Beck lumps anarchists with Marxists, communists, revolutionaries, and Maoists


dan2100

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Bryce,

You got to it before I did.

I'm surprised to see this cheap out-of-context tactic used here. I thought only agenda-pushing politicians did that stuff.

Here is the quote by Beck where he mentions anarchists.

If you just joined us, we were talking about a group in the United States — we had a group here whose goal it was to eliminate 10 percent of the U.S. population.

Why? Because that's what anarchists, Marxists, communists, revolutionaries, Maoists do. They have to do it to be able to gain control.

Just from context alone, it is obvious Beck is not talking about anarcho-capitalists.

But going further, I have been following Beck for a while and I don't recall him ever discussing anarcho-capitalists, except once in passing when he kind of dismissed them as harmless dreamers (if I remember correctly).

The real point of that presentation by Beck is what the Weather Underground really wanted for America--and that these people (and those influenced by them) are surrounding President Obama as part of the intellectual team he consults.

Here is a much better quote so we can bing this thread to something serious:

But there is one man who was able to gain real insight into who Bill Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn were, and the lengths they were willing to go to accomplish their vision for America.

This is a — this man is Larry Grathwohl. He is the only FBI agent to ever successfully infiltrate the Weathermen. Once, when he was a lot younger than this, he got inside the group and he trained as he gained their trust, the trust of Bill Ayers. He probed their plans for the future.

I want you to listen to this, because this is what they said they had to do in the '60s. He made some amazing discoveries. Watch this old footage:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LARRY GRATHWOHL, FBI AGENT: I brought up the subject of what is going to happen after we take over the government. You know, we become responsible then for administrating 250 million people.

And there was no answer. And no one had given any thought to economics, how are you going to clothe and feed these people. The only thing that I could get was that they expected that the Cubans and the North Vietnamese and the Chinese and the Russians would all want to occupy different portions of the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: OK. Now, that's changed because now they have grown up. They are adults. They also have some politicians and some global thinkers that will help them structure things.

But do they have any other contingency plans? Oh, yes. Oh, yes, they sure did.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRATHWOHL: The immediate responsibility would be to protect against what they call against the counter-revolution.

And they felt that this counter-revolution could best be guarded against by creating and establishing reeducation centers in the Southwest, where we would take all the people who needed to be reeducated into the new way of thinking and teach them how things were going to be.

I asked, well, what is going to happen to those people that we can't reeducate, that are die-hard capitalists? And the reply was they would have to be eliminated. And when I pursued this further, they estimated that they would have to eliminate 25 million people in these reeducation centers. And when I say "eliminate," I mean kill — 25 million people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: Let that sink in.

This is an FBI agent who infiltrated the Weather Underground. And Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn — they are still saying the same thing.

Let me give you again the words of Van Jones: "Drop the radical pose for the radical ends." If you've got somebody and you're the man — if you've got somebody now who's going to say you don't have a right to privacy in your e-mail, you don't have a right to privacy of location.

If you are funding a terrorist organization, not defined — remember, they don't believe in terrorists. We're not fighting a War on Terror. So why are they now pushing for — if you are funding terrorist organization, you can be held without due process.

You don't believe in any of these terrorists organizations and you are against Guantanamo. Why would you do that? Let it sink in a bit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRATHWOHL: I want you to imagine sitting in a room with 25 people, most of which have graduate degrees from Columbia and other well-known educational centers and hear them figuring out the logistics for the elimination of 25 million people. And they were dead serious.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Now I look at this thread.

Beck's message, that the people with real influence in today's White House have seriously plotted to set up death camps in the USA to kill 25 million individuals, is completely ignored.

Beck's use of a label is misrepresented and given a meaning he never uses.

And Beck is the one called doing something "mindlessly."

I can only look at that in wonder...

Michael

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In fact, if anyone wants to see the show of June 10, here it is.

The passage above occurs at the end of video 3 and the beginning of video 4.

However, as I had already seen this one, while I was looking for the passage, it occurred to me that Beck's social-political analysis here is simply brilliant in taking the covers off the bad guys.

This show will reward you with a different perspective and outlook if you watch the whole show and you haven't really thought about these things before (except maybe in passing).

Enjoy.

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Michael

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And for whom he's attacking he's right to do so. Those are not anarcho-capitalists he's referring to but all the rest, which are all decidedly collectivist.

Anarcho-capitalists or market anarchists are hardly the only non-collectivist anarchists, but there are also many types of non-capitalist or non-market anarchists who would never go along with things Beck is raving about.

Add to this, he uses other broad categories, especially "revolutionaries" that don't necessarily identify or overlap with the others. Yes, I know, amongst his audience, these words will have a certain resonance; they'll likely associate "anarchists" and "revolutionaries" with bad and dangerous people. Don't you agree that "revolutionaries" is too broad a category to have much meaning? But why use such a generic term here when other terms are available?

And some of the statements made should be questionable. Why would those who call themselves anarchists want to "take over the government"? Wouldn't that make you question whether these folks were anarchists in the first place. If Michael wants to maintain I'm dropping context here -- funny, if that's what I wanted to do, why did I provide the link? -- then why did Beck lump these broad categories together? Why not just say "Weather Underground" or "those associated with the Weather Underground"? Maybe because it lacks the emotional power, but then he's painting with a very broad brush.

This is not to even bring up whether the allegetations made by an FBI agent are true or meant much. Believe you me, I don't mind Beck attacking Obama's associates. But I don't want to see people lumped in who are completely innocent and also I don't think the "any stick used to beat an enemy is a good stick" tactic is good. I can just see, after this, trying to explain to an otherwise uninformed Beck listener, reader, or viewer why anarchism doesn't mean taking over the government, putting people in camps, or genocide.

Finally, the best tactic to prevent someone from taking over parts of or the whole government and using it against the nation is to get rid of those parts of the government. Imagine, for instance, some "agenda-pushing politicians" wanted to take over public education to make revolutionary changes in society of the sort you wouldn't like. Well, the statist way to handle is, I guess, get the FBI involved to infilitrate various groups, start monitoring more people, and the like. The libertarian solution to this problem is easy: get rid of public education.

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Add to this, he uses other broad categories, especially "revolutionaries" that don't necessarily identify or overlap with the others. Yes, I know, amongst his audience, these words will have a certain resonance; they'll likely associate "anarchists" and "revolutionaries" with bad and dangerous people. Don't you agree that "revolutionaries" is too broad a category to have much meaning? But why use such a generic term here when other terms are available?

All Beck is trying to do is move people in his direction. He can't do that by laying out concrete details of his philosophy because his audience will not understand. I mean most of them (including Beck, in some cases) are on the drug of collectivism, so they're neither interested in nor capable of understanding the concretes of capitalism or reason or individualism, or most of what Beck wants them to understand. His audience is just learning about remainders. Eventually they'll learn about decimals.

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Anarcho-capitalists or market anarchists are hardly the only non-collectivist anarchists...

I just did a quick scan through Wikipedia and I can't come up with any (albeit some are close). What others exist?

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Let me go on record by saying that I don't mind the FBI infiltrating groups who are planning on setting up death camps in America.

That's what they are supposed to do.

It's not as if the Weather Underground was an innocent organization that had not practiced terrorist violence and the FBI was infiltrating an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

But, hey...

Maybe that's just me...

I don't mind using common sense with bullies who are planning my own enslavement...

In fact, I don't mind paying trained professionals to deal with them. I think the professionals will do a better job than I will.

Michael

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Let me go on record by saying that I don't mind the FBI infiltrating groups who are planning on setting up death camps in America.

That's what they are supposed to do.

My guess, though, is the FBI infiltrates groups and then tries to provoke them to doing things that result in arrests. In this case, you only have the word of an FBI infiltrator on what happened -- not independent evidence -- so you, Beck, and me don't know whether anything was planned or what the likelihood was of this happening.

It's not as if the Weather Underground was an innocent organization that had not practiced terrorist violence and the FBI was infiltrating an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

While true, the problem of the accuracy of the agent's report or interpretation remains.

But, hey...

Maybe that's just me...

I don't mind using common sense with bullies who are planning my own enslavement...

In fact, I don't mind paying trained professionals to deal with them. I think the professionals will do a better job than I will.

Michael

This misses my point about government. My point was that if people are supposedly planning to infilitrate some powerful part of the government, then one should question why that powerful part of the government exists in the first place.

Let me try an analogy. Imagine the Weather Underground was going to infiltrate the Federal Reserve System to devalue the currency (let's leave alone that this already seems to be the policy), thereby, destroying the economy and readying all of us for forced labor camps in the Southwest. One thing one might do is give the Fed ever more power, have the FBI do extensive monitoring of anyone who speaks ill of the Fed, and maybe loosening all the restraints on police powers.

But wouldn't the better policy be to dismantle the Fed in the first place? Under that policy, the Fed's power would be reduced and, eventually, eliminated. This would take away the main pillar of this hypothetical plan to undermine the economy. And it would do without violating anyone's rights or giving more power to the government or its police.

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Anarcho-capitalists or market anarchists are hardly the only non-collectivist anarchists...

I just did a quick scan through Wikipedia and I can't come up with any (albeit some are close). What others exist?

I believe individualist anarchists and mutualists would probably fit the bill. But, even so, collectivist anarchist per se are not genocidal or even revolutionary. Lumping all anarchists or even all non-market anarchists together with statists like Beck did should raise some eyebrows -- not lead everyone to his defense to explain away such an obvious error.

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Add to this, he uses other broad categories, especially "revolutionaries" that don't necessarily identify or overlap with the others. Yes, I know, amongst his audience, these words will have a certain resonance; they'll likely associate "anarchists" and "revolutionaries" with bad and dangerous people. Don't you agree that "revolutionaries" is too broad a category to have much meaning? But why use such a generic term here when other terms are available?

All Beck is trying to do is move people in his direction. He can't do that by laying out concrete details of his philosophy because his audience will not understand. I mean most of them (including Beck, in some cases) are on the drug of collectivism, so they're neither interested in nor capable of understanding the concretes of capitalism or reason or individualism, or most of what Beck wants them to understand. His audience is just learning about remainders. Eventually they'll learn about decimals.

I'll admit that Beck does some good work -- especially getting Hayek back into the public mind (though, unlike some, that libertarians never did much in this direction; they only did their best to keep Hayek's works in print and the discussion of him going all these decades; that's not meaningless; we don't all have radio shows with huge national audiencesrolleyes.gif) -- but I don't think this is a minor point. This is similar to his ranting against Godlessness and atheism. You might believe these are side issues, but, in the end, you're going to have people who don't bother ever to "learn about decimals" conflating atheists and anarchists with whatever bad things they can think of. You don't get off the "drug of collectivism" by taking it now and then, when it feels good.

And, in fact, re-reading the transcrip, it seems like Beck just felt good venting against anarchists and such -- not caring about the accuracy of his statements. (Of course, no one here but me seems to think this is a "cheap out-of-context tactic" on his part or that he's "agenda-pushing." Of course, only people criticizing him do that -- never him.)

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Dan,

You and I probably have a different perspective on things like cops and bandits because of life experience. I don't know your past, but I used to be on the bandit side. I don't like cops (unless they can be paid them off) and it's visceral.

I gave up the dark side, but the bad vibes still stay with me.

That goes for people who blow things up, too. I see them with very practical eyes and I take them very seriously, especially when they get their hands on explosives. I used to play with people who play--and play dirty--with guns for real.

So, for as interesting as a mind-experiment is about the Weather Underground infiltrating the Federal Reserve, etc., etc., etc., I'm not really worried about that. I worry more about evil deranged people blowing things up, causing chaos, taking over governments, making detention centers and other similar things I have seen exist.

If the cops are the ones to take them out, I'm OK with that. I don't like cops very much, but OK.

:)

As to Beck not caring for the accuracy of his statements, I suggest you watch him instead of taking one statement out of context. Every time he has spoken of anarchists, it has been in terms of people like Bakunin, etc., and in terms of Nazis, communists, etc. In other words, the precursors of modern collectivist dictatorships. No one I know among his fans would ever take that statement of his above to mean libertarian anarchists. (But a libertarian anarchist with thin skin might... Too bad he would be the only one... :) )

I'm not much of a friend of PC language. If I say I want my coffee black around an African American, that does not mean I am referring to his race. I believe the same applies to Beck.

Michael

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Dan,

You and I probably have a different perspective on things like cops and bandits because of life experience. I don't know your past, but I used to be on the bandit side. I don't like cops (unless they can be paid them off) and it's visceral.

I gave up the dark side, but the bad vibes still stay with me.

That goes for people who blow things up, too. I see them with very practical eyes and I take them very seriously, especially when they get their hands on explosives. I used to play with people who play--and play dirty--with guns for real.

This doesn't really speak to the matter of the accuracy of the FBI agent's report. I'm not questioning whether "people who blow things up" exist, but whether the specific statement is true. I doubt you, Beck, or I know whether it is. Don't misinterpret me here. I'm not saying the Weather Underground were nice people or even harmless people. I'm questioning whether the specific claims -- about genocide and camps -- is accurate.

So, for as interesting as a mind-experiment is about the Weather Underground infiltrating the Federal Reserve, etc., etc., etc., I'm not really worried about that. I worry more about evil deranged people blowing things up, causing chaos, taking over governments, making detention centers and other similar things I have seen exist.

This misses my earlier point. I was actually thinking back to the Red Scare. If you're worried about them taking over statist organizations and using them against us -- and this is what they'd have to do to run things like detention camps -- then an easy way to avoid this is to make the statist organizations less powerful (and, therefore, less palatable as targets for takeover) or eliminate such organizations (thereby, leaving nothing to take over).

If the cops are the ones to take them out, I'm OK with that. I don't like cops very much, but OK.

smile.gif

My fear here would not be cops taking out the bad guys -- even if you believe cops are the bad guys. This would be little different than the gang of thugs fighting the gang of killers and the former winning. I might not love the thugs, but I might be happy to see the murders being taken down. I'd be more afraid of the FBI, etc. making up stuff -- something they might have a very big incentive to do. Certainly, a national or international conspiracy sounds much better to keep up budgets and increase powers than, "Oh, we infiltrated the local chess club -- the one with other those Russian emigres -- and found out they're even more boring than the local ladies knitting society."

As to Beck not caring for the accuracy of his statements, I suggest you watch him instead of taking one statement out of context. Every time he has spoken of anarchists, it has been in terms of people like Bakunin, etc., and in terms of Nazis, communists, etc. In other words, the precursors of modern collectivist dictatorships. No one I know among his fans would ever take that statement of his above to mean libertarian anarchists. (But a libertarian anarchist with thin skin might... Too bad he would be the only one... smile.gif )

I'm not much of a friend of PC language. If I say I want my coffee black around an African American, that does not mean I am referring to his race. I believe the same applies to Beck.

Michael

It's not a matter of PC language at all here. It's a matter of lumping people and viewpoints together. Beck has done this a few times and some here don't seem to mind. I'm not saying that it's the worst thing ever either, but it's not a good thing and should at least be called out when it's done. (You took a similar tack with his attacks on atheists and Godlessness.)

And it would be very easy for him to make the distinctions or, in this case, to just not use blanket terms.

For the record, too, I'm unaware of the Nazi-anarchist link. Care to share that one?

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For the record, too, I'm unaware of the Nazi-anarchist link. Care to share that one?

Dan,

Come on. You're over-intellectualizing what it takes to spread a message. My support of Beck is not on hair-splitting. There are things I disagree with him over. It's about him getting the ideas out so people can think through them with their own minds.

Your approach of over-intellectualizing doesn't seem to be working in that respect. I certainly don't see your influence (or that of anyone else who over-intellectualizes) on the mainstream.

Try fitting substance, entertainment to grow an audience, a mobilizing effort to get people to read history, and commercials all within a 60 minute block. I'm serious. Try it. See how easy it is...

Now about the Nazi anarchist thing--let's get the obvious out of the way. On a simple Google search, I came up with this right up near the top: Anarchist activity in Nazi Germany.

There's oodles more. Just Google it.

But that's not even the point. If you were more familiar with Beck, you would be familiar with the theory of history he is teaching people.

Basically, he sees hatred of capitalism fueling both anarchists and left-wing statists (say for the last couple of centuries). But here's the difference. The anarchists are not squeamish about immediately making blood run in the streets while the statists are more focused on getting in power. One group uses the other, thinking that once capitalism--and whatever group is in power at the time--is defeated, they will deal with the other. The anarchists always lose because they are disorganized.

That's the theory Beck presents and any steady viewer of Beck knows he means that when he's talking about anarchists.

On accuracy, Beck has stated that all of his facts and sources are checked multiple times over. Since he is wildly popular and controversial, if he presents wrong stuff, Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes will have him off the air. They would have to because potential lawsuits would damage the entire firm.

Michael

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For the record, too, I'm unaware of the Nazi-anarchist link. Care to share that one?

Dan,

Come on. You're over-intellectualizing what it takes to spread a message. My support of Beck is not on hair-splitting. There are things I disagree with him over. It's about him getting the ideas out so people can think through them with their own minds.

Your approach of over-intellectualizing doesn't seem to be working in that respect. I certainly don't see your influence (or that of anyone else who over-intellectualizes) on the mainstream.

Try fitting substance, entertainment to grow an audience, a mobilizing effort to get people to read history, and commercials all within a 60 minute block. I'm serious. Try it. See how easy it is...

Now about the Nazi anarchist thing--let's get the obvious out of the way. On a simple Google search, I came up with this right up near the top: Anarchist activity in Nazi Germany.

There's oodles more. Just Google it.

But that's not even the point. If you were more familiar with Beck, you would be familiar with the theory of history he is teaching people.

Basically, he sees hatred of capitalism fueling both anarchists and left-wing statists (say for the last couple of centuries). But here's the difference. The anarchists are not squeamish about immediately making blood run in the streets while the statists are more focused on getting in power. One group uses the other, thinking that once capitalism--and whatever group is in power at the time--is defeated, they will deal with the other. The anarchists always lose because they are disorganized.

That's the theory Beck presents and any steady viewer of Beck knows he means that when he's talking about anarchists.

On accuracy, Beck has stated that all of his facts and sources are checked multiple times over. Since he is wildly popular and controversial, if he presents wrong stuff, Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes will have him off the air. They would have to because potential lawsuits would damage the entire firm.

Michael

I hope you're right -- especially about the ultimate outcome here. My fear is that the lumping -- not just of anarchists, mind you, but earlier of atheists -- will have more ill effect than you obviously believe.

As for my impact on the mainstream, that's not an issue here. Nor do I think everyone who wants to have some positive impact on the culture should be measured by audience size. I'm sure you've heard the old saw about making a difference in one child's life being enough...

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Let me go on record by saying that I don't mind the FBI infiltrating groups who are planning on setting up death camps in America.

Death camps? As in Nazi or Soviet style concentration camps where millions of people are killed? Nothing like this could possibly be set up by any private paramilitary group. The only institution that could possibly establish and maintain such camps would be the US government itself, just as the Nazi and Soviet death camps were run by the Nazi and Soviet governments. And the FBI just happens to be the domestic police and investigative arm of the US government. So unless you think that the FBI would engage in mutiny and turn against its own master, if death camps are ever established in this country, the FBI will almost certainly be running them.

Martin

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Let me go on record by saying that I don't mind the FBI infiltrating groups who are planning on setting up death camps in America.

Death camps? As in Nazi or Soviet style concentration camps where millions of people are killed? Nothing like this could possibly be set up by any private paramilitary group. The only institution that could possibly establish and maintain such camps would be the US government itself, just as the Nazi and Soviet death camps were run by the Nazi and Soviet governments. And the FBI just happens to be the domestic police and investigative arm of the US government. So unless you think that the FBI would engage in mutiny and turn against its own master, if death camps are ever established in this country, the FBI will almost certainly be running them.

Martin

Not the FBI. I'm sure they'd fob it off on the U.S. Marshall Service. They have this great reputation, see--or they did. Regardless, I'm sure they still think they do.

--Brant

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As for my impact on the mainstream, that's not an issue here. Nor do I think everyone who wants to have some positive impact on the culture should be measured by audience size. I'm sure you've heard the old saw about making a difference in one child's life being enough...

Dan,

Obviously audience size is not the ONLY criterion to use in judging the worth of a message. But a reasonable person will not dismiss the messenger (and call him mindless) because the messenger's audience is large.

That's making the same conceptual error as liking a work only because it is popular, no?

If you preach free choice on the open market, expect people to use it. And celebrate it, for God's sake. That's a good thing.

When large numbers of people use their own free will and like something enough to purchase it, that is not an infallible indication that what they like is low quality or that they are all stupid. But I believe that prejudice is one of the reasons there is so much uninformed Beck bashing.

The irony is that the bashers are so convinced of their innate intellectual superiority, they don't have to be bothered with mere details like looking stuff up for verification when they bash it. Thus they call another person stupid at the very moment they do a really stupid thing.

As a good example of recent uninformed Beck bashing, but on a larger scale than here on a discussion forum, Beck just released a novel he wrote called The Overton Window. The trailer for this thing is quite attention-getting.

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The Huffington Post immediately jumped on this and blasted out the following:

For some reason, Glenn Beck has written a thriller, 'The Overton window.' And for some weirder reason, it has a trailer (though to be fair, this is more like a teaser). Needless to say, it's just as crazy and ridiculous as you'd expected it to be.

The content of said trailer ups the ante with each over-the-top line. Upon hearing that Beck had written a thriller, it's easy to assume it's a thrill-ride about a chalkboard who was kidnapped because it loved America too much. Obviously.

But that'd be wayyyy off. With lines like "The dog returns to his vomit" and "The burnt fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the fire," it's very clear what this book is about. Nothing.

Then the mocking on the right started, as is fit. Starting with the fact that Beck did not write the trailer. Those snooty conceited jerks at that left-wing institution kinda overlooked something they could have checked with a simple Google search.

With egg all over their face, they sheepishly and quietly rectified the text by adding the following.

UPDATE: This was not meant to imply that Beck wrote the lines used in the trailer. They are from a Rudyard Kipling poem, "The Gods of the Copybook Headings."

Ouch.

Bashing the Rudyard Kipling poem and saying Beck wrote it is embarrassing.

I like it when snobs get their asses handed to them on a silver platter in public.

I'm a hillbilly myself. I dislike many things about where I come from, but I do not hold that my mind is innately superior to the mind of anyone I left behind because they are (shuddering and affecting an English accent), "Those low class steeyewpid people."

I have nothing in common on a spiritual level with this attitude. Nor do I want to.

I like my own eyes for seeing, thank you. I trust men and women who have the same persuasion and I will not look down on them, even if their honest sight should take them to popular people I do not identify with like Oprah.

Michael

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Death camps? As in Nazi or Soviet style concentration camps where millions of people are killed? Nothing like this could possibly be set up by any private paramilitary group. The only institution that could possibly establish and maintain such camps would be the US government itself...

Martin,

What do you think paramilitary groups become once they take over a country--if not the government?

What do you think the Weather Underground was intending if not to take over the USA government?

Having them say it, print it and act on it was not enough for you?

I'm glad it was enough for the FBI to investigate. You may disagree.

But you did read this thread, right?

I don't understand your comments from a logical standpoint if you did. They only make sense to me if I imagine you skimmed.

Here's a quote from above by the FBI agent who infiltrated the Weather Underground to help you along, (with my bolding of the text this time):

GRATHWOHL: The immediate responsibility would be to protect against what they call against the counter-revolution.

And they felt that this counter-revolution could best be guarded against by creating and establishing reeducation centers in the Southwest, where we would take all the people who needed to be reeducated into the new way of thinking and teach them how things were going to be.

I asked, well, what is going to happen to those people that we can't reeducate, that are die-hard capitalists? And the reply was they would have to be eliminated. And when I pursued this further, they estimated that they would have to eliminate 25 million people in these reeducation centers. And when I say "eliminate," I mean kill — 25 million people.

That sounds an awful lot like a Nazi or Soviet death camp to me.

Notice how it is the "die-hard capitalists" they wanted wanted to kill.

Michael

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Death camps? As in Nazi or Soviet style concentration camps where millions of people are killed? Nothing like this could possibly be set up by any private paramilitary group. The only institution that could possibly establish and maintain such camps would be the US government itself...

Martin,

What do you think paramilitary groups become once they take over a country--if not the government?

What do you think the Weather Underground was intending if not to take over the USA government?

Having them say it, print it and act on it was not enough for you?

I'm glad it was enough for the FBI to investigate. You may disagree.

But you did read this thread, right?

I don't understand your comments from a logical standpoint if you did. They only make sense to me if I imagine you skimmed.

Here's a quote from above by the FBI agent who infiltrated the Weather Underground to help you along, (with my bolding of the text this time):

GRATHWOHL: The immediate responsibility would be to protect against what they call against the counter-revolution.

And they felt that this counter-revolution could best be guarded against by creating and establishing reeducation centers in the Southwest, where we would take all the people who needed to be reeducated into the new way of thinking and teach them how things were going to be.

I asked, well, what is going to happen to those people that we can't reeducate, that are die-hard capitalists? And the reply was they would have to be eliminated. And when I pursued this further, they estimated that they would have to eliminate 25 million people in these reeducation centers. And when I say "eliminate," I mean kill — 25 million people.

That sounds an awful lot like a Nazi or Soviet death camp to me.

Notice how it is the "die-hard capitalists" they wanted wanted to kill.

Michael

Michael,

You seriously think there is a possibility that a paramilitary group could successfully execute a coup and take over the government? Given the existing government's vast financial and military resources, such as control of the army, navy, air force, marines, state national guards, fbi, etc.? The only way this could possibly happen is if the paramilitary group were to convince the existing military arms of government to join them in the coup and transfer their loyalty to the new group. I think the likelihood of this happening is less than a snowball's chance in hell. It is vastly more likely that the government itself will establish a totalitarian society, using as an excuse a declared national emergency such as a 9/11 style terrorist attack. In other words, by far the greatest threat of establishing a totalitarian state which could even conceivably establish death camps, is the existing US government itself. And the FBI is part of the existing US government.

Martin

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Martin,

I will try once again, this time real slowly.

Some of the people the FBI was investigating back in the 60's and 70's--ones who were preaching death camps for die-hard capitalists--are the same people who are now next to Obama.

They are the government.

Beck's whole narrative is that they have done this by stealth since they found out that paramilitary organizations don't work for taking over the USA government. That's one of the reasons the left-wing always tries to portray the Tea Party people as paramilitary. They know it doesn't work.

The Man used to be Nixon & Co. and they were the radicals. They are now the Man and they need some radicals to point to while they try to consolidate their power.

So it might be a good idea for us to keep an eye on them right now.

Michael

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As for my impact on the mainstream, that's not an issue here. Nor do I think everyone who wants to have some positive impact on the culture should be measured by audience size. I'm sure you've heard the old saw about making a difference in one child's life being enough...

Dan,

Obviously audience size is not the ONLY criterion to use in judging the worth of a message. But a reasonable person will not dismiss the messenger (and call him mindless) because the messenger's audience is large.

That's making the same conceptual error as liking a work only because it is popular, no?

If you preach free choice on the open market, expect people to use it. And celebrate it, for God's sake. That's a good thing.

When large numbers of people use their own free will and like something enough to purchase it, that is not an infallible indication that what they like is low quality or that they are all stupid. But I believe that prejudice is one of the reasons there is so much uninformed Beck bashing.

The irony is that the bashers are so convinced of their innate intellectual superiority, they don't have to be bothered with mere details like looking stuff up for verification when they bash it. Thus they call another person stupid at the very moment they do a really stupid thing.

Quick response. I never made the argument that large audience size was a reason for dismissing the messenger. Rather, you hinted, in your statement "I certainly don't see your influence (or that of anyone else who over-intellectualizes) on the mainstream." that, perhaps, small audience size was a reason for dismissing the messenger.

Also, nowhere did I claim I wanted to prohibit Beck from airing his views. And while I support "free choice," I see nothing that goes against such support in criticizing the messages or saying some choices are wrong, stupid, or bad. In other words, supporting freedom does not mean suddenly giving up good judgment or shutting up. (Your statement here sadly sounds to me like what I often here: people support free expression, but they actually mean certain types of expression and tend to exclude criticism as a form of expression -- at least, criticism of the expression they favor.)

And regarding context here, these were not long treatises where some statement taken out of context might be blown up to seem something they were not. Instead they were TV segments where I imagine for not a few viewers the segment is the whole context. (I'm talking about both cases I've raised here. His bashing of atheists and Godlessness and his lumping seeming all anarchists (and I mean "all" because he's generic here) in with the Weathermen and other terrorist groups.)

Finally, I make no claims to "innate intellectual superiority" over Beck or most other people, including people I disagree with or believe to be seriously wrong about some issue or other. If I ever do here, please point this out to me. That said, yes, some of Beck's critics -- no doubt, of critics of just about anyone -- do believe he's intellectual inferior and somehow they are his better. I think that's beside the point. I'm only pointing out what I believe are errors -- and this speaks nothing to intellectual superiority. (What is meant here is even geniuses can make errors and even fools can spot them. Making or spotting an error is not the best test of intellectual value.)

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Dan,

But you did make a claim (or very strong insinuation) that Beck meant anarcho-capitalists with his grouping of anarchists with Mao, etc.--and you made an extra point of calling it mindless.

And that was flat-out wrong.

Regardless of what you now say, that's what you did.

I know I am not the only one to wonder where that came from.

(And I do get tired of watching "mindless" bashing that borders on snooty mockery. Bash Beck if you want to, but at least do it on correct information.)

If you can judge a person on speculation, so can I. You judged Beck. I judged you.

Michael

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Dan,

But you did make a claim (or very strong insinuation) that Beck meant anarcho-capitalists with his grouping of anarchists with Mao, etc.--and you made an extra point of calling it mindless.

I maintain it is still mindless to lump the vague "anarchists" together with the others and then blame the supposed plans for a specific group -- the Weathermen -- on all anarchists -- even on non-anarcho-capitalists. (In fact, I took pains to point out that anarcho-capitalists aren't the only anarchists who would not fit the bill here. But that's probably "over-intellectualizing" in your book.)

And that was flat-out wrong.

What's wrong from my view is using blanket terms to condemn huge swathes of people or points of view. Not all anarchists, even (again) including non-anarcho-capitalists support terrorism. And consistent anarchist would be very unlikely to advocate taking over the government.

Let me be clear here too. He did this on national TV. There were no footnotes. And, yes, his sympathizers might say he had a more nuanced meaning here -- of course, that's not "over-intellectualizing" to at least one of themrolleyes.gif -- but this is little different than if someone attacked Islamic terrorists by saying the problem is "anarchists, Marxists, communists, revolutionaries, Maoists, Islamofascists, and Arabs." And then later on, when someone questioned why "Arabs" was in that list, his supporters tell this person, "Well, anyone knowing more about him would know he meant only a subset of Arabs."

Again, it appears to me, Beck got carried away with his own rhetoric. (And, again, I'm not saying he does not good or is some kind of monster. Even here, my guess is this was a mindless slip -- not some sort of planned out mass tarnishing.)

Regardless of what you now say, that's what you did.

I know I am not the only one to wonder where that came from.

(And I do get tired of watching "mindless" bashing that borders on snooty mockery. Bash Beck if you want to, but at least do it on correct information.)

If you can judge a person on speculation, so can I. You judged Beck. I judged you.

Michael

Fair enough, though the only thing I'm doing here is answering you back -- not advocating anyone be silenced. And if you're going to live by your standard, please tell me where the speculation came from that I would advocate such. I've actually provide places where Beck bashed anarchists as such and atheists as such. Where have I provided even a speculative basis for advocating silencing Beck or anyone else?

Furthermore, I think you're shifting ground. I called Beck's lumping mindless not because of his large audience. Why did you even bring that up earlier?

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