Post-Hutaree: How Glenn Beck and Fox News Spread the Militia Message

[Emit]

Post-Hutaree: How Glenn Beck and Fox News spread the militia message
April 06, 2010 8:38 am ET

Reading last week's disturbing news accounts about the Midwestern arrest of nine alleged members of a Christian militia known as the Hutaree, a group whose members were reportedly planning to kill cops in order to spark a wider, armed revolt against the U.S. government, I noticed this nugget (emphasis added):

FBI agents moved quickly against Hutaree because its members were planning an attack sometime in April, prosecutors said.

My hunch is the self-described "warriors" of the Hutaree probably circled April 19 on their calendars for any cop-killing fantasy they might have planned to pull off...

~snip~

On TV and the radio, Beck rarely bothers to mention the militia movement by name. Instead, he's simply co-opted their rhetoric as his own. He's acted as a crucial transmitter, warning about Obama fronting his own private "army," and urging followers to "start food storage."

Not to mention these previous militia moments:

•Beck asserts: "The second American revolution is being playing out right now"
•Beck says "what is ahead may loosen the bonds of society," may end with "a French Revolution"
•Beck: "There is a coup going on ... it has been done through the guise of an election"
•Beck: "You can't convince me that the founding fathers wouldn't allow you to secede"
•Beck: "(I)f we don't have some common sense, we're facing the destruction of our country... it's coming"

The truth is that the daylight separating the radical, anti-government militia movement from self-styled mainstream conservatives is growing dimmer by the day. Like the fact-free Obama birthers, the militia remains a radical subset that today's right wing refuses to part ways with. That sad fact was highlighted when scores of far-right media voices initially downplayed the Hutaree arrests last week, or even defended the militia members and -- disturbingly reminiscent of Waco -- cast the FBI and the federal government as the over-reaching bad guys.

And at Fox News, it's not just Beck. The cable "news" channel's militia-flavored message (beware gun-toting IRS agents!) has been as simple as it's been relentless: Obama is destroying this country and he's doing it intentionally. It's not that people disagree with Obama and don't like what they call his "liberal" policies as applied to the economy and health care reform, etc. Instead, the conflict is much more dire. Obama is not just misguided in this political and legislative agenda. Instead, Obama is the incarnation of evil (the Antichrist?), and his driving hatred for America, as well as for democracy, runs so deep that he ran for president in order to destroy the United States from within.

~snip~

Folks, we're witnessing a militia rerun. Except this time, thanks to the likes of Beck and Fox News, the unwanted repeat is being broadcast nationwide.

~snip~

Don't think there's a larger connection? Just look at the initial reaction when news broke about the Hutaree arrests. The knee-jerk response from some right-wing bloggers to either defend the militia members, or at least raise all kinds of doubts and partisan suspicions about the law enforcement raids, told us all we needed to know about where their true allegiances lie. ...

~snip~

And oh, by the way, at Tea Party Patriots: Official Home of the American Tea Party Movement, this was the headline that immediately went up after the first bulletins about the militia raids were posted:



That's right, some Tea Party leaders instinctively tagged the Hutaree compound as one of their own as it came under attack from federal law enforcement officials. And can you blame them? Today's right-wing, Obama-hating rhetoric -- as amplified by Glenn Beck and much of the GOP Noise Machine -- is indistinguishable from the militia message.

That frightening kinship is obvious for everyone to see and hear.

http://mediamatters.org/columns/201004060005

[thecrow]

1. It looks like the "revolution" *will* be televised.

Me? I'm stayin' home.

Beck should be jailed.