Report

Obama’s No Show


By Reginald Johnson
March 16, 2011



At a rally last weekend in New York on behalf of the embattled public workers in Wisconsin, one of the most popular tunes sung by the protesters was “Which Side Are You On?”

It’s an old union song, made famous during a bitter strike by workers in the 1940s against coal mine operators in Harlan County, Kentucky.

Today, a lot of people have to be wondering which side President Obama is on --- the side of unions and workers, or big corporations and their right-wing allies.

You would think that a Democratic president who owes his election in good part to the hard work of union members and contributions by organized workers, would be out there fighting against blatant attempts to eviscerate public sector unions. But Obama has failed to do that.

While he’s made a couple of statements in support of unions under attack in Wisconsin and other states, they’ve been mild in tone --- not the firey, passionate speeches Obama is fully capable of making.

He’s also refused to go directly to Wisconsin and speak, and refused to allow any top people in his administration, such as Vice President Joe Biden, from going.

What’s happening?

Obama is showing once again he’s not very progressive, and really not much of a labor supporter either, despite the union support he’s gotten for his campaigns. Recall in his first year in office, he never really campaigned for the “card check” bill which would have aided union organizing and which the AFL-CIO so desperately wanted. Then last year he stunned the labor community when he praised school district officials in Rhode Island for firing all the union teachers at a low performing high school.

National politics is also at work here. Obama seems to be playing a game of not being too spirited in supporting unions in Wisconsin and Ohio, lest he be open to a Republican charge of being a ‘tool of union bosses’ and blocking budget reform.

This is all very troubling. The labor movement’s very survival may be on the line right now as the right-wing attack on workers continues, and the leader of the Democratic Party doesn’t think it’s in his interest to get out and really fight for working people.

I can’t think of any Democratic president in the past who would have been this low-key when unions were under such a vicious attack.

In the meantime, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has gotten his way, at least for now, ramming through the bill that curbs bargaining rights for public workers. Other right-wing governors in Ohio, Idaho and Florida are also working to gut the power of public employee unions.

Obama, and many leading Democratic members of Congress as well, better realize that the progressive-liberal base has woken up during this Wisconsin-Ohio labor battle, and people are not in the mood for the usual political fence-sitting and game-playing. They want answers and they want leaders who will stand by them.

Hundreds of thousands of workers, activists and supporters have been rallying for weeks in Wisconsin and Ohio, refusing to cave in to the demand that public employees give up their rights.

Last weekend, over 100,000 people rallied in the Wisconsin capital of Madison to again protest Walker’s bill and voiced their support for a recall drive directed at all the Republican state senators who backed the measure. They also welcomed back like conquering heroes the 14 Democratic senators who had fled the state for weeks, to prevent the GOP from getting the quorum needed to act on the bill. The Republicans nonetheless staged a last minute legislative maneuver to get the bill through without the Democrats.

Other demonstrations broke out spontaneously around the country in support of the Wisconsin workers.

In Union Square in New York, about 70 people gathered in an impromptu rally, carrying signs denouncing Walker, singing along with a pick-up band and shouting pro-worker chants.

While the rally wasn’t big, it wasn’t bad for a protest thrown together on short notice, just a day after Walker signed the union-killing law.

Bill Linville, a Bronx school teacher who helped organize the protest, said it was important to show solidarity with workers in Wisconsin.

“What happened in Wisconsin could happen here,” said Linville, noting that New York leaders like Mayor Michael Bloomberg are threatening huge teacher layoffs, despite a budget surplus.

“This is our PATCO moment,” said Linville, referring to the time 30 years ago when then President Ronald Reagan fired members of the air traffic contollers union, when employees walked off the job in a dispute over working conditions.

Many observers feel that labor as a whole did too little to oppose the firings, and unions have been in retreat ever since.

“I’m behind the Wisconsin workers a kuzillion percent,” said Rosemarie, a retiree who was visiting New York from her home in Pennsylvania. She saw the rally and decided to jump in.

“If that kind of thing can be done out there to workers, it could happen all over, and our whole quality of life will be worse, she said.

Commentary

Outrage in Wisconsin


By Reginald Johnson
March 10, 2011


What can be said. Outrageous. Shameful. The Republicans continued their assault on the working people of this country and on labor unions, with GOP members of the Wisconsin state senate pulling a legislative trick Wednesday, ramming through a bill which strips public employees of their right to collectively bargain.

The state assembly is expected to approve the bill today and Gov. Scott Walker to sign it.

Hopefully the legality of the maneuver in the senate can be challenged. Some Democrats are charging that certain guidelines, such as open meeting laws, were violated along the way before the senate vote, and a court appeal could overturn the new bill. I’m really not clear about the details of what happened so I don’t know about the viability of any appeal.

But something tells me this will be like filing a challenge to an election after the votes are in. They usually don’t work. Sadly, Wisconsin’s Tea Party governor and his conservative cohorts may have won this battle.

And even worse, the right-wing blitzkrieg around the country against unions and the rights of working people appears to be succeeding. In Michigan, the state senate just passed a bill which will give emergency financial managers the power to break union contracts; in Ohio, a bill progresses that will limit public employee collective bargaining; and in Idaho, the legislature passed a bill which will curb the rights of teachers to negotiate contracts.

This thing is getting really big. It’s going to take a mass social movement complete with general strikes to stop it.

Get on board.

Report

Rally for the Wisconsin Workers



By Reginald Johnson
February 28, 2011



HARTFORD ---- More than 400 union members, retired state employees, activists and concerned citizens converged on the State Capitol Saturday to raise their voices on behalf of state workers in Wisconsin, whose bargaining rights, pensions and benefits are under attack by the state’s Republican’s governor, Scott Walker.

Normally it would be difficult to get a sizeable crowd of people out on a day with biting cold weather to rally in support of union workers locked in a struggle 1500 miles away.

But the Wisconsin battle is not your typical labor fight. The struggle in Madison has come to symbolize a wider attack by the right-wing and big corporations to tear down all unions and reduce the rights of American workers in general.

That attack, if successful, will further erode the power of the middle class and people’s ability to earn a decent living, those at the rally said.

“What we’re seeing in Wisconsin is the ultimate manifestation of corporate capitalism,” Edward Vargas, former president of the Hartford Federation of Teachers, told the crowd. “Corporate capitalism is trying not just to destroy the unions, but the very fabric of democracy. I have friends who are retired in Florida. Everytime I visit, I see the future of America. There are no 40-hour jobs anymore down there. You gotta work 20 hours for this guy, and then 20 hours for that guy, just to get by. And no benefits.”

Vargas thundered, “Is that the future we want for our children?”

“No!” the crowd roared back.

“Then we have to stand up and fight for Wisconsin,” he said, finishing his speech by shouting “Somos Uno!” (‘We are One’ in Spanish)

Speaker after speaker denounced the effort in Wisconsin as well as other states to weaken unions and demanded that the rich and big business pay their fair share in taxes and stop making workers shoulder the burden of funding government budgets. Speeches were often interrupted by chants like “Make the rich pay!” “Make the rich pay!” and “Fair Share! Fair Share!”

The Connecticut rally was one of dozens around the country on Saturday organized by Moveon.org and affiliated groups aimed at showing solidarity with the Wisconsin workers. State employee unions have been warring with Governor Walker for over two weeks over his demand that they not only agree to pay more for pensions and health benefits, but that they give up their power to negotiate collectively for contracts. Walker has maintained that the changes are needed to bring the state’s deficit under control.

The unions have agreed to kick in more for pensions and health care. But they have refused to accept the demand to give up collective bargaining, seeing that as an existential issue. Thousands of workers have been sitting in at the Wisconsin state capital in protest.

Union supporters claim that the battle is not really over the deficit, otherwise Walker would accept the union concessions, settle the budget issue and go home. But they say the governor’s aim is more than that --- break the unions.

Republican governors in other states, such as Ohio and Indiana, are trying similar hardball tactics in dealing with public employees. And they sound a similar refrain: bring union costs under control, because they’re breaking the bank. No mention is ever made of tax cuts for the wealthy and big business as being a factor in the deficits.

Connecticut’s Gov. Dannel Malloy --- though elected with strong union support --- has also talked of “sacrifices” to erase a state budget gap. He says he needs $2 billion worth of concessions from unions, although no specifics have been laid out yet.

No one at the rally criticized Malloy, but the perceived double standard about who is being made to suffer through difficult economic times, was clearly on the minds of many.

David Burke, a member of the theatrical workers union, said that the middle class is being made to sacrifice a lot in today’s economy --- whether through contract concessions or in paying higher prices for goods and services ---- while big corporations raise prices without restraint and enjoy high profits.

“I demand to know why it’s easier to have us pay more for health insurance than it is for the legislature to regulate health insurance costs?” he said.

Some of the nation’s biggest insurance companies, like Aetna, are based in Hartford. Their rates in Connecticut are supposed to be controlled by the state.

“Aetna made $1.7 billion in profit in 2010. That was up from $1.5 billion in 2009. Where the hell is Aetna’s sacrifice?” Burke shouted.

Burke a moment later said “We will not bow to these corporate-sponsored political hacks. We will never let our rights be taken away easily. Let’s stop these bastards now!”

Union activist Deborah Ellerman also commented on the point that Republican policies, such as the Bush tax cuts, have created large deficits which working people are supposed to pay for. But at the same time, she noted, the many people in wealthy Connecticut who earn over $400,000 a year “will enjoy a 3.7 percent tax cut.”

Bob Kingsley, director of organizing for the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (UE), said his union is fully behind the Wisconsin workers.

“The barons of big business have wrecked the economy and now they’re trying to blame us for it,” he said. “The folks who teach our kids and clean our streets are not to blame for the current crisis.”

He noted that the average public worker pension in the U.S. is only $20,000 a year.

Kingsley urged people to keep the battle going, either by sending financial support to the Wisconsin unions, getting their towns or cities to pass resolutions expressing support for the workers or “get on a bus and go to Wisconsin.”

The UE official said the union’s northeast council had just agreed to back the idea supported by some unions in Wisconsin for a nationwide general strike.

As the rally wound down, a chant erupted of “Obama show some guts! Obama show some guts!” There’s been disappointment on the part of progressives with President Obama, since he’s only spoken once on the Wisconsin battle, saying two weeks ago Governor Walker shouldn’t bust the unions.

Felipe Flores attended the rally with his wife, Suzanne. He is a retired community college teacher, while she is a retired high school teacher.

“What’s happening in Wisconsin is important. If they can take away union rights there, it will spread everywhere,” he said.



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Despite the size of the rally, mainstream media coverage of the Hartford demonstration was poor. Channel 3 did cover the rally and ran a short report. But other TV channels like WTNH, sent no reporters. The Hartford Courant, supposedly the state's paper of record, didn't cover the rally in its backyard. The Courant did run an AP piece about the nationwide rallies, but failed to mention the Connecticut protest. The Courant ran a front-page story Sunday on what it means for Connecticut to be "business-friendly."

Commentary

Go Wisconsin!



By Reginald Johnson
February 22, 2011



Just over a week ago, in my last blog, I lamented the fact that the American people seemed so unwilling to protest the many ills of our society --- the lack of jobs, a deplorable health care system, crumbling schools and government service cuts.

This was in sharp contrast, I said, to what we’ve seen in Egypt and across the Middle East, where thousands have taken to the streets to demand the removal of corrupt dictators and the establishment of fairer economic systems.

Well, maybe I spoke too soon. Maybe the sleeping giant in America is waking up.

In Wisconsin and now in Ohio and Indiana, throngs of workers are out every day demonstrating against the outrageous moves by new Republican governors to reduce the benefits of public employees and strip their unions of bargaining rights.

In Wisconsin, tens of thousands of workers --- teachers, nurses, firefighters, sanitation empoyees and others, together with school students --- have rallied at the state capital in Madison against the plan by Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-dominated legislature. The governor says the public employees must pay substantially more for their pensions and health care, in order to erase a claimed $3.6 billion budget deficit and avoid layoffs.

But Walker and the Republicans are lying about the reason for the draconian measures: the deficit came about only after GOP lawmakers in January rammed through a series of costly tax giveaways for the rich and big corporations. Before that, according to the Wisconsin Fiscal Bureau, the budget was balanced.

What’s happening in Wisconsin is part of a broad, national effort by the right-wing to smash public employee unions --- a major source of strength for both the Democratic Party and progressives in general. Anti-union forces must also figure that if public worker unions are badly hurt, it would be a mortal blow for the labor movement in general, since private sector unions have been steadily declining in recent years.

The union workers and their allies don’t buy the blather about the budget and see what’s really going on. It’s been inspiring to see the size of the crowds and the spirit of the protesters, day after day, in Madison.

Maybe this is the start of something. As Noam Chomsky commented on “Democracy Now” recently, the Wisconsin protests may be heralding the beginning of a “democracy uprising” in America.

Let’s hope so.

******************************************************

MSNBC Commentator Ed Shultz has done a terrific job covering the protests. He devoted his show every night last week to the rallies, offering strong progressive commentary and getting good interviews with people like John Nichols of The Nation. I just hope his passionate pro-worker stance doesn’t ruffle too many feathers at management (the channel’s new owners are Comcast) and he’s shown the door the way Keith Olbermann and Phil Donahue were.

Commentary

Fighting Back in America




By Reginald Johnson
Feb. 11, 2011



For nearly three weeks the Egyptian people put on an incredible display of courage. Despite attacks by pro-government thugs and police --- which resulted in over 300 deaths and widespread injuries --- they continued to demonstrate day after day by the hundreds of thousands, demanding a more just economic system, a more democratic government and the removal of long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak.

Now it looks like the rebellion has succeeded, with Mubarak stepping down and ceding power to the military and the vice president.

The Egyptian uprising followed the protests in January in Tunisia, where people rallied by the thousands to demand the ouster of long-time despot, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. Eventually, the massive protests forced Ben Ali to flee the country.

Last year millions demonstrated across Europe, protesting austerity plans calling for pay cuts and pension reductions. In Greece alone, two million workers ---- a full 20 percent of the nation’s population --- protested on one day alone.

I’m wondering. Just when are the American people going to rise up and demand changes from their government? When is there going to be a mass movement and fightback against the financial-military-media elite of this country to bring about a fairer economic system?

It just seems that as other countries boil over, it’s so quiet here. You would think people would be really steamed over the worsening quality of life in the U.S, and that so little is being done to stop the decline.

What do we have? More than 9 percent unemployed ---- 22 million people looking for work; health care costs climbing steadily, eating away at family budgets and driving more people into bankruptcy; foreclosures still happening everywhere, with banks and the government doing little or nothing to stanch the flow; millions of Americans worried about their ability to retire, due to losses in retirement accounts in the stock market crash of two years ago as well as pension reductions.

But instead of taking the position that government should play an active role in helping people weather these difficult times, we have a President and a Congress who keep insisting on cutting safety net programs.

Despite the crisis in health care, proposals are being floated to slash Medicare and Medicaid. Many in Congress and people around President Barack Obama also think Social Security should be cut. Obama is also asking for a freeze on vital domestic programs such as education and housing.

Obama and other leaders say Americans have to sacrifice so the nation can pull itself out of massive debt --- a debt they didn’t create. The debt was created by the cost of bank bailouts, overseas wars and a recession triggered by Wall Street speculation.

But only working people are being told to sacrifice in this effort.

A bill signed by Obama in December gives tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations. This will just add to the debt burden on everyone else.

The wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan continue, siphoning money away from social programs.

So Americans are getting screwed. The middle class is being battered --- to the point where soon, there will be no middle class. Increasingly our society is becoming two strata --- the rich and the near rich, and everybody else.

You would think that this situation would get people fired up, fired up to the point where they want to get out and demonstrate, wave flags, hold signs, shout and demand better --- just like in the Middle East and Europe. But it’s not happening. There have been local protests, for instance, in California and New York, over budget cuts. That’s good. But where are the broad coalitions forming for a general fightback against what’s happening in Washington? I don’t see it.

I looked up some websites for different liberal and progressive groups to find out what’s going on. AFL-CIO, Progressive Democrats for America, United for Peace and Justice, Moveon.org, etc. They’re all working on good things, economic issues, social issues, environmental issues. But I saw no signs of coalition building for a wider struggle.

There was nothing about big demonstrations planned, or rallies to fight the growing inequities in our society and the central problem of corporate power.

I don’t know the reason for this. Is it a weakened labor movement that no longer can lead the way? Is it that people and groups are being too insular, working on their own agendas, and refusing to join forces?

Or are people still clinging to the faint hope that Obama will change course and do something good? That he will suddenly adopt a progressive agenda? Fat chance. He keeps talking about working with business to get them to invest more, and boost the economy. Recently, he appointed former GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt as an advisor. Hey, that will help working people.

Then he visited the Chamber of Commerce, and said to the business leaders, ‘pretty please, can you invest some of the more than a trillion dollars you’re sitting on?’ He was met with stoney slience. Then he offered to soften some regulations to help them. This is the road to nowhere.

Forget about Obama. There has to be a strong, grassroots movement in this country to bring about change. This has to be hitched to issues, not a party or candidate. Organizations of all stripes ---- labor, political, community, civil rights, religious and environmental --- have to come together for a wider fightback.

As evidenced by the accomplishments in the 1930s and 1960s --- it’s only through strong social movements that anything will be achieved.

Commentary

Turning Point

By Reginald Johnson

January 23, 2011

The next few months may be a turning point for this country.

What’s at stake is whether America maintains a social compact between the government and the people or whether that compact is destroyed.

The compact is what was created in the New Deal in the 1930s --- in the form of Social Security ---- and in the 1960s in the form of Medicare and Medicaid. There’s other parts of the compact, such as the commitment to provide support for housing and education programs, but Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are the main ones.

These programs, while not perfect, have provided vital services and support for hundreds of millions of people. Social Security provides retirement income which many people would not otherwise have. Medicare and Medicaid provide health insurance coverage for millions of people who similarly would not have any coverage if these programs didn’t exist.

If you research back newspaper and magazine articles you would find horror stories about what old people in this country used to go through when there was no income support for the elderly, or government-funded medical services. Or what poor people endured without subsidized medical care.

A lot of folks suffered mightily and died early.

So these programs, such as Social Security, represented an advance for our society.

But now the social compact is under attack. Conservatives, who have never liked the New Deal and Kennedy-Johnson-era social programs and have tried to dismantle them before, are barking at the door again. Backed by big business, the right insists the programs cost too much and add to our debt. They also claim that the government shouldn’t be helping people; everything should be done by the private sector. This of course, is an absurd and backwards notion.

Unfortunately, the right wing has a chance to reach its goal this time. That’s because we have a weak president who --- despite his prior claims about wanting to defend Social Security and Medicare --- is willing to consider changes that will begin the process of undoing these programs. Some of the proposed changes involve raising the retirement age and slashing cost of living increases in Social Security as well as cutting benefits in Medicare and Medicaid. This is all being contemplated in the name of reducing our national debt, which is up around $14 trillion or something.

Raising the retirement age to say, 70, (which is being talked about) would effectively put Social Security benefits out of reach for many, since a good number of the potential beneficiaries will die before being able to collect. Reducing benefits and funding for Medicare and Medicaid would also be disastrous, since these programs are already underfunded. Many doctors right now are rejecting Medicare because the reimbursement rates are too low.

Some of the cost-cutting proposals were discussed by Obama’s deficit reduction commission last fall. Though that commission failed to reach a consensus on recommendations for spending cuts, word is Obama will go ahead anyway and call for entitlement cuts in his State of the Union address Tuesday night.

After that, who knows?

Republicans control the House. Many in the GOP, along with centrist Democrats, might support Social Security/Medicare cuts, amid scare mongering in the media about how big deficits threaten the economy. Ditto for the Senate.

So there could be support for this. That is, unless there is a very strong public reaction against it. Here’s the good news: polls indicate that while people are concerned about deficit reduction, they really don’t want cuts in Social Security and Medicare.

A recent New York Times/CBS poll show that a majority of Americans said they’re against the program cuts, and instead would like to see rollbacks in the military budget. A poll of Democracy Corps/Campaign for America’s Future also showed that while there was some support for deficit reduction, people don’t like the social cuts and want more emphasis on job creation and economic growth.

In an article in the Huffington Post, RJ Eskow of The Campaign for America’s Future said if Obama tacks to the political right and stresses deficit reduction for the rest of his term, it will be harmful for many Americans and politically dangerous. “The president’s in danger of moving in a direction that will lose everybody he needs,” he said, commenting on the poll. Pointing to a loss of support from youth and union households, among other groups, Eskow said that “Literally every demographic group he and his party needs will be alienated by a right-leaning set of policies.”

While the news is bleak on Obama’s direction on programs like Social Security, there’s also a moment of opportunity for the left. This is a time when progressives can jump on this issue and rally not only many Democrats, but independents and even some Tea Party people ( I know that will require a lot of work, but it can be done) to a wider fightback. There’s potential for a broad new political coalition.

A key part of building that coalition will be to educate people as to the real causes of the deficit. It’s not spending on social programs like Medicare and certainly not Social Security, which is funded entirely by workers and employers. Instead the debt is driven by the trillions being spent on the military budget, wars overseas and Wall Street bailouts together with revenue shortfalls caused by lavish tax breaks for the rich and big corporations.

Commentary

Uncivil Discourse

By Reginald Johnson

Jan. 19, 2011

Following the horrific shootings in Arizona of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and several others, there’s been calls that both the left and the right need to tamp down harsh and “extremist” rhetoric.

President Obama and others say that we need a more civil public discourse, and “make sure that we are talking to each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”

Some have said the angry rhetoric from politicians and pundits in recent years has fueled an atmosphere of hate, and may have helped push unstable individuals, such as the accused Arizona gunman Jared Loughner, over the edge to act in a violent manner. Loughner had reportedly been targeting Giffords for political reasons, though it isn’t entirely clear.

I agree that extremist and hate-filled rhetoric has an effect on people, and has to be condemned.

But I reject the false equivalency of saying that both the left and right are equally to blame for today’s poisoned political atmosphere. Not so.

In recent years it’s clear politicians and pundits on the right have been engaging in hate speech --- through their demonizing and scapegoating of liberals, gays, immigrants, intellectuals and doctors who provide abortions. In many instances, right-wingers have, either explicitly or implicitly, urged their followers to engage in acts of violence towards those they don’t like.

I haven’t seen anything from pundits or politicos on the left that compares with this pattern of irresponsible language and hate rhetoric on the right.

Let’s look at just a few examples concerning actions or comments by right-wingers. Last year, Republican Sarah Palin had her website put up a map with gunsight crosshairs over the districts with congress members she wanted removed. One of those was that of Giffords, a Democratic congresswoman from the Tucson area of Arizona.

Moreover, on a Twitter posting last year, Palin had urged her followers, “Don’t retreat, Instead, RELOAD!”

Or consider Glenn Beck, the wild commentator of the right who has a nightly show on FOX network, a show which reaches millions of people. This man is truly scary. He spends his time every night demonizing people on the left --- “progressives” --- for being a threat to the nation. They’re evil and subversive, he says, and you gotta watch ‘em. He seems to be taking a playbook from the 1950s demagogue, Senator Joe McCarthy, who made a career of labeling anyone left of center a “communist,” and destroyed hundreds of lives in the process.

Recently, Beck has taken to repeatedly accusing noted political science professor, Frances Fox Piven, of trying to bring down the American economic system through her writings about mobilizing the poor and strengthening welfare rights. He even held Piven in part responsible for the Arizona killings. Bizarre. But unfortunately, people listen to this junk or read it in his on-line column, “The Blaze.”

Beck’s rants usually stop short of openly advocating violence against opponents but his constant vilification of individuals clearly engenders anger and resentment among his followers, to the point where they threaten violence. Recently some readers writing comments in “The Blaze” said they would shoot Piven or blow up her house, according to a report on Democracy Now. The messages were not removed from the site.

In some cases, Beck himself has been explicit in calling for violence. “Drive a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers,” was one comment reported in a book by Dana Millbank of the Washington Post.

There’s many other examples of right-wing pundits and politicos, particularly on FOX, who use the language of violence and vilification. Bill O’Reilly recently said that Millbank should be “decapitated” due to the reporter’s criticism of FOX’s election night coverage. O’Reilly said later that he was, ha ha, only joking. But then he said Millbank should be beaten up anyway. Liberal-hating Ann Coulter a few years ago said she wouldn’t care if the New York Times building got blown up. Later she said that that too, was only a joke. Hilarious.

Right-wing shock jock Michael Savage, as well as other rightist commentators, have called for violence to deal with illegal immigrants. According to the media watch dog group FAIR, in 2008, Savage called for troops to be brought back from Iraq to protect Americans from “the scourge of illegal immigrants who are running rampant across America, killing police for sport, raping, murdering like a scythe across America.”

As noted from letters that come in to Beck, the hate rhetoric whips up anger and appears to fuel a desire to carry out violent acts.

In one confirmed case, a man who said he was influenced by
Beck, set out to kill people at two liberal organizations in

San Francisco. Byron Williams, the man who plotted to assassinate people at the ACLU and the Tides Foundation and who was arrested by police before he got there --- following a shootout --- told an interviewer with Media Matters for America that he was inspired by Glenn Beck.

Those who charge that the left has used a similar language of violence and hate that the right has, have an obligation to provide the evidence. Yes, I’m sure you can find some anarchist somewhere who said we should “destroy the system.” But you’re not going to find much of anything among left pundits or politicians --- who have media stature --- who’ve engaged in a pattern of hate talk or used the language of violence.

FOX, owned by Rupert Murdoch, is heavily responsible for allowing the hate talk to go on. I’m with those who think it’s time to contemplate boycott actions against FOX and have regular protests.

The group Jewish Funds for Justice recently picketed FOX headquarters in New York and submitted a petition with 10,000 signatures of people demanding the cancellation of Beck’s show. They accused Beck of “unchecked hate mongering and public incitement.”

That’s a good start.

Chip Berlet, senior analyst with Political Research Associates, which tracks right-wing movements, told Scott Harris of the Between the Lines radio show that it was time for a campaign to get advertisers to drop their sponsorship of the Glenn Beck program. He said such a campaign had been successful in getting Lou Dobbs removed from CNN, in light of Dobb’s perpetual bashing and unfair portrayal of immigrants.