New World order

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Glenn Beck has apparently decided he doesn't care how big a public nutcase he is making himself into. Because, you know, the black helicopters are coming!!!!!! And he's just the guy to get the warning out.

Back when he started his Fox show in January, I wondered how long it would take Beck to become an outright Patriot conspiracy-monger -- especially because he dabbled in it early on, and it's been building ever since. I knew we had to be getting close when Beck's buddy Chuck Norris went full-bore militia earlier this week.

So the answer is: about ten and a half months. Because yesterday on his show, he just threw the chips all in and went for your classic militia black-helicopter conspiracy theory:

Beck: On the scale of insane things, I want to show what we skipped past. Ready? Look at this. Put it up here. We're in a recession now. People argue over whether we're even in a recession! We're in a deep recession. I think we're on the edge of a depression because of what we're doing.

OK, so, we have skipped a deep recession and skipped depression -- even the Great Depression -- we went right to the collapse of the dollar. Then he went right to global currency. One world government! And a New World Order! [Slaps] Like that!

That certainly is an interesting "scale of insane things," isn't it? Especially considering how insane you have to be to believe we've actually progressed beyond "recession." Insane, indeed.

Anyway, Beck then brings on the capital-investment adviser who sent Beck completely around the bend with his snippet on CNBC speculating that the ultimate solution to the economy would be "global government": Damon Vickers of Nine Points Capital Partners. Vickers is a longtime nutcase who in fact was coming fresh off the Alex Jones show earlier this week, expounding on this same theory. (Fun note: A year ago, Vickers predicted Microsoft was "going nowhere but down." That was when its stock price was at 13. Now it's above 30.)

There's a reason the ADL officially dubbed Beck our national "Fearmonger in Chief" this week. And there's a reason militias are springing up like mushrooms everywhere.

And the reason is that Glenn Beck has a national TV network show on which he is not only permitted but encouraged to promote complete wingnuttery whose sole purpose is to make Americans fearful, paranoid and angry.

I put together a compendium of Beck's finest fearmongering of just the past year on Fox, inspired largely by the instances cited by the ADL -- with a few of our own favorite moments thrown in for good measure.

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Chuck Norris seems to have been hanging out listening to his good buddy Glenn Beck a bit much these days.

He went on Neil Cavuto's Fox News show yesterday and regurgitated a lot Beck's talking points about how Obama is radically transforming the country, but took them the next logical step into militia-style black-helicopter territory.

What had him all worked up was Obama's pending trip to Copenhagen to help negotiate a global-warming treaty:

Norris: I really think he's going over there to try to create a one world order. And I think --

Cavuto: Well, what's your big worry?

Norris: My big worry is the fact is that we, as a nation, if we start having to be, ah, obligated to other countries. Like -- in this conference, they're going to try to take our money and send it to third-world countries, because we spend so much oil, and so other countries have suffered, and they want to give our money to these, uh, third world countries.

Neil, we have people here who are starving in our own country. I -- you know, my foundation, I have families who are making nine thousand dollars a year -- the kids that I'm teaching. Why aren't we trying to help the poverty in our own country?

Nevermind, of course, that we have this thing called to Aid to Families With Dependent Children and a host of other poverty-fighting programs -- aka "welfare" -- that work reasonably well in attacking poverty in the USA. Except that funding for these programs keeps getting cut by right-wing anti-tax nutcases who think like Chuck Norris.

No, what really is bothering Chuck is that looming New World Order. This is also why he doesn't believe in global warming: "I don't believe it for a second. I think it's a big con game that they're doing."

And if Obama indeed hands over our "sovereignty"?

Who knows what's going to happen. God forbid this happens in our country. Our country as we know it now will no longer exist, Neil, that's the whole thing right there.

A little later, he brought up health-care reform as a signal event in the New World Order takeover:

Norris: I'll tell you what, the thing that worries me the most is this health-care bill. And why I'm scared about it -- it's not about the health care. It's about the provisions that are in that bill.

One, is that if this thing passes, the government will have the right to come into our home and regulate how we raise our children. I found that in the bill.

Cavuto, to his credit, wasn't buying: "I don't believe that."

Give it a day or two. I bet Glenn Beck does.


TOPICS Newstalgia

Armistice Day - November 11, 1937

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Armistice Day 1918_ef414.jpg
(Armistice Day 1918 - Well . . it was supposed to be the War to End All Wars, wasn't it?)

Armistice Day, Veterans Day, Remembrance Day - November 11th. That day in 1918, it was the day that ended World War One - or "The War To End All Wars". Be careful what you proclaim, it may come back to haunt you.

Since that day it has become symbolic for all wars, all sacrifices in the line of duty, all those fallen and wounded for whom so many futures and hopes were pinned on - just vanished.

But on November 11, 1937 it was still considered the war to end all wars, nineteen years after the Armistice was signed. Peace, however tenuous was on the horizon. Even though in November of that year Spain was wracked by civil war, China had been invaded by Japan, Germany and Italy were ratting sabers and proclaiming New World Order. It was only a matter of time.

This broadcast, a celebration of the unity between Canada and the U.S. in times of war featured an address by Brig. Gen. Victor Odlum, himself wounded several times during the War. It was part of a ceremony that took place on the border of Washington State and Canada.

Gen.Victor Odlum (Canadian Army): “As this day, of all days, stands for peace, there is one thing we must not forget, we are at peace.”

Less than two years later, it would all change again.

It's just what wars do.

As a bonus - I am including a newscast from another November 11 - this one from wartime: 1941. It shows a marked contrast and just how fragile it all is.

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Obama Coup Fails_8da47.JPG

It seems like every week I come across some truly weird piece of militia organizing from the freshly revived Patriot movement.

This week's is pretty special: An online game at which you can actually earn money by defending America in the year 2011 against the evil forces of the fallen Obama administration. The game is called "2011: Obama Coup Fails". [Only go to the site if you don't mind giving them the hits. Otherwise, you can get the idea here.]

They've created a whole future history, written from the perspective of people in the year 2011. And as you can see, it's militia-movement material from the '90s updated for the Glenn Beck generation. For instance, here's the history:

As far back as the 1950s there were many who would talk of the N.W.O., or New World Order, behind closed doors--and the plan to implement it. Rumors of this clandestine planning were scoffed at by the media and political elite, and the majority of people were in the dark concerning the true nature of the processes and policies unfolding before their eyes. By 2007 the N.W.O was being spoken about freely in the media. By 2009, the President of the United States and world leaders openly discussed how to achieve this New World Order, and how to ensure the permanency of a regime that would represent the successful culmination of the Marxist experiments of the 20th century. Back in 2007, one brave newscaster was the first in what used to be called the 'mainstream media' to ring the alarm bell. That man was Lou Dobbs of CNN. Click to see video. Lou Dobbs was reported missing during the media purges of January and February 2011, when Mark Lloyd and the FCC, on Obama's orders, cracked down on all dissent in broadcasting. Glen Beck, another broadcast media personality who rang the alarm bell before the coup, was found dead of an 'aspirin overdose' in late 2010, after the devastating elections in November.

Other broadcasters and 'new media leaders' Neil Boortz, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Bill O'Reilly, and Sean Hannity, among the hundreds of others who dared to speak against what was going on, were rounded up shortly before the newly elected Congresspeople and Senators were to be seated. This event is now referred to as the Great Media Purge of 2011. President Obama and the Draconian FCC, now filled with his appointed Marxists including Mark Lloyd (Click to watch video), were quick to abolish FOX news, talk radio and all other dissent. The elite media, formerly called the mainstream media, were ecstatic as their audience had been declining week after week beginning in 2008. Unable to face a real media that investigated and reported news, they acted in self-interest in hope of getting government bailout money promised to them by officials in the Obama administration. This was the first step in the nationalization of all media in America, which officially began in 2010, a move that Americans would not welcome and helped spur the Second American Revolution. It all seemed to be coming to a head by late 2009. With over a million (by some estimates) people gathering in Washington D.C. for the anti-tax rally on 9/12, spurred on by Americans from all parties, the media's complicit bend toward dictatorship showed itself for the world to see.

Yahoo News, NY Times, and most other media outlets simply ignored the rallies. Rather than cover the news as news outlets used to do before journalism died in 2008, they preferred to tar the attendees as "racists" and "extremists." It now seemed as if all of middle America were being called racists and extremists. Even the Department of Homeland Security put all Patriots on a watch list for daring to want smaller government or less taxes. They dared even to classify our returning vets as security risks to be watched, which helped to add to the military's disgust with the Obama Administration and media. The proverbial straw that broke the camel's back for most Americans came when Obama appointed avowed communists and ex-felons such as Van Jones to White House positions "advising" Obama. No one to this day knows how such people could pass the formerly required background checks of the F.B.I. The NY Times, oozing bias, formerly the newspaper of record, didn't even mention most of these Czars' names until the bloggers and FOX investigative reporting outed them as the crazed radicals that they were.

Of course, using recent video tape of the Marxists talking of either overthrowing America or of their love of Castro, Chavez and other Marxists, was enough for the NY Times to claim a 'hatchet job' had been performed on the Czars. This was a laughable matter for any American who knew how Obama was filling all posts with real Marxists and revolutionaries who hated the United States and freedom. The fallen Glenn Beck put it all together for us and the question was asked "Could a coup ever take place in America?" Andrew Breitbart led the way in exposing the communists in ACORN and their massive voter fraud schemes. The elite media turned a blind eye as usual. The bloggers came out over and over again exposing the entire collapse of our financial system and how it was executed via the CRA or Community Reinvestment Act. Even Obama's past was well-hidden, with the help of the elite media. In fact, his entire past was shielded from the public. These facts further incensed the public. The Revolution brewed and brewed and nothing had stopped it by early 2010.

The powderkeg had a short fuse, which Obama was more than happy to light. American citizens were not sheep like the citizens of Britain, who allowed their government to take away their right to bear arms, and Americans would not go quietly into the night. Even before Barack Obama was elected, the destruction of America was well-planned by the global Marxists and N.W.O. proponents. American citizens were also well-prepared and the Revolution turned out to be one of the bloodiest any nation would ever see. With literally millions of Americans taking to the streets and even facing down Federal troops in Michigan, New York, California, Texas, and Illinois, Obama knew his days were numbered. Admiral Mullen of the Joint Chiefs finally recalled all Federal troops from their remaining posts in American cities after 4,000 soldiers in Michigan, most of them Oathkeepers, turned on and killed the commander Obama had hand-picked for them. This was the 8th incident across America where American Soldiers or Marines dared to follow the Constitution and not obey the Un-Constitutional orders given to them by Obama's appointed commanders. The Joint Chiefs decided not to be on the wrong side of history and declared that the military would stand aside and guard against any foreign threats during the remaining days of the crisis.

They even have a future news section with headlines like:

Michelle Obama Captured By Militia, America Celebrates

Breitbart's Brigade Takes Out C.O.R.N.Y. Forces

Joe Wilson and the New Congress Militia Meet Up With Breitbart Brigade

Michelle Malkin Stands Out Among The Leaders Who Saved America

My favorite was this one:

Palin v Hamas_e081a.JPG

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Probably the most ironic -- no, make that flat-out bizarre -- aspect of Glenn Beck's ultimately successful campaign to force out Van Jones is that it was predicated on Jones' supposed indulgence in extremist rhetoric ideas.

This isn't just a matter of the pot calling the kettle black. It's more like the black hole calling the sunspot dark.

Glenn Beck's history of indulging in extremism -- not just turning a blind eye to its presence, but promoting it outright to an audience of millions -- is so deep and wide that whatever indiscretions Jones might be guilty of fade into total insignificance.

Of course, we're all familiar with the remarks that lie at so much of the root of this matter: Beck's outrageous claims that President Obama is a "racist" who has a "deep-seated hatred of white people", which prompted a largely succesful campaign by Color of Change to encourage advertisers to pull their support for Beck's Fox News program. But that, frankly, is barely scratching the surface.

Keith Olbermann has put out a plea for information about Beck's own background in outrageous remarks. Of course, all he probably needs to do is go through the C&L archives on Beck for everything he needs.

Still, what Olbermann -- and everyone else wondering how to fight back from this latest round of right-wing viciousness -- should focus on is the inordinate number of times that Beck has simply promoted extremist ideas and memes straight out of the most fringe elements of the American far right.

It goes back several years. Beck, in fact, openly promoted the John Birch Society and its "New World Order" conspiracy theories frequently when he was still at CNN Headline News. As I observed at the time:

Beck is busy building a narrative that not only opens the Pandora's Box of mass public consumption of far-right conspiracism, it also portrays the most hateful and paranoid and poisonous bloc of American politics as credible and normative.

Since joining Fox in January of this year, however, the tendency has not only intensified, it's simply gone off the rails.

Most notably, Beck has actively promoted ideas, theories, and concepts taken directly from the far-right "Patriot"/militia movement, many of which in turn derive from the ugliest sector of the right, white supremacy:

-- He "war-gamed" out an apocalytpic American future in which society has completely crumbled, leaving behind a "Road Warrior" society in which militias remained the only defenders of the remnants of white society.

-- He told his audience for several weeks running that he "could not disprove" the existence of concentration camps run by FEMA in which conservatives were to be rounded up. After a few weeks of this, he finally ran a segment that in fact did debunk these claims, explaining that in reality all of the supposed "evidence" for these camps was the product of a long-running hoax that began in the 1990s with the "Patriot"/militia movement. (He then later claimed that he had done nothing to promote these theories.)

-- He ran several segments, including one on his radio show, in which he promoted the concept of the secession of Texas from the Union. A little later, he tried to pretend he didn't agree with the concept while in fact giving a secessionist the opportunity to promote his plans to Beck's audience.

-- He regularly promoted "one world government" paranoia. This included a supposed plot to put us all on a global currency controlled by the New World Order.

-- He tried to argue that the chief cause of the sour economy was the United States' reliance on a central banking system.

-- He hosted an entire hourlong segment devoted to promoting militia-derived constitutional theories about state sovereignty.

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Sarah Palin says the government wants to "control people"

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Sarah Palin is on a new jag or an old one actually. She's ranting about some New World Order nonsense and while introducing wingnut radio host Michael Regan in Alaska, told the audience that the government wants to control the lives of "the people."

Via CNN: Alaska governor Sarah Palin let loose Wednesday on the Obama administration for enacting fiscal policies that "fly in the face of principles" and "defy Economics 101."

Palin: We need to be aware of the creation of a fearful population, and fearful lawmakers, being led to believe that big government is the answer, to bail out the private sector, because then government gets to get in there and control it," she said. "And mark my words, this is going to be next, I fear, bail out next debt-ridden states. Then government gets to get in there and control the people.

There's something pretty weird hearing the term "Economics 101," being uttered by Sarah because she showed little knowledge of economics on the campaign trail, but that being said...the right wing constantly is reaching out to the far depths of the conservative movement and are trying to instill more and more fear into that base which will only increase the violence that comes out of those merky depths. "People control," really Sarah? She should stop hanging out with nutty talk show hosts.
Just to help her out a little bit, it was under George Bush and conservative---neocon warhawks that the global financial markets melted down and led us down the path of being "afraid." And wasn't it under her governance that she took money from the oil companies and handed it out to her people?

CC's Indecision:

It should just sit back and let the free market do its thing and, um, dispense the lucre

In Alaska, where Palin is governor, natural resources are state-owned, and Alaska residents receive yearly dividend checks from a $30 billion state account built largely from oil royalties….

When home fuel and gas costs soared this year, Palin raised taxes on oil companies and used some of the money to boost residents' checks by $1,200. Every eligible man, woman and child got a record $3,269 this fall.

Even the grammar-challenged Governor knows there's word for that kind of redistributive policy. Starts with S.


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[Video: Ron Paul decries "New World Order" at Nashville rally, Oct. 2007]

Ron Paul already has a considerable track record of actively promoting Patriot-movement "New World Order" conspiracy theories. In recent years, he's even been joined by mainstream right-wing pundits like Glenn Beck.

And while you didn't hear Paul spouting much of this nonsense during his presidential campaign, now that the election is over, he's back to business as usual -- and predictably, he's casting Barack Obama as the new embodiment of the conspiracy.

Paul recently gave an interview to a conspiracy-theory radio program in which he warned against "a cataclysmic shift toward a new world order":

Commenting on the much touted “International crisis” that luminaries such as Colin Powell, Joe Biden and Zbigniew Brzezinski have all guaranteed will occur within weeks of Obama entering the White House, the Congressman stated that he believes it may be a catalyst for a shift toward world government:

“I think it’s going to be an announcement of a new monetary order, and they’ll probably make it sound very limited, they’re not going to say this is world government, even though it is if you control the world’s money and you control the military, which they do indirectly.”

“A world central bank, worldwide regulation and world control of the whole system, of all the commodities and all the natural resources, what else can you call it other than world government?”

“Obama wouldn’t be there if he didn’t toe the line, and when the meeting starts on November 15th for the new monetary system, this could be the beginning of the end of what’s left of our national sovereignty.” Paul said, also warning that the global media are already hailing Obama as the world’s leader.

It has been clear for awhile now that the far right would see an Obama presidency as a pretext for reviving its 1990s-style conspiracy-mongering and scapegoating on a broad scale, and so far that's clearly the case. We saw signs of this before the election with the resurrection of zombie 1990s-style black-helicopter smears of Obama.

And now Ron Paul, who successfully presented himself as a mainstream "libertarian" throughout the campaign -- when the reality is that he is a classic Bircherite -- is advancing "New World Order v.2" for mass consumption.

Boy, we can hardly wait to see what this produces. [/snark] If the 1990s -- when last we endured a wave of paranoid fearmongering like this -- were anything to judge by, it won't be pretty. The next four years or more are as fraught with rightist peril as they are with promise for progressives.