[Peace-discuss] Fw: CNN Clip: Obama Backs Down to Threats From Political Terrorist Glenn Beck & His Lynch Mob

[unionyes]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Sirota" <ds at davidsirota.com>
To: <unionyes at ameritech.net>
Sent: Monday, September 07, 2009 11:05 AM
Subject: CNN Clip: Obama Backs Down to Threats From Political Terrorist 
Glenn Beck & His Lynch Mob


> http://www.openleft.com/diary/14966/cnn-debate-on-van-jones-obama-sells-us-out-to-political-terrorist-glenn-beck-his-lynch-mob
>
> CNN Clip: Obama Backs Down to Threats From Political Terrorist Glenn
> Beck & His Lynch Mob
>
> By David Sirota
>
> OpenLeft, 9/7/09
>
> Per my post and announcement last night, here's the clip of my CNN
> debate with David Frum about the Van Jones affair this morning:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M56qbMoBZNw
>
> Notice that Frum, one of the rhetorical architects of Bush's Iraq
> policy, has no answer for the obvious double standards. Somehow,
> nobody gets fired for lying us into Iraq, Tim Geithner keeps his job
> after tax evasion and gift scandals, Republican congresspeople remain
> credible while championing the "birther" lunacy - but Van Jones must
> be fired for carelessly signing a petition years ago, which he later
> apologized for.
>
> As I said on CNN, the hypocrisy uncovers the real truth of this whole
> affair: Van Jones was targeted by the political terrorist known as
> Glenn Beck - the man who leads a 21st century lynch mob looking to
> hunt down anyone (and especially anyone black) who has ever been a
> part of progressive movement politics. I don't use that term
> "political terrorist" lightly. According to the dictionary, a
> terrorist is "a person who terrorizes or frightens others" - and
> usually does so with an ideological objective. There are, of course,
> many different kinds of terrorists, and I'd say Beck - with his
> fearmongering, paranoia and hate - fits the letter and spirit of the
> dictionary definition of a political terrorist quite well. Indeed,
> just listen to this clip or look at this not-so-veiled threat and
> then try to claim with a straight face that Beck isn't explicitly
> using the mass media to scare and terrorize people.
>
> In placating the demands of this terrorist and his lynch mob, the
> Obama administration has simultaneously empowered that terrorist and
> that lynch mob, while abandoning its own progressive base (And yes,
> yes - I know saying that makes the sycophants upset. I know it means
> I'll get a lot of irritating and hsterical email saying "I guess you
> wanted McCain!" or "you're going to get us President Romney in 2012!"
> - as if the progressive movement exists solely to worship at the feet
> of politicians with a "D" behind their name. That's fine - that kind
> of cultism is everywhere in the American Idiocracy, and I've got my
> "delete" key fired up and ready to go).
>
> I am at once loathe to help fuel this media-manufactured controversy
> and eager to use this as a kind of "teachable moment" that Obama
> talks about, but rarely delivers on. If we as a movement cannot stand
> up for a genuine progressive hero like Van Jones, then we will not be
> able to stand up for anything, much less major legislative
> initiatives.
>
> The multi-million-dollar Washington-based "progressive" organizations
> that previously used Van Jones to stress their environmental and
> racial progressivism haven't strongly spoken out about Jones and
> about the White House's failure to back him. Indeed, most of those
> organizations have issued mealy-mouthed statements praising Jones but
> giving their friends in the White House a pass. This is par for the
> course, unfortunately. As I wrote in my newspaper column this week,
> and as Jane Hamsher has so effectively shown, these institutions are
> still too concerned with their White House access than in building a
> real movement.
>
> So if I can do my own little part to take up the slack through the
> media, I will - even if it means I will inevitably be targeted by
> that same right-wing lynch mob.
>
> Of course, perhaps the Jones affair is the canary in the coal mine.
> Maybe the White House's refusal to stand by Jones and willingness to
> accept the demands of right-wing political terrorists is a symptom of
> the bigger disease whereby the Obama is already selling out
> progressives on every major priority. Perhaps, in short, Jones isn't
> the issue - and what his firing represents is.
>
> I fear that is the case - certainly the Obama administration's
> behavior on everything from health care to climate change to war
> suggests that's what's going on. And if that's true, then we've got a
> huge problem on our hands.
>
>
>
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