Thursday the National Park Service said it had approved a permit for an August 28th rally at the Lincoln Memorial by Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. The Park Service said the organizers expect 300,000 people to attend. Thus the venue of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech is being turned over to two characters who want to share their nightmares about America—the nightmare of having a black president who may not even be an American and who hates white people. Or the nightmare of radical Islamists building a triumphal mosque near ground zero in New York City. Of course what real harm can be done by preaching hatred and lies? It’s just free speech and American politics, right?
On May 31, 2009, a fan of Fox News and Bill O’Reilly walked into the foyer of the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kansas and killed George Tiller, M.D., an usher in the church, and not coincidentally, one of the last providers of late term abortion in America.
On his MSNBC Countdown show host Keith Olbermann placed blame for Tiller’s murder on Fox News Channel host Bill O’Reilly. Olberman rolled clips showing O’Reilly’s passionate repetition in show after show of the mantra:
Dr. Tiller is a Baby Killer.
Underneath this intemperance on the issue of abortion is the larger molten discontent with the entire “liberal agenda.” O’Reilly repeatedly claims that the “mainstream press” is in the hands of the liberals. And he like Glen Beck and Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh and yes, even Newt Gingrich seethe with the idea that liberals are downright evil inasmuch as they embrace the tenets of Karl Marx, and are essentially socialists and communists.”
The latest in these waves of intemperance that have been lashing at us has been the issue of the mosque near Ground Zero in New York City. Newt lept into the fray, telling Fox that those who want to build the mosque in NYC are “radical Islamists.” “They are trying to make a case about supremacy.” “Nazis don’t have a right to put a sign next to the Holocaust Museum…” Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani also piped up, calling it a "desecration." "Nobody would allow something like that at Pearl Harbor,” he said. And it little matters that the Imam who is building the mosque is doing so to show the solidarity of Islam with America and the hope for harmony and healing.
And so into to this spicy political stew we now add a pair of overripe habaneros like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. They will be like political rock stars in their rally at the Lincoln Memorial. Their “I have a nightmare” speech will be about the threats along our borders, the threats of illegal immigrants who may be terrorists. It is a nightmare of secularism taking away religious rights. A nightmare of gun control, of high taxes supporting greedy bureaucracies, and so on. The nightmare is coming to America—unless you get rid of this crypto-Islamic president and all the hifalutin entourage he rode in with.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.’s opinion in Schenck v. United States in 1919 was that “falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater” was not permitted under the Free Speech clause of the United States Constitution. In his written opinion he made a remark that gives us pause when contemplating these modern Savanarolas like O’Reilly and Beck:
The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.
Is the repetition of the mantra, “Dr. Tiller is a baby killer,” on a network news program, a clear and present incitement to murder? It seems to have worked out that way. Unfortunately, the Constitution hasn’t proven a very reliable protection against ugly politics in America, and we seem to be headed into a particularly bad patch. Olbermann encouraged his viewers to request that businesses like restaurants that run FNC on their televisions change the channel because "Fox News Channel will never restrain itself from incitement to murder and terrorism – not until its profits begin to decline, when its growth stops." Referring to O’Reilly, he also declared that "the goal here, to get this blindly irresponsible man and his ilk off the air."
It may be nice to think that the politics of hate and fear are the tools only of illiterate brutish creatures craving power, but then along comes Newt Gingrich showing another more polished side of the coin. Perhaps the most poetic statement of the politics of hate comes from a different atavistic right wing, that of Israel. M.J. Rosenberg, who from 1998 - 2009 was director of policy at Israel Policy Forum, tells in a recent article of a rightwing Israeli rabbi – a Jewish Glen Beck, if you will -- who came to America during the Intifada and gave a sermon about that conflict. Writes Rosenberg:
The sermon was a nutty affair that tearfully made the transition from intifada to Holocaust and back again.
I remember thinking, "this guy is actually blaming the Palestinians for the suffering of his parents during the Holocaust." I thought I had missed something because it was so ridiculous.
Then came the sermon's ending which was unforgettable. The rabbi concluded with the words from Ecclesiastes.
"To everything there is a season. A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, a time to reap ... A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance..."
He then looked up and said: "Now is the time to hate."
Once again, we have met the enemy and s/he is us. S/he is Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh. They make millions and command huge audiences and ardent devotion. And they are using fear and primitive ideology to enrage voters rendered senseless by hard times. But it’s like the storm you see coming from a way long off, it sometimes seems there’s just not much you can do.