At times it seems, when dealing with the modern conservative movement, as if we’ve entered a gigantic and remorseless mirror funhouse. Or more to the point, a dark and labyrinthine cavern,twisting in an endless maze, whose architecture we can only vaguely discern through upheld torches.
Every now and then, though, someone within the movement hierarchy – often one at the very top – will let slip a bit of the curtain, flashing a little light on the vastness and shape of the metastatic architecture of the conservative movement. When it happens, it can be a little like the scene in Aliens when Ripley’s flamethrower lights up the interior of the lair into which she has wandered.
The mutability of truth is what has made confronting the conservative movement so maze-like – you never know what kind of bizarre argument they’re going to come up with next.
At times they even turn established historical consensus on its head. First we get Ann Coulter penning a defense of McCarthyism in her book Treason; then we get Michelle Malkin justifying the forced incarceration of 122,000 Japanese Americans with In Defense of Internment. What’s next? A text outlining the virtues of fascism? (Calling Michael Ledeen!11)
But the movement not only makes reality a function of the movement’s agenda; its agenda itself can shift rapidly according to the strategic needs of the movement in its acquisition of power. Thus... the conservative movement has come to resemble nothing so genuinely conservative at all but rather something starkly radical: profligate spending; incautious and expansionary wars, pursued unilaterally; the steady dumbing-down of the nation’s education system.
The neo-Confederate-laden GOP no longer has even a passing resemblance to the “party of Lincoln.” Even at the micro-political level, in interpersonal debate, the famous conservative carefulness, politeness and reserve has utterly vanished.
The conservative movement, as such, is an ever-shifting beast. Its drive is power, and as such it has gradually adopted the familiar architecture of another power-mad phenomenon of mass politics: fascism.
Above Quote from : "The Rise of Pseudo Fascism" David Neiwert February 25, 2005
Frank Schaeffer argues that the US federal government and the Department of Justice should treat domestic terrorism as seriously as they do foreign terrorism.
So investigations should be done of various organizations when violent acts are committed. So if a doctor is murdered because he/she performs abortions if there is a link to Operation Rescue or other anti-abortion pro-life groups this should be investigated and if found to be true then actions should be taken in the same way as Muslim charities in the United States are treated if it is suspected that they are helping to fund Islamic terrorist organizations.
So this would mean if a Christian Evangelical group were funding or supporting in some manner or encouraging a domestic terrorist organization or individual domestic terrorist they should be investigated and if found guilty they would need to be shut down.
For instance if one could make the case for seditious and traitorous speech and the use of misinformation and propaganda to aid in the justification of violent actions against the government such an individual or group should be held accountable. So if an individual or group by such means encourages its members or other to commit violent actions that individual or group are at the least morally culpable and if the evidence is substantiated the individual or group is legally accountable and could face charges of sedition and treason .
So if a case could be made that The Fox News Network was engaging not just in anti-government rhetoric but had crossed the line encouraging citizens to take matters into their own hands against the democratically elected government which Fox News told their audience was no longer the legitimate government and must be overthrown in some manner and that the country could not wait to do so or rely on doing so by legal means including elections or impeachment proceedings etc.then Fox News or individuals who are part of Fox News would therefore be culpable both morally and legally.
What in such a situation would be considered as enough evidence to prove such a case. In a free and open society which believes in the importance of a free press the evidence would indeed have to be overwhelming.
Of course if we used the standards of the "Conservative Movement " Fox News itself and the Republican Party ala Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld & the Neocons one could apply their principles of a pre-emptive strike. That is a nation cannot afford to wait til the evidence is that of assassinated members of the government in power or for instance Federal Buildings destroyed by bombs set off by those who take the words of these agitators deadly serious and so act believing as they have been told day after day that such actions would be those of "True Patriots" and "Real Americans"-
We should remember Lee Harvey Oswald thought he was doing what was best for America. In his twisted little world he believed himself to be acting as a "True Patriot" or "Real American" to remove John F. Kennedy who many conservatives at the time believed to be less than a real American who was soft on communism and was in their view interfering in State's Rights and that he was going against America's traditional values (or Southern values) by getting involved in the Civil Rights Movement. Many conservatives in the South believed the "Negro Problem" was theirs to handle whatever way they wished to as they had done over the previous century.The South was still pissed-off that these Yankees had interfered with their use of "rough justice" in the form of "lynchings" .
Now day in and day out Fox News and Talk Radio in the United States preach their hate against minorities, blacks, Hispanics, illegal-immigrants, homosexuals and against anyone whom they label "liberal" or "Socialist" and they continue unrelentingly to call into question the legitimacy of the Obama administration and characterize its policies as being UnAmerican , anti-American and against America's traditional values and as being unconstitutional and has a nefarious evil agenda and therefore must be stopped.
Frank Schaeffer On: Why We Need To Expect Right Wing Domestic Terror (And What to Do About It)
The Obama administration tried to proclaim Fox News not a real news network because it is engaged in promoting & creating anti-government movements such as The tea Party & the 9/12 project Fox News engages in hate speech against the Obama administration claiming it is destroying the nation. Further Fox News distorts the facts,promulgates conspiracy theories depicting the Obama administration as involved in various nefarious schemes; to create a totalitarian state ; as working with other foreign governments to create a New World Order or One world government or making the US,Canada & Mexico into one nation . Fox News also pushes the "Birther Conspiracy " or that Obama in league with various left wing organizations such as ACORN have influenced and embedded themselves in various institutions made the election of Barack Obama possible.
Glenn Beck and others claim that Obama has set up FEMA concentration style camps where those opposed to Obama's policies would be incarcerated.Fox News twists the issue of illegal-immigrants as part of the Obama administration's conspiracy as a means to undermining American civil society and as part of what some conservatives claim is the "browning of America".
Fox News is engaged in revisionists history claiming the economic problems of America which began before Obama came to power in fact is the result of actions by Obama and his "Fellow Travelers".
They have also claimed that Obama is mishandling the War on Terror and has made America more vulnerable to terrorists attacks.
So by the use of distortions , misinformation, lies, half-truths playing on peoples fears and prejudices Fox News is actively engaged in undermining the Obama presidency and its policies to the point where it is incapable of enforcing its policies and becomes a lame duck presidency at the least to make it untenable then replacing it legally by impeachment etc. or having it overthrown by force . If it were replaced by force Fox news and the Conservative movement would not accept any of the blame but rather would blame Obama and his administration for pushing for policies which the American people did not approve of.
Rachel Maddow Why Fox News Isn't News
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
A (Great!) Guest Post From Alternet 8 Reasons Fox Is Not a News Organization By Adele Stan, AlterNet. Posted October 24, 2009.
Even before Barack Obama was elected to the presidency, Rupert Murdoch had declared war on him via the personalities of Fox News Channel, a subsidiary of Murdoch's media conglomerate, News Corp.
Since Obama's election, the cable channel's hosts and paid analysts have launched a full frontal assault on the president, smearing his nominees, calling him a racist and suggesting that his administration was trying to persuade disabled veterans to off themselves.
Now the fearmongers at Fox are crying foul since the president and his aides declared Fox not to be a news organization. Earlier this month, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn called Fox an "arm" of the Republican Party. Obama went even further, suggesting this week that Fox "is operating basically as a talk-radio format," and we know what that means: A format in which the most provocative opinions dominate the discourse and facts are optional.
Yet that's just the tip of the iceberg. Setting Fox apart from the two other cable news networks is its ownership by a corporation whose CEO and major shareholder is a mogul with an ideological agenda -- who operates his News Channel as a propaganda machine for his anti-government cause.
He even has his own community organizer, a fellow named Glenn Beck, who can turn out a mob on a dime at your local town-hall meeting. His big ratings-getter, Bill O'Reilly, is a professional bully, handsomely paid to physically intimidate progressive commentators -- on video -- and to vilify others.
Murdoch's agenda is simple: He's against regulation of any kind. Famous for smashing the unions at his U.K. properties, Murdoch also has a pronounced disdain for labor.
In essence, Murdoch's agenda tracks closely with that of the current GOP, that far-right rump of a party that once claimed to embrace a range of views under the canvas of a big tent. So he uses the Fox airwaves to raise funds for Republican political action committees.
We've seen the Fox News-branded hosts and pundits -- such as Michelle Malkin and John Stossel -- sent out gin up the fearful folk gathered by astroturfing groups funded by corporations that seek to derail government intervention of any kind, whether in the nation's dysfunctional health care system or in its increasingly compromised environment.
Murdoch saves money by farming out the investigative-journalism functions of his alleged news enterprise to Republican Party entities, whose error-laden press releases are passed off as original Fox News research.
and the articles continues:
Why Fox News is not a news operation:
1. Glenn Beck, the community organizer -- No other news operation in memory has ever hired its own community organizer, at least not one tasked with the mission of organizing paranoid people to march through the streets of the nation's capital with signs depicting the president of the United States as a mass murderer.
2. Fox's alliance with the corporate-funded astroturf group Americans for Prosperity -- We've scratched our heads trying to come up with an analogous relationship between a cable news channel and a corporate-funded group that organizes fearful people to disrupt public meetings, but we came up empty.
3. On-air fundraising for Republican PACs -- Fox News personalities encourage viewers to contribute money to, and visit the Web sites of, specific Republican-affiliated political action committees. We can't find a single instance of either CNN or MSNBC doing anything of the kind for Democratic causes.
4. Bill O'Reilly, stalker of those whose opinions he doesn't like -- We exhausted all avenues of research trying to find a news show host at another cable news channel who pays his producer to stalk people whose opinions he or she doesn't like. Came up with bupkus. Nor could we find one who locked the media out of remarks she or he was delivering in acceptance of an award from a nonprofit group.
At the annual conference of the religious-right political group, Family Research Council Action, O'Reilly received an award for his vilification of Dr. George Tiller. Tiller was an abortion provider who was gunned down in his church by a man who obviously took to heart references by O'Reilly and others, "Tiller the baby-killer."
5. Sunday talk-show host who promotes Republican falsehoods -- Once upon a time, Chris Wallace, son of the aforementioned Mike, was a real journalist, just like his dad. Then he joined the Fox team, as host of Fox News Sunday, which airs on the Fox's broadcast network.
6. Fox News anchors, show hosts and pundits parrot GOP press releases, or just make up stuff -- Promoting the notion that their organization is on some sort of Nixonian White House "enemies list," Fox News personalities first trotted out the "enemies list" theme in August, when they suggested that the White House, asking for Americans to send the administration any unsolicited e-mails they received that promoted false information about health care reform legislation, was actually compiling an "enemies list."
7. Fox News hosts urge viewers to join a particular political group -- During the run-up to the big right-wing 9-12/Tea Party march on Washington, Fox News entities and personalities repeatedly flogged viewers to join the Tea Party Express, a bus tour of anti-Obama activists.
8. Glenn Beck, deranged inventor of paranoid conspiracies -- Here's a Beck exclusive you won't hear on any of the other cable news networks: OnStar, the GPS/emergency-alert system available in General Motors cars, is being indirectly funded by the auto-industry bailout so the government can spy on you.
END NOTES
From: Cornell University Law School
2385. Advocating overthrow of Government
Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or
Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or
Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.
If two or more persons conspire to commit any offense named in this section, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.
As used in this section, the terms “organizes” and “organize”, with respect to any society, group, or assembly of persons, include the recruiting of new members, the forming of new units, and the regrouping or expansion of existing clubs, classes, and other units of such society, group, or assembly of persons.
and so it goes,
GORD.
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