WashTimes and Fox News Now Unleashing Mobs On Private Citizens (Including Kids)
The conservative movement has become a mindless mob, and the right-wing media, more and more often, are sending their overeager foot soldiers out on seek-and-destroy missions involving private citizens. They're even targeting innocent schoolchildren, like the group of second-graders in New Jersey that became a right-wing (mob) object of disgust last week after an old YouTube clip surfaced that showed the students singing a song in honor of the President of the United States. (You're supposed to recoil in horror at the mere suggestion of such a thing happening in America.)
In theory, of course, online dirt-digging and sleuthing makes perfect sense and represents a new era of participatory journalism embraced by the Internet. But in the hands of right-wing radicals who exhibit very little common sense and even less common decency, the witch hunts of peripheral players, including now-regular attempts to target children, no longer represent journalism in any recognizable sense. Instead, they're just unsettling -- and dangerous -- attempts at mob rule. They're a way to send a signal that anybody who is even marginally involved in public discourse can suddenly become a target of the mob. And then, all bets are off.
This trend of targeting private citizens is not new. But it has become more pronounced in recent weeks and months, as collective Obama hatred has pushed the GOP Noise Machine to ignore the boundaries of fair play.
Read the entire Media Matters column here.
Follow Eric Boehlert on Twitter: www.twitter.com/EricBoehlert
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Sung to the tune of "Aquarius":
This is the dawning of the New Age of McCarthyism ..
"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.”
- Winston Churchill
We are, unfortunately assailed by an extremley focused, extremely agitated minority whose world-view has been upset by reality.
Yes, Laugh all the way to the prison
I have opened a store here that sells pitchforks, staves, and torches. Business is booming.
Being a conservative myself and listening to these people they sound nuts to me. I am not found of politics and religion in schools, but these people are pushing it.
Are we not to have holidays for Presidents or special days now, oh wait people are trying to stop that stuff to.
Nice to hear from you! As a liberal myself, I often have trouble rectifying more conservative views w/ my own take on politics and the world, but at least it should be possible to have disagreements w/o the descent into craziness that seems to be "in vogue" this year.
The reason they "are pushing it", in your view??
The right wingers are afraid that their children will grow up smarter than them – the horror !!!!!!
Strange how a group so quick to agree to the torture of "terrorists" and the demonization of muslims are now themselves becoming extremists fanatics bordering on acts of domestic terror.
They aren't "becoming extremist fanatics" cdouglas,.
Like all Fundamentalists and Fanatics - when their narrow view of what the world should be is challenged - they get scared, angry, and lash out like the tempter-tantrum prone 2-year olds they are at their cores.
Saying Thank You is Socialist, Comrade.
Since 23% of registered voters identify themselves as Republican.
Since, according to fox, only 10% of these Republican mobs are racist and causing trouble.
Doesn't that mean that were, as a thoughtful, caring nation, are being bullied by 2.3% of our registered voters?
Seems a bit odd that Fox News + MSM give such a disproportionate share of attention to this 2.3%.
Just sayin' - if we all had any backbone, we could dictate some fairness by effective boycotts and just simply being louder.
Problem is - that 2.3% is highly agitated and very hateful, hard to find groups of thinking people with enough motivation to counter them.
What trouble?? The march on Washington 0 (zero) arrests and 0 (zero) brawls and the place was actually clean and not trashed when the PEACEFUL demonstration was done. Now lets look at the G20 with 38 arrests most video shows scuffles in the crowd. i. e not so peaceful. By the way lets keep the politics out of the schools, the song had campaign slogans and a bible song subing the name of Jesus with him (meaning Obama).
How many people at the "the march on Washington, about 60,000. I attended the inaugaration and there where about a million, no arrests, no brawls, and the city was not trashed, so what's you point? If you were well read you would know that at the G-20 this is the norm what you saw here in American was tame, last year in England it was a disaster, someone was killed, those people protesting, if you watched any of it and not taking talking points from republicans, you would have seen that these people for the most part were not protesting the president, but other world issuses. Please take you head out of the sand, and check you biases at the door, there is no place for it in politics.
Yeah right wingnuts Washington protests only had signs with violent racist images and spewed verbal threats against the president and dems, yeah they are peaceful people.
You might want to watch something else besides Fox news before you brain turns into mush.
don't forget, back in febuary, the republicans said that they were gping to become like the taliban when fighting obama... this was a couple of weeks after taking office....
good points. The Taliban remark was so over the top when it was made, and received a bit of attention, but not enough, obviously. The right wing has very little to work with right now, and making crazy claims, no matter how outlandish, will always score them at least a few points. That's probably the best thing you can say right now, is that the points they score are so few, and so limited, because the majority of Americans, even when unfettered by all the facts,... know crazy when they see it!!
The rest of us just have to keep standing up for what's right, writing letters, making calls, etc., so that enough of the politicians that matter get the message--
Exactly. If only I didn't have a life and sensible priorities
What is next for pete's sake? I watched that video, it's not what Fox claims. It sounds to me the only people that are actually doing what Fox is trying to implicate, is Fox themselves.
My daughter used to want to see all views, and now is so turned off she can hardly stand it.
"Mom - this is what happens in school, I thought people were suppose to grow up".
It's called 'projection', and the crazies are making quite a few careers out of it, it seems. Just sit back and let you own biases be the basis for everyone else's thoughts and actions, seems to be the way that it goes w/ a lot of these "info-tainment" personalities and their rhetoric. Most times that can't even be charged w/ believing what they say, so it just goes around and around.
My wife (who teaches) and I keep a saying on our fridge;
"Education's goal is to make a growing mind into an open one" So much for that, I guess. It seems the only thing many smart & curious children get is more of the 'ugly' that their parents were fed when they "grew up". Sad & true, but anyway, good luck w/ keeping your daughter's mind open to all things, we try and instill that in our son & daughter all the time.
You are not very truthful by saying that the kids are being targeted. It's the teachers, administrators and NEA who are being targeted, and rightfully so.
Singing songs to Democrats is scandalous! Now when they sang songs to Bush after Kartina, well that was patriotism. I just wish all these lefties would remember that they simply cannot get away with the same actions as Conservatives. America is a Conservative Nation and we aim to keep it that way. By whatever means necessary, right SantaFeyCo
Are you kidding?
Sarcasm is not your strong suit.
Targeted for what?????
Come on back and back up your statement. What is this ghastly offense that they deserve targeting for???
Sorry man, that is what the liberal mind does, it twists, bends and shapes info to fit their agenda. Facts are lost on them. The kids are and were not the "target" the teacher and administraters that allowed campaign slogans to be used as a childrens song are.
so much for facts--you should try 'em sometime
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