party or Glenn Beck, shilling for big business, taking advantage of any momentaryconfusion to sieze power and deliver us into privatized dictatorship.

Anyway, apparently "the shooter wins" if we do anything at all about this. We should just ignore it and pretend it didn't happen - and so let it happen again. Anybody call Mike Lee on such patent ridiculousness?
The shooter wasn't trying to get us to tone down the rhetoric. He was fine with it and riding its wave.
If he was - causing it to happen to prevent it from happening - then he's too dumb to worry about pleasing; or Mike Lee is; or Lee thinks we are; or one of those.
How do we win this war against corporate fascism?