When Fox News commentator Glenn Beck called President Obama a "racist," on July 28, he likely had no idea of the firestorm of controversy he was about to unleash.
After all, Fox News (along with HateWing radio and the Wingnut blogosphere) spew out even more extreme hateful rhetoric on a daily basis. In fact, Beck's "Obama is a racist" comment was far from the most offensive and controversial comment that Beck himself has made over the years.
It's a measure of the double standard in our society that the likes of Beck are able to spew all kinds of violent hate speech and never face any sort of reprimand.
And yet, if anyone on the Left makes even a mildly controversial remark, it will dog them to the end of time (and almost certainly end their career). Recall that all Howard Dean ever did was give out an enthusiastic shout to his supporters---and that alone was enough to sink his presidential ambitions. He didn't even say anything controversial, for Chrissakes.
But the Right-Wing these days pretty much about to get away with murder, and face zero repercussions. Beck can call the predominately African-American victims of Katrina "scumbags" and get away with it. He can call the mother of a fallen soldier, Cindy Sheehan, a "slut" and get away with it. He can blandly and chillingly talk about killing Michael Moore and get away with it.
Given all this, Beck probably thought his "Obama is a racist" remark would never generate any controversy. It was, after all, just another typical day on the Right-Wing cesspool of hate, bigotry and intolerance that is Fox News.
But Beck was wrong.
The boycott of Beck's program started very modestly. In August, the grassroots group, ColorOfChange.org, which organized the boycott, announced that three advertisers had agreed to stop supporting Beck's Fox program.
The reaction from the Right-Wing at the time was sarcastic. One commentator at Wingnut site Hot Air scoffed at the idea that the boycott would amount to anything and chuckled at the notion that a boycott supported by only three advertisers would have any sort of impact.
That was then.
How things have changed in the past couple of weeks.
Today, ColorOfChange.org's boycott has grown to 57 advertisers. It has been enormously successful. Although Beck's program remains on the air, he has to be sweating it out these days, as the boycott grows larger and larger.
Although ColorOfChange.org has enjoyed remarkable success in building a boycott, it's clear that there is still much work to be done. We must continue to pressure Beck's remaining advertisers and remind them that we'll not support their products as long as they support a hatemonger like Beck. We must also continue to pressure the existing 57 advertising boycotters to keep their boycott in place, even after this storm of controversy passes.
So who is still advertising on Beck's program? Here is a list of advertisers:
- Rosland Capital
- Roche Diagnostics (Accu-Chek Aviva)
- Church and Dwight Co, Inc. (Oxi Clean)
- StopRepairBills.com
- Clarity Media Group (The Weekly Standard)
- Jos. A. Bank Clothiers
- Citrix (GoToMeeting)
- News Corp. (The Wall Street Journal)
- Seoul Metropolitan Government (seoul.go.kr)
- Zero Technologies (ZeroWater)
- Video Professor
- Fox News Network (realamericanstories.com)
- Carbonite
- 1-800-Pet-Meds
- IRSTaxAgreements.com
- Lear Capital
- Our Country Deserves Better PAC
If you don't support fascist Nazi-like hate speech polluting our nation's airwaves, then please don't support these advertisers (and let them know your feelings). For that matter, consider boycotting the cesspool of hate and misinformation that is Fox News. And please: support ColorOfChange.org and sign their online petition.
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8 comments:
Great to have you back, Marc!
Glenn Beck (Fatty Arbuckle reincarnated?) is clearly an unstable person. The look in his eyes and his demeanor prove this beyond doubt, as do his crazy "proofs" and theorems. I am glad he is getting wrung through the meat grinder for his irresponsible, false, and hateful commentary. I sincerely hope other haters like Michelle Malkin, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Steve Doocy, and Gretchen Carlson, to name but a few of the Fox "News" liars, and Rush Limbaugh, too, will soon be called on the carpet in the exact same way.
Let's look at Beck and a lot of these far-right commentators. Beck, Hannity, and Carlson don't even have journalism degrees. What the hell are they doing on a supposed news network? Beck, Hannity, and Limbaugh are all college dropouts (not that being one automatically means they are stupid or inferior, but it DOES cast suspicion on their legitimacy as knowledgeable researchers or experts on subjects they portray themselves as experts in). All of them lie repeatedly on their shows, and none present all sides of an issue, only their own predetermined biases. Why should we accept their commentary at all?
It is high time we begin demanding that accuracy replace hyperbole and falsehood on Fox "News" and right wing talk radio. What a cesspool of irresponsible nonsense both forms of media are today!
Great comments, Jack. Thanks. Your Fatty Arbuckle comparison is right-on-target.
re:
>>>Beck, Hannity, and Carlson
>>>don't even have journalism
>>>degrees.
Actually, I'm sure this is a plus as far as their knuckle-dragging base is concerned. These people have contempt for knowledge and well-informed "elites."
I've long believed that most of the books that the likes of Beck and Coulter release are never actually read.
Good point about their lack of credentials being a plus to the knuckle-draggers, Marc. It is hard to believe a nation which produced a moon landing, is poised to send humans to Mars, and who pioneered the computer could now have so many who oppose intellect and knowledge. Utterly disgraceful!
Thanks for the comment, Jack.
re:
>>>It is hard to believe a nation
>>>which produced a moon landing,
The moon landing was indeed an astonishing accomplishment. But what gets left out in the "offficial" American version of this story is the key and crucial role played by German rocket technology. I'm not at all convinced that we could have pulled off the moon landing in 1969 without the German rocket scientists we recruited in Operation Paperclip.
And I'm not at all convinced that America will ever pull off a manned Mars landing. We're a nation today that has a difficult time just maintaining our crumbling infrastructure. Where will we find the hundreds of billions of dollars needed to land a person on Mars?
Yes, we pulled off the Moon landing in the 1960s. But America was a totally different nation then. We were capable of dreaming big and accomplishing great things. We were a "can-do" nation.
These days, we're not.
In fact, when is the last time the American government pulled off a really big, impressive accomplishment? It was probably the moon landing---and that was four decades ago.
Some would argue that America "won" the Cold War. But I agree with Chalmers Johnson that if anyone "won" the Cold War, it was really Japan.
Anyway, enough rambling. Thanks again Jack for your always thoughtful comments.
Marc,
I think a major reason government hasn't accomplished much since 1969 has been due to the huge dominance conservatives and Republicans have had over government over the past 40 years. Ford was a do-nothing; Carter's hands were tied by an uncooperative and conservative-influenced Congress; Reagan and the new conservatives he ushered in saw government as a problem, and not a solution; Bush I much the same, a basic do-nothing; Clinton was handcuffed by the latest batch of mean-spirited conservative Gingrich Republicans; Bush II and his horde perverted government into corporate puppets; and now Obama faces a solid wall of opposing conservative Republicans and weak-kneed "blue dog" Democrats. For all this ballyhoo about free markets being the only true route to progress and prosperity (as touted loudly by today's conservatives), all these free markets have produced is a drop in our living standards and a massive consolidation of wealth at the very, very top of the economic ladder for a bare few. So yes, government has accomplished very little since 1969, but that is due to conservative and business dominance. TIME FOR A PROGRESSIVE-LIBERAL RESURGENCE!
Hi Jack, great comment, as always and a nice summation of the past four decades.
To the previous poster: One thing I have noticed consistently about the "freedom of the press" is that it always belongs to those who OWN the presses. You people have no problem silencing, or even better, pre-empting, anybody with a dissenting view that leans even a bit left. What's being proposed here is to simply make Glenn Beck economically unviable. You right-wing assholes have NEVER been against anything like that -- at least as long as it silences progressives.
But, of course, now it's different.
re:
>>>Haven't you ever heard of
>>>Freedom of Speech?
I don't recall you types ever defending freedom of speech for those who were questioning the rationale for the Iraq War, back in 2002. In fact, you screamed at us to shut the f*ck up and called us traitors.
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