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Title: Why Conservatives are Turning on Beck
Source:
Religion Dispatches
URL Source: http://www.religiondispatches.org/d ... ervatives_are_turning_on_beck/
Published: Feb 9, 2011
Author: Sarah Posner
Post Date: 2011-02-09 00:27:50 by Brian S
Keywords: None
Views: 32931
Comments: 53
Adam Serwer asks a good question: why now? Why, after all the obvious agreement between conservatives and Beck -- on Israel, on Islam, on big bad bogeymen like shari'ah water-carriers and socialists and Stalinists et al. -- are conservatives suddenly, as Anthea put it yesterday, circling Beck like sharks? As I discussed as the Egypt news was breaking and Beck was jumping on the opportunity to link the Muslim Brotherhood to the grand socialist conspiracy, American conservatives have a long-standing affection for conspiracy theories surrounding the Muslim Brotherhood and its supposed plot to take over America with a "caliphate." As Media Matters notes today, Beck shares a pundit with the "creeping shari'ah" industry: Zuhdi Jasser, a claimed "moderate" Muslim who seems to think that "radical Islamists" lurk in America. As I discussed last week, Jasser is the star of the Clarion Fund film The Third Jihad; "crazy bigot" Frank Gaffney serves on Clarion's board; and despite the Conservative Political Action Conference's decision to shut Gaffney out, there is still a screening of Clarion's latest endeavor, Iranium, at this week's conference. Jasser also will be a star witness at Republican Peter King's "radical Islam" hearings. Ali Gharib reports in AlterNet on an earlier screening of Iranium, which hypes Tehran's nuclear threat, at the Heritage Foundation, and about how the film being promoted by a former colleague of World Net Daily's Aaron Klein, who was one of the first conservative writers to jump on the conspiracy train: lest you forget, that line of thinking goes, Mohamed ElBaradei, while head of the IAEA, let Iran off the hook on its nuclear ambitions; ElBaradei's OK with the Muslim Brotherhood; therefore he must be behind the plot to install a nuclear-armed-Islamic-caliphate-that-will-impose-shari'ah-on-us-all. I paraphrase, of course, but you get the drift. That Jasser is both the right's poster boy for "moderate Islam" and a Beck guest demonstrates that Beck is drinking from the same well as a wide swath of the American conservative movement. (On Hardball last night, Chris Matthews zeroed in on the John Birch Society, but it's hardly been a pioneer of the shari'ah scare.) CPAC might have shunned Gaffney; he might have struck back with the comically desperate claim that CPAC itself has been infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood; but let's face it, the right is happy, for instance, to let Peter King go ahead with his 21st century McCarthy hearings. But Beck has gone too far? Three years ago, I wrote a story about the Clarion Fund, and talked to Jasser about his role in the making of The Third Jihad. The film, which also features political figures Sen. Joe Lieberman, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, posits -- just like Beck does, although with a rather frightening if ill-conceived coherence that Beck can't match -- that the Muslim Brotherhood is behind every American Muslim group, and that every one of those groups shares its supposed goal of imposing shari'ah law in the west. "They want shari'ah law where they're able to install it in America," Jasser told me, "in enclaves and court systems." These groups believe, he insisted, that "the construct of government isn't based on natural law and reason, but the construct is that the Qu'ran is the constitution and the clerics rule through oligarchy and lay Muslims have to abide by the clerical injunction of shari'ah." Beck has never been shy about showcasing rapture-ready end-timers like Joel Rosenberg or John Hagee; his apocalyptic rantings about Islam of late are tinged with that sort of Ezekiel Gog-Magog prophecy -- which, in the view of Christian Zionists like Hagee, foretell not only a grand confrontation between Christ and the Antichrist, but between Christianity and Islam. As Anthea observed last week, Beck is clearly trying to tap into those narratives to fuel his -- and his viewers' -- paranoias about current events in Egypt. That's not to say these end-times prophecies aren't criticized in right-wing circles -- they are, but they are largely tolerated. And tolerated, for example, by pro-Israel neocons like Bill Kristol, now leading the charge against Beck, because they supposedly support Israel. This is exactly the sort of thinking that led Newt Gingrich and John McCain to suggest (quite inaccurately, in retrospect, right?) that the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah amounted to World War III, and Kristol to suggest that bombing Iran might not be a bad idea. McCain might have disavowed Hagee during the 2008 campaign, but his Christians United for Israel continues to flourish, and institutional Jewish tolerance for his professed "love" of Israel, while dampened somewhat, continues nonetheless. So why is Beck getting the cold shoulder? I think he's gone too far with the crazy talk. Conservatives want this sort of anti-Muslim stuff to be respectable -- I'm not saying it is, I'm just saying they're straining to present it that way. As far as the religious part of the conservative movement goes, the religious right has probably been cheered by having movement that is no longer seen as being led by a single person whose embarrassing moments have to be owned by the whole movement. The lack of a single leader is a sign of the religious right's success, not its demise. Beck has long troubled many within it who don't want him to be seen as their de facto leader. Don't misjudge that, though -- he still has his defenders. But no matter who prevails here, don't be fooled by the conservative pile-on about Beck. It's more about form than substance.
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#14. To: A K A Stone, go65, lucysmom (#13)
Does that mean I hate those kids in your somewhat warped view? Of course you do. You love the fetus and hate the born child who should get a job as soon as its born. You call women the C word. Which tells me that you hate abortion because in your mind that liberates a woman? Who knows what's in your minds. And yea, I am all in favor of jailing people who don't pay their taxes. Jesus is even OK with it since he hung out with tax collectors and told his followers to "render unto" the govt the taxes due. Praise Jesus, who is Lord.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
Because he's bat-shit crazy?
You liberals come across as hating babies so much that you want people to be able to murder them at will. I have no respect for pro abortion sickos. That a baby murderer or supporter of baby murder calls me crude or controlling means nothing to a sane person. I mean I wouldn't get upset if some child rapist didn't like my views towards them. And murder is so much worse then rape.
Don't get sucked into his anti-abortion vortex.
You would of course force the child to carry the rapist's baby to full term - even if it killed the child.....
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
Yeah, Stay pro infant murder. Homicidal asshole.
Well, [war's] got to do something for attention, his multiple personalities aren't speaking to him any more, and his imaginary friends keep finding excuses not to come over.
Like Pontius Pilate you like clean murder, and the slow killing of the human spirit.
Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains. Thomas Jefferson
The Bible blames Eve for Adam's downfall, so naturally Stone thinks men are superior to women.
You support the mass murderer Barack Obama. You owe me an apology. I favor no murder. That is democrats and some stupid republicans.
Mike you don't know about the Bible. You don't have the right kind of ears to hear.
war knows it is a losing argument to debate the merits of abortion. Nothing good comes out of murdering babies.
Adam blamed God and the woman. "That woman, the one you gave me, gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." Poor guy! He was a helpless victim.
Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains. Thomas Jefferson
You support policies that lead to death because you think it saves you a couple of bucks at tax time.
Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains. Thomas Jefferson
"I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you." To Adam He said: "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree .... Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life..." Quran: "O Adam dwell with your wife in the Garden and enjoy as you wish but approach not this tree or you run into harm and transgression. Then Satan whispered to them in order to reveal to them their shame that was hidden from them and he said: 'Your Lord only forbade you this tree lest you become angels or such beings as live forever.' And he swore to them both that he was their sincere adviser. So by deceit he brought them to their fall: when they tasted the tree their shame became manifest to them and they began to sew together the leaves of the Garden over their bodies. And their Lord called unto them: 'Did I not forbid you that tree and tell you that Satan was your avowed enemy?' They said: 'Our Lord we have wronged our own souls and if You forgive us not and bestow not upon us Your Mercy, we shall certainly be lost' " (7:19:23). What would really piss Stone if he were literate to know this is how accounts of the story of the Creation, Christian and Islamic reveals some basic differences between them. The Quran, contrary to the Bible, places equal blame on both Adam and Eve for their mistake. Nowhere in the Quran can one find even the slightest hint that Eve tempted Adam to eat from the tree or even that she had eaten before him. Eve in the Quran is no temptress, no seducer, and no deceiver. Moreover, Eve is not to be blamed for the pains of childbearing. God, according to the Quran, punishes no one for another's faults. Both Adam and Eve committed a sin and then asked God for forgiveness and He forgave them both. Guess that's why Stone thinks Islam is of Satan and thinks Islam is anti-woman's rights.
Rape is an act of violence. And women should have the right to control who's genes they allow into the pool. This attempt to redefine violence will result in more violence if the sort of perp who rapes thinks his theft of a woman's body to create offspring will be protected. I don't like abortion, but if a pregnancy endangers the woman bearing the child, or is due to an act of violence and would harm the woman emotionally of physically, she should not be sanctioned for aborting the fetus.
Nor do I like abortion. The person who has responsibility should also be the person who has control. It seems like a form of tyranny to deny another human being control over her body, first by rape, and then by telling her she must carry the baby to term.
Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains. Thomas Jefferson
As you've noticed, Stone has the most simple-minded understanding of the Bible possible.
really? So who pays for the care of a severely disabled child, or a child with a rare form of childhood cancer if the parents lack insurance or the means to pay themselves? A good family friend went bankrupt caring for their 4 year old child who had an extremely rare cancer, required multiple surgeries, over a year of chemo, and then a bone marrow transplant when the chemo caused damage to his own marrow. They racked up nearly a million dollars in medical expenses. What's your answer?
Since January 3, 2011, Republicans have controlled the power of the purse.
I think you, like most people, wouldn't force a woman who was impregnated by a rapist to carry the baby to term.
Since January 3, 2011, Republicans have controlled the power of the purse.
Yes he would.
A good family friend went bankrupt caring for their 4 year old child who had an extremely rare cancer, required multiple surgeries, over a year of chemo, and then a bone marrow transplant when the chemo caused damage to his own marrow. They racked up nearly a million dollars in medical expenses. What's your answer? "Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
And if the woman was to die giving birth, even better in Stone's sick little world.
Nope, he may say he would, but I don't think he would actually do it.
Since January 3, 2011, Republicans have controlled the power of the purse.
A good family friend went bankrupt caring for their 4 year old child who had an extremely rare cancer, required multiple surgeries, over a year of chemo, and then a bone marrow transplant when the chemo caused damage to his own marrow. They racked up nearly a million dollars in medical expenses. What's your answer? You are one of those people who believe in the tooth fairy and millions of years. So my answer is that the same people who have been paying for the care for millions of years would pay for it.
If there was a conviction of a person for rape then I guess there could be an exception. That is after someone is found guilty of rape. Afterall you are people are considered innocent until proven guilty. Is your position that rape is the only time that baby murder should be allowed. Or do you think baby murder should be allowed on any whim?
So it is sick to be against people being allowed to murder babies. It's people like you that crucified christ.
Just remember that I warned yinz about getting sucked into this vortex.
I would let the state do it for me. One of its true constitutional purposes.
More women die during abortion then childbirth. Support of child murder tells you a lot about the individual.
You moron, Christ had to be crucified for nutters like you to think they're saved. Do you know anything about the religion you pretend to follow?
That's unworkable because of the length of time required for a conviction. I'm sorry Stone, we may not agree much but i think you are a decent fellow. I can't see you telling a 14 year old girl who has just been gang raped that she can't have a morning after pill and must deal with being pregnant.
Since January 3, 2011, Republicans have controlled the power of the purse.
great, so now that you believe in socializing the medical costs of those who can't afford to pay, let's discuss the most effective means to provide health care to the population, ok? The reality is that under the old system, the uninsured face the choice between bankruptcy and death. Obama is trying to change that, I'm glad to see you support his efforts.
Since January 3, 2011, Republicans have controlled the power of the purse.
I vote with you. Stone on doubt would eveb agree with St. Tertullian who as far as I'm concerned was real woman hater. He said: He would likely side with the renowned reformer Martin Luther who could not see any benefit from a woman but bringing into the world as many children as possible regardless of any side effects: Belief in Christianity has a responsibility to know what you are signing on to when you advocate for that faith. I see a guy who would use the 'C' word to denigrate woman he hates with the most foul and loathsome description of female reproduction systems. I see someone who would sanction the murder of people made vulnerable and cast into imprisonment, put to sleep like a slaughterhouse bull or cow. You cannot be for capital punishment and anti-abortion and say one is pro-life. You cannot say you respect the mind, bodies, lives and spirit of human kind if you treat on gender's anatomy as a curse. I've heard racial and gender preference hatred from Stone and all manners of indications what Stone likes is control, not love of people and of life. Controlling the worst people can do is why we have laws and due process. But if your desire and motive is to control for social, political and personal gain; this control is evil, and should not be tolerated.
If medical care wasn't socialized to the degree that it is, it would be more affordable for everyone. If , when I went to the hospital, I only had to pay for the services I consume, my care would be much more affordable. Name one privately produced (non union) product or service that gets more expensive with time.
I am one of those who do not believe that a national debt is a national blessing, but rather a curse to a republic; inasmuch as it is calculated to raise around the administration a moneyed aristocracy dangerous to the liberties of the country.-Andrew Jackson
What a stupid remark. Capital Punishment is PUNISHMENT for the most heinous crime! What is abortion?
Oil
Since January 3, 2011, Republicans have controlled the power of the purse.
Wishful thinking that ignores that the reason why Medicare was enacted is because seniors were routinely going broke paying for medical care as they aged.
Since January 3, 2011, Republicans have controlled the power of the purse.
Oil Oil fluctuates in price and value.
I don't support threatening to put someone in jail if they don't pay taxes to pay for someone elses food, welfare, daycare etc.
#15. To: Brian S (#0)
Why Conservatives are Turning on Beck
#16. To: lucysmom (#12)
Keep it up; you come across as a crude, controlling man, lacking in respect for human life once outside the womb.
#17. To: lucysmom (#12)
#18. To: A K A Stone, lucysmom (#16)
I mean I wouldn't get upset if some child rapist didn't like my views towards them.
#19. To: war (#17)
#20. To: A K A Stone (#16)
I have no respect for pro abortion sickos. That a baby murderer or supporter of baby murder calls me crude or controlling means nothing to a sane person. I mean I wouldn't get upset if some child rapist didn't like my views towards them. And murder is so much worse then rape.
#21. To: lucysmom (#12)
Keep it up; you come across as a crude, controlling man, lacking in respect for human life once outside the womb.
#22. To: lucysmom (#20)
Like Pontius Pilate you like clean murder, and the slow killing of the human spirit.
#23. To: Ferret Mike (#21)
#24. To: Rudgear (#19)
Yeah, Stay pro infant murder. Homicidal asshole.
#25. To: Ferret Mike (#21)
The Bible blames Eve for Adam's downfall, so naturally Stone thinks men are superior to women.
#26. To: A K A Stone (#22)
You owe me an apology. I favor no murder. That is democrats and some stupid republicans.
#27. To: lucysmom (#25)
In Genesis 2:4-3:24 God said to Eve:
#28. To: lucysmom (#26)
(Edited)
#29. To: Ferret Mike (#28)
I don't like abortion, but if a pregnancy endangers the woman bearing the child, or is due to an act of violence and would harm the woman emotionally of physically, she should not be sanctioned for aborting the fetus.
#30. To: Ferret Mike (#27)
#31. To: A K A Stone (#10)
You're wrong as usual.
#32. To: A K A Stone (#16)
You liberals come across as hating babies so much that you want people to be able to murder them at will. I have no respect for pro abortion sickos. That a baby murderer or supporter of baby murder calls me crude or controlling means nothing to a sane person. I mean I wouldn't get upset if some child rapist didn't like my views towards them. And murder is so much worse then rape.
#33. To: go65 (#32)
#34. To: go65, A K A Stone (#31)
really? So who pays for the care of a severely disabled child, or a child with a rare form of childhood cancer if the parents lack insurance or the means to pay themselves?
#35. To: war (#33)
Yes he would.
#36. To: war (#33)
Yes he would.
#37. To: go65 (#31)
really? So who pays for the care of a severely disabled child, or a child with a rare form of childhood cancer if the parents lack insurance or the means to pay themselves?
#38. To: go65 (#32)
I think you, like most people, wouldn't force a woman who was impregnated by a rapist to carry the baby to term.
#39. To: Skip Intro (#35)
And if the woman was to die giving birth, even better in Stone's sick little world.
#40. To: go65 (#36)
#41. To: go65 (#36)
Nope, he may say he would, but I don't think he would actually do it.
#42. To: Skip Intro (#35)
And if the woman was to die giving birth, even better in Stone's sick little world.
#43. To: A K A Stone (#39)
It's people like you that crucified christ.
#44. To: A K A Stone (#38)
If there was a conviction of a person for rape then I guess there could be an exception. That is after someone is found guilty of rape. Afterall you are people are considered innocent until proven guilty.
#45. To: A K A Stone (#37)
You are one of those people who believe in the tooth fairy and millions of years. So my answer is that the same people who have been paying for the care for millions of years would pay for it.
#46. To: war (#33)
"Yes he would."
""Do you not know that you are each an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the Devil's gateway: You are the unsealer of the forbidden tree: You are the first deserter of the divine law: You are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God's image, man. On account of your desert even the Son of God had to die."
#47. To: Skip Intro (#35)
"And if the woman was to die giving birth, even better in Stone's sick little world."
"If they become tired or even die, that does not matter. Let them die in childbirth, that's why they are there."
#48. To: Skip Intro (#30)
"As you've noticed, Stone has the most simple-minded understanding of the Bible possible."
#49. To: go65 (#31)
A good family friend went bankrupt caring for their 4 year old child who had an extremely rare cancer, required multiple surgeries, over a year of chemo, and then a bone marrow transplant when the chemo caused damage to his own marrow. They racked up nearly a million dollars in medical expenses
#50. To: Ferret Mike, Skip Intro (#48)
You cannot be for capital punishment and anti-abortion and say one is pro-life.
#51. To: Andrew Jackson (#49)
Name one privately produced (non union) product or service that gets more expensive with time.
#52. To: Andrew Jackson (#49)
If medical care wasn't socialized to the degree that it is, it would be more affordable for everyone.
#53. To: go65, Andrew Jackson (#51)
Name one privately produced (non union) product or service that gets more expensive with time.
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