Fox News Channel Feeds Right Wing Radicalism and Fans Flames of Rising Extremism in the United States

I don't know why Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck has expressed surprise about the finger-pointing directed at his channel for fanning the flames of radicalism and domestic terrorism in this country. When there is an incident of race-baiting, murder, as in the case of Dr. Tiller and the barbaric actions of white supremacist James Von Brunn, somehow the Fox News name always pops up. As a conservative Democrat, I would usually flip the channel to watch Fox News on occasion, but since they aren't "fair and balanced" as they claim, especially since President Barack Obama threw his hat in the ring for the presidency and won the elections, from the top of their organization -- Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes -- to their lackeys and the rag NY Post, they have fanned the flames of domestic terrorism. I came across an interesting article written by NY Times Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman and it sums up the role Fox News continues to play in this radicalism. Don't get me wrong, there are other conservatives who are just as complicit -- Rush Limbaugh, Pat Buchanan and sister Bay Buchanan, Michael Savage and others.

Equally amazing is the fact that Fox News' Shepard Smith was visibly exasperated with the continued influx of racist and extremist hate mail he has been receiving. He complained that they were getting more extreme. Do you think Fox News did the right thing and contacted the Department of Homeland Security? I am pretty sure they haven't. Maybe they could look at those emails and see if the next raging lunatic is plotting the murder of a prominent person. The racial tensions in this country are rising and I never thought in my lifetime that I would feel this way, considering how far we have come. I continue to say that any African American, Indian-American, Asian-American and others have the right to run for the presidency if they are natural born citizens. The white man does not have an automatic pass on such an office. I shudder when I think that President Obama could be assassinated by a white supremacist bent on going out with in a hail of bullets. This isn't the America that has learned from its mistakes and is the leader of the free world.

Here's an excerpt of Paul Klugman's article:

Back in April, there was a huge fuss over an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security warning that current conditions resemble those in the early 1990s — a time marked by an upsurge of right-wing extremism that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Conservatives were outraged. The chairman of the Republican National Committee denounced the report as an attempt to “segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration” and label them as terrorists.

But with the murder of Dr. George Tiller by an anti-abortion fanatic, closely followed by a shooting by a white supremacist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the analysis looks prescient.....

There is, however, one important thing that the D.H.S. report didn’t say: Today, as in the early years of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.

Now, for the most part, the likes of Fox News and the R.N.C. haven’t directly incited violence, despite Bill O’Reilly’s declarations that “some” called Dr. Tiller “Tiller the Baby Killer,” that he had “blood on his hands,” and that he was a “guy operating a death mill.” But they have gone out of their way to provide a platform for conspiracy theories and apocalyptic rhetoric, just as they did the last time a Democrat held the White House.

And at this point, whatever dividing line there was between mainstream conservatism and the black-helicopter crowd seems to have been virtually erased.

Exhibit A for the mainstreaming of right-wing extremism is Fox News’s new star, Glenn Beck. Here we have a network where, like it or not, millions of Americans get their news — and it gives daily airtime to a commentator who, among other things, warned viewers that the Federal Emergency Management Agency might be building concentration camps as part of the Obama administration’s “totalitarian” agenda (although he eventually conceded that nothing of the kind was happening).

But let’s not neglect the print news media. In the Bush years, The Washington Times became an important media player because it was widely regarded as the Bush administration’s house organ. Earlier this week, the newspaper saw fit to run an opinion piece declaring that President Obama “not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself,” and that in any case he has “aligned himself” with the radical Muslim Brotherhood.

And then there’s Rush Limbaugh. His rants today aren’t very different from his rants in 1993. But he occupies a different position in the scheme of things. Remember, during the Bush years Mr. Limbaugh became very much a political insider. Indeed, according to a recent Gallup survey, 10 percent of Republicans now consider him the “main person who speaks for the Republican Party today,” putting him in a three-way tie with Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich. So when Mr. Limbaugh peddles conspiracy theories — suggesting, for example, that fears over swine flu were being hyped “to get people to respond to government orders” — that’s a case of the conservative media establishment joining hands with the lunatic fringe. Source: NY Times

I must give credit to Fox News' Shepard Smith and Catherine Herridge, who in the face of their employer's right wing stance, debunked the attacks on the DHS extremism report. I am also mention Geraldo Rivera, who has been just as "fair and balanced" as his two colleagues. Fox News Channel does not deserve these three people in their midst. The litany of guests they have who hawk their radical wares is growing by the minute -- Karl Rove, Ann Coulter, Michele Bachmann, Liz Trotta, and others, continue to prove that they are neither fair or balanced. They are radical and extremist.

To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.