Gaslighting America
Posted: January 22, 2011 Filed under: The Media SUCKS, the villagers, Violence against women | Tags: Fox News, Francis Pivens, Glenn Beck and the Becksters 63 CommentsSome people really do live in alternative realities. A good deal of them are not confined to obscure blogs or city street 
blocks screaming things that people frankly know aren’t true. However, if you manage to get yourself a show on Fox News and you get to repeat the lies day in and day out, people think some one may actually fact check you. Critical masses of people can mistakenly believe the lies. Glenn Beck just keeps gaslighting America and a good number of people appear to be stupid enough to believe him.
I frankly can’t watch him. He’s so obviously got issues that you wonder how he has managed to escape treatment for mental health problems. I guess if you’re a gravy train, people will ride you no matter what. What really bothers me is that he actually does have an impact on some people.
Just ask an obscure 78 year old professor retired from CUNY, Frances Piven, who is receiving death threats because Beck’s decided that something she wrote 45 years ago has brought the “United States to its knees”. It’s amazing to me what a really disturbed mind can self create. Facts are abused out of necessity. Beck seems to think if you just keep writing the same things and saying the same things over and over you can gaslight enough of the people enough of the time. He manages to make a living and stay within the disturbed little bubble he’s created to rationalize his own failures. He’s empowered by delusions and denial and paid very well for them. Every thing that happens to Frances Piven as a result of his words is just one more symptom of poor little Beck. It’s all about his suffering, his problems, his brilliance, and his deluded truth.
Frances Fox Piven, a City University of New York professor, has been a primary character in Mr. Beck’s warnings about a progressive take-down of America. Ms. Piven, Mr. Beck says, is responsible for a plan to “intentionally collapse our economic system.”
Her name has become a kind of shorthand for “enemy” on Mr. Beck’s Fox News Channel program, which is watched by more than 2 million people, and on one of his Web sites, The Blaze. This week, Mr. Beck suggested on television that she was an enemy of the Constitution.
Never mind that Ms. Piven’s radical plan to help poor people was published 45 years ago, when Mr. Beck was a toddler. Anonymous visitors to his Web site have called for her death, and some, she said, have contacted her directly via e-mail.
What horrible thing has this retired academic and senior citizen done to attract the attention of the mad Beck?
The interest in Ms. Piven is rooted in an article she wrote with her husband, Richard Cloward, in 1966. The article, “The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty,” proposed that if people overwhelmed the welfare rolls, fiscal and political stress on the system could force reform and give rise to changes like a guaranteed income. By drawing attention to the topic, the proposal “had a big impact” even though it was not enacted, Ms. Piven said. “A lot of people got the money that they desperately needed to survive,” she said.
In Mr. Beck’s telling on a Fox broadcast on Jan. 5, 2010, Ms. Piven and Mr. Cloward (who died in 2001) planned “to overwhelm the system and bring about the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with impossible demands and bring on economic collapse.” Mr. Beck observed that the number of welfare recipients soared in the years after the article, and said the article was like “economic sabotage.”
People with nothing to say have to find enemies. They have to create some narrative that turns their own personal failures into a grandstand for a message befitting a broken record. What amazes me is how many people continue to go back for inspiration and that FOX news lets him get away with getting close to proposing murder. Beck isn’t the only one going after Piven. Breithbart appears to be in the act too.
She offended the extreme right wing by suggesting that the unemployed should stage mass protests like in Greece. Last time I checked, that was fully within the scope of the constitution. However, today’s right wing is trying to crawl away from its own violent rhetoric by pointing fingers at others, so the narrative goes that Piven’s is inciting violent riots. They conveniently ignore the death threats that come from their language and comments like this one.
One such threat, published as an anonymous comment on The Blaze, read, “Somebody tell Frances I have 5000 roundas ready and I’ll give My life to take Our freedom back.” (The spelling and capitalizing have not been changed.)
That comment and others that were direct threats were later deleted, but other comments remain that charge her with treasonous behavior.
Treason appears to be a new right wing trigger word. What amazes me is something akin to what amazes Steven Benen over at The Washington Monthly. Why would Beck pick on a relatively obscure, elderly woman? Is this like the ultimate example of a bully? She’s not really got any say in any kind of policy decision. She’s retired so she writes a few articles for The Nation and that’s about it. She’s not even in the classroom any more. That’s the problem with bullies that find a platform of some kind. Their mental illness and twisted lies spew onto people who don’t fact check or look at observable past data.
If you’ve never heard of Frances Fox Piven, don’t feel bad. Up until a couple of weeks ago, I hadn’t either. Apparently she wrote some radical stuff about poor people and political activism in 1966, and the voices in Beck’s head tell him this is important and relevant in 2011, never mind the fact that the vast majority of liberals haven’t read her work and have no idea who she is.
Though it’s tempting, it’d be a mistake to dismiss this is inconsequential silliness. With Beck having singled out Piven as an instigator of political violence, Beck’s audience has published death threats against the CUNY professor, and some of his followers have even contacted her directly with menacing messages.
The Center for Constitutional Rights this week urged Fox News chairman Roger Ailes to intervene, explaining that Beck has put Piven in “actual physical danger of a violent response.”
Fox News disagrees and has said it will take no action.
Once again, Fox News disagrees, will take no action, and is just reading the viewership numbers. It’s irresponsible of a news organization with access to public airwaves to encourage gaslighting. Beck is obviously doing damage to this woman already. What will it take to remove the public platform from him? It’s one thing for obscure blogs to run narratives that serve a sick ego, but this guy has the airwaves. Shouldn’t threatening people’s safety be some kind of FCC issue? Shouldn’t inciting people to death threats be a concern?
Update: Piven has filmed some responses and given interviews in response to the attacks by Beck. Here’s a quote from one of her interviews about a year ago at New York Magazine.
In a separate interview last year, she said, of Beck vilifying her: “It’s an old technique of right-wing ideologues: Finding a scapegoat. Somebody, preferably, who isn’t a farmer, right? An intellectual. And attributing things that go wrong in American society to somebody who’s foreign or dark-skinned or an intellectual.”
Scapegoating intellectuals has always been the preferred tactic of folks who support authoritarianism.
Watch videos of the interviews here at Mediaite.
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Wow! Another amazing post when I just finished digesting Wonk’s post. Fox’s behavior is irresponsible and reprehensible. They know exactly what they’re doing and everyone ought to be calling them out for manipulating facts and calling it “news”. Apparently only boobs and the F bomb are the FCC’s purvey and any boob can get on TV, make up a story, and sell it as a factual account providing he has a deep pocketed benefactor.
I can’t imagine that if something happens to this woman, that there’s not a direct tie between that and FOX and an actionable law suit. I’ve been surprised that O’Reilly’s been able to get away with some of this for some time too. These folks hide behind the first amendment like the Westboro ‘Baptist church’
My god Kat, I cannot believe this shit…Well actually I can, but this is just so disturbing. It is a great post. I have to sit on it a bit.
Wow, another woman to blame everything on! Who’d a thunk it?
Makes you wonder how many people are spending how much time finding articles like Piven’s so Beck and his ilk can continue to rant?
oh, dear, that didn’t even occur to me but that’s probably true
a growth industry… 😦
Speaking of Gaslighlighting America; From Paul Krugman:
In my experience, competitiveness is code for getting rid of worker’s rights, environmental laws, and doing tort reform so consumers and people hurt by big businesses–like those folks harmed by BP–can’t do a damn thing about it
In other words, rejoice capitalists we’re about to switch from the USA to New China. Woohoo! (tongue firmly in cheek on the cheering part)
So, is competitiveness a Republican trait? Just curious?
Competitiveness has a very specific meaning in economics. That seems to not be at the heart of republican arguments, however so I have no idea on that account.
But this is hackneyed stuff, and involves a fundamental misconception about the nature of our economic problems.
……And?? Where’s the news there? Obama’s funtion has always been peddling rebranded hackneyed BS and having not a cule about problems… To just stand there as the counrty is sacked and pillaged…that’s his job , Paul.
Here’s another keeper from Robert Reich:
Let me translate, I speak upper crust:
” American competitiveness” means American workers need to see that they must having 3rd world living standards for the bonus class ‘s sake.
Soon we will see dirt floor decorating tips being offered..oh and being told we are lucky ducks to have floors at all…we could be simply changed to a work bench after all…. they are so good to us!
Paperdoll,
Welcome back 16th century mercantilism, where the labor market gets to exploit workers! Forget about that old notion that this economy is supposed to be a fair exchange of resources where both sides benefit from the association.
The idea that this country isn’t productive is beyond laughable. The number of people I know working 60 hour work weeks is astounding(many of them holding 2 jobs). How much more productivity do they expect people to fit in?
@ cwaltz Hells Yeah! I swear that part about the 60 hour work week is true. Those are the people that fall through the cracks…the ones that make just over the amount to get any aid, healthcare or assistance. My family is just 10 bucks a month over the limit for any help, yet we are drowning just trying to get by.
The main stream media as a whole exists to tell its owners lies 24/7 …Fox being but the most egregious example indeed.
Most of the MSM lies via the sins of omission. They just don’t tell the entire story. Fox just plain lies. It’s a subtle distinction since the damage is still huge to our democracy but you think that would make Fox’s actions part of an actionable law suit.
I think they tell lies….just not as crude as cartoons like Fox… one of the reasons Fox is so popular lol!
but you think that would make Fox’s actions part of an actionable law suit.
That might be true if we lived in a place with the rule of law , but sadly we don’t
It’d be interesting if someone could get them for facilitating. The problem is they are massively funded and I don’t see any of our institutions going after the massively funded. They only go after the little fish they know they can land.
Why would they ever go after Fox? Fox is the loyal opposition, and does them a very valuable service by distracting/directing popular anger into meaningless non-issues.
Person 1 – “I’m sick and tired of the price of everything going up every year, while my salary hasn’t increased in real terms since some point in the 1980s, and then I look around and see ‘public servants’ who make 100k a year to play solitaire all day and then retire with a 100% pension. And then the other day, I got a massive traffic ticket that was issued explicitly to pay for the local police department to buy more big fancy toys like helicopters and armored cars that they’ll never really need. Makes me pissed!”
Glen Beck – “Look over there! A MUSLIM! ACORN ACORN ACORN!!!!!1”
Fox is running its own “government” over there, telling people how to think and react without providing facts. And there are enough brain dead people out there who prefer to have someone else do their thinking for them. It makes it so much easier for both sides this way.
The Right Wing media blitz is all over the airwaves and they have enough of an audience to feel free to say and do whatever they are shilling without having to be held accountable. One day they will go too far but until then, outside of shutting out the entire noise machine, there is not much we can do to stop it.
I think a lot of this started in the late 1970s and early 1980s when the religious right started taking over school boards at public schools. They’ve managed to dumb down everything to the point where kids coming into university think that evolution and creationism are just differing viewpoints rather than one is science and the other is prehistoric myth. They don’t understand the scientific method any more because they are not taught anything resembling method. The evidence is showing up in all the test scores that math, science, reading comprehension and critical thinking skills have been replaced with rote memorization of facts that aren’t even facts. They’ve rewritten textbooks to make the founding fathers sound like pious puritans when no such thing even existed at that time let alone influenced the founding of the country. They’re all over the military. They’ve set up these Republican cretins in congressional seats and it’s like they’re trying to flip us back to serfdom and life before The Enlightenment. Fox is just one of the tools. Billionaire fascists like the Kochs, etc have made a lifelong goal of returning us to a plutocracy and they’re succeeding with the help of a bunch of fundamentalist religionist. It’s disturbing.
Well said. Alot of it started as well when Reagan gave out huge military contracts in the 80’s and the likes of GE took that money went on a media buying spree …sigh
Here’s a good article about where we are …help us!
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/jan2011/pers-j22.shtml
Twenty six months after the eruption of the financial meltdown in 2008, the American ruling class and the Obama administration are exploiting the crisis to permanently restructure class relations in the US, increasing the wealth of the financial aristocracy on the basis of the impoverishment of tens of millions of working people
I have to tell you Pat, I have some very intelligent friends who love Beck. These are not brain-dead or unthinking sheep. They are wonderful people, who would do anything to help out a friend. They are artists and teachers. One of them was even a hot mistress of the rink in Roller Derby. For these people to fall for Beck’s rant, is beyond me.
Oh MM I know what you mean. I have 2 dear friends who both have undergraduate degrees with honors and high honors and they both quote and talk about what they’ve heard on Beck and take it for the gospel truth. 🙄
Most of the time if anything political comes up in a discussion, I just have to say “mmm”, “uh-huh” and the like. Inwardly I’m just screaming “use that brain you were given to reason!”. I believe they think I’m just a tad to the right of a socialist or communist, but not by much. LOL!
Given most people don’t know the difference between a socialist and a communist and a liberal and a real conservative, I wouldn’t take any one’s label for granted. The first political science class I took at university was the day I was given a political science ‘dictionary’. The right has totally messed the lexicon up. They confuse fascism, socialism, communism and liberalism up daily. What used to pass as a real conservative these days is probably a communist to them. Of course, to really do a number they’ve also had to call every teacher and professor a red too. They’ve normalized the John Bircher mentality and Ayn Rand groupies. I would’ve thought that unthinkable.
You know the crooner Michael Buble?…he LOVES Beck.
Surprised me.
What is the difference between communism and socialism? I used to know, but I don’t anymore.
Oh dak…this is Alabama…one term covers all here if you aren’t Republican and/or Baptist. See the new governor’s recent comments.
They are a wonderful couple and were a very big help in my mom’s final illness and death. They came with me (or I rode with them…I was mess) for mom’s services in Chalmette. I had a chance that night to take them to Rocky and Carlo’s and while they enjoyed the hell out of the food I don’t think they got past the culture shock until we crossed the state line back to Alabama. LOL!
I’ve sworn once I get back to da parish and get settled that I want them to come down for a few days so I can take them around some places that are “naturally N’awlins”.
Branjor: Hell if I know anymore. I think if you don’t follow O’Reilly, Beck and the rest you’re one or the other and I don’t know if they use the terms correctly or not.
So I read the definitions of socialism and communism and both are systems of collective ownership. Communism, however, is both economic and political and believes that there should be no classes, while socialism is only economic. Is that it?
branjor: I found this and believe this why people confuse the two:
Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_socialism_and_communism#ixzz1BplhMrwe
Socialism has a bunch of different approaches. There are Christian Socialists and Democratic Socialists, just as an example. But basically, yes, socialism advocates collectivism through government or industrial group ownership of the means of production and distribution of goods. It aims to replace the goal of profit with the goal of cooperation and social responsibility.
Communism is broader than that since it generally is based on a collective society but deals with politics, economics and social theory. Everything is socially or collectively owned. A lot of communists believe that socialism is a step towards communism but really, communism is based on the ‘withering away of the state’ which is a term that’s not very well defined. Even Plato has advocated a form of communal living, so the Marxist version is hardly new.
Not all socialists forms of government are totalitarian which is one of the big myths pushed by right wingers. Historically, authoritarian states have been based in monarchies. Labor unions are not considered okay because they don’t represent the goal of the dictator.
Fascism is an extreme right political system. It incorporates dictators, one state parties and regimes of complete state control of economic and social activity. Hitler, Mussolini, Peron, Franco are examples. That’s distinct from communism because fascism retains private control of land and capital even though economic activity is absolutely controlled and regimented.
The right wing likes to confuse the two. Usually fascism comes about during a crisis (historically) because industrial leaders of a state fear the rise of communism which basically implies they lose ownership and profits.
None of this is to be confused with Hamiltonism which is another thing that the right confuses with communism and socialism. That idea incorporates a powerful national government, strong executive power that provides unity for a nation so the there can be a viable economy. But, it’s a promoter of a “special role” for government. That’s completely different than all of the above.
Oh, and oddly enough the federalists are the precursors to today’s republicans. They liked national banking systems, standard currencies, etc. They only thing the new ones seem to like is business subsidies. They no longer like tax systems, national debt, mint and protective tariffs. What a change the last 20 -30 years has brought as Republicans have left their Hamiltonian roots.
In talk or in action? George Bush (I and II) and Ronald Reagan were fervent believers in the “American system,” at least in deed if not word.
I’ve never heard Beck, but from what I’ve read he is nominally certifiable. Looking for enemies everywhere, he reminds me of my former neighbor George, who was a diagnosed paranoid schitzophrenic. George was always looking out for people to hate because he felt they were disrespecting him. Poor George, he didn’t realize that all his problems stemmed from his own behavior, and he was on meds most of the time. I tried to help by inviting George into my home to talk periodically. Recently my strapping 6’1′ 190 pounds of muscle son told me that George scared the sheite out of him and he could not understand why I didn’t get the same vibes. I did, but I truly thought I could make a difference, however had I known that my children were scared, there is no way George would have made it through the front door. Beck is the same – listening to him lets him through the front door, and he can wreck havoc on the thought processes of people who have not been taught critical thinking.
Sadly, that poor woman is the focus of his latest hate message – truly disgusting that a fully adult male seeks to center out an elderly female for his hate message and to figuratively arm his ignorant followers and send them out to take action.
I’ve never been particularly interested in Glenn Beck, but things I’ve been hearing recently have changed that. This guy is truly dangerous.
Joseph Cannon’s done a little work on some of the thing he’s said that clearly indicates he’s aligned with some fascist elements. That doesn’t even go into his ‘NAZI Tourette’s” as Lewis Black calls it. I think you pointed me there yes?
I agree and the more dangerous part is his complete and utter manipulation of his audience, but putting on fake emotions and fake tears.
Beck Fake Cries Again!
He doesn’t belong on a network that says they are based on news.
This is so disturbing! Just a quick thanks for frontpaging it, Kat. I try to ignore Beck as much as possible, but truly egregious stuff here.
Since he’s got such a huge following on a national news network, he has to be taken seriously. Here’s some of the threats she’s received via The Nation:
(I edited the c word.)
Glenn Beck targeting senior citizens is truly shameful and the misogyny is disgusting.
It’s hard to fathom the depths of human worthlessness it must take to write such messages.
also from the same The Nation Op-Ed:
Oh, a point, which Glenn Beck supporters are trying to pass around is that Byron Williams is mentally ill, but as far as I know, he is socially misinformed, but there is no insanity defense in his case. Byron Williams has a long history of criminal activity, and he viewed Glenn Beck as a bit of a ‘teacher’. 😯 Glenn Beck has only taken a college class or two and has no degree that would allow him to teach any subject and is not considered a ‘professional expert’ in any area (another way to teach, adults, if you have all the necessary certifications in your area of expertise.).
Probably why one of his favorite targets us those of us in Academia. I’ve worked all corporate, I’ve worked government and I’ve worked academia. The only people that survive corporate aren’t the ones that know how to do their jobs. It’s the one’s that know how to do their boss.
So does that mean if I tell a mentally ill person that it’d be “patriotic” to march on Washington with a gun and “take back our country” that I wouldn’t be culpable if it resulted in death?
Shorter Beck apologists: It’s irresponsible and morally repulsive but “hey as long as they can’t physically place the gun in my hands” I plan on keeping it up.
And the SHOCKER, Glenn Beck who sees ‘socialists’ and ‘Nazis’ didn’t know this:
Yes, that Pledge of Allegiance that he targeted a volunteer for The League of Women Voters (Who do the country a great civil service by assisting voters throughout the country and do endless debates without incident for decades.) was written by a Christian Socialist. So, my point is that Glenn Beck doesn’t even do enough research on his flaming gaslighting with which he labels people, honest people, volunteers as NOT BEING PATRIOTIC, accusing them of being un-American and/or working to collapse America.
How many people is this guy going to target with misinformation?
Beck is in it for the fame and money, so in answer to your question, I think he will target as many as he can before saner minds prevail and shut him down. Unfortunately I suspect that it will take a death or two to move Ailes.
Beck makes money, and that makes him acceptable. Period. (It’s the American dream!) Like O’Reilly, he is a monster that America cannot slay…’cuz it’s allowed…encouraged even.
That’s about as deep as it gets.
Answer: As many as he can get away with
Oh they’ll keep insisting at FOX that it isn’t their fault that crazy people take what they hear on their news channel seriously and take the “poor picked on by the liberals” positionthat words mean nothing all the way.
Nevermind that if words had no meaning then our country’s founding documents and it’s laws would also be meaningless since after all it’s just a string of words that underscore the principles this country espouses.
Bottom line: Words matter and so do actions and the fact that FOX won’t act to protect this woman by correcting Beck speaks volumes about their principles.
oh, good grief. Beck…Bleck. A horrid individual enabled by an equally horrid and willing audience. And there’s not much that can be done about that. It is what it is…
unforunately.
er, “unfortunately”.
Beck in his prior life perhaps? “Ravin’ Roland”
uh-oh Spammy got me for a comment. I guess I used a no-no word but not sure what it is.
uh-oh I dood it again. Not sure which word I’m using is the no-no word.
fredster, happy to read you here.
The only word that is a no no here starts with tea and ends with the b word and it’s actually the b word. Other than that, it’s the whims of spammy. We only have blocked one isp too and that’s basically the mood disordered dude that likes to go to blogs and hijack them with unsubstantiated accusations. I just can’t tolerate him because he seems to call every one names based on any criticism of Obama and that’s just not rationale. However, I wasn’t technically the one that typed his ISP in the block list. Funny that. BB did it immediately and gracefully first time out.
Beck should be proverbially yanked off stage by a cane.
He IS dangerous. A bit nutty, too.
And those that follow him or in any way defend him, regardless of how sweet and dear they appear, are a major part of “the” problem.
Glenn Beck is, simply put, a master manipulator of people with low IQ’s, and his goals involve a great deal bloodshed. Want proof? Read this.
NEW at The Will of The People (http://iamthewill.wordpress.com/)
Glenn Beck on How to Deal With Dangerous Progressives: “Shoot Them in the Head”
Low IQ has nothing to do with it. An intelligent person can be manipulated every bit as easily. The ability to turn one’s brain off is universal.