Month: December 2009

Avatar: Another Hollywood Plot To Destroy America?

Posted by on December 18, 2009 at 3:04 am. 15 Comments :

Obamar: Obama as AvatarThe blockbuster, mega-million dollar, groundbreaking, techo-marvel, spectacle, Avatar is opening tonight. Thank goodness it hasn’t been over-hyped. Nevertheless, there is still a fair amount of anticipation for this cinematic tale of a person of color from another country…er…world.

With regard to the film itself, don’t expect to find me in line for an early screening. In fact, don’t look for me on February’s lines either. Suffice it to say that I don’t plan on rushing out to see this flick. There are two reasons in particular that sap any motivation for me to sit through this two and a half hour plus epic.

First, I’m terminally bored with special effects. Particularly when I am advised beforehand that they will change filmmaking, or my life or, or the rotation of the earth, forever. That’s a promise that has never been kept. I’ve seen enough special effects that I am now fully cognizant that anything that can be imagined can be committed to film. It comes as no surprise that digital artists (of which I am one) can produce wonders both realistic and fantastic. Consequently, to stoke my interest in a movie, I prefer to be moved by storytelling, character development, and the sort of drama or comedy or suspense that registers on an emotional level. To be sure, that can occur in a film that contains special effects, but the effects should compliment the storytelling, not supplant it. I really am not impressed by another realistic looking robot or alien or landscape.

Second, I hated Titanic. To be precise, it was something more than hate. I regard it as one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. The acting, the effects, the script (oh lord), the naked schmaltz – there wasn’t a single thing I can recall that was redeeming about it. And in its time it was the mega-million dollar epic that was going to change everything.

Enough already. You know you have reached a new low when a fawning analysis in the iconic Hollywood Reporter relates this overheard bit of artistic defeatism:

So obviously has the creative bar been raised that I heard one young writer-director at the premiere say to his friends, “What do we do now?”

I would suggest that that young writer-director look for work selling insurance. If watching one movie exhausts his capacity to express himself creatively, he doesn’t have a calling for creative pursuits. He can save us all a lot of money and himself a lot of heartache by quitting now.

However, there is a fun element of the hype machine churning around this marketing extravaganza. Right-wingers have latched onto the notion that the movie is a slap at America and its imperialistic ways. They are hammering director James Cameron as an America-hating leftist. I assume they would like to see this nearly half billion dollar monstrosity suffer a massive box office failure, just as they would like to see President Obama fail. And so far as Avatar is concerned, I eagerly support their desire. After all, Avatar is a production from Rupert Murdoch’s Fox studios and watching Murdoch lose money is always fun.

Here is a collection of some the rightist reviews of Avatar:

BigHollywood: Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ Is a Big, Dull, America-Hating, PC Revenge Fantasy
…a sanctimonious thud of a movie so infested with one-dimensional characters and PC clichés that not a single plot turn – small or large – surprises. I call it the “liberal tell,” where the early and obvious politics of the film gives away the entire story before the second act begins, and “Avatar” might be the sorriest example of this yet.

Hot Air: “Avatar” reportedly super mega ultra left-wing
Given the framework of the plot and the obvious allegorical intent – military invades planet to secure valuable commodity in the soil – what other way could this flick have conceivably tilted?

Debbie Schlussel: Don’t Believe the Hype: “Avatar” Stinks (Long, Boring, Unoriginal, Uber-Left)
It’s essentially a remake of “Dances With Wolves” and every other movie where we evil Americans terrorize the indigenous natives, kill them, take their land, and are just all around imperialistically wicked and inhumane. Oh, and we’re destroying the environment, clearing precious giant trees and natural landscapes and killing rare animals and their habitats, in order to invade and harvest valuable substances under the ground. Sound familiar? Yup, just like a million diatribes from Daily Kos, Democratic Underground, and every other far-left outlet about how we invaded Iraq for oil. Yes, “Avatar” is cinema for the hate America crowd.

Newsbusters: Is ‘Avatar’ A Multi-Million Dollar Ad For Global Warming?
With the imminent release of the science fiction blockbuster “Avatar,” some have characterized it as a multi-million dollar public service announcment for global warming.

Telegraph UK: Is Avatar an attack on the Iraq War?
The US public is frankly tired of the anti-war rhetoric of the Left, which has sounded increasingly hollow since the success of the surge in Iraq. James Cameron should leave the political commentary out as he promotes his new film, and acknowledge that the Iraqi people are immensely better off now than they were living under the boot of Saddam Hussein.

RedState: “Avatar” Is a Steaming Pile of Sith
In case you don’t get the analogy, we (the humans) are the Bad Guys who are going to attack the “Tower” that the Noble Savages hold dear. In other words, humans are attacking the environment with technology, and it’s analogous to 9/11. Americanism is terrorism, in other words. […] No one should be surprised that Hollywood liberals hate America and Western Civilization.

After all that I’m beginning to get more interested. I may yet decide to see Avatar if enough reviews like those keep coming out. Or if enough people I respect have good things to say about it. I haven’t seen a review of the film from Fox News. I wonder if that’s because they hated it and are hesitant to publish that, or because they loved it but don’t want to promote a treasonous piece of Marxist propaganda.

But I’m still waiting for the preeminent curator of culture to weigh in. After Glenn Beck’s revelations about the secret socialist art that is hidden in plain sight throughout Manhattan, I couldn’t really draw a conclusion on this without his insight. I’m sure he will find demonic horrors in the film that even Cameron didn’t know were there. And only Beck can decipher the coded signals to ACORN operatives and radical environmentalists that are surely cloaked in between the frames.

Sleep with one eye open, children. The lefties are now invading your thoughts in 3D.

Is Glenn Beck Guilty Of Treason?

Posted by on December 17, 2009 at 5:37 pm. 9 Comments :

Rupert Murdoch’s pet paranoidal pea-brain, Glenn Beck, has been a persistent purveyor of fear for years. He has predicted the most dire catastrophes for America, its economy, its values, and its people. The stench of doom that surrounds him is debilitating even in small doses.

On his program yesterday, Beck leveled an accusation that President Obama, or someone on his staff, had threatened Sen. Ben Nelson with the closing of a military base in Benson’s state, Nebraska. The only evidence of such a threat was a posting by a former McCain spokesman with an anonymous source on the conservative Weekly Standard web site. But Beck has blown this unreliable, unverified, rumor up into a serious allegation that crossed over into territory into which even he can’t believe he is going:

“The Obama administration is possibly – and I can’t bring myself to say these words because it is abhorrent if it is true but it sure fits the pattern. They’re playing politics with the national security of the United States.”

Despite insisting that he couldn’t say the abhorrent words, he managed to summon up the resolve to say them in the very next sentence. And with those words he came within a hair’s breadth of declaring President Obama a traitor – several times.

“There’s a story at the bottom of the hour that if it is true, and we have three sources on it now, if it is true. I mean how much closer do you get to treason?“

“But his party reportedly very angry and allegedly making threats. This one borders treason, I believe.”

“Threatening to weaken our national security defenses to fulfill your Utopian social justice agenda. To me that borders on treason.“

Beck has a lot of nerve accusing other people of treason. There are numerous examples of him making statements that are hard to interpret as anything less than treasonous. He agreed with his guest Michael Scheuer, that…

“… the only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States.”

And he declared his own enmity of America in a discussion that speculated about civil war:

“And don’t get me wrong. I am against the government, and I think that they have just been horrible, and I do think they are betraying the principles of our founders every day they’re in office.”

During yesterday’s program, Beck dispensed his usual legal disclaimer that he may not have all the information necessary to draw a conclusion. He conceded that all parties involved, the White House and Sen. Nelson, have denied the allegation, which they did emphatically. Yet, just as he did with his floating of the FEMA prison camp nonsense, Beck went just far enough to introduce the heinous charges, then allowed them to simmer while his conspiracy-addled audience sucked in the fumes of malicious hearsay. But even that wasn’t enough as Beck explicitly characterized these rumors as fact:

“It doesn’t matter if it’s credible or not that they could do it. The fact that they threatened it – it is our national security.”

The truth is that the whole scenario is not credible and they couldn’t do it. The procedure for base closings takes years and was designed specifically to disallow political influence. Both the White House and Sen. Nelson would be aware of this. Therefore, the only purpose for advancing a vile and improbable lie like this one is to slander the President. Beck is deliberately seeking to cast the nation’s leader as a traitor, which could lead to removing him from office and imprisoning or even executing him. And since these charges are wholly unsupported, Beck’s intentions would be tantamount to assassination. This, if true, would make Beck a traitor. Is Glenn Beck guilty of treason? Well, to paraphrase him…

“No one wants to believe that the president of the United States host of a TV program or any of his advisors would stoop to these kinds of tactics. But what are we supposed to believe here?”

Exactly! What are we supposed to believe? I’m not accusing Beck of anything. I’m just asking questions. Beck knows that he can reach me here at this web site to respond to or correct any misinformation. To date he has not done so. That leads me to conclude that all of this is true. Why else wouldn’t he contact me?

Wall Street Journal: Newsrooms Don’t Need More Conservatives

Posted by on December 16, 2009 at 1:53 pm. 4 Comments :

A few weeks ago the Washington Post’s ombudsman, Andrew Alexander, published a notably misguided article in response to criticism that the Post had missed the ACORN story and other right-wing claptrap. In a fit of hysterical myopia, Alexander caved into the carping saying that…

“…traditional news outlets like The Post simply don’t pay sufficient attention to conservative media or viewpoints. “

Never mind that the ACORN story was manufactured by partisan activists engaged in political combat. And forget that the substance of the story was unverified at the time, and more recently thoroughly debunked (pdf). And set aside that even if it were true it was a trivial side issue that affected only a few maladroit volunteers and in no way reflected the views of ACORN’s management or 400,000 members. Nevertheless, Alexander concurred with critics that there was a story there that the paper had missed and that deserved equal billing to real news events like war, health care, and the economy.

All of this makes it all the more remarkable that the voice of reason on this matter has just appeared in the pages of the Wall Street Journal. Thomas Frank’s column today begins with a title that pretty much says it all: “Newsrooms Don’t Need More Conservatives.” The exceedingly reasonable premise is that newsrooms are advantaged by more objectivity, not more partiality. Frank says…

“Craziest of all, though, is the prospect of the Post ditching its decades-long pursuit of the grail of objectivity . . . because it got scooped on the Acorn story. If that is all it takes to reduce the Washington Post’s vaunted editorial philosophy to ashes, what is the newspaper industry planning to do to atone for its far more consequential failures?

“Remember, this disastrous decade saw two of them: First, the news media’s failure to look critically at the Bush administration’s rationale for the Iraq War; and then, the business press’s failure to understand the depth of the subprime mortgage problem and to anticipate its massive consequences.”

Frank correctly points out that having more Republicans on the Post’s payroll would not have produced better reporting for either of the stories he cited. In fact, it would have made things demonstrably worse. Does anyone seriously believe that more conservative journalists would have challenged either President Bush or the Wall Street establishment in a way that would have enhanced the reporting or better informed readers of the impending disasters? Only the most diehard, rightist zealot could answer that in the affirmative. Frank’s answer is condensed in a profound and troubling closing paragraph:

“What the Post seems to be after is [a] form of journalism that offends nobody, that comes crawling to the powerful, that mirrors the partisan breakdown of the population as a whole. If that’s the future of journalism, we can be certain that ever more catastrophic failures await.”

Well said. And he could have added that following Alexander’s advice to pay more attention to conservative media would only result in diverting scarce resources from more pressing priorities and missing even more stories of true significance. Now we just need to get the Post to heed these words. And Mr. Frank may also want to send a copy to his employers at the Journal and his corporate cousins at Fox News.

Rupert Murdoch Sends Holiday Greeting, Doesn’t Mention Christmas

Posted by on December 15, 2009 at 12:15 pm. 2 Comments :

Last week a featured Fox Nation story was posted with the following image that made the point that the Obama’s failed to mention Christmas on their holiday cards (just as the Bush’s failed to do).

I wonder if the Fox Nationalists will now post a headline story about their boss, Rupert Murdoch. Here is how he addressed his “holiday” message that went out this morning:

Subject: A note to all staff: Mr. Murdoch’s Holiday Greetings 2009

The entirety of the message made no reference to Christmas whatsoever. Isn’t this an affront to God fearing Christian Americans who demand that all greetings of the season explicitly reference their savior with no other recognition of the pagan non-believers? Isn’t this more evidence of the suppression of the Christian values that our country was based on?

I can’t wait to see how Bill O’Reilly will cover this insult to “the folks.” And I’m certain that Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck will also speak up for the oppressed faithful. Right-wing blogs are sure to go wild over yet another example of political correctness from an elitist media baron. Ya think? How can Murdoch so cavalierly abandon the values of traditional Americans? While he may have chosen to excise Christmas from his message, he did say this:

“Together we informed and entertained, but more importantly, enriched the lives of hundreds of millions of people across the globe. We continued to pursue our goal of being the world’s best producer of media content, spreading the message of freedom we all believe in. Across all our businesses we advanced our digital initiatives, while holding true to our values and commitment to change for the better, including our support for clean energy and the environment.“

Where does Murdoch get off talking about a message that “we all believe in,” or claiming to be “holding true to our values,” when he has blatantly betrayed those beliefs and values? And what is this business of support for the environment? Sure, there is a web page on the News Corp. site that professes to be concerned about the state of the environment, but virtually every one of his writers and television presenters relentlessly disparage efforts to protect the environment, even calling them hoaxes, harmful, and socialistic.

All of this makes Murdoch’s holiday greeting a farce that shows nothing but contempt for the Christian supremacy that Fox News and America stand for. And now is the time to let him know that his offense will not be tolerated. All good Christians are now called upon to boycott Murdoch’s media empire, starting with Fox News. Good luck brothers. We can stop this sacrilege and restore America to the theocratic utopia it was intended to be.

Glenn Beck Has Gone Full Blown Televangelist

Posted by on December 15, 2009 at 3:38 am. NO Comments :

Glenn Beck - Obama-pocalypseOn today’s program, Glenn Beck pulled aside the veil to reveal his true face. It is a face whose features were familiar from a long beheld visible silhouette. But now it was nakedly transparent. He has finally assumed his place as the broadcast bishop, the cable cleric, the television vicar. Rev. Glenn’s sermon today commenced with a scripture from the holy Fathers of the Founding:

“The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time.”
– Thomas Jefferson

This verse laid the foundation for a series of lessons that placed a new focus on the American theocracy. And the first lesson was a reaffirmation of the importance of God to real Americans, and God’s insignificance to those evil progressives.

Beck: Progressives had to get rid of God […] Who is the government to tell us what to do? It’s our power. Wrong again! It is not our power. It is God. Our founders knew it comes from God to us and we give it to the government […] The earth is bigger than you. And the government is just protecting the earth. It all comes down to this: The climate cult is teaching your children that the earth is God.

To illustrate the transformational power of the presence of the Lord in a modern world dominated by the worship of science, Rev. Glenn recited the parable of Galileo, a renaissance astronomer who paid a dear price for his commitment to knowledge.

Beck: Galileo – The man who fought against the power structure of his own time to enlighten mankind that the earth wasn’t flat and the sun, not the earth, was the center of the solar system. It was those who held power that tried to shut him down. Just as those who are in power now try to shut up all who disagree now. Galileo is in the tower again.

Some may find irony in Rev. Beck referencing Galileo to analogize what is occurring today with regard to climate change. After all, it was not just any power structure that oppressed Galileo, it was the church. It was an ecumenical establishment that feared the impact of Galileo’s findings, which just happened to be contrary to church doctrine. So the church harassed and imprisoned this seeker of truth unto his death.

Now Rev. Beck is making an argument that is ostensibly in support of science, even though his position on climate change is diametrically opposed to the vast majority of scientists. And he is simultaneously advocating returning authority over our nation to God – you know, the supreme master of the power structure that oppressed Galileo. Beck asserts that it is the minority of faith-based and industry-aligned researchers who are the Galileos of today, and that by accepting their unsupported conclusions and submitting to the will of God we are somehow honoring the memory of Galileo.

But Galileo was a lone advocate of an unpopular and dangerous opinion. He was a man of science fighting a powerful theocratic establishment that wanted to suppress any knowledge that interfered with doctrinal teachings. Rev. Beck, on the other hand, is a science denier who would squelch men like Galileo and wants to impose the same sort of theocracy that persecuted him.

It’s takes real courage to advance a position that is so brazenly contradictory and lacking in logical reasoning. But we are talking about the great Rev. Beck. How many other alleged scholars can castigate adherents to global warming theory as “climate cultists” while the logo for their network is spinning in the corner with a new green hue commemorating the Climate Conference in Copenhagen?

Does Rev. Beck know that Pope Rupert has directed his corporate empire to pursue green policies and is “committed to addressing its impact on climate change?” Murdoch has even expressed his view that News Corp has an obligation to educate and engage their readers and viewers on the matter:

Murdoch: Imagine if we succeed in inspiring our audiences to reduce their own impacts on climate change by just 5 percent. That would be like turning the State of California off for almost a year.”

Does Pope Rupert know that his cardinals are undermining his directives? Does he know that, contrary to educating the public, they are willfully misinforming them? Does he know that in addition to Rev. Beck, that Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Neil Cavuto, the cast of Fox & Friends, and others in his broadcast and publishing world, are all subverting the message he has laid down as company policy? It seems unlikely that he wouldn’t know what is being promulgated on his network and in his papers. Therefore, it is safe to assume that the policy is just phony window dressing designed to mislead the public and is meant to be ignored. It is not unlike much of the scripture that is ignored by wealthy, free market, money changers who pretend to be pious, but who are only interested in their own comfort and self-aggrandizement.

And it is for that reason that Rev. Beck exists – to satisfy the spiritual lust of greedy, egomaniacs and the pathetic disciples they deceive. He is their path to salvation and their justification for living lives devoted to materialism and selfishness. Can I get an amen?

Thar’s Gold In Glenn Beck’s Shills

Posted by on December 14, 2009 at 12:58 pm. 1 Comments :

To accuse Glenn Beck of being a greedy, capitalist, manipulative, profiteering, hustler would probably be received as a compliment by him. He spreads the marketing on pretty thick with TV, radio, magazines, books, movies, and personal appearances. And all of these self-aggrandizing ventures are hawked shamelessly on his multiple media platforms.

Recently, however, Beck has come under fire for his promotion of products and services offered by his advertisers. This sort of hucksterism is problematic because it makes it impossible to tell if the product endorsements are genuine or if they are payoffs to keep the advertiser happy. That obvious conflict of interest seems to escape Beck. What’s worse, shilling for products in this manner can result in the spokesperson deliberately misleading his audience in order to create or enhance the market for a product.

And that is precisely what Beck is being accused of doing on behalf of his gold advertisers. During the course of his programs on radio and TV, Beck is painting a picture of America, and the world, as teetering on the ledge of catastrophe. He insists that the economy is in freefall and the dollar is collapsing. He has even floated conspiracy theories about the dollar being replaced by a new world currency. All of these frightful predictions are encouragements to his gullible disciples to protect their assets by converting them to gold.

Now, even Beck’s employer, Fox News, has registered some concern about Beck’s relationship with his sponsors. Joel Cheatwood, Senior Vice President of Development at Fox, says that the network’s legal department asked Beck’s representatives for clarification about his work for Goldline International. The response was that Beck is not a paid spokesman. That’s fortunate because Fox’s official policy on the matter is that…

“Fox News prohibits any on-air talent from endorsing products or serving as a product spokesperson.”

So how do they explain this:

Glenn Beck for GoldlineThe Goldline web site has prominently featured Beck endorsing their products. The footnote referenced on the ad identified Beck explicitly as a “paid spokesman.” However, it no longer does so. The designation was recently changed to read “radio sponsor.” And concurrent with that, both Goldline and Fox are now claiming that Beck was never a paid spokesman in the first place. It was all just a big misunderstanding. Never mind the fact that Beck has appeared in specially produced videos touting Goldline.

The doomsday gold rush is a staple for Beck’s media empire. At least four of his current advertisers are gold dealers (Goldline, Superior Gold Group, Investment Rarities, and Rosland Capital). Granted, Beck is having a hard time attracting advertisers since he called President Obama a racist. The remaining ads are almost all for conservative publications or products and services exploiting one crisis or another. And this is not just a Beck phenomena. Goldline and other gold traders are also pitched by such financial wizards as Mark Levin, Dennis Miller, Fred Thompson, Laura Ingraham, Lars Larson, Michael Smerconish, Monica Crowley, and G. Gordon Liddy.

If the world doesn’t come to an end soon, Beck’s viewers are going to be very disappointed – and poor. Gold prices have cratered in the past month, losing more than $100.00 per ounce. And the worst thing that can happen from the perspective of Beck, and those who foolishly took his investment advice, is for the economy to recover. And therein lies the problem with regard to conflict of interest.

In order for Beck and his coterie to prosper, the economy must not. Beck has a financial stake in the nation’s economic affairs turning south. He also has a personal stake in that he does not want to be seen as having been wrong about his dire predictions. So his programs’ advertising, his investment portfolio, and his reputation all require that our country fail. Could that have something to with Beck’s relentless barrage of lectures about how the country is going to hell and it is time to build an Ark? Could it have something to do with his rallying cry for God, guns, and of course, gold?

Could it? Could be.

Study: ACORN Did Nothing Illegal – Fox News: So What?

Posted by on December 13, 2009 at 1:56 pm. 6 Comments :

Fox News Borat/ACORNLast summer Fox News participated in a media frenzy surrounding some sensationalistic videos produced by conservative activists and promoted by right-wing propaganda outlets. The ACORN representatives in the videos appeared to counsel a couple of cartoonish characters posing as a pimp and a prostitute on how to apply for loans without disclosing the nefarious nature of their pretend business.

The subsequent controversy led to ACORN initiating an independent review to ascertain the facts and to propose solutions. To that end they retained former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger to conduct a thorough investigation. The results of the investigation were released last week (pdf) and revealed that…

“While some of the advice and counsel given by ACORN employees and volunteers was clearly inappropriate and unprofessional, we did not find a pattern of intentional, illegal conduct by ACORN staff; in fact, there is no evidence that action, illegal or otherwise, was taken by any ACORN employee on behalf of the videographers. Instead, the videos represent the byproduct of ACORN’s longstanding management weaknesses, including a lack of training, a lack of procedures, and a lack of on-site supervision.”

Harshbarger pulled no punches in his condemnation of ACORN’s failings. While he found that there was no unlawful conduct, this was no vindication. There was much about which to be embarrassed. Reporting on the study’s release could have justifiably focused on that aspect. However, Fox News and its affiliates chose instead to virtually ignore the matter. It was reported on the air with the typical Fox slant, and there was a single story on their web site and another on Fox Nation. Also, Glenn Beck did a segment on it that focused more on how it tied into the carnival of unrelated conspiracy delusions that occupy his so-called brain. Then it vanished.

What makes this peculiar is that Fox was wall-to-wall ACORN for several weeks when the videos were released. You couldn’t turn the network on without seeing a report or a replay of clips from the Borat News Team. On one day in September, the Fox Nation posted sixteen separate stories on their web site – all with disparaging viewpoints. This past week the Fox Nationalists had a single story on the report and another on Acorn-shaped cookies at a White House dinner (I’m not sure that counts).

Now that a study is released that actually delves into the factual details of the affair, Fox has gone silent after an obligatory wave. And when they did address the issue, it was with their typical sneering disdain. The Fox News account of the study’s results was something less than “fair and balanced.” While they did include excerpts from statements released by Harshbarger and ACORN CEO, Bertha Lewis, they interviewed no one from the ACORN side of the story. On the other hand, Fox did do interviews with James O’Keefe, the videographer, Republican senator Lamar Smith, and a spokesman for Republican congressman Darrel Issa. All of these critics dismissed the study despite not even bothering to dispute any of its findings.

The findings, by the way, also revealed some notable information about the folks who brought the story to Fox. For instance, efforts by Harshbarger to interview O’Keefe and his hooker/partner Hannah Giles were rebuffed. It should be noted that O’Keefe and Giles have declined EVERY interview request that didn’t come from Fox News, or an otherwise similarly prejudiced venue, since this story went public. They are being kept in a hermetically sealed, undisclosed location. Also, the punking pair and their patron, Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment, refused to make the unedited videos available to Harshbarger for review. Thus, preserving the producers intent to deceive, as well as to assure that any exculpatory material was edited out of the tapes before anyone could see them. However, Harshbarger was still able to establish that the videos were materially altered prior to broadcast:

“The videos that have been released appear to have been edited, in some cases substantially, including the insertion of a substitute voiceover for significant portions of Mr. O’Keefe’s and Ms. Giles’s comments, which makes it difficult to determine the questions to which ACORN employees are responding. A comparison of the publicly available transcripts to the released videos confirms that large portions of the original video have been omitted from the released versions.”

The release of this report may not absolve ACORN for acts that were improper by the people captured on video, but it demonstrates another incidence of their being tarred with allegations of illegality that are unproven and irresponsible. ACORN has been the victim of repeated smears related to voter fraud when there has never been a single case of it documented. Another news item this week reported that congressional efforts to defund ACORN were ruled unconstitutional.

Most of these relentless attacks against ACORN are motivated by right-wing politicians and organizations with a vested interest in suppressing low and middle income voters. These are the citizens that ACORN serves and conservatives recognize that empowering them will be adverse to their agenda of advancing the interests of the wealthy and powerful. That’s why so many attempts have been made to undermine and discredit ACORN’s operations. And despite the fact that all of the allegations against ACORN have so far been thoroughly debunked, we can expect the harassment to continue.

We can also expect the reporting from Fox to continue to be brazenly one-sided. They will plaster their air with unverified allegations that harm the interests of ordinary Americans, and they will look the other way when there is positive news about them and the groups that are their advocates. How can we expect Fox to be impartial when they actually partnered with Giles to raise money for her defense?

The Harshbarger report proves not only that ACORN is not guilty of breaking the law, it also proves that conservative media like Fox IS guilty of suppressing the truth.

Law And Order LBO: Limbaugh, Beck, O’Reilly

Posted by on December 11, 2009 at 3:50 pm. 15 Comments :

As the year comes to a close, many people view the remaining days as an opportunity to tie up loose ends, complete unfinished projects, and maybe produce another accomplishment or two to top off the year on a high note. For folks like Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly that means achieving something that surpasses their ordinary annual output of anger, hatred, and ignorance. This is the time of year to go for the gold, and you have to admire the tenacity of these professionals as they endeavor to reach new heights of stupidity and malice. Happy Holidays.

To this end, both Beck and O’Reilly serve up a heaping portion of boorish outrage directed at an episode of NBC’s Law and Order: SVU. The storyline concerned the murder of three immigrant children by a man obsessed with illegal aliens and possessed by the hateful rantings of a fictional TV talk show host, Gordon Garrison. In a pivotal scene, the lawyer for the defendant, played by John Larroquette, describes Garrison, Limbaugh, Beck, and O’Reilly as…

“…a cancer spreading ignorance and hate. I mean, they’ve convinced folks that immigrants are the problem, not corporations that fail to pay a living wage or a broken health care system.”

Perhaps that description, and the general plot, cut a little too close to the bone for Beck and O’Reilly. They may have seen more of their own dark underside in Garrison than they are comfortable acknowledging. This sends them both into a tizzy, infuriated by what they regard as a direct insult by the show’s producers and writers.

Billo-pediaBill O’Reilly starts off by telling his television audience that Dick Wolf, creator of NBC’s Law and Order, is “a despicable human being,” a “liar” and a “coward.” Seconds later he asserts that he doesn’t “demonize innocent human beings.” Apparently you lose your innocence if you disagree with O’Reilly or say anything unflattering about him. The entirety of his Talking Points rant was devoted to disparaging Wolf and glorifying himself. He even took partial responsibility for security fences on the US/Mexico border. But most of his tantrum made little sense, as usual.

In the course of his tirade, O’Reilly labeled NBC as “Propaganda Central in the USA.” (He must not watch much Fox News). But he undermines his own argument by immediately adding that it has the lowest ratings. How can it be the paragon of propaganda if no one is watching it?

For the record, NBC Entertainment is in fact the lowest rated broadcast entertainment network, but NBC News is the highest rated news broadcaster with four times as many viewers as O’Reilly. And that’s what makes all of this particularly bizarre. O’Reilly can’t seem to differentiate between reality and theater. He thinks that the dialogue of a character in a fictional TV program represents the opinion of the author. He thinks that if John Larroquette’s character says that O’Reilly is a cancer, then it is Wolf who believes that. And that’s as deep as O’Reilly’s comprehension can go.

The problem is that Larroquette is portraying a thoroughly unsavory character. He is not remotely sympathetic. He is, after all, defending a man who murdered innocent children. He is attempting to get his client off on an insanity defense and cast the blame elsewhere – to the talk show host. He is reviled by the show’s main characters and heroes. [SPOILER ALERT] He ultimately demonstrates his own extreme behavior by murdering his client. So the words to which O’Reilly objects were put into the mouth of the most unethical and unlikeable character. How on earth does O’Reilly interpret this as advocacy for those remarks? All of this easily discernible context notwithstanding, O’Reilly was mad as hell and he wasn’t going to take it anymore:

O’Reilly: I mean enough is enough with these network pinheads who shove propaganda down our throats under the guise of entertainment.

Is he referring to Dick Wolf or Roger Ailes? Because it seems to me that it is Fox that is using entertainment to disseminate propaganda. It is Fox that turned journalism on its head by casting loudmouth demagogues and witless beauty pageant rejects as news anchors. It is Fox that decorated their broadcasts with flamboyant graphics, alarmist “alerts,” and noisy soundtracks and gongs to announce even the most trivial events. And it is Fox that still pretends to be a news enterprise, while Law and Order has never presented itself as anything but drama.

Can O’Reilly tell the difference? Maybe his comment above is referring to Glenn Beck, who describes his own program as the “Fusion of Entertainment and Enlightenment.” Wouldn’t that make Beck a “pinhead” shoving “propaganda down our throats under the guise of entertainment?” For his part, Beck also misread the Law and Order segment for all the same reasons O’Reilly did. But Beck took a different tack. Rather than hysterically attacking Wolf and company, Beck launches into a self-serving defense to absolve himself of responsibility for the sort of violence portrayed in the program. He describes himself as “just a dad” and defiantly asks: “Where is the evidence for inciting any violence?”

Beck has the sort of convenient memory that allows one to be a sociopath without any messy recollection of his vile deeds. He forgets that he once fantasized about choking Michael Moore to death with his bare hands:

“I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I’m wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out…”

He forgets his frequent radio bit wherein he mulls over who he would like to beat to death with a shovel:

“I’ve been sitting here for the last few minutes trying to come up with a list of people I want to kill with a shovel. […] How many people have I said let’s kill with a shovel, huh? How many people have I said let’s line ’em up and shoot ’em in the head? I think quite a few.”

I don’t know many dads who articulate these revolting ideas. Beck also forgets the numerous calls for his legion of demented disciples to “fight back” against an enemy that is deliberately trying to attack your family, your values, your faith, and even to destroy your country. Marxists and fascists are taking over Washington. They are indoctrinating your children. They are on your doorstep. Beck insists that this is not a time for compromise or debate. He says that “You don’t compromise on your destruction.” It is an Apocalyptic Gospel that leaves little option for true patriots. They either fight or they, and everything they love, dies. It doesn’t matter if Beck occasionally recites legal disclaimers to refrain from violence. Once you’ve convinced people that the very essence of their existence is threatened, there are going to be those who will conclude that violence is acceptable – even inevitable – as self-defense.

Rush Limbaugh - Riot in DenverBeck speaks in a Da Vinci coded language about things that only he can see to a congregation that is especially vulnerable to a message that only they can hear. Rush Limbaugh is even more direct. In advance of the Democratic National Convention in Denver last year, Limbaugh told his listeners to Screw the world! Riot in Denver!

“I mean, if people say what’s your exit strategery, the dream end of this is that this keeps up to the convention and that we have a replay of Chicago 1968, with burning cars, protests, fires, literal riots, and all of that. That’s the objective here.”

He couldn’t be much clearer than that. Limbaugh has yet to comment on the Law and Order episode that mentioned him and O’Reilly and Beck, but his record of offensive and hostile rhetoric like that above is well documented.

If you take the combined blather of these shoutcasters, it isn’t hard to foresee an outcome not unlike that of the one played out on Law and Order. And perhaps much worse. Yet they will continue to deny any culpability for their irresponsible fear mongering. And they will fire back at any criticism that holds them accountable. Even if it doesn’t make any logical sense, as this incident with Law and Order demonstrates. And even if it contradicts their professed appreciation for the First Amendment, as they seek to silence the creative output of a television dramatist. (Note: O’Reilly’s guest for the discussion on this subject was Laura Ingraham, author of “Shut Up and Sing,” a repulsive assault on free expression that reduces the role of artists to trivialities, ignoring their contributions to society and their potential for insight and inspiration).

But more than anything else, this affair reveals how intellectually vacant these losers are. They are incapable of grasping the meaning of a popular TV cop drama – which is not exactly the pinnacle of human intelligence. They are just angry that someone said something about them that they vaguely regard as adverse. And that’s enough to launch a full scale media war. Because, in the end, all they really want is an issue to blow out of proportion; a hyperbolic fireball of frenzy; a meaningless and dishonest controversy. An excuse to raise their voices, pull out their hair, and drive their viewers into a panic.

Like I said above…Happy Holidays.

p.s. Ice-T has a few words for O’Reilly.

Update: Just one day after all the whining about how liberal Law and Order is, and how it is spewing leftie propaganda, the program aired an episode that told a very different story. This one featured an ACORN-like community organizer whose murdered body was found with the word “FED” scrawled across his chest. However, the conclusion revealed that it was not some right-wing, anti-government, Beckoid who was responsible, but the head of the community organizing group who was attempting to cover up an affair. So having indicted the liberals in this episode, will Beck and O’Reilly and the vast, conservative, Hollywood-bashing, over-reactionaries retract their allegations of bias against producer, Dick Wolf? Don’t bother staying tuned.

Greetings from The War On Christmas

Posted by on December 10, 2009 at 4:57 pm. 9 Comments :

Just when you thought hostilities were subsiding, Fox Nation is escalating the War on Christmas. Their new volley of seasonal aggression kicks off with insinuations questioning President Obama’s sincerity with regard to his faith:

Fox Nation Obama Christmas

So the Obama’s cards don’t mention Christmas. Well, that must mean they are secret Muslim after all. Except for…..Uh oh…..

Click to enlarge:

These are the “Holiday” cards sent out by George and Laura Bush in 2006, 2007, and 2008. None of them mention Christmas either. I wonder what religion the Bush’s belonged to secretly. I’m going to guess it’s the Snake Handlers. That would explain how they could work so closely with people like Cheney and Rove.

The Felons Of Fox News: Glenn Beck’s Blind Spot

Posted by on December 8, 2009 at 7:44 pm. 4 Comments :

For two days now, Glenn Beck has aimed his goofball dementia at what he hopes will be his next Van Jones. Beck is employing all of the same smear tactics that prodded a weak White House into jettisoning Jones even though the circumstances are not remotely similar.

Chief amongst these tactics is calling your target a convicted felon over and over again as if your audience were mentally incapable of grasping a thought without repeated hammering. Well, Beck obviously knows his audience. However, Jones was never a convicted felon (which Beck recently acknowledged after months of lying), and Robert Creamer, Beck’s latest target, can’t be fired because he doesn’t work for the administration.

Robert Creamer is longtime activist and the author “Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win.” He is also married to Democratic representative Jan Schakowsky (whose name Beck thought it would be funny to mock). The double infraction of being a progressive and related to a Democrat was all that was needed for Beck to go bonkers.

On a tip from his pet propagandist, Andrew Breitbart, Beck laid into Creamer for having been convicted of financial charges in connection with a non-profit organization that Creamer ran. As per Beck’s modus operandi, he related a thoroughly dishonest version of Creamer’s past, accusing him of stealing from the group he was heading. In fact, Creamer pleaded guilty to check kiting in an attempt to help his struggling organization to continue providing services. The judge even cited the fact that none of Creamer’s unlawful activities benefited him personally as justification for a lenient sentence. But far be it from Beck to let facts get in the way of a good smear campaign.

Now, this being Glenn Beck, it certainly is not enough to slander and lie about an obscure activist and author. To really make it worthwhile it has to be tied to a global, socialist conspiracy, preferably involving the President. This is where Breitbart comes in with his tip that Creamer had attended an event at the White House. That was all that was necessary for Beck to connect the dots and conclude that Barack Obama is fraternizing with convicted felons (in addition to the radical communists and the terrorists he has been known to pal around with).

Glenn Beck, of course, is pure as the driven snow in this regard. He would never associate with convicted felons. Never mind that he himself is an unconvicted felon, as he has admitted to using copious amounts of drugs. He never got caught, and therein must lie the difference. And he had this to say on the subject of felonious literature:

“Obama – He must read a lot of books, cause I read a lot of books and I don’t usually get to the ones that were written by…uh…felons, that were written in prison.”

That’s too bad, because Beck must therefore not have gotten to books written by Martin Luther King, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, Malcolm X, or Nelson Mandela. He must also have missed the literary musings of people like St. Paul, Mahatma Gandhi, and Jesus Christ, all of whom have suffered incarceration and have either written, or been written about, extensively. These are the sort of people that I’m sure Beck would object to being on a White House guest list.

Here are a few more books Beck must not get around to: Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau, Letters and Papers from Prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Le Morte d’Arthur, by Sir Thomas Malory, Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes, Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan, A Hymn to the Pillory, by Daniel Defoe. It’s safe to assume that Beck is not particularly literate.

So that brings us to the caliber of people for whom Beck does have high regard. People like convicted felon, Oliver North; convicted felon, G. Gordon Liddy, and convicted felon, Mark Fuhrman. All of these folks not only have criminal records but they are also Beck’s colleagues at Fox News. Liddy is the spokesperson for one of Beck’s most frequent advertisers (a gold scam). Other Fox personnel who have had brushes with the law include Judith Miller and Shepard Smith. And I wouldn’t want to leave out prostitute toe-sucking pundit Dick Morris. These are all people with whom Beck has ongoing relationships, not casual encounters at a party. I wonder when he will do a couple of days of programs about any of them.

Beck appears to be obsessed with the prison aspect of this story. Aside from repeating it incessantly for his addle-brained viewers, he now calls the health insurance reform bill being debated in Congress the “Prison Bill,” because it has something to do with the book Creamer wrote, which was allegedly written in prison, and is somehow the basis for the bill, except that that’s not actually true, and…oh…I don’t really have any idea why he calls it that. I’d need more background in clinical psychology to be able to figure out Beck’s labyrinthine thought processes. He probably just liked the sound of it, and thought it would make a good cudgel with which to bash the President. Any deeper analysis of Beck’s psychosis will have to come from a professional. I sure hope he finds one.