Telegram sent to J Edgar Hoover (from 94-HQ-55752 Section 1)

June 6, 1968
Please make certain that Ted Kennedy gets all the protection he needs. We are down to one Kennedy. Thanks

[redacted] Tepco Corp

The FBI released a large set of documents under the FOIA today, spanning the period from 1961 through 1986. The image was one of the milder communications received by the FBI in 1968. Expressions of concern for and threats against Ted Kennedy seemed to roll into FBI headquarters daily. I have only now completed the first series (1961-July 1968), but two things stand out for me: the unhingement of the right wing over communism and civil rights; and how similar the extreme rhetoric of 1968 is to the routine rhetoric of today.

From the same file quoted above, page 136, on June 10, 1968:

Mr. [redacted] stated that during the course of the gathering they talked about Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the recent events occurring in Los Angeles, CAlifornia. He said that Mr. [redacted] then questioned himself and Mr [redacted] as to their religious beliefs, which happened to be Episcopalian. Mr. [redacted] stated that 'Mr. [redacted] then brought up the subject of the K.K.K., and his short harangue ran along the lines of 'I said: K.K.K. - Kennedy, King, and Kennedy. Get it? K.K.K. Now there is only one to go -- Teddy.'".

Another incident on June 20, 1968 describes a situation where a man went into a bank, walked up to a bank officer's desk and pounded his fist on it while saying, "The damned KENNEDYS," and "I have a gun." In 1968 actions like that sent people to mental institutions for therapy and observation, which is how that case was resolved.

One of the more bizarre letters I've seen so far (and I'm only about halfway through) was sent on May 18, 1985. In it, the writer took aim at Kennedy and Ronald Reagan in a rambling rant. As unhinged as this writer is, there are some poignant reminders in her profanity-laden letter:

Look, you know what's going on and it's a felony not to help my familie's [sic], my mom and me. You know the whole story and you know you should have got my mom out of the ground with me there and take her to a hospital and fix her, a--hole and give her glucose and blood and be patient with her because it might take awhile for her to come out of it.

and this:

These pilots mean this stuff. They aren't playing games.

May 13, 1985 was the day the City of Philadelphia tear-gassed the MOVE headquarters before dropping a bomb on it, killing 11 people (including 5 children) and destroying 65 homes.

It doesn't take much to wonder if the author's anger at losing her home(s) and reference to pilots "meaning this stuff" has anything to do with that incident. The letter itself is just a complete profanity-laced disjointed rant, sort of like things we see on blogs and Twitter all the time now.

Profilers concluded that the author was "ventilating her frustrations and projecting her inadequacies. Her intention is to shock in order to gain attention." They went on to conclude this in a memo dated December 6, 1985:

Although the subject's ideation is clearly paranoid, the message lacks the indicators of the resolve or the determination to carry out her threats.

The notable difference between how this woman and the man in the bank were treated is clear. Rather than being interviewed by Glenn Beck and Fox & Friends (along with CNN and all the other major news outlets), both of the threateners were determined to be mentally incompetent to stand trial, they were committed to mental institutions and the cases were closed.

Today, they get paid a lot of money to "shock in order to gain attention."

Today, they would be hailed as leaders of the Tea Party movement.

Kinsey film pushes the religious right's buttons!

Check out this debate between Kristi Hamrick from "Focus on the Family" and Rev. Debra Haffner from the "Religious institute on Sexual morality."

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Hamrick: Kinsey embraced the mind of the sex offender. His research was a fraud!

Haffner: Kristi knows most of that is not true. He broke a silence in America about sexuality!

from AmericaBlog

Religious right to seek legislation to punish Hollywood? Today's Washington Post reports on the radical right's attack on the new movie about Kinsey. What the Post fails to report is that the freaks have been trying to smear Kinsey for at least ten years. They hope that by undermining the father of the sexual revolution they can undermine sex itself. Kind of a large point to miss, but oh well.

In any case, check out this little admission from Robert Knight, the chief anti-gay bigot of the religious right. Sounds like they now want to get laws passed by Congress that somehow punishes Hollywood every time it makes a movie the religious right doesn't like.

I'm serious folks, it's time to strike back, hard, against these little Hitlers.

Robert Knight, director of the conservative Culture and Family Institute in Washington, said evangelical Christian and Roman Catholic groups also want to bring to bear the political clout they demonstrated in the presidential election.

"Just as Reagan was not content to contain communism but announced a rollback, pro-family organizations are not content to protest the latest outrage anymore, but will seek legislation and will punish sponsors of lewd entertainment," he said.

Knight acknowledged, however, that some opponents of the Kinsey film may be reluctant to try to punish its distributor, Fox Searchlight, owned by conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

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Paul Krugman recently wrote that he thought that Republicans and Democrats no longer occupy the same universe with one another. Certainly, my understanding of Christianity isn't the same as Glenn Beck's, when he advised his listeners to leave their churches if those churches focus on social justice:

Glenn Beck set out to convince his audience that "social justice," the term many Christian churches use to describe their efforts to address poverty and human rights, is a "code word" for communism and Nazism. Beck urged Christians to discuss the term with their priests and to leave their churches if leaders would not reconsider their emphasis on social justice.

"I'm begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!"

Now, I'm going to set aside the troubling implicit admission of the selfishness of the Mormon Church by this LDS convert for the moment. I just have to ask if Beck has read the same Bible as the rest of us:

"Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me."

"Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?"

"And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." (Matthew 25:34-40)

Now that seems pretty clear to me that Jesus said that you need to do good works with those less fortunate than you and that he felt it was critical that you show his devotion to Him by doing so. But maybe Beck missed that sermon.

He then went on to conflate communism and Nazism, saying they both were the ultimate expression of the (you guessed it) left, by saying they both focused on the dreaded "social justice".

Man, teh stoopid, it hurts. I wish there was a way to just stop this stupid "Nazis were leftists" meme (Erick Erickson was tweeting that this morning too--citing Jonah Goldberg as an expert--bwahahaha!). But since one must shut down one's brain to believe that, I think it's a lost cause.

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Well, Glenn Beck's special "documentary" -- at least, that's what he calls it -- "The Revolutionary Holocaust: Live Free Or Die" aired Friday, and it was pretty much exactly what we predicted: A long promotion for Jonah Goldberg's fraudulent Liberal Fascism and its underlying thesis, to wit, that fascism is "properly understood" as "a phenomenon of the left."

In Beck's hands, of course, this mishmash of a theory gets mashed even more, so that fascism is indistinguishable from communism and socialism, and that all are essentially identified in the bundle of the progressive movement, which is Beck's ultimate target.

On Friday, Beck worried that "the academic bloc" of the progressive movement would be arraying its forces to attack him for this piece of work (and it is a real piece of work). Probably, most of them will dismiss it as just another piece of lunacy from the nation's fearmonger in chief.

But it's obvious that, despite the cold reality that Goldberg's thesis is profoundly dishonest and the most odious kind of historical fraud, right-wingers like Beck not only believe it but have embarked on avidly promoting it -- especially among the Tea Party set, where the signs calling Obama a fascist are almost as common as those decrying his tax increases.

As I mentioned Friday, I began some months ago organizing some of the more authoritative historical experts -- historians and political scientists -- in an effort to finally produce a serious response from academics to Goldberg's traduced version of history.

Today, at History News Network, you can read the initial essays.

In addition to my introduction, there are four essays:

-- Robert O. Paxton, professor emeritus at Columbia University and the author of The Anatomy of Fascism, leads off the essays with "The Scholarly Flaws of Liberal Fascism."

-- Roger Griffin, professor of political science at Oxford Brookes and the author of The Nature of Fascism, has a piece titled "An Academic Book - Not!"

-- Matthew Feldman, professor of history at University of Northampton, and a co-editor of several academic texts on fascism, offers his assessment on why refuting Goldberg still matters: "Poor Scholarship, Wrong Conclusions".

-- Chip Berlet, senior researcher at Political Research Associates and the co-author (with Matthew Lyons) of Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort, has penned a history of Goldberg's arguments, "The Roots of Liberal Fascism: The Book."

For those who watched Beck's "special," the following excerpt from Paxton's piece alone may suffice:

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For the second day in a row (Monday's show being so chockful o'wingnuttery that we didn't have time to post on it) Glenn Beck devoted two whole segments to the subject of net neutrality.

And for the second night in a row, the discussion featured a guy named Phil Kerpen from Americans For Prosperity, which has a long history of shilling for whatever right-wing corporate agenda it can suck out money for: tobacco interests, health-insurance companies, corporate polluters have all pitched in money so that AFP can variously promote tobacco, lobby against health-care reform (it was one of the original promoters of the Tea Parties) and push the idea that global warming isn't really happening.

And now he's out pushing the notion that somehow, regulating Internet providers so that they cannot determine or limit public access is the same thing as communism. Or something like that. When you have Glenn Beck as your No. 1 cheerleader, logic doesn't actually have to enter into it.

Especially not facts. Because Beck appears to have no idea at all what Net Neutrality is actually all about.

As Timothy Karr explained on Democracy Now last month:

And net neutrality is really the fundamental openness principle of the internet. Whenever you connect to the internet, net neutrality makes sure that you can connect to everyone else who’s on the internet. And this has been a tremendous engine for free speech, for economic innovation, for equal opportunity. And we are now fighting with some very prominent internet service providers, very powerful companies, to try to preserve that fundamental openness, so that whenever we go online we can choose, as users, where we go and what we do via the internet.

Somehow, Beck is able to transform this into an attack on "freedom of speech" -- when it obviously is precisely the opposite.

To guys like Beck, you see, the only threat to our liberties is from the government. Giant corporations that control our means of information, not so much.

Indeed, his argument boils down to a simple proposition: "Freedom" means letting powerful business interests control the public's access to the internet.

Hm. That's some kinda freedom.

ThinkProgress has more:

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Defending Your Life (1991)

Good morning, my fellow Little Brains. I've spent a lot of time this week thinking about fear, because we seem to be surrounded by so much of it lately: fear of the Other, fear of change, fear of the "ism" of the week--socialism, communism, etc. There are way too many frightened people out there, fearful of some intangible bogeyman keeping them from what they feel is rightfully theirs. I quote Bob Diamond from the movie:

"Fear is like a giant fog. It sits on your brain and blocks everything. Real feelings, true happiness, real joy. They can't get through that fog. But you lift it, and buddy, you are in for the ride of your life."

I don't know that truer words have ever been written. So let's lift that veil of fog for this Sunday, and refuse to accept the fear in which these bobbleheads deal. And fear is definitely on the agenda this week. The issue of Afghanistan--nine years and thousands upon thousands of deaths after our initial invasion--will be discussed. Defense Secretary Robert Gates will be on both This Week and State of the Union to talk Afghanistan, but you can bet there's going to be a little fear-mongering on Iran too. We get both Clintons--Hillary on Face the Nation and Bill on Meet the Press and your basic coterie of Republican politicos: John McCain (yes, again--more on that later), Bob Corker, Lindsey Graham, John Kyl, Kit Bond and might-as-well-be Republicans Evan Bayh and Dianne Feinstein. All of them full of doom and gloom prognostications, no doubt. Is it small of me to say that I suspect that politicians aspire to use 3% of their brain?

ABC's "This Week" - Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Former President Bill Clinton, New York Gov. David Patterson and Sens. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Jim Webb, D-Va.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Rick Stengel, Trish Regan, Kathleen Parker and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Topics: How will President Obama address the looming tower of unemployment? Could Democrats lose their majority in the House of Representatives in 2010? Was the anti-Obama venom unavoidable? YES: 6 NO: 6; Has Obama Got Command Back?

YES: 12 No: 0.

CNN's "State of the Union" - Gates, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. and Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - With open arms Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi welcomed home a convicted terrorist. Fareed asks him why, and whether he regrets that move now. Gadhafi speaks out about his controversial UN speech, his meeting this week with families of Lockerbie victims, and why he calls President Obama "my son."

"Fox News Sunday" - Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Kit Bond, R-Mo.; Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell; conservative filmmaker James O'Keefe.

So, what's catching your eye this morning?

(AP photo)

Oh Lord, thank you:

A conservative faction of the Republican National Committee is urging the GOP to take a harder line against both Democrats and wayward Republicans, drafting a resolution to rename the opposition the “Democrat Socialist Party” and moving to rebuke the three Republican senators who supported the stimulus package.

In an e-mail sent Wednesday to the 168 voting members of the committee, RNC member James Bopp, Jr. accused President Obama of wanting “to restructure American society along socialist ideals.”

“The proposed resolution acknowledges that and calls upon the Democrats to be truthful and honest with the American people by renaming themselves the Democrat Socialist Party,” wrote Bopp, the Republican committeeman from Indiana. “Just as President Reagan’s identification of the Soviet Union as the ‘evil empire’ galvanized opposition to communism, we hope that the accurate depiction of the Democrats as a Socialist Party will galvanize opposition to their march to socialism.”

Didn't they already try that during the general election? We can only count our blessings that the members of the RNC want to keep running down the socialism road as a path to their salvation. Since the Republicans constantly attack Hugo Chavez, it's frakkin' hysterical that Republicans are less popular than Venezuela. The more they run down these extremist roads, the lower The Republican Teabagger Party will fall.

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Glenn Beck's getting increasingly strident and desperate in his attempt to portray the Obama White House as a den of Communism. Yesterday he opened up with yet another "Comrade Update" that actually depicted visiting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown as a totalitarian simply for having extolled "cooperation."

By that standard, I guess, Sesame Street is a Commie Indoctrination Program. And at this point, I honestly wouldn't be surprised to find out the Beck indeed believes that to be the case.

In any event, he followed this smear by immediately having on Sam Webb of the Communist Party USA, claiming that Webb had declared Barack Obama a Communist ally:

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Beck: You said that he was not only a friend, but an ally.

Webb: I don't think I said that. I only said that he is a people's advocate.

Beck: No, you said an ally.

Webb: No, I don't think I did. I made the speech, you didn't.

Actually, if you peruse the speech in question, you'll see that Beck is wrong. Maybe this is the part he's thinking of:

In the meantime, we have some immediate struggles on our hands But the good news is that the broad movement that elected President Obama and larger majorities in the Congress is up and running.

This movement, or if you like, this loose coalition in which labor plays a larger and larger leadership role, can exercise an enormous influence on the political process. Never before has a coalition with such breadth walked on the political stage of our country. It is far larger than the coalition that entered the election process a year ago; it is larger still than the coalition that came out of the Democratic Party convention in August.

The task of labor and its allies is to provide energy and leadership to this wide-ranging coalition. Yes, we can bring issues and positions into the political process that go beyond the initiatives of the Obama administration. But we should do this within the framework of the main task of supporting Obama’s program of action.

We can disagree with the Obama administration without being disagreeable. Our tone should be respectful. We now have not simply a friend, but a people's advocate in the White House.

What is in fact most remarkable about Webb's speech is that, unlike conservatives, Communists -- who have clear philosophical differences with Obama and could similarly wish for him to fail -- are more concerned that Obama's plan succeed because it's better for the country.

In other words: A bunch of Commies are more concerned about the nation's economic well-being than Conservatives are.

Beck in any event tries, McCarthylike, to bait Webb into casting Obama in the line of Communist thinkers, like Marx or Lenin -- and Webb refuses.

Webb: He's not a Socialist, he's not a Marxist.

Beck: Why do you push yourself away from Lenin and Marx?

Webb: I don't, myself, but Barack Obama does. He's not a Socialist, he's not a Communist. You know, you bandied that about during the campaign, and now people are bandying it about town, and the answer is no.

Beck at this point interrupts Webb, and spends the next three minutes talking over him and badgering him. At one point he asks: "Why can't you have a real conversation?"

Answer should have been: "Because you keep interrupting, you moron!"

But there you have it, folks. Glenn Beck: A New McCarthy for a New Century!

I know America's "free press" system is far from perfect, but it sure is great to live in a country that doesn't feel the need to censor parts of what is sure to be one of the most important speeches of the past few decades.

AP (via HuffPo):

The official Chinese translation of President Barack Obama's inauguration speech omitted his references to communism and dissent, and a live broadcast on state television Wednesday quickly cut away to the anchor when sensitive topics were mentioned.

The comments by the newly installed U.S. president veered into politically sensitive territory for China's ruling Communist Party, which maintains a tight grip over the Internet and the entirely state-run media. Beijing tolerates little dissent and frequently decries foreign interference in its internal affairs.

E&P

Cyrus Nowrasteh, who penned the screenplay for the recent ABC miniseries "The Path to 9/11" - widely criticized for factual inaccuracies and concocted or conflated scenes -hit back today at critics, including reporters at The New York Times and Los Angeles Times.

His column, "The Path to Hysteria," appears online today at the Wall Street Journal's site. Its subhed: "My sin was to write a screenplay accurately depicting Bill Clinton's record on terrorism." (emp. added) [..]

"Clearly, those enraged that a film would criticize the Clinton administration's antiterrorism policies--though critical of its successor as well--were willing to embrace only one scenario: The writer was a conservative hatchetman," Nowrasteh writes.

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