"They are goading people into feeling like their country has been stolen from them," says FAIR's Peter Hart of Glenn Beck and other right-wing media personalities with what he terms a "conspiratorial worldview." It's not just using violent metaphors, in other words, it's creating a paranoid mindset that something dangerous is happening to the U.S. that can appeal to those already inclined toward paranoid thinking, like Jared Loughner.
Peter joins us in studio to discuss the media narratives of the last few days following the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and others in Tuscon this week, from the fantasies of Glenn Beck to the mainstream idea that the left somehow has an equivalent to Beck and Limbaugh.
The term "McCarthyism" has been tossed around a lot lately, with the Right's refrain of "socialism!" and "Marxism!" at every move Obama makes. But McCarthyism had very real victims back in the 1950s, and Miriam Moskowitz was one of those victims. She served two years in federal prison for Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice after being investigated along with Harry Gold, whose testimony was later used to convict Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.
GRITtv's Danya Abt and cinematographer Zac Halberd visited Moskowitz, now in her 90s, and discussed her story and her new book, Phantom Spies, Phantom Justice - Or How I Survived McCarthyism.
We've reported this week on how little has changed since the Haiti earthquake one year ago today. The cholera epidemic is on the rise, a million people are living in tent cities and the Haitian government is in complete paralysis. We continue to follow the situation in Haiti, but how about a little positive news?
We have a clip from the new film Haiti's Heroes, created by Haiti's only film school, Ciné Institute.
Finally, a lot of people have talked this week about violent political rhetoric bringing the U.S. to a fever pitch, but there's something else keeping people on edge: that's economic catastrophe and despair. Laura wonders when we're going to talk about the destructive effects of having nothing.
“He’s not watching Fox apparently…” You aren’t looking for rationale? are you? From Bill O’Reilly?
He’s got a propaganda mission to take a part of the electorate to the right on the basis of fear mongering, scapegoating, and hopefully (for them) inciting a little random violence from some nutcases!
That will scare some more progressives into taking their political views off Twitter and Facebook and shutting them up!
It will also show some elected Pols how we can make them dance! And they’d better. Or they will be targeted next! Look what we did to ACORN, Sherrod, and now…
Shows some real insight into why Barack Obama appointed Gates as Secretary of Defense, and everything that’s transpired since!
I don’t know why you’re analyzing what they’re saying on the right, or Loughner they’ve created without any fingerprints, instead of how they get away with saying and doing this stuff using FCC licenses and regulated cable monopoly franchises, and what can be done about it in an putative democracy!
By planckbrandt on January 13th, 2011 at 3:23 pm