Real Time: How Dangerous is the Hate Talk From the Right?
This week thank goodness Bill Maher went back to his regular format of bringing all of the guests in together unlike last week's stinker of a show. Thank you Bill. The panel of Andrew Ross Sorkin, Kerry Washington, Bernie Sanders and Keith Olbermann discussed the hatred and outright craziness that's coming out of the likes of Glenn Beck and others on the right and the danger of whipping up some of the fringe elements of our society with their rhetoric.
Maher: Listening to people like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck these days, I cannot figure out whether these right wingers are more dangerous when they're in power or when they're out of power, because when they're out of power, you know their paranoid, their paranoia goes off the charts. This Glenn Beck guy, I wouldn't even give him the time of day except he's a big star now on Fox and a lot of people believe, and he's talking about FEMA concentration camps.
Olbermann: Yeah...
Maher: He says we are headed toward socialism, totalitarianism...
Olbermann: Yeah...
Maher:...beyond your wildest imagination, but apparently not beyond his wildest imagination.
Washington: Right, right.
Sorkin: Did you see what he said about that? He said I can't prove these FEMA concentration camps, but let me tell you about them anyway.
Washington: Yeah, yeah.
Sorkin: You'd think it would be the opposite.
Olbermann: Can I quote Madeleine Albright?
Maher: Please.
Olbermann: He's nuts.
Maher: You know I would never be the person who says that you have to watch what you say because some borderline nut...no really...I'm not for that. No, no, that's an argument that's given a lot. You can't say this because a borderline might take it and then do this. I'm sorry but that's the price of living in a free speech country and I do want to live in one because I make my living at it. Okay. But you know I must say Tim McVeigh in 1995 if you recall, this was the same kind of talking that made him blow up that building.
Olbermann: The guy who walked into the church in Tennessee said in his statement to the police that he did this because he could not shoot the liberals who were on the lists from Bernie Goldberg, and Bernie Goldberg has proceeded to come out with another list of liberals and this time I'm on the list so this is even more vivid in my mind now. So yeah you're absolutely right about that. I think what you're seeing with, I mean I have been accused occasionally of sort of bordering on Howard Beale. Hey I got nothing on this guy for Howard Beale.
This is, you know in the last major economic crisis of this nation we spewed forth Father Coughlin. Well this is Father Coughlin with a crew cut. This is Father Coughlin on TV. This is, he's, who knows what he's going to say next week because if we can't understand what he's saying now he also has that same threshold. He doesn't know what he's saying now. It just sounds great. It's wonderful. It is a manic depressive high.
They go on to discuss how irresponsible Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes are and just how much of what comes out of their mouths some of these right wing yappers even believe, and how much is them just being willing to sell themselves to the highest bidder.
Beginning with the waiver which Murdoch enjoys in order to have a monopoly on the media, it's time to bust ALL trusts!
The concept of "being too big to fail" as we've heard espoused by neocons of late is absurd and speaks to the heart of the monopoly situation we have in this country right now.
It's FASCISM in it's fullest of definitions! Bush turned the other way while BIG OIL, BIG PHARMA, BIG INSURANCE absorbed all of the small guys in order to feather their nests and peddle their influence.
BUST THE TRUSTS - NOW!
I've already written Pelosi and Holder PLEADING them not to allow more concentration of the media, which is what they want.
Everybody needs to take this seriously. IT IS THE BIGGEST PROBLEM WITH AMERICA RIGHT NOW.
Forget the economy
Forget health care
Forget Afghanistan
Forget every other major problem
With a handful of extremely wealthy white guys controlling what you see and hear, the propaganda will only get worse.
Peddling hatred to the masses IS NOT in keeping with the Patriot Act.
It's time to hold people like Rupert Murdoch totally accountable (as we are Wall Street crooks) for what their "rags" publish. (and they are total rags - not even good enough to use in the woods after defacating).
Begin with the media and hate radio.....and put them on notice that both their owners and the loudmouths espousing violence in the public square will be sent to jail under the Patriot Act.
It's time to use The Patriot Act properly for a change!
the outs are always concerned about what evil the ins are doing or are going to do with their power. Few seem to realize that it's really the "government" that always does the evil.
what you do with Murdoch, but please don't send him back to Australia. We don't want him here.
I prefer to call wrong wingers regressives. They want to regress to a more primitive state because that's all their feeble minds can handle.
It is time to regulate this "free speech" that most civilized countries wouldn't tolerate. You can't yell fire in a crowded theater, same principle applies to those who try to incite violence.
Politics is for the present, but an equation is for eternity. Albert Einstein
Concise and right to the point.
Look at this IDIOCY that a typical one of these pinheads you are referring to wrote at a video at youtube:
"Progressives are bigoted closed minded self righteous bunglers who C ppl as sheep & PROGRESSIVELY force their hateful envy-ideology on others via government "for the greater good"
They impoverish, PROGRESSIVELY, voting away the freedoms, rights, & property of others, readily appointing corrupt "public servants" 2remove by fiat that w they can lay no claim to
Laissez-faire is NOT authoritarian, but it does represent an AUTHORITY no progressive can tolerate. The right of an individual to say No."
AND
"Progressives do this because they do not believe in creation. They do not believe that ultimately, life is fair. That work is rewarded & wickedness & stupidity punished. That life has TRUE purpose, and that creation was designed by a just and merciful God"
"Conservatism", like hate and bigotry, UNLIKE liberal ideology, is taught;
the people that believe half of this NONSENSE heard it on Faux Noize and Rush Limpdick - they don't just wake up and believe this shit as an ORIGINAL IDEA.
liberal progressive = COMMON SENSE
They love to say that it is LIBERALS who are indoctrinated, but I think that is just STRAIGHT UP BULLSHIT. You can be a liberal without being taught ANYTHING, if you are simply and genuinely are an UNselfish person.
Discuss!
(I'm not the most articulate person in the world - maybe someone else an say what I was trying to better!)
But he should keep in mind that his network does similar to some degree in the likes of Joe Scarborough and sister network CNBC alot of these people are in it for ratings and book sales, they are no more but tools and corporate whores
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Bill Maher 'wins' an 'award' from the 'Media Research Center', for statments made against Palin. (translation) not being Nazi enough for them.
http://www.mediaresearch.org/notablequotables...
BillO the Clown always bashes Media Matters, calling it a far left wing hate organization. If BillO is so "fair and balanced," I really wonder why he never bashes MRC, a far right wing hate organization? In fact, he's had Brent Bozo Bozell on his program a number of times.
I'm sure Bill Maher is quite proud of the "award"...in fact, I think he said something about it on Friday night's show. Maybe he'll win another award next year because of his baby Tripp piece!
I also liked it when Madeleine Albright used the word "nuts" to describe 2 or 3 world leaders, including Ahmadinijad and Bush, Jr.!
in shaping peoples perceptions of "reality".
I agree with Keith that Bernie "Bitch-Slapped by Al Franken" Goldberg needs to stop making lists.
Thankfully, I don't know who was on the original 100 list that incited that crazy guy to kill two people in a Unitarian church - except that Franken was #37 ("Hey, Bernie, try not to s*** any d*** on the way through the parking lot!").
However, I think we all know who's on the Billo-Bernie list of "top five influential - and irrelevant - liberals in the media" that MSNBC (i.e. Keith) is on the top of. Keith had way too much fun with that list.
I'm shocked that Bill Maher wasn't on the B-B list with all of his criticism of religion.
I think you can find the original list on AmIAnnoying.com. I much prefer Jack Huberman's book - 101 People Who are Really Screwing America.
By the way, I just checked out that website. Apparently, Michael Moore = MSNBC (read: Keith).
Also, I see that Bill Moyers - who bitch-slapped Billo's guy at last year's NCMR - is on both lists (34 on the original, and 4 on the new one), as is Markos Moulitsas (52 and 3, respectively). The highest-rated NY Times (2 on Billo's list) personality on the original list is Paul Krugman (8 on Bernie's list).
I think Keith ought to make his own list of the top 10, or however many, most annoying, hypocritical, hateful, right wing wackos out there. I don't know where to begin, and the number has got to be more than 10, but surely the following must be on that list: Goldberg (both of them...Bernie and Jonah), Hannity, Limbaugh, Beck, Coulter, Malkin, BillO, Brent Bozell and everyone else at that MRC dinner, oh, I could go on and on and on.....should I include politicians as well???
This is largely based on who frequents the Worst Persons list:
1. Billo (of course)
2. Comedian Rush Limbaugh
3. Coultergeist
4. The Manatee (Hannity - a reference to John Cleese's Hannity poem)
5. Glenn Beck
6. Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minnesota)
7. Bozo the Clown
8. K. Rupert Murdoch and his "fat ass" lackey Roger Ailes
9. Wal-Mart executives (you'll recall that they got the bronze every day for a stretch of time last year for suing a former employee, who was seriously injured in a car accident, to get their insurance money back)
10. Anybody from the Bush administration
Honorable mentions: certain Republican congressmen and senators, cheapo taxi passengers, a local gas station for firing an employee who got robbed, Chuck Knoblauch (who famously hit Keith's mom in the head with an errant throw) and Billy Crystal ("You struck out against Paul Maholm!").
Bachmann was at the top of the list. She is such a lying right wing wacko....people like her are really screwing up this country!
She's a product of Oral Roberts University - not only my alma mater's (that would be UMKC) biggest basketball rival, but also a factory of religious right-wing nutjobs (oh, and Kathie Lee Gifford).
I remember the first time I heard of her....she had just been elected to the House, and at Bushie's State of the Union Address, she just fawned all over him, giving him a kiss or two and asking for autographs on her program.
What a whack job she is!
Add another digit to that 10. Way to many that fit the category.
Olberman says some news people are just salesmen. True, maybe. They might just be 'salesmen' but they should be held accountable for what they are selling. Aren't there penalties for selling defective products? Well, there were laws before the lawless Bush Administration.
I think he was suggesting-- and I would certainly agree-- that the salesmen are even *worse* than the authentic nuts. These are people with absolutely no regard for facts and no sense of responsibility. They'll just say whatever makes them the most money.
On the flip side it's somewhat comforting to know that when the borderlines realise how they've been played by the likes of Rush and Beck that Rush and Beck will be their new targets.
And the next crap-rotate-threat to challenge are Rupert and clear channel.
But lets not forget the first amendment, it seems to work well, when not challenged by the right wing, so perhaps we all should remember not to attack it from the other side. In fact, we should all savor the first amendment, as we will hear shit from the other side doing the old projection routine.
Remember the first amendment will make Government allow free speech, but may not make BAD ACTORS as the right wing likes to say. clean up their act.
I still want to see the RePUGlicon party leaping off the cliffs as lemmings might, Let them and Rupert run their mouths, by the way comedians love it.
Faux Noise and Flush Meatbaugh are attempting to incite their listeners to riot.
Their hate speech is antithetical to the goals of the Communications Act of 1934.
Check out the FCC website:
http://www.fcc.gov/
Contact the FCC and register your complaint about hate speech on public airwaves.
fccinfo@fcc.gov
'Talk to the hand'
What I found MOST disgusting was when Olbermann pointed out that some research had been done about these "reporters" on Faux Noize and it turned out that THEY THEMSELVES didn't even believe the shit they spewed - that they KNEW they were LYING - that if they were offered more money to become a liberal pundit they would do it in a nanosecond.
That's just fucking disgusting - that you would DELIBERATELY misinform a percentage of our society for personal gain - thus steering our country right off a cliff.
Olbermann ALSO SAID that Hannity came up to him and said "Isn't it funny how people think you and I hate each other? Don't they know that this is just TV?" Olbermann's reaction was to just cringe and shiver.
THIS IS NOT A FUCKING GAME PEOPLE.
We know this - but "conservative" FILTH DON'T.
about all that much of the poorly-educated 'Murkins have to eat these days.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
To Hannity this is just color wars at summer camp -- arbitrarily divide everybody into two groups, stoke tribal hatreds, have tug-o-wars and pie-eating contests, crown a champion at the end of the week... then everyone's supposed to sit together by the campfire and sing "Kumbaya."
I don't blame Bernie Goldberg's book for the Tennessee church shootings (any more than I blame "Catcher in the Rye" for Mark David Chapman and John Hinckley), but it's unspeakable that just weeks later, here he is on TV with little lists of people to hate. This isn't cute anymore.
My sweet, young naive lady--FUCK YES they take it seriously!!
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
but the main stinker was that pompous brietbart azz...
whoever thought THAT would be a good show?
In a footnote to Justice Brennan's opinion of the Supreme Court in: A Book Named "John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure," v. Attorney General of Massachusetts (1966), he cited the cases of Heinrich Pommerenke in Germany and John George Haigh of England. Supposedly they went on their rape and murder sprees inspired by movies like Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments, and images of Christ bleeding on the cross, forming a blood fetishism.
In both these cases it failed, Pommerenke was beheaded by sword, the last on in Germany, strangely appropriate for a self-professed vampire, and Haigh was hanged.
However, the point was one never knows what will set off an unbalanced mind, and one should err on the greater freedom of speech and expression.
However, I think this sort of discourse like on FAUX news is as culture polluting as Simon Cowell and reality TV shows. It certainly inspires large-scale cynicism.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
The guy reminds me of Malcolm X because he's simply truthful to power and has the gift of making things so easy to understand.
Is this the general reaction of conservatives on the news that Obama was elected?
(4:08 point)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e_gkuvzm1c&fe...
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
If the comments on this thread are any indication of the kitchen table conversations at home, your children are already being taught to hate. But its OK if its against Conservatives and Christians right?
Your tu quoque is insubstantial.
This is a personal website, not national TV programs.
I'm sure you're already teaching your kids to hate, presumably the same groups these fascist "pundits" target.
The irony is these conservative hate shows target the "hateful leftist blogs", and the "liberal" MSM picks up on the tangents.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
I'm not going to excuse what Fox "News" does but you are clearly missing the irony here...
So many people that proclaim they are members of the "R" team or "D" team will just react to something instead of thinking and then responding. That is what they've been programmed to do. To see the irony, you'll will need to override your programming.
Is that why you missed the irony I pointed out?
Do you even know what irony means?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
he's a member of the tribe of folks who still think irony is "like raaaaain on your wedding day." ;)
I've never seen change without a fire
He doesn't realize that talking one way to your boss, one way to your granny, and one way with your kids is not irony, but common sense.
And the hate level we're responding to: flat out lies about dystopian views like socialistic government, Federal Detention camps, bad mouthing Canadian troops as in a seperate thread, targeting children of politicians or those with opposing views, stalking them outside their homes, coming within an iota of directly threatening their lives and security, trying to rewrite both history and the dictionary with FDR's "failure" during the Depression or "liberal fascism," o'rielly calling for the Coit tower to be bombed or almost anything else he, coulter or limbaugh says.
That's not simply not excusing them, but actually defending them by saying everyone does the same, which is not the case.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
And your first sentence here is exactly what I was thinking. Most people who comment here regularly would not repeat these things directly to their children anyway.
He's got a false equivalency here for sure.
I've never seen change without a fire
In my life it's PERFECTLY OK to hate people who hate and be intolerant of people who are intolerant.
It's a cause and effect thing - you're probably too stupid to understand.
...to use their brains.
To understand the difference between NEWS and PROPAGANDA.
To not accept everything you see or hear as truth.
To examine the motivations and agendas behind the people who are giving us their opinions.
I would never teach my kids to hate. The reason you hear such anger here is because of the deception the wealthy and powerful media owners are making money from, while propagandising to audiences of millions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKjMSmNkBEs&fe...
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
When I really think about, Olbermann does have a great description of Beck with the manic depression... Beck does remind me of someone who has been awake nonstop for days with the voices in his dead and no signs of slowing down...
*not* that I'm saying that Beck is indeed bipolar, for all we know he might be giving an Razzie worthy performance, only that the behavior he's showing is very reminiscent of it!
I've never seen change without a fire
Beck is obviously not playing with a full deck.
It is totally irresponsible for FOX to have him on the air.
I fear that his maniac ranting and fear mongering is going to get someone hurt. If, god forbid, this does happen, I want it to come back and bite FOX on the ass real hard. If FOX lets maniacs incite violence and it does happen, then FOX should be held 100% responsible.
Or are we seeing a rash of stock conservative characters lately showing up just to tell us how they're being victimized?
The neo-Confederate being victimized by minorities, conservative Christians being victimized by people who consider right-wing pundits to be, if not unbiblical, then simply a hateful people with the track record of inciting murder, etc.?
It would be amusing if it wasn't so gosh darned pitiful...
I've never seen change without a fire
I am continually bombarded with hate mail against President Obama. I'm sure this is coming from the religious right wing of the Republican Party. I have this to say to those unanimous people; You made a big stinking mess in this country. A war that was not needed wich has cost over a trillion dollars etc. The system you have created finally collapsed on its own rotteness and now you are trying to stand in the way of those people who are trying to fix this mess. You lost the election wich means the People of this great country have spoken. Now, either start helping or get your fat asses out of the way. We don't need your garbage and reasonable thinking people can see trough your evil intentions to divide this country. I will use one of your own slogans; "love it or Leave it"
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