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Opinions/Editorials Title: Why Conservatives are Turning on Beck Adam Serwer asks a good question: why now? Why, after all the obvious agreement between conservatives and Beck -- on Israel, on Islam, on big bad bogeymen like shari'ah water-carriers and socialists and Stalinists et al. -- are conservatives suddenly, as Anthea put it yesterday, circling Beck like sharks? As I discussed as the Egypt news was breaking and Beck was jumping on the opportunity to link the Muslim Brotherhood to the grand socialist conspiracy, American conservatives have a long-standing affection for conspiracy theories surrounding the Muslim Brotherhood and its supposed plot to take over America with a "caliphate."
As Media Matters notes today, Beck shares a pundit with the "creeping shari'ah" industry: Zuhdi Jasser, a claimed "moderate" Muslim who seems to think that "radical Islamists" lurk in America. As I discussed last week, Jasser is the star of the Clarion Fund film The Third Jihad; "crazy bigot" Frank Gaffney serves on Clarion's board; and despite the Conservative Political Action Conference's decision to shut Gaffney out, there is still a screening of Clarion's latest endeavor, Iranium, at this week's conference. Jasser also will be a star witness at Republican Peter King's "radical Islam" hearings.
Ali Gharib reports in AlterNet on an earlier screening of Iranium, which hypes Tehran's nuclear threat, at the Heritage Foundation, and about how the film being promoted by a former colleague of World Net Daily's Aaron Klein, who was one of the first conservative writers to jump on the conspiracy train: lest you forget, that line of thinking goes, Mohamed ElBaradei, while head of the IAEA, let Iran off the hook on its nuclear ambitions; ElBaradei's OK with the Muslim Brotherhood; therefore he must be behind the plot to install a nuclear-armed-Islamic-caliphate-that-will-impose-shari'ah-on-us-all. I paraphrase, of course, but you get the drift. That Jasser is both the right's poster boy for "moderate Islam" and a Beck guest demonstrates that Beck is drinking from the same well as a wide swath of the American conservative movement. (On Hardball last night, Chris Matthews zeroed in on the John Birch Society, but it's hardly been a pioneer of the shari'ah scare.) CPAC might have shunned Gaffney; he might have struck back with the comically desperate claim that CPAC itself has been infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood; but let's face it, the right is happy, for instance, to let Peter King go ahead with his 21st century McCarthy hearings. But Beck has gone too far?
Three years ago, I wrote a story about the Clarion Fund, and talked to Jasser about his role in the making of The Third Jihad. The film, which also features political figures Sen. Joe Lieberman, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, posits -- just like Beck does, although with a rather frightening if ill-conceived coherence that Beck can't match -- that the Muslim Brotherhood is behind every American Muslim group, and that every one of those groups shares its supposed goal of imposing shari'ah law in the west. "They want shari'ah law where they're able to install it in America," Jasser told me, "in enclaves and court systems." These groups believe, he insisted, that "the construct of government isn't based on natural law and reason, but the construct is that the Qu'ran is the constitution and the clerics rule through oligarchy and lay Muslims have to abide by the clerical injunction of shari'ah." Beck has never been shy about showcasing rapture-ready end-timers like Joel Rosenberg or John Hagee; his apocalyptic rantings about Islam of late are tinged with that sort of Ezekiel Gog-Magog prophecy -- which, in the view of Christian Zionists like Hagee, foretell not only a grand confrontation between Christ and the Antichrist, but between Christianity and Islam. As Anthea observed last week, Beck is clearly trying to tap into those narratives to fuel his -- and his viewers' -- paranoias about current events in Egypt.
That's not to say these end-times prophecies aren't criticized in right-wing circles -- they are, but they are largely tolerated. And tolerated, for example, by pro-Israel neocons like Bill Kristol, now leading the charge against Beck, because they supposedly support Israel. This is exactly the sort of thinking that led Newt Gingrich and John McCain to suggest (quite inaccurately, in retrospect, right?) that the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah amounted to World War III, and Kristol to suggest that bombing Iran might not be a bad idea. McCain might have disavowed Hagee during the 2008 campaign, but his Christians United for Israel continues to flourish, and institutional Jewish tolerance for his professed "love" of Israel, while dampened somewhat, continues nonetheless. So why is Beck getting the cold shoulder? I think he's gone too far with the crazy talk. Conservatives want this sort of anti-Muslim stuff to be respectable -- I'm not saying it is, I'm just saying they're straining to present it that way. As far as the religious part of the conservative movement goes, the religious right has probably been cheered by having movement that is no longer seen as being led by a single person whose embarrassing moments have to be owned by the whole movement. The lack of a single leader is a sign of the religious right's success, not its demise. Beck has long troubled many within it who don't want him to be seen as their de facto leader. Don't misjudge that, though -- he still has his defenders. But no matter who prevails here, don't be fooled by the conservative pile-on about Beck. It's more about form than substance. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 29. Why Conservatives are Turning on Beck In a nutshell, he's a bushbot neocon libtard. Conservatives don't like that kind of Shiite.
#2. To: hondo68, Brian S, go65, AKA Stone (#1) (Edited) I read an analysis that it's the Chicken Little effect - people were amped up about Beck's predictions of the imminent collapse but when the apocalypse did not happen and they spent a small fortune on over priced gold and survivalist supplies sold by Beck with nothing to show for it they stopped tuning in. Also, the GOP PACs manipulated the old people, paranoids and right wing crazies so they can mobilize for the mid-terms but now that they are done they are ditching them so Beck is not needed and now that the GOP controls one branch of govt they want to tone down the crazy talk because the crazies can sabotage the Republican efforts. So I think it's all those factors. With that said, I am kind of disappointed by the so called conservatives on here - I was hoping for some enlightened discourse but most of the right wing posters on here kind of come off as loons also - that includes Stone. I mean Stone posted an article with a title that called a woman a "C" word. That kind of kooky - crazy attitude is what I saw in the McCain-Palin rallies that evolved into those town hall crazed meetings that gave way to the tea party rallies. Also, I have to add the majority of so called conservatives on here justify lots of their beliefs with claims of 'conspiracies' like global warming is a leftist conspiracy using scientists because all scientists are commies somehow. Kook talk like that. Even discussing the economic collapse under Bush you get inserted some reference to a conspiracy here and there. if this is the best thinking conservatives can do online in these forums (all right wing forums not just this one have this kook culture) then the movement is doomed.
#3. To: Godwinson (#2) Stone posted an article with a title that called a woman a "C" word. She was a cunt and is a cunt. Democrats actually support murdering babies. Yet the evil left remains silent. They must really like dead babies. To the left they are sacrifices to their god satan.
#4. To: A K A Stone (#3) Thanks for illustrating my point!
#5. To: Godwinson (#4) Thanks for illustrating mine that liberals are fine with murdering babies. Not a peep out of you perps.
#12. To: A K A Stone, Godwinson (#5) Thanks for illustrating mine that liberals are fine with murdering babies. Not a peep out of you perps. Keep it up; you come across as a crude, controlling man, lacking in respect for human life once outside the womb.
#16. To: lucysmom (#12) Keep it up; you come across as a crude, controlling man, lacking in respect for human life once outside the womb. You liberals come across as hating babies so much that you want people to be able to murder them at will. I have no respect for pro abortion sickos. That a baby murderer or supporter of baby murder calls me crude or controlling means nothing to a sane person. I mean I wouldn't get upset if some child rapist didn't like my views towards them. And murder is so much worse then rape.
#20. To: A K A Stone (#16) I have no respect for pro abortion sickos. That a baby murderer or supporter of baby murder calls me crude or controlling means nothing to a sane person. I mean I wouldn't get upset if some child rapist didn't like my views towards them. And murder is so much worse then rape. Like Pontius Pilate you like clean murder, and the slow killing of the human spirit.
#22. To: lucysmom (#20) Like Pontius Pilate you like clean murder, and the slow killing of the human spirit. You support the mass murderer Barack Obama. You owe me an apology. I favor no murder. That is democrats and some stupid republicans.
#26. To: A K A Stone (#22) You owe me an apology. I favor no murder. That is democrats and some stupid republicans. You support policies that lead to death because you think it saves you a couple of bucks at tax time.
#28. To: lucysmom (#26) (Edited) Rape is an act of violence. And women should have the right to control who's genes they allow into the pool. This attempt to redefine violence will result in more violence if the sort of perp who rapes thinks his theft of a woman's body to create offspring will be protected. I don't like abortion, but if a pregnancy endangers the woman bearing the child, or is due to an act of violence and would harm the woman emotionally of physically, she should not be sanctioned for aborting the fetus.
#29. To: Ferret Mike (#28) I don't like abortion, but if a pregnancy endangers the woman bearing the child, or is due to an act of violence and would harm the woman emotionally of physically, she should not be sanctioned for aborting the fetus. Nor do I like abortion. The person who has responsibility should also be the person who has control. It seems like a form of tyranny to deny another human being control over her body, first by rape, and then by telling her she must carry the baby to term.
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