The Becking Of America

From Chip Berlet on "The Becking of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords":

CHIP BERLET: Well, if you’re walking in the shoes of a person who believes this set of stories, abortion, gay rights, sexual liberalism are all part of a plan to destroy America by reducing its moral backbone and allowing godless ideas and alien ideas to infiltrate the country and destroy America as God’s new promised land. So, within certain groups of the Christian right who are militantly anti-abortion, the idea is that this is all part of the same fabric of secular humanist, liberal treason. And it’s this idea that the Democrats and the liberals and the leftists are treasonous, which is creating this atmosphere of demonization and vilification.

Back in June of 2009, I wrote a report called “Toxic to Democracy,” which said—and I’ll quote it—“Aggressive right-wing rhetoric targeting Democrats as treasonous encourages some unstable people to act out in aggression or violence.” So this was predictable. Sara Robinson, David Neiwert, Mark Potok, dozens of reporters who study the right wing have been predicting the outcome of this wave, this "Becking" of America, where the Glenn Becks, the Ann Coulters, the Bill O’Reillys talk about abortion, talk about gay rights, talk about healthcare, talk about the Democrats as traitors to America who have to be stopped.

Here is some “Becking” from days gone by:

Bring Your Gun To The Tea Party

and

From Glen Beck Has Made Me Feel Better:

Beck has a “shoot them in the head” fetish:

"Beck has a warning for Muslims 'who have sat on [their] frickin' hands' and have not 'lin[ed] up to shoot the bad Muslims in the head'," Media Matters for America, August 10, 2006.

“I wonder, do we have a guy who will tell me the truth who is well spoken, who has the fire in the belly to do a couple of things: one, shoot the bad guys in the head, and, two, shrink the size of government?” Glenn Beck, September 6, 2007.

“I say Rudy Giuliani is the candidate who will stand up to our enemies, tell them to get the hell out or we`ll shoot them in the head.” Glenn Beck, September 6, 2007.

From Glenn Beck on how the US should treat Gitmo detainees: We’re going to shoot them all in the head by John Amato:

Listen to this rant about the Supreme Court decision on Gitmo detainees and you’ll know the state of conservatism in this country He’s like so many of them.

Beck: This court has done some frightening. frightening things….If I’m president of the US, I would go on National television and say—’ladies and gentlemen, the Supreme Court said that we don’t have Gitmo so that is over. We’re going to release all of them, but I want you to know from here on out our policy is to not have prisoners. We’re going to shoot them all in the head.’

If we think they are against us, we’re going to shoot them and kill them—period because that’s the only thing we’ve got going for us—cause we can put them away and get information. If we can’t put them away and they’re going to use our court system—kill them.