David Sirota on Why we Should Thank Glenn Beck for his CPAC Speech

Glenn Beck's rousing keynote address at CPAC last week was filled with his views on American values, American history and how the Conservative movement must move forward.

One of the most interesting and provocative comments that Beck made during his speech was his belief that the progressive movement is a "cancer" to America. Beck also called for its "eradication". Watch:



This tactic is an interesting strategy that moves forward a certain kind of "elminationist rhetoric" as has been described over at Crooks and Liars. This rhetoric doesn't call for a countering of ideas and debate, it labels a movement as a deadly disease that must be fought and wiped out to ensure the survival of the country. Serious stuff.

Author, journalist and radio-host David Sirota says that we should all thank Glenn Beck...seriously:

We owe this talk-show-host-turned-political-leader gratitude for using his televised keynote address to the Conservative Political Action Conference to so frankly outline what the conservative movement has become — and why it repulses so many Americans.

[...]

The lesson was eminently clear, coming in no less than the keynote address to one of America's most important political conventions. Beck taught us that a once-principled conservative movement of reasoned activists has turned into a mob — one that does not engage in civilized battles of ideas. Instead, these torch-carriers, gun-brandishers and tea partiers follow an anti-government terrorist attack by cheering a demagogue's demand for the physical annihilation of those with whom he disagrees — namely anyone, but particularly progressives, who value "community."

No doubt, some conservatives will parse, insisting Beck was only endorsing the "eradication" of progressivism but not of progressives.
These same willful ignoramuses will also likely say that the Nazis' beef was with Judaism but not Jews, and that white supremacists dislike African-American culture but have no problem with black people.

Other conservatives will surely depict Beck's "eradication" line as just the jest of a self-described "rodeo clown" — merely the "fusion of entertainment and enlightenment," as his radio motto intones. But if Beck is half as smart as he incessantly tells listeners he is, then he knows it's no joke.

[...]

Really, the threat isn't even veiled. To understand it, just ponder comparisons. For instance, ask yourself: What is the difference between Beck's decree and that of Rwanda's genocidal leaders in the 1990s? The former broadcasted a call to "eradicate" the "cancer"-like progressives; the latter a call to "exterminate the cockroaches." Likewise, what separates Beck's screed from a bin Laden fatwa? They may employ different ideologies and languages, but both endorse the wholesale elimination of large groups of Americans.

Sirota does bring up an interesting point in questioning just how one is to separate the calls for the eradication of a movement from the eradication of the members of that same movement. Beck is a massive figure in the tea-party and conservative movement and when he continues to rant and rave about progressivism being a disease and that it must be eliminated, it only throws red meat to the base.

Obama to Announce a Spending Freeze

Well I certainly didn't see this one coming. It is being reported tonight that President Obama is set to announce a three-year spending freeze on discretionary spending...except for the military, Department of Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs or the State Department.

My initial reaction was really one of disbelief as this strategy seems like the exact opposite approach that would have the result that the Administration is hoping to achieve. The reactions from some of the more progressive blogs are quite strong:

Paul Rosenberg puts it like this:

Obama has now gone off the deep end. After passing a stimulus that most economists (not just liberal ones) said was too small, and that was made even more inadequate by being heavily tilted toward poor-performing tax-cuts, Obama is now intentionally recreating FDR's mistake of 1937, when he prematurely cut back spending to try to balance the budget, and sent the country into a new recession.

and David Sirota adds:

This is actually worse - way worse - than John McCain's campaign proposal for across-the-board cuts, as across-the-board cuts would have hit the massive and bloated Pentagon budget. Instead, the Obama administration is specifically and exclusively targeting social safety-net spending for a budget freeze (read: cut in real, inflation-adjusted dollars). Yes, cutting social safety-net programs during a recession, while increasing spending on wars, underwriting a no-strings-attached bank bailout and pushing a health care bill that is a massive giveaway to the insurance and drug companies.

Rachel Maddow also had an interesting exchange with Jared Berstein tonight on this topic:

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There will be more on this story later and it will be interesting to see the reaction of not only the Republicans, but the tea-party movement who has complained about the so-called "runaway spending" in Washington.

Populism's Impact

One of the complexities that is interesting right now in America is the populism that exists on both sides of the political spectrum. It can be confusing, can send mixed political signals, and quite frankly can overlap on various issues of interest.

David Sirota has been writing about this issue for quite some time and he appeared on CNN earlier today to discuss this very issue. Granted it is hard to delve into this issue in a 4 minute segment, but I think this clip is worth watching:



I think Sirota is largely right. People are very angry at the system that has created this mess and I think that the alliance of governmental and corporate interests has been and will continue to be a big problem that stands in the way of real reform. People from all political walks are angry by this as well they should be. The Republican Party is trying to frame this populism as simply opposition to this Administration that is currently in power. This has created this weird brand of "GOPopulism" that you see in certain tea-party/Glenn Beck movements. People need to see through this nonsense and actively work to push the Obama Administration toward meaningful reforms and away from caving in to corporate powers.

21st Century Newspeak

Author David Sirota had a good column that was published yesterday on how the corporate media wrongly uses the political spectrum to frame various debates.

Here is a clip:

"War is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength"-more than a quarter century after those oxymorons were supposed to pervade an Orwellian 1984, today's media make such newspeak even more preposterous: On economic issues, we are often told that right is center, center is left, and left is fringe.

For a year, national reporters (with help from conservative talk-radio goons) have depicted the center-right Obama administration and its corporatist policies as quasi-Marxist. We've heard that a government-run public health care option is a "liberal" cause, even as polls confirm that most Americans-not just liberals-support the idea. We're told that legislators backing no-strings-attached bank bailouts are mainstream "centrists," while bailout opponents are extremists-even as public opinion surveys say the opposite.

This is Washington's "fair and balanced" journalism (or "journalism," as it were) and as two of the most respected metro newspapers show this week, its distortions can bleed into local coverage.

You can follow the link above to read the rest of the piece, but I was glad to see this observation made by Sirota. One only needs to look at the health care town hall forums over the summer and the rise of the tea-party movement to see this put into practice.

As I wrote about prior to the election and as has been stated by many like Sirota since, President Obama is a centrist-Democrat. Not a Marxist, not a socialist, but a centrist Democrat and yet the framing of his Presidency would sometimes have you believe that he is on the so-called "far left".

It is quite a frustrating trend to push back against because labels tend to stick with people more than an examination of actual policies. It is right to point out like Sirota did and this trend must continue to be noted when it happens in the future.

TIME Encourages us to 'Thank' Ben Bernanke

Photo courtesy of here.

I understand that TIME picks their "Person of the Year" partly based on who has had the most impact, but look at this subheading from TIME's accompanying article (emphasis mine):

The story of the year was a weak economy that could have been much, much weaker. Thank the man who runs the Federal Reserve, our mild-mannered economic overlord

Thank him? David Sirota sums up my feelings nicely:

Ben Bernanke fell down on the regulatory job in the lead up to the Wall Street meltdown. He acknowledged this in front of Congress. He then tried to clean up his mess by handing his banker friends trillions of our taxpayer dollars. The result of his regulatory failures and then massive bailouts has been a destructive recession, 10 percent unemployment and debt as far as the eye can see.

Sorry, but Bernanke won't be getting a Christmas card from me this year.

Does the "Left" Exist in Today's America?

David Sirota doesn't think so:

What are the signs that there isn't the American Left we've think there is? Obviously, the Emanuel White House shunning movement progressives from its team was a good signal - as was its reflexive firing of the few movement progressives it hired in low level positions (see Van Jones and now Yosi Sergant). The Professional Beltway Left's willingness to be corralled into the veal pen, as Jane Hamsher aptly calls it, is also a big sign that often times "progressive" organizations are all too happy to subvert movement goals for access to the perks and privileges of the D.C. cocktail party circuit. As the Wall Street Journal reported this weekend, the Professional Beltway Left is now being given orders every Tuesday by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina - the same Jim Messina who was chief of staff to Max Baucus when Baucus helped President Bush ram through almost every one of the Republican's signature initiatives (with the exception of Social Security privatization).

But we can't just blame President Emanuel for - rather predictably - being President Emanuel. It goes much deeper than that.

What has prevented an American Left from existing is a deeper "trust" ideology among activists. Maybe it's because we are more optimistic, maybe because we want to see the good in everyone, or maybe it's because we're as innately wimpy as the Right says - but it's clear that progressives are far more willing to "trust" celebrity politicians and others perceived to have Establishment power than pressure or even question those icons. You hear this all the time - in the demands by self-proclaimed liberals for progressives to STFU and "trust" the president; in the inevitable claims that when Democrats betray their progressive promises, they are actually implementing a Super Secret Pony Plan to fulfill those promises; and most prominently, in the silences.