Glenn Beck and Elements of the Right Wing in America

Glenn Beck, of FOXNews fame, often displays what could be characterised as an inability to self regulate his more inflammatory violent speech and theatrics writes Karen Hatter.

He assuredly will profess, un-beknownst to him, there are those like Freeway Shooter Byron Williams, who may struggle with an inability to discern between rhetorical flourish and literal interpretation.

In July 2010, Byron Williams was involved in a shoot out with the California Highway Police on I-580. He has since stated that he was able to 'read between the sentences' of Glenn Beck's ranting, understanding what he wanted him to know. He alleges Glenn Beck has provided him with all of the information, prompting him to devise a plan that involved killing members affiliated to the Tides Foundation, an organisation that had been a frequent  target of Glenn Beck's rants on his programmes.

Conspiracy theories and the apocalyptic musings offered by Glenn Beck, Alex Jones and the like, often accompanied with thinly veiled suggestions for how to handle the 'take back of America', is potent stuff for the unhinged.

All segments of the American Right Wing, including the Religious Right, the majority found to identify most strongly with conservatives and the Republican Party, have been ranting and simultaneously wringing their hands in anticipation of the loss of their view of what reality should be in America. 

The Right Wing has done its best to dismiss any responsibility for any of the crazies who act out their frustration at what they believe is occurring in America, including those who say it was their rhetoric that guided them on the path of their wholly personal, warped 'mission'.

The Letter from 2012 in Obama's America was offered by Focus on the Family during the 2008 United States presidential campaign. Focus on the Family's lobbying group, the Family Research Centre, is headed by Tony Perkins, considered the most influential religious conservative in America.

Remember, this letter was presented as a farcical, although heavily implied, perceivable inevitability offered by the most powerful umbrella group of conservative Christians, whose ministries influence the US and the world.

What is noteworthy of the gloom and doom offered in this fantasy document is that nearly all of the 'disastrous events' predicted in this 'letter' are all used by all segments of the Right Wing, not just the Religious Right, including FOXNews and Glenn Beck.

This has been going on, aiding in feeding the mentally unhinged among the American populous since the advent of then Senator Barack Obama's campaign, officially announced in February 2007.

An excerpt from the Focus on the Family letter, authored by Dr. Reverend James Dobson:

Where is the opposition?

Has America completely lost God’s favor and protection as a nation? If it has, is this surprising? How can God continue to bless a nation whose official policies promote blatant violation of God’s commands regarding the protection of human life, and sexual morality?

Why should God bless any nation that elects officials who remove people’s freedom of religion and freedom of speech and freedom even to raise their own children? His Word says, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Prov. 14:34).

Many brave Christian men and women tried to resist these laws, and some Christian legal agencies tried to defend them, but they couldn’t resist the power of a 6-3 liberal majority on the Supreme Court. It seems many of the bravest ones went to jail or were driven to bankruptcy. And many of their reputations have been destroyed by a relentless press and the endless repetition of false accusations.

The same question written in “The Star Spangled Banner” by Francis Scott Key in 1814 rings in the air:

O say, does that star spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Now in October 2012, after seeing what has happened in the last four years, the answer to that question is “No.”

Our freedoms have been systematically taken away. Many of “the brave” are in jail. We are no longer “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

Included in this letter, as what might be called a disclaimer by Focus on the Family, is language that says that all that is 'prophesised' in the letter is not what would definitely happen in 'Obama's America'.

However, it is intriguing that all of the talking points listed in the letter have survived and are currently used today by the Right Wing, within all segments, with each segment using what they choose to make their entreaty to their audiences to reclaim their nation, including the political offspring of the Republican Party, the TEA Party. 

At NowPublic:

The 'Right Wing' Conspiracy

Religious Extremism and U.S. Politics: Often an Ominous Pairing