Well, we know that Sarah Palin, Sharron Angle, Glenn Beck and their irresponsible, hateful rhetoric had nothing, nothing whatsoever, to do with the shooting in Tucson, because… well, they (and Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, Michelle Malkin and the rest of the right-wing punditacracy clown parade) told us so. Right? Right??

But what of the people who were actually shot, but survived, or who were eyewitnesses to the tragedy? What do they think? Who do they blame for the sorry state of the toxic political climate that led a complete lunatic like Jared Loughner to seek to inflict his “Second Amendment remedies,” on them, as per the innocent, blameless Sharron Angle?

Well, can’t say it’s much of a shock to report that at least one of the shooting victims, Eric Fuller, a 63-year-old disabled veteran who had campaigned for Gabrielle Giffords in her reelection campaign last Fall, DOES blame Palin, Beck and Angle. Fuller, who was shot in the knee and wounded in the back, told Democracy Now that “It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target. Their wish for second amendment activism has been fulfilled.” In remarks Fuller prepared in advance for the interview, he added “Their wish for Second Amendment activism has been fulfilled—senseless hatred leading to murder, lunatic-fringe anarchism, subscribed to by John Boehner, mainstream rebels with vengeance for all, even nine-year-old girls.”

In my book, Mr. Fuller’s opinion holds more water than Palin’s, Beck’s, Angle’s, Limbaugh’s and the whole of the Fox News staff’s (especially Steeve Doocey, who is a blithering idiot) combined. He took a bullet, two, in fact, so he’s got a right to his opinion. He earned it with his own blood. Suck on that, Sarah Palin!

What’s pathetically ridiculous about the entire argument from the right that the specific words of these specific people had no effect on this matter because Loughner is so very obviously batshit crazy is that this ISN’T the first incident like this in recent memory. It’s (at least) the second (if not the third: the name Richard Poplawski ring a bell?).

Why are so few people in the media talking about what happened when Glenn Beck decided to make the tiny Tides Foundation into a fearsome component of his “the progressive movement wants to destroy America with their evil Socialism” conspiracy theories last year? It HAS happened already that a mentally unbalanced person has decided to fight the vast-leftwing conspiracy that Beck and others subscribe to and propagate, with violence. Just seven months ago, a bank-robber out on parole, Byron Williams, en route to murder the staff at the Tides Foundation, opened fire on Oakland police with a 9mm handgun, a shotgun and a .308-caliber rifle with armor-piercing bullets. Williams told told authorities that he wanted to foment a revolution by “killing people of importance at the Tides Foundation and the ACLU.” His mother told the San Francisco Chronicle that her son had been watching Fox News and was angered by “the way Congress was railroading through all these left-wing agenda items.”  Williams thought that the Tides Foundation was part of a conspiracy in which the BP oil spill was a deliberate act of sabotage masterminded by George Soros and progressives.

Sound like a Glenn Beck fan to you?

(Self-described “progressive hunter,” Williams told a reporter that Beck “blew [his] mind.” Who I am to disagree?)

Where will all of this end? Who knows, but what happens when the people who make a living riling up dumb-ass, poorly-educated white people to hate and fear people who are different than they are or who think differently than they do, face a blowback themselves? Sooner or later, a left-wing crazy probably is gonna come after one of them. It wouldn’t stretch the imagination of anyone to figure that somewhere out there in this vast nation of 300 million people, there is a foaming at the mouth far-left nutcase (or a “radical centrist” for that matter) who feels that what’s really destroying America is assholes like Beck, Palin and Sharron Angle and who thinks killing them is the answer to our nation’s problems.

I have a sickening, sinking feeling that this isn’t the end of this, for lack of a better term, “partisan violence,” but just the warm-up acts. There is something eerily Weimar Republic-esque about the sad state of present day America and it’s extremely disturbing to attempt to draw this type of behavior to its logical conclusions. Before anyone writes in to say that it’s only the right-wing who is using the violent talk, the “reload” nonsense and the brain-damaged conspiracy theories, I get that. I know that. What I’m trying to point out here is that I think the genie is all the way out of the bottle for this type of violence, for them, too.

Even if the right has always been the spiritual home to the racist and cryptofascist fringe, from the KKK to the John Birch Society to today’s Teabaggers, there are crazy people all across the political spectrum. The next time—and there is going to be a next time—it might be a former member of the American middle class who has lost his home or pension who comes gunning after a Republican. The next shooter might come from the ranks of the 99ers. The next cold blooded killer could be a radical environmentalist. The next political assassin might be someone whose child died because their insurance company didn’t pay for a new medical treatment or ...?

This toxic political climate in America today is a direct or indirect consequence of a small number of politicians and pundits on the far right calling those who they disagree with “evil.”  Does anyone with half a brain, really dispute that? Then something awful happens, like what happened in Tucson. And then there is more blame. Then the momentum of the bad craziness builds in some lone-wolf lefty lunatic and this energy reemerges with someone on the right getting hurt. And then it will start again. Back and forth, back and forth.

When, not if, the next politician, government official or TV news pundit who is killed turns out to be someone on the conservative side, Palin, Beck, Angle, Limbaugh, Michael Savage and the idiots at Fox News will have no one to blame but themselves.

UPDATE: Mr. Fuller was arrested today for disorderly conduct after allegedly making a threat to Tucson Tea party spokesman Trent Humphries during a “town hall” TV show taping for ABC. According to sheriff’s deputies at the scene in Tucson, Fuller took a photo of Humphries and then said, “You’re dead.”

I didn’t think events would prove my point this quickly—and regret that they have—but there it is.

2011 is going to be a doozy.

 
Good Lord is this disturbing! And yes, I know the photo has been tinkered with.

(via BB Submitterator)

Little Lamb of the GOP: oil on panel 36” x 24”
 
“Little Lamb of the GOP” from Michael Caines’ Perfect Happiness series.

Michael’s work is currently showing at:

Mulherin Pollard Projects
317 10th Ave (between 28th & 29th)
New York, NY 10001

(via BB Submitterator)

 
Read larger letter here.

 
(via BuzzFeed)

Glenn Beck thrives off criticism, it’s what gives him credibility. Ideally, it would be best to ignore him, but that is easier said than done. So, let’s turn Glenn Beck on his head. Let’s turn him upside down.

I think it was Norman Mailer who once suggested turning pictures of Lyndon B. Johnson upside down as a protest against the Vietnam War, now we can do something similar. Wherever there is a book by Mr Beck, turn it upside down. Move it to fiction by all means, but turn it upside down. When the American flag is inverted it means distress. Turning Glenn Beck upside down will mean the same - here is a middle-aged man who is deeply distressed. Go do it.

Turn Glenn Beck upside down today—and everyday.

When people see Mr Beck’s image upside down, they’ll know he cannot be taken seriously.

Let’s make it a meme to turn Glenn Beck upside down whenever and wherever we find him. We who cannot stand what Glenn Beck stands for how he preys on the thick and dim-witted and how he divides this country for personal gain and hubris need to make our distaste for the man known.

Have fun.
 

 
This, apparently, is the actual cover of the upcoming book by Glenn Beck and Dr, Keith Ablow. The message is confusing at best, don’t you think? What might these seven wonders be? I’ll admit that my morbid curiosity has been piqued, gentlemen! Who signed off on this turkey?

Quoting from the Public Road blog:

WHAT IS GOING ON HERE? Is Keith Ablow about to murder Glenn Beck and that small child? Do Keith Ablow and Glenn Beck share custody of the boy, and Keith Ablow just handed him over for a weekend visit with Daddy #2? Did Keith Ablow share seven secrets with Glenn Beck a few seconds ago that enabled him to get over his fear of frolicking with children? And why can’t Keith Ablow have his own small boy to play with?

 
Glenn Beck continues to amaze with his hypocritical rants about Obama. He claims concern for the President’s safety while creating an imaginary scenario in which Obama is beheaded in India. “It’s the classic double-negative: God forbid anything bad happen to the people I so love to hate.”

The audio clip below which was broadcast by The Glenn Beck Show on Thursday, Nov. 4, 2010 is further evidence that Beck is more toxic than the BP oil spill and just as slimy.

Why is the president putting himself in danger? Why is anyone allowing him to put himself in danger, and if it’s not a danger, why do we have 34 warships? I don’t care if you spend $10 billion to protect the President. Nothing can happen to the president, period. I don’t like the man. He’s the President of the United States nothing can happen to him, so I don’t care how much money you spend, but why is he going there? Why are we spending $2 billion to put him there?”

The 34 warships and $2 billion dollar claim is based on bullshit rumors emanating from an anonymous source in India. Its taken on a life of its own thanks to the right wing press. It simply is not true. Beck insinuates that Obama’s life may be in jeopardy because he has turned his back on his Muslim brothers and sisters. Why else would India hold such danger? Once again, the Obama is Muslim lurks as subtext. Is nutjob Beck suggesting that an American President adopt a bunker mentality when it comes to interacting with one of the most important nations on the planet? Xenophobia as public policy. And what’s with Beck invoking Gandhi in the midst of his twisted tirade? It’s a pious smokescreen disguising hate.

Why do I waste my breath? Because millions and millions of people listen to douchebag Beck and take his word as gospel.

“If fantasizing on the radio about the assassination of the President of the United States sounds sick to you, that’s because it is.”

God help us all indeed.

Via The Raw Story

Byron Williams prison mug shot.
 
“I would have never started watching Fox News if it wasn’t for the fact that Beck was on there. And it was the things that he did, it was the things he exposed that blew my mind.” - Byron Williams

Chilling, must-read article from Media Matters about the toxic influence paranoid wingnuts like Michele Bachmann and Glenn Beck have on gullible, unstable—and potentially violent—people:

Byron Williams, a 45-year-old ex-felon, exploded onto the national stage in the early morning hours of July 18.

According to a police investigation, Williams opened fire on California Highway Patrol officers who had stopped him on an Oakland freeway for driving erratically. For 12 frantic minutes, Williams traded shots with the police, employing three firearms and a small arsenal of ammunition, including armor-piercing rounds fired from a .308-caliber rifle.

When the smoke cleared, Williams surrendered; the ballistic body armor he was wearing had saved his life. Miraculously, only two of the 10 CHP officers involved in the shootout were injured.

In an affidavit, an Oakland police investigator reported that during an interview at the hospital, Williams “stated that his intention was to start a revolution by traveling to San Francisco and killing people of importance at the Tides Foundation and the ACLU.”

Fifteen years after militia-movement-inspired bombers killed 168 people in the Oklahoma City federal building, right-wing domestic terror plots are a fact of life in America. Since 2008, violent extremists—many of whom subscribe to the hate speech and conspiratorial fantasies of the conservative media—have murdered churchgoers in Knoxville, police officers in Pittsburgh, and an abortion provider in Wichita.

Conspiracy theory-fueled extremism has long been a reaction to progressive government in the United States. Half a century ago, historian Richard Hofstadter wrote that right-wing thought had come to be dominated by the belief that Communist agents had infiltrated all levels of American government and society. The right, he explained, had identified a “sustained conspiracy, running over more than a generation, and reaching its climax in Roosevelt’s New Deal, to undermine free capitalism, to bring the economy under the direction of the federal government, and to pave the way for socialism or communism.”

In a 2009 report, the Southern Poverty Law Center found that the anti-government militia movement—which had risen to prominence during the Clinton administration and faded away during the Bush years—has returned. According to the SPLC, the anti-government resurgence has been buttressed by paranoid rhetoric from public officials like Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and media figures like Fox News’ Glenn Beck.

Just last month, Gregory Giusti pleaded guilty to repeatedly threatening House Speaker Nancy Pelosi—including threatening to destroy her California home—because he was “upset with her passing the health care law.” His mother told a local news station that he “frequently gets in with a group of people that have really radical ideas,” adding, “I’d say Fox News or all of those that are really radical, and he—that’s where he comes from.”

Read “Progressive Hunter”: Jailhouse Confession: How the right-wing media and Glenn Beck’s chalkboard drove Byron Williams to plot assassination (Media Matters)
 

 
Earlier in his show, he talked about how he was going to be “out west” having a battery of tests done at a hospital next week. Then the above soliloquy took place. What’s going on?

 
He’s right, too! Sometimes it takes as little as 24 hours for something discussed on Alex Jones’ radio show to appear on Beck’s Fox News program. Glenn Beck cribs a lot of stuff from Alex Jones. Usually—not always—I just roll my eyes at Alex Jones, but what he says here is actually pretty much on the money, if you ask me.

Another winner plucked from Little Green Footballs

 
Did Glenn Beck really say what I think he said? Dude just wished death on 75% of his own fuckin’ viewers!

 
I will admit to being somewhat crestfallen at the lack of loony-toons wingnuts on parade in all the reporting on the Glenn Beck event over the weekend. Somewhat crestfallen? Who am I kidding? I waited all week long to see a bunch of crazy, ignorant white people with low IQs spouting off on television about things they know nothing of and regurgitating, parrot-style, the predictable tropes and catchphrases that they’d been fed by Fox News, World Net Daily and Rush Limbaugh.

But there was so little of it. What a letdown! The reporting—and what transpired onstage with Beck, Palin, et al—was too bland to even hold my attention. I wanted to see foaming at the mouth nutcases, zany racist signs, people dressed as giant tea bags, in Confederate flag jumpsuits, etc, etc. Perhaps because signs were discouraged, the visuals were lacking, but it sure took all the fun out of the cable new coverage of the event.

But now Chase Whiteside and New Left Media have posted their take on the “Restoring Honor” event and well, it looks to me as if the job the major news channels did has been bested by the “indie” coverage of some students from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. It’s not like you couldn’t throw a rock the distance of, oh, about 12 inches without hitting an idiot, so how did the mainstream media miss these kooks and ignoramuses?

The story that’s not being examined—but should be—is is how fucking DUMB about a quarter of this country is. It’s not Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin or Ted Nugent or any of the rest of them, who are the story, they’re merely symptoms of the greater problem: 20-25% of the American population are abject idiots. That’s the story I want to see the media tackle.
 

 
Via The Daily What

 
This country is fucked up beyond repair. There’s an IQ stratification that’s as obvious at this juncture as oil and water not mixing. On one hand you have a bunch of know-nothing, pitifully stupid Republican morons who revere Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Fox News, meanness, mindless racism and IGNORANCE. On the other hand you have smart people, Democrats and nearly 100% of all non-whites. Am I missing ANYTHING?

I used to think that the jingoistic Tea bagger-types would eventually just burn themselves out and overstay their welcome, before dispersing again. I’ve revised that opinion, they aren’t going anywhere. How can a 21st century democracy function when the dumbest 20% of the nation’s electorate is cohering into such an easily manipulated voting bloc? Be afraid, very, very afraid. No good can come of this, none.

Look deep into this man’s eyes. What do you see there?

Via Charles Johnson at Little Greenfootballs. Photo by Paul Gentile

 
Like many of you, I am sick to death of watching ill-educated and misinformed Tea party-types attempting to hijack the notion of “what our Founding Fathers would have wanted” in favor of what they and their ignorant brethren actually want. Whenever someone pulls out the “Founding Fathers” card these days, I recoil immediately because I know I am dealing with an intellectually dishonest scoundrel from the get-go, as this is usually an admission that what they have to say is totally bogus and very often has next to nothing to do with actual history. Referring to what the Founding Fathers would have wanted has become a fall-back straw-man argument of the historically-challenged Glen Beck set and it’s being rendered meaningless the more and more often it gets repeated by ignorant people wanting to shoot their mouths off on TV and at Tea party rallies regarding issues they know nothing about.

While we can’t know exactly what the Founding Fathers would say about the racists on the radical right who are protesting the plans for the Cordoba House in downtown Manhattan, we can read what George Washington himself said about religious freedom on this very in history, August 18th, 1790, in his letter to the Jewish congregation of Newport, Rhode Island:

The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which are past is rendered the more sweet, from a consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security. If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good Government, to become a great and a happy people.

The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

Not very ambiguous is it? Even something like the above would probably still fail to faze the Facts? Who Cares About Facts? brigade of the Republican party. If you are going to invoke the matter of what the Founding Fathers would have wanted, you simply can’t pick and choose from history willy-nilly to suit your argument and be considered credible. But whether they are misinformed or simply lying, however you slice it, when these folks start to evoke what they Founding Fathers would have wanted, they are almost always just plain wrong.

The latest in a series from Peter Bergman/Radio Free Oz.com