Sunday, February 22, 2009

Glenn Greenwald Playing A Little Fast And Loose With The Truth

Found via Digg

Noted sockpuppet Glenn Greewald has an article up today basically accusing Glenn Beck, who I think is a turd, of fomenting rebellion via his show on Fox News. As part of his analysis he attempts to show that angry white males organize into militias whenever a Democrat is elected President, thereby associating all hate and partisanship with the political right:

Bill Clinton's election in 1992 gave rise to the American "militia movement": hordes of overwhelmingly white, middle-aged men from suburban and rural areas who convinced themselves they were defending the American way of life from the "liberals" and "leftists" running the country by dressing up in military costumes on weekends, wobbling around together with guns, and play-acting the role of patriot-warriors.

...

What was most remarkable about this allegedly "anti-government" movement was that -- with some isolated and principled exceptions -- it completely vanished upon the election of Republican George Bush, and it stayed invisible even as Bush presided over the most extreme and invasive expansion of federal government power in memory.

...

But now, only four weeks into the presidency of Barack Obama, they are back -- angrier and more chest-beating than ever. Actually, the mere threat of an Obama presidency was enough to revitalize them from their eight-year slumber, awaken them from their camouflaged, well-armed suburban caves.


There are some problems with Greenwald's assertions.

First - To my knowledge the militia movement has been disavowed by every serious conservative / Republican politician. Now I am sure that Greenwald with the resources of Salon behind him can find some state legislator who came out in full fledged support for the militias but they are isolated and no more representative of most conservatives thinking than people on the left calling for the assassination of George Bush are of most responsible Democrats.

Second - It appears that his contention is that the militia movement sprang to life fully formed, like Athena from Zeus's head, upon the election of Bill Clinton. in reality there had been a number of White Supremacist, Christian identity, States rights groups in existence for years. Many of them had paramilitary wings, one example is Posse Comitatus:

The militia movement is heir to the right-wing paramilitary tradition, but it is heir, too, to another tradition, the anti-government ideology of groups like the Posse Comitatus. The Posse developed an elaborate conspiratorial view of American history and government, one that claimed the legitimate government had been subverted by conspirators and replaced with an illegitimate, tyrannical government. Posse members believed that the people had the power and responsibility to "take back" the government, through force of arms if necessary. As a result, many Posse figures engaged in paramilitary training.

source


What actually drove the militia movement was the actions at Ruby Ridge and Waco:

More than any other issue, though, the deadly standoffs at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992 and Waco, Texas, in 1993 ignited widespread passion. To most Americans, these events were tragedies, but to the extreme right, they were examples of a government willing to stop at nothing to stamp out people who refused to conform. Right-wing folk singers like Carl Klang memorialized the children who died at Waco with songs like "Seventeen Little Children." These events provided new life to a number of extremist movements, from Christian Identity activists to sovereign citizens, but they also propelled the creation of an entirely new movement consisting of armed militia groups formed to prevent another Ruby Ridge or Waco.


Anger at the election of Bill Clinton may have contributed to the formation of these groups but it wasn't the driving force, and in fact some of the issues which the Southern Poverty Law Center identified as motivators - The Rodney King Riots, Fear of the formation of a socialist "New World Order" occured during the Presidency of the first President Bush.

Another misstatement of fact on Greenwald's part is that with the election of George W. Bush the militia movement died out. In fact (again according to the Southern Poverty Law Center) militia activity began it's decline in 1996 long before the 2000 election:

The number of militia groups declined after 1996, as did militia activity. Patterns of criminal activity, however, remained more or less constant: militia members continued to get themselves in trouble with the law on a regular basis. As the millennium wound to a close, federal agents arrested Florida militia leader Donald Beauregard, charging that he and others had plotted to destroy a nuclear power plant and other utilities as well as law enforcement offices (Beauregard eventually struck a plea deal). And in one of the only Y2K-related criminal acts in the United States, two San Joaquin County Militia members were arrested in Sacramento, California, on weapons charges; they had allegedly plotted to blow up a propane storage facility. More recently, in December 2000, Western Illinois Militia leader Dan Shoemaker received a four-year sentence on counts of aggravated intimidation, threatening a public official and unlawful use of weapons, following an incident in which he threatened law enforcement officers who tried to talk him out of plans to march through two Illinois towns carrying a rifle. Shoemaker had earlier promised to shoot anybody who tried to stop him. Other militia groups have made veiled threats related to current and future firearms legislation.


Finally - Show me where there has been an upsurge in militia activity. Glenn Beck flapping his jaws, stupid as it may be doesn't count. Show me some concrete proof. I haven't seen the show but I seriously doubt that Beck called for armed revolution. (I will watch it now even though I wasn't planning to and if Beck does in fact call for or seem to encourage revolution I will update this post and apologize)

But what the hell why let a few facts stand in the way of smearing everyone on the political right as an armed nut-job.

Update I went and watched the show on Fox News (Worst Case Scenario 1, 2 and 3), as I suspected they didn't say what Greenwald purports they said. No where was there advocacy of militias. What the show was about was a bunch of potential economic / political disaster type scenarios and wht the response to them would be.

Note Corrected a spelling error in the title.

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