Demonizing America - Part I: RECENT UPDATES TELL THE STORY

How they demonize. 

Who they demonize. 

Why they demonize. 

- A Four-Part Series

As a rule I define Christof***cists as existing in two groups: the Elmer Gantrys (Rick Warren, Pat Robertson, Creflo Dollar, Rod Parsley, etc.) who are snake oil salesmen in love with their own snake oil; and, the Elmer Fudds, the gullible and unwitting followers of the Gantrys, but no less dangerous since Fudd's the one with the gun.

                                                      - The Elephant In The Room, OpEdNews, 02/06/09


wikipedia:

In colloquial usage, the term demonization is used metaphorically to refer to propaganda or moral panic directed against any individual or group.

We've seen the results: America is becoming a nation of the bullies and the bullied. For Religious Right groups and media personalities, for gubernatorial candidates and city councils, demonizing rhetoric is the weapon of choice to harass, discriminate, degrade and (sometimes) kill the people they think are a drain on their society. And although the recent spate of teen suicides in the country seems limited to issues of sexual orientation, demonization has seeped into the public consciousness and spilled over into issues of politics, race, immigration and class struggles. The "bully pulpit" has become firmly entrenched in our American psyche and it shows no evidence of abating. In fact, it's escalating. 

In the last year, we saw a new symptom of demonizing become part of our legal lexicon: righteous assassination. The term applies mostly to people who perceive someone's "immorality" to be evil and detrimental to the rest of the country. Byron Williams, the would-be terrorist against the ACLU and the Tides Foundation was about to commit "righteous assassination" when he was stopped on California's Interstate 80 outside of Oakland, CA. He mentioned inspiration from FOX-News and Glenn Beck (read the UPDATE below). And before that incident, we were horrified at a shooting at a Unitarian Church in Knoxville, TN because the accused "targeted the congregation out of hatred for its liberal social policies." 

Demonization works.

Tony Perkins and his Family Research Council have been very busy juggling demonizations of President Obama, DADT, the "gay agenda," health care reform, everyone "liberal," "activist judges" and, well, the list goes on and on; so it might seem that FRC is the only organization doing the demonizing. WRONG. It only seems that way, because the FRC has been quicker and more vocal. The other demonizers are still out there in full force, taking notes from Perkins. Case in point: what Perkins and the FRC did in the last 24 hours shows its dedication to A-1 demonizing:

DADT UPDATE:

The ruling by a Federal district judge that the policy of DADT in the military is unconstitutional has garnered quick response from RR bullies across the country.From the FRC:

Once again, homosexual activists have found a judicial activist who will aid in the advancement of their agenda.

"Homosexual activist", "judicial activist", "agenda." These are demonizing buzz-words coined by Mr. Perkins himself. They may not seem as powerful as other words, but one must realize that Perkins has been using these words in the context of "destruction" of family values, "destroying" America and "demoralizing" lovers of liberty. And Perkins has used "agenda" ever since he produced his pseudo-documentary "The Gay Agenda" in 1996. This putrid piece of anti-gay propaganda is still making the rounds of churches, proving that demonization can be profitable.

And Perkins' demonizing buzz-words will be aped by people like Bryan Fischer and Pat Robertson (the judge, of course, signed a pact with the devil).

Teen Suicide UPDATE:

Another gay teen-related suicide occurred in Norman, OK. This one apparently as a result of a city council meeting where anti-gay sentiments were strongly voiced. Zach Harrington, 19, committed suicide one week after he attended a Norman City Council meeting during which residents of Norman expressed displeasure at having Norman declare October as LGBT History Month.

Tulsa World:

[Van Harrington] feels his son may have glimpsed a hard reality at the Sept. 28 council meeting, a place where the same sentiments that quietly tormented him in high school were being shouted out and applauded by adults the same age as his own parents... Some members of the audience even suggested that any council members voting in favor of the proclamation may have trouble getting re-elected.

Sometimes the demonizers turn the tables and re-demonize: Tony Perkins recently reacted to the stories of gay teen suicides by relaying faulty and erroneous statistics showing that gays have greater mental health problems than heterosexuals in a WaPo op-ed piece:

[H]omosexual activist groups like GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network) are exploiting these tragedies to push their agenda of demanding not only tolerance of homosexual individuals, but active affirmation of homosexual conduct and their efforts to redefine the family. There is an abundance of evidence that homosexuals experience higher rates of mental health problems in general, including depression. However, there is no empirical evidence to link this with society's general disapproval of homosexual conduct.

But there is evidence: Tony Perkins and all his minions have been busy demonizing homosexuals so much it's amazing that we don't have more teen suicides than we do. (NOTE: the latest suicides are only a part of the larger picture - teen suicide rates have been rising for years).

And his tactics are just as nefarious: the sources he cites have been critical  about Family Research Council's free-handed jumbling of their research and statistics.

FLORIDA GAY ADOPTION BAN UPDATE:

Even though it has been only three hours into this writing, you KNOW that demonizing will take place concerning the latest news: (read Pam's House Blend for the full story)

“Florida has today done grave harm to the well-being of vulnerable children who will be raised in homes with role models who cannot provide them with the true vision of what family life should be,” Matt Sprigg, Family Research Council

That was FRC's last demonizing response to repealing the ban. 

Of course, we have yet to hear what the Perkins cabal has to say about the Washington Post's interview with domestic terrorist Byron Williams:

Glenn Beck UPDATE: 10/12/10 - 11:40 AM ET

Glenn Beck's nemesis, Media Matters, has just released an in-depth interview with Byron Williams, the man who engaged in a shootout with police on California's I-80 Interstate in Oakland when it was discovered that he intended to kill people at the ACLU and Tides Foundation in San Francisco. Previously, in an Oct. 6th interview, Williams stated that Glenn Beck did not coax him to violence, but the just-released audio interviews reveal the extent Beck had indeed demonized the Tides Foundation and the ACLU. Columnist Dana Millbank, writing for the Washington Post conducted the interviews:

Examiner. Com:

The columnist calls Beck an “enabler” and says the FOX host is dangerous because  “his is the one voice in the mass media that validates conspiracy theories held by the unstable.” 

Byron Williams was the perfect example of an Elmer Fudd. He was someone willing to do whatever the RR bullies and Glenn Beck wanted him to do: act on their rhetoric without being directly implicated.

Up next: The long history of demonizing.

The Disprince of Tides: Did Glenn Beck Almost Cause A Righteous Assassination?

 

For I was drench'd with ooze, and torn with briers, . . . And, all one rag, disprinced from head to heel. --Tennyson.

Yes, Tennyson's "disprinced" can certainly be taken as a metaphor for Glenn Beck in all his glory, so the pun was definitely intended by me. It's ironic, though, that Pat Conroy's novel, The Prince of Tides, also deals with dysfunctional people. The Sunday July 18th shoot-out on California's Interstate 580 showed just how much of an effect Glenn Beck has had on those who cannot cope with life.

Byron Williams of Groveland, CA was a convicted felon on parole who lived with his mother far from town. His mother, Janice, was a woman who kept a large stash of high-powered weapons because she thought  

(SF Weekly)that armed resistance against our government was inevitable -- but Williams allegedly made off with the stash because he felt that time was now.

Williams had been out of a job for two years since he was released from prison and felt ostracized from everyone - even by his own church. His mother repeatedly told the media that he had railed against

"the way Congress was railroading through all these left-wing agenda items." And that he would sometimes scream at the TV because he watched a lot of news programs.

After he left his mother's house, a scene on California's I-580 near Oakland unfolded as it would have in any B-movie: CHP officers noticed the white Toyota pickup speeding erratically down the highway, followed and signalled for the driver to pull over. Williams, armed with a small arsenal and wearing body armor, ,proceeded to shoot at the officers. Eighteen minutes, 60 rounds, ten officers, and three serious bullet wounds later (a total of six rounds were fired into the body armor), Williams was subdued and taken to the hospital where he was reported in stable condition. 

News10 ABC - Groveland, CA:

"He's ruined his life because now he is going back to prison and he's ruined mine because he is my only son," [Janice] Williams said.

The Righteous Assassination Defense

There were two targets that Byron Williams had in mind when he said that he wanted to "cause a revolution": the ACLU and the Tides Foundation. The ACLU, of course, is widely known and is one of the "demon-spawns" of the Right wingnuts everywhere. The Tides Foundation, however, is less notable and has not been focused upon by the mainstream media.

Except Glenn Beck.

wikipedia:

Several political observers have suggested that recent Fox News coverage of the Tides foundation may have provided some of the motive for the attacks. In particular, Glenn Beck mentioned the Tides Foundation in 29 separate episodes of his show, referring to it as "a socialist conspiracy" which was "assembling an army." Other pundits observed that, aside from holding similar political views, there was no evidence that the shooter was acting as a result of watching Beck's show.

But let's tally things up: Fox News targeted the Tides Foundation 31 times since 2009: twice by Sean Hannity and 29 times by Beck. No other news channel carried anything about the Tides Foundation. Even Beck said that "nobody knew about the Tides Foundation" until he started mentioning it on his programs - both TV and radio. 

It may be time for the righteous assassination defense to kick in.

"The deluge of 'Tiller is a Nazi, mass murderer, baby killer' verbiage by Mr. O'Reilly surely can drive one into a state of what we in the legal profession call 'righteous assassination.'" 

In a variation of the "twinky defense" (taken by Dan White, the San Francisco supervisor who shot and killed both Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone), "righteous assassination" is a defense that claims the defendant was so inundated with a particular ideology that he had very little will to halt his actions. The portrayal of Dr. Tiller by Bill O'Reilly as "Tiller the baby killer" made national headlines simply because Scott Roederer's defense team focused on that particular kind of media coverage and made it part of his motivation.

The Tides Foundation

Described by police as "heavily armed," and equipped with body armor, a rifle, a handgun, and a shotgun, Williams told relatives that he aimed to "start a revolution" by destroying the left-wing Tides Foundation, which he believed was "a socialist conspiracy."on.

A look at the Tides Foundation, doesn't reveal anything remotely sinister. It supports:

• Apollo Alliance
• Center for Genetics and Society
• Citizendium Foundation
• Traction
• Women, Food and Agriculture Network

The one which Beck has taken particular umbrage with is the Apollo Alliance which helps environmental efforts and was instrumental in passage of the economic recovery bill. Whatever links to socialism it might have would be a bit of a stretch to guess.

Then there's The Story of Stuff, a rather predictable polemic, intended to teach children where all the things that big business and advertising hawk (and we buy) wind up - polluting the earth. 

Libertarian and politically conservative critics have described the documentary as misleading and politically liberal; one Montana school board opposed the screening of the film in a biology classroom in a 4–3 vote. The subsequent public outcry against this decision led to a rewrite of the school board's policy and an award for the teacher who screened the film.

Glenn Beck, host of the Glenn Beck TV program, characterized the video as an "anti-capitalist tale that unfortunately has virtually no facts correct."

The video has been seen by over 7 million people in 228 countries since 2009. All the facts cited can be viewed here and the original annotated script (with references) can be read here. Yes, it can be seen as an anti-capitalist viewpoint, but it does explicitly get to the heart of the matter: what the average person can do to eliminate all that waste. 

So, from a school video about waste production and a program to that helps environmental groups, Glenn Beck has formed an immutable opinion that the Tides Foundation is part of a radical "socialist" agenda and is in a nasty conspiracy to take away our freedoms. How he came up with the statement that the Foundation is amassing an army, I suppose we'll never know.

from Media Matters:

[Beck] We've also seen it in the classroom. We've shown it to you night after night, kids are being taught to sing about how Obama is wonderful and how everyone is equal in his sight. Kids are being taught that capitalism is evil and flawed through "The Story of Stuff." It's a video made by the George Soros-funded Tides Foundation.

From TPM:

On his radio show on September 24, 2009, Beck elaborated: "The President sees these groups as the vehicle to achieve his goals, because the Founders didn't address redistribution of wealth in the Constitution." But Tides, Beck said, is "behind it all," and "while they do legitimate things, they are also involved in the nasty of the nastiest."

29 episodes denegrating the Tides Foundation. Virtually no mention of the Tides Foundation in other media. One unemployed man on parole living in a fairly remote area with his mother. A mother who keeps a small arsenal of guns and ammunition, believing in a future call-to-arms. The man puts on body armor and subsequently arms himself. The man's targets are the ACLU and the little-known Tides Foundation.

Looks like righteous assassination to me.