Web-based outlets like Salon (7/21/10) and Talking Points Memo (7/21/10) have picked up on the connection—apparently first pointed out by dagblog (7/21/10)—between shooting suspect Byron Williams and Fox News host Glenn Beck. But to judge from a Nexis search, traditional media have ignored the story almost completely. (One exception, found via Facebook: local CBS station KPIX, 7/21/10.)
Arrested in Oakland after he was wounded in a shootout, Williams is said by police to have had both a hefty arsenal and plans to commit mass murder at the ACLU and the Tides Foundation. The latter organization, a group that supports environmental and social justice causes (including, in the past, FAIR), is not exactly a household name—so what would make a Tim McVeigh wannabe fixate on it?
Williams’ mother said he followed TV news and was upset at “the way Congress was railroading through all these left-wing agenda items” (SF Chronicle, 7/19/10). We don’t know what specifically he watched, but his reported obsessions parallel those of Glenn Beck, who gives Tides a prominent position in those conspiracy flowcharts that he routinely presents to his audience as a threat to all that is good.
On his August 12, 2009, radio show, Beck portrayed the group as the force behind archnemesis Van Jones:
The Tides Foundation, they started laying the groundwork on this back during the Reagan administration. They have been assembling an army that we have laughed at and have dismissed as a bunch of community organizers.
Tides became a regular part of Beck’s cast of sinister characters. On one radio broadcast (9/29/09), he described the foundation as being “behind it all…involved in the nasty of the nastiest.”
Perhaps Beck’s most recent attack on Tides came earlier this month, on his July 13 Fox show. Here’s TPM‘s description:
And most recently, on July 13, Beck was railing against the former New Black Panther Party Chairman Dr. Khallid Abdul Muhammad, who he showed in a clip saying: “Why kill the babies? They’re just little innocent blue-eyed babies. (Expletive), they’re going to grow up one day to rule your babies. Kill them now.”
Beck then tied this to Tides, saying that liberal groups “are using failing capitalism to destroy it. They’re using the churches through social justice. The media—do I have to explain that one? This is what progressives and all power-seekers do. They find something vulnerable. They latch on to it. They exploit it for power.”
He added that Tides “infiltrated” the education system, the media, and capitalism during the Reagan administration, but indicated that now that they’re in power, liberal groups will not be able to disavow people like Muhammad: “When they are the ones holding the guns, sometimes it is hard to stop those who said, ‘Yes, we can kill white babies.'”
It’s hard to say whether or not Beck believes that the Tides Foundation is the linchpin of a sinister plot that’s going to lead, if left unchecked, to the extermination of white children. Thanks to his work, though, it’s a good bet that a lot of his most fervent fans believe precisely that.
Beck is dangerous to this country. He is driving some crazy people over the edge.
TIME FOR TRUTH IN MEDIA!!!!
I don’t care what Beck or any of the radical, fear-mongering, hate-filled cult leaders in the so-called news believe – they need to be held accountable! If they cannot support their “beliefs/opinions” with ACTUAL facts they better start keeping their mouths shut. I’d love to see these people fined $1 million out of their pockets for the first “mistruth/lie” while their host network is fined $10 million and then have them BANNED FOR LIFE from ANY type of “media” (tv, cable, radio, newspaper, magazine, internet, etc.) while the network is suspended from broadcasting for one year. If the network gets fined $10 million once more from one of its idiot radicals then that station will be shut down permanently and the investors/backers/CEOs/Execs will no longer be allowed to participate in any way shape or form in any type of media forever.
Perhaps then there will be an honest attempt made at reporting the truth rather than personal agendized fear-mongering, hate-filled rhetoric that’s being played out to the masses.
It’s not just a matter of voting out the old-timers in congress and the senate but focusing on those who are stirring up the masses with LIES, innuendos, false opinions, etc.! People – stop letting them work up your emotions so they can lead you by the nose and make you look stupid – you have brains, please start using them. Stop believing the crap that’s being fed to you and make time to check the facts – there’s no excuse to be a cult-follower just because you are frustrated at the way things are!!!! Work at making them better – believing bullcrap and getting angry for no valid reason is not the way!
Poor Glen…he’s going blind don’t you know, but not to worry, Jesus told him to go wash his eyes in mudd puddle and HE WILL BE CURED!!!!! I’m sure he will tell us all about his miracle as soon as it occurs to him.
Kat Kester: You are preaching to the choir. I’ll be surprised if any of the idiots that believe what Beck says are able to read one complete blog or article in this site. Tell them that in their own sites–if you find one that would pay attention. About the fear mongering and the promotion hatred and violent behavior by this guy, one way is to write FCC, your congress rep, and the president. Also, stop the daydreaming and hoping for things to change just because we think they are wrong. Blip hope; get active!
Beck’s journey the past few years has been interesting. He had gone from total fringe moron, to mainstream moron. My elderly parent’s friends all watch or listen to Beck now on XM, and probably one year ago, didn’t know his name.
But his metamorphosis into conservative icon has been so quick, that I don’t believe he has really hit upon any one thing that is consistent. His style seems to change slightly every month or two. It’s all under the umbrella of “crackpot”, and even this super-patriotic, tri-corner hat wearing has really caught on with the elderly folk, you can almost hear the channels changing away from his show when he becomes “connect the dots”, conspiracy Glenn. When he gets off on tangents where he is just kitchen-sinking unrelated names and events, and expects his medicated audience to keep their attention on him. He ratings have fallen, and he’s going to have to hit some kind of stride rather than just become more and more manic.
Anyway, his shotgun style of throwing out every name and organization and giving every possible scenario and prediction possible allows him to come back later and say, “Oh look, see I was right.” But when some kook gets guns together and heads to take out the Tides foundation and says that he gets all of his information from Glenn Beck, Beck throws up his hands and says, “Hey, I’m not responsible. That guy must be imbalanced.”
If anyone left of the mainstreem does not do their homework and lookup the information themselves. They have no grounds to put Glenn Beck down.Do your own research and decide if you on the left of mainstream are really right in your beliefs. History has shown us the way to control the thinking process of the population and MAINSTREAM media is guiding the people down the road of contol and debt slavery. Thomas Jefferson stated that our republic style of goverment based on small sized federal goverment ,liberty and pursuit of happiness can not be maintained without an informed voting population.
Control the information to the voters and the left-progressive desires will be achieved.Please do your own due diligence before slamming Glenn Beck
Kat Kester: Why don’t you just cut out their tongues along with your other ideas to control free speech? Do you want these penalties to also be applied to the lying politicians,as well the sycophants in the main stream alphabet media with their slanted opinions. (Oh, they never present anything but the unbiased truth, I forgot. Not like Glenn Beck who does a show which is presented as “The Fusion of Entertainment and Enlightenment”.)
Since when does anyone in a free country have to substantiate their ” beliefs/opinions” with facts? This is America not Communist Russia, Nazi Germany, North Korea, or Iran. Is free speech is not an option in your ideal world?
Stop letting them work up your emotions so they can lead you by the nose and make you look stupid by spouting hate-filled rhetoric. (kind of a familiar ring to that, eh?)
Anyone who permits another to determine the quality of his inner life gives into the hands of the other the key to his destiny.
If a man knows precisely what he can do to you, or what epithet he can hurl against you in order to make you lose your temper, your equilibrium, then he can always keep you under subjection.
Howard Thurman
1900-1981
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Americans need to wake up the fact that Beck is simply another opinion pushing charlatan who is a product of mormon cult theology and he mixes this with his personal make up as a dry alcoholic. He does not possess a single ounce of journalistic integrity, has no college degree, has no qualifications and he is definitely not a true conservative. But then, what can anyone expect from someone who can’t find anything filthier than their own personal reflection. Since people like Beck cannot survive on the basis of any personal merits, they survive by puting others down with lies and half truths in order to feel good about themselves. The truth about Beck is that he a dry mormon alcoholic who never got the counseling required for alcholics. He flippantly throws around Christian terms like “God”, “Jesus”,”Holy Spirit” as well as voices of other so called “Spirit Powers” on his radio talk show. Beck is a mormon in active standing with the mormon church and is not a Christian. Mormonism teaches many gods, that the god of the earth was once a man who attained godhood status, there is no trinity, the cross of Christ means nothing and that Jesus Christ and Satan were brothers. Because Beck does not possess a single ounce of journalistic integrity, he is the perfect abortion poster child for Fox Network. The people who love what Beck says are no different than the impressionable sheep who loved every speech made by Adolph Hitler in his early years when he brought Germany into an era of economic prosperity These same sheep also blindly followed Hitler into one of the darkest chapters of world history. Beck and the Fox Network both cater to the same lowest common denominator of demagogery. Beck would not know the first thing about God as he is a mormon. Someone should ask him which of the many mormon gods he kept talking about during his argument with himself on Saturday on the square in DC. Like a typical dry alcoholic, Beck even lied on national television when he spoke about holding a document signed by George Washington. That event never took Place Unfortunately, people who love being led around by the nose do not realize that he is talking about a different god than that of Christianity, Judaism or Islam and that he has been a product of mormonism cultism from the day he started doing a radio talk show as an opinion pusher. You don’t have to have a degree in psychology to see that he exhibits all the signs of a dry alcoholic. The only reason this unstable impressionable idiot fell into mormonism was because the woman he wanted to have sex with a woman who would not do so unless they got first got married and from that point, they joined the mormon cult. Glenn Beck is as big a charlatan as Josephs Smith or the 5th grade graduate (Charles T Russel) who started the Jehovah’s Witness cult.
Your vitriol laced comentary, complete with name calling but lacking substance acusing Beck of uttering falsehoods disqualifies you to stand in judgement of our “hatefullness”. Glen’s portrayal of Van Jones, Cass Sunstein et al normally comes in the form of direct quotes or vedio clips of the Lib. Try a little less elitism and alittle more substance would go alot further in making a point, unless you just want to tear down your fellow Americans.
Beck understands his audience. So he plays to them, interspersed with his lame humor, then gets serious again on “important issues” he goes on about. Right now he last 90% of his audience when he went to the Internet only pay-as-you-go format for his visuals. He and his researchers are very good. And don’t discount that he doesn’t get tons of help from the Kochs and others in the 1% elitist circles.
First he builds a premise–The racist pro-Nazi Progressives if the early years of the 20th century are the same as the Progressives of today. From that he goes to continue to create an alternate look at our history. Where Progressives in both the D and R parties are still active and out there to put us all under the yoke of slavery. They would be some amalgam of Nazi-Communist-Socialist-Anarchist-? in his garbled expostulations of “emotion” to stress his points. Which is that anyone who is Liberal, Progressive (or labeled as such) will be the targets of “patriots” who will use force to “protect their children and the American way” while most of us become slaves or fodder for the crops in mass graves they will need dug with their new version of America. That is the logical undercurrent and outcome of his rantings and those who wrote it for him an support him. He is just one of many saying the same or very similar things all over the internet, TV an radio with books too.
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