Day: 11/30/2010

Fox Nation And The Right-Wing Embrace Of Censorship

Posted by on November 30, 2010 at 2:50 pm. NO Comments :

The release of some 250,000 documents by WikiLeaks has stirred up a hornets nest of protest from the rightist martinets of virtue. There have been calls to shut down the WikiLeaks web site, to arrest its principals, and even to execute those responsible for treason. But what it all amounts to in the end is that the right-wing extremists just simply abhor a free press.

The Fox Nation has been consumed with the issue, promoting it beyond all other news items. The economy, jobs, Iraq, Afghanistan, tax cuts, etc., have all taken a back seat to WikiLeaks. As of this writing the front page of the Fox Nation has six separate articles on this subject.


It is impossible to ignore the fact that in their haste to criticize the WikiLeaks document dump, the Fox Nationalists frame their criticism in a barrage of animus directed at President Obama. The whole thing is somehow his fault. What’s more, they condemn his response to it as “incompetent” and “gutless.” Sarah Palin and Bill O’Reilly are “livid” – and Lord knows we can’t have that.

But here’s the thing: If Obama had taken a hardball approach to this, cutting off access to the WikiLeaks web site and arresting those involved, the reaction from the right would be to assail him as a tyrant intent on imposing censorship on independent media. They would be shocked that an American president would assert such unprecedented control over a private enterprise. It would be portrayed as fascist or Stalinist oppression (take your pick). So either way, the right would engage in a fevered bashing of the President. It’s what they do.

Since the President has accommodated the right by taking a measured approach to ascertain the facts and proceed with due diligence, the right is free to wail about such imaginary violations as treason. But what they are really condemning is freedom of thought and expression. And it isn’t the first time. During the Bush administration a Republican congress voted to condemn the New York Times for publishing a story that revealed the government’s unlawful spying into the banking activities of American citizens. If Obama’s administration were to propose such an intrusion he would be castigated as a dictator bent on destroying America (again).

Make no mistake, the WikiLeaks affair is being used as a cudgel with which to hammer the President. But it is also being used as en excuse to censor independent sources of information and to intimidate anyone who entertains the notion of revealing to the American people what is being done by government in their name. It doesn’t matter if it’s an obscure, off-shore web site or the New York Times. The right is intent on suppressing free expression. They prove it again and again.

UNHINGED: Glenn Beck Thinks Government Wants To Starve You

Posted by on November 30, 2010 at 9:57 am. 7 Comments :

Glenn Beck UnhingedIn a rant that raises Glenn Beck’s delusional factor to unprecedented heights, he is now accusing the United States government of seeking to control the people via food safety programs with an ultimate goal of deliberate starvation. If you think that is hyperbole, here are his exact words: “This is about control and, in the end, starvation.”

This hallucinatory screed was spurred by a Senate bill (S.510) that would give the FDA additional authority to address food safety matters. The bill has received bipartisan support in response to the numerous cases of food recalls the past year (peanut butter, spinach, cookie dough, etc.) due to pathogens like E.coli and salmonella that have sickened thousands of Americans and led to dozens of deaths. Beck shrugs this off by asking “Is there a big problem that I don’t know of?”

No Glenn, there isn’t. You DO know, you’re just lying about it. [FYI (pdf): Each year, about 76 million people contract a food-borne illness in the United States; about 325,000 require hospitalization; and about 5,000 die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] And that’s not all you’re lying about.

Beck: Do you know where the FDA’s Deputy commissioner for foods used to work? Just a wild coincidence. The Monsanto company. And guess who the second largest holder was, you know, last quarter, the shares of the Monsanto corporation…George Soros.

Not true. George Soros is not now, and has never been, the second largest holder of Monsanto stock. He has never even been in the top ten. His fund does own approximately $312 million worth of Monsanto stock, which is less than 7% of the $5 billion fund.

As for the FDA official whom Beck didn’t bother to name, it is Michael Taylor, who did indeed work for Monsanto for three years – ten years ago! For the 35 years before and after that he worked for either the FDA or Department of Agriculture. He was also a professor at George Washington University. It appears he took a short break from government service to cash in as a lobbyist. I won’t defend that but, the bottom line is that, whatever his association with Monsanto, it wasn’t recent enough to reasonably assert that he is still lobbying on their behalf.

On a side note, it’s interesting that Beck should take such an antagonistic tone toward Monsanto when his employer engaged in a notorious and unusual defense of the company a while back. In 1997, a couple of local Fox reporters, Steve Wilson and Jane Akre, produced a story on rBGH, a synthetic growth hormone developed by Monsanto that boosts milk production and is associated with an increased risk of cancer. After a letter writing campaign by Monsanto to Roger Ailes, the head of Fox News, disputing the story and hinting at a lawsuit, the story was shelved and the reporters were fired, despite all the evidence that the story was accurate.

In subsequent litigation Fox argued that under the First Amendment broadcasters have the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on public airwaves. Fox has since taken full advantage of that right by lying and distorting the news every single day. And their lead distorter is, of course, Glenn Beck.

[This Just In:] Despite Beck’s urging that his viewers call Congress and protest, the Senate overwhelmingly passed the Food Safety Act 73-25, including 15 Republican votes. That still means that a majority of the GOP voted against the bill, but it is more bipartisanship than has been seen in the past two years.