Quote of the Day

"(We have) completed a thorough review of each of Fareed Zakaria’s columns ... and we are entirely satisfied that the language in question in his recent column was an unintentional error and an isolated incident for which he has apologized."

-- Time Magazine on its decision to reinstate Fareed Zakaria after he admitted and took responsibility for a column in the magazine that plagiarized a recent article in the New Yorker

You know, I like Fareed -- he's a pretty bright guy. But I'm not sure I've ever read anything more thoroughly full-of-shit than the above quote from Time. The fact that he wrote a column that featured a good portion of language stolen, almost word for word, from somebody else's material is either "an unintentional error" or "an isolated incident" he needed to apologize for. It can't be both.

For the record, you have no idea the grammatical hoops news managers jump through when they're forced to write retractions. An ostensible admission of guilt is one of those things that's carefully crafted and then not touched by any of the underlings who might screw it up after the lawyers go over it and deem that it covers the outlet's ass legally without actually apologizing for doing anything wrong. I'll call what Time did a kind of retraction. And as usual it's a sight to behold -- a masterful example of unmitigated bullshit.

By the way, a lot of great quotes today so there will be more to come.

Patriot Games

Paranoid, delusional, and heavily armed -- I can't think of a more frightening combination.

From the most recent issue of Time magazine:

"'I don't know who the redcoats are,' says Brian Vandersall, 37, who designed the exercise and tried to tamp down talk of politics among the men. 'It could be U.N. troops. It could be federal troops. It could be Blackwater, which was used in Katrina. It could be Mexican troops who are crossing the border.' Or it could be, as it was for this year's exercise, an Islamic army marauding unchecked because a hypothetical pro-Muslim President has ordered U.S. forces to leave them alone. But as the drill played out, the designated opponents bore little resemblance to terrorists. The scenario described them as a platoon-size unit, in uniform, with 'military-grade hardware, communications, encryption capability and vehicle support.' The militia was training for combat against the spitting image of a tactical force from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), FBI or National Guard. 'Whoever they are,' Vandersall says, 'we have to be ready.'

In a reversal of casting, the armed antigovernment movement describes itself as heir to the founders. As they see it, the union that the founders created is now a foreign tyrant. 'It's like waking up behind enemy lines," says Terrell. He says he smelled a setup when the FBI arrested nine members of Michigan's Hutaree militia in March and charged them with plotting to kill police. (Their trial is set to begin in February.) Terrell and other leaders put their forces on alert, anticipating a roundup. 'There was a lot of citizens out there in the bushes, locked and loaded,' he says. 'It's only due to miracles I do not understand that civil war did not break out right there.'"

Do yourself a favor and read the cover story a whole lot of people are going to be talking about. It's a near-flawless snapshot of the farthest and most dangerous edges of the lunatic fringe in the age of Obama.

Time: The Secret World of Extreme Militias/9.30.10

And because it seems appropriate, here are just two of the times over the past year that I've written about the rise of the new "Patriot Militia" movement in America -- the first dealing with the Hutaree arrest referenced in the quote above.


"The Enemy Within" (Originally Published, 3.30.10)

Remember back in July of 2007 when a U.S. Attorney, the FBI and the NYPD trumpeted the capture of four men they claimed had been trying to engineer "one of the most chilling plots imaginable" in New York City: the detonation of fuel lines under JFK airport? Chances are you do, the same way you likely remember every other self-congratulatory press conference held over the past several years in which the government announced with supposedly appropriate bombast that it had thwarted an imminent terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Thing is, though, quite a few of these plots -- to say nothing of the more than a dozen times that the terror alert level was raised based on nebulous information and with politically suspicious timing -- turned out to be a lot of horseshit. It's not that the actions of some truly dangerous people weren't uncovered; it's that there were more than a few times that the would-be terrorists hyped as being directly related to al-Qaeda turned out to be more like the Keystone Kops, their plans for mass destruction nothing more than the product of a lot of bravado and maybe a little too much to drink.

The point, though, is that you always heard about it -- shouted far and wide across the media landscape -- when the United States had supposedly foiled a terrorist attack from outsiders. We're always eager as hell to call someone not from this country who desires to attack us and spread fear and chaos a terrorist -- as well we should. What we're not as eager to do is call someone from within this country -- like, say, a far-right, white Christian militia member who believes the government is evil -- a terrorist even if he or she hopes to accomplish the same goal.

Yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that nine members of an ultra-right Christian militia group known as Hutaree had been arrested across the Midwest on charges of seditious conspiracy and the attempted use of weapons of mass destruction. Investigators claim the group was planning to wage war against the U.S. government -- a war that would begin with the murder of a Michigan cop, followed by a coordinated attack on that officer's funeral procession. The hope, supposedly, was that the strike would inspire a bloody, Turner Diaries-style uprising against the government. Needless to say, relatives of those arrested deny that the group is dangerous, one of them going so far as to make the not-very-reassuring statement that if the good people in Hutaree were going to kill somebody they would've done it already. It's a bit of a dubious claim, regardless, considering that a quick scan of the material posted on the internet by the group and its leader, David Brian Stone, reveals them to be every bit the standard paranoid white-guy gun fetishists with delusions of militaristic grandeur who've occupied a tiny portion of the cultural imagination for decades.

Back in late 2008, right around (surprise, surprise) the election of Barack Obama, one member of Hutaree, a guy who menacingly called himself "Pale Horse," posted a video on YouTube which showed him armed with a Kalashnikov and spouting all kinds of extreme-right bromides about how the U.S. was in peril and it was time for freedom-loving people to arm themselves, etc. etc. Whether or not he was ever truly on the verge of trying to turn his revolutionary fantasies into cold-blooded reality is anybody's guess. But that's not really the point; the point is that even after, say, the Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma City or the Austin IRS building plane crash -- Timothy McVeigh and Joe Stack's proven actions -- many in this country are still reluctant to label an American citizen a terrorist. Maybe it's because to do so would cause all kinds of cognitive dissonance, since it would put that person on the same level as the foreign insurgents raging against their own governments overseas whom we're more than happy to call terrorists but who refer to themselves as merely freedom-fighters (a lack of distinction, ironically, that militia members here at home have accepted for years).

What's really ironic, however -- and more than a little frightening -- is that not only will yesterday's announcement be unlikely to stick in the minds of many Americans or in the media's collective consciousness; it'll actually go a long way in fueling anti-government sentiment. In the absence of widespread outrage that it's entirely possible a burgeoning new anti-government movement bent on redneck revolution may be out there plotting murder and mayhem, the movement itself can only flourish under the weight of a federal law enforcement crackdown, since such action just proves the point of those who believe the government is comprised of jack-booted thugs who aim to trample free, decent, heavily armed Americans. In the cataractous eyes of guys like "Pale Horse," the fact that the feds are willing to arrest the Hutaree group only shows how much Hutaree is necessary to fight off the feds.

Remember, Oklahoma City was considered a direct response to both Ruby Ridge and Waco. And while each of those incidents may have indeed involved gross federal overreaction, it doesn't change the fact that until we admit that there are potential domestic terrorists among us -- not patriots, terrorists -- and refuse to let that be deflected by the contrived indignation it may incite from one group or another, we'll continue to be at their mercy.

We need to stop hedging and call those Americans who want to wage war against our nation or simply kill other Americans in the name of a political end what they are. Because there are far, far fewer of them than there are of us.


"Protecting America From Whatever" (Originally Published, 10.21.09)

It never ceases to amaze me just how absolutely fucking crazy it's gotten out there. You'd think that by now -- after Tea Baggers, Birthers, "death panels," Glenn Beck's warnings of the encroaching commie threat to our precious bodily fluids, etc. -- that I'd be used to whatever shameless absurdity the apoplectic right sees fit to conjure out of thin air these days. But, no, they just keep turning up the burner of weird-and-dangerous so far past the boiling point that all the water's evaporated and the pot itself is just about on fire.

The latest example: The Oath Keepers.

Not to be confused with Pop Christianity's gift to snarky assholes everywhere, the "Promise Keepers," the Oath Keepers are a group of military vets and ex-law enforcement officers who've banded together to once again rise up and defend the supposedly core values of our beloved country during this time of great crisis. These values, as set forth by our now officially invoked-to-death forefathers, are the standard-issue litany of paranoid white guy t-shirt slogans: an almost sexual obsession with guns, state sovereignty, fear and suspicion of the federal government, watering the tree of liberty with blood every so often -- the kind of overarching, largely irrational belief system adhered to by just about anyone who subscribes to Soldier of Fortune magazine. As for the crisis currently afflicting the country that was once America, do I really even need to bother spelling it out at this point? Is there anyone out there not keenly aware of the ever-growing stable of ridiculous boogeymen created and perpetuated by the pants-wetting right these days?

So just what oaths are the Oath Keepers taking an oath to keep?

Try these on for size -- from the group's website:

"1. We will NOT obey orders to disarm the American people.

2. We will NOT obey orders to conduct warrantless searches of the American people.

3. We will NOT obey orders to detain American citizens as 'unlawful enemy combatants' or to subject them to military tribunal.

4. We will NOT obey orders to impose martial law or a 'state of emergency' on a state.

5. We will NOT obey orders to invade and subjugate any state that asserts its sovereignty.

6. We will NOT obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps.

7. We will NOT obey any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps under any pretext.

8. We will NOT obey orders to assist or support the use of any foreign troops on U.S. soil against the American people to 'keep the peace' or to 'maintain control.'

9. We will NOT obey any orders to confiscate the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies.

10.We will NOT obey any orders which infringe on the right of the people to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their government for a redress of grievances."

All I can say is, thank God for the Oath Keepers -- otherwise we'd all be disarmed and in U.N.-controlled concentration camps right now.

Jesus freakin' Christ -- these clowns may as well be saying, "We will NOT aid the Majestic Consortium in its plan to deliver an extraterrestrial virus to the American population through Africanized bees, leading to the spontaneous colonization of the planet." That's how likely any of the paranoid whack-job conspiracy theories the Oath Keepers espouse is to ever actually come true. Once again, thank God these ex-law enforcement specialists are on the case to defend us from absolutely fucking nothing.

Now before you go thinking that I just trolled the fringes of the internet looking for a band of crazies this crazy, and that the Oath Keepers wouldn't cross the mind of anyone with an IQ larger than a fruit salad's, MSNBC's own Grandpa Caligula -- Pat Buchanan -- wrote an entire column for WorldnetDaily.com yesterday praising the group's efforts. Sure, Buchanan's a fucking racist reactionary (the subtle, not-at-all-inflammatory title of his Worldnet piece is "Traditional Americans are Losing Their Nation") but he's also, inexplicably, a member of the supposedly mainstream media -- or at the very least their invited guest. And so, with a couple of keystrokes from a skeletal hand, the Oath Keepers go from being extremist basement-dwellers to genuine players -- stepping up to a seat at the big kids' table with the likes of all the other conspiracist lunatics whose opinions have somehow been lent undue credence by a conflict-addicted media and a right wing that's completely lost its mind after losing the White House.

I've said it many times before but it bears repeating over and over again: Where will all of this end? Not when, since I'm not sure it will on its own -- where?

All this unfocused rage, completely immune to logic and reason, has to go somewhere -- and where it sometimes seems to be headed just scares the hell out of me.

Mag Lite

I love every second of this.

The Onion News Network: Time Announces New Version of Magazine Aimed at Adults

Quote of the Day

"Bookended by 9/11 at the start and a financial wipeout at the end, the first 10 years of this century will very likely go down as the most dispiriting and disillusioning decade Americans have lived through in the post-World War II era. We're still weeks away from the end of '09, but it's not too early to pass judgment. Call it the Decade from Hell, or the Reckoning, or the Decade of Broken Dreams, or the Lost Decade. Call it whatever you want -- just give thanks that it is nearly over."

-- From Time magazine's cover story this week, "The Decade From Hell"

In case you've somehow, impossibly, forgotten just how bad a decade it's been -- just how drastically this country has changed, how thoroughly unrecognizable America is from what it was just ten years ago -- watch this slide show.

The Mad Profit of the Airwaves

So Glenn Beck is on the cover of the new issue of Time magazine.

At face value, there's nothing really wrong with this; the man's a pop culture phenomenon. The problem with the piece is, unfortunately, the same one that plagued Time's 2005 cover story on Ann Coulter: It heavily skirts the reasons why its subject is controversial in favor of just concentrating on the controversy itself (and the Beck article often doesn't even bother with that, with its author, David Von Drehle, penning the piece more as a fluffy love-letter than anything else). If you've heard this argument against the media before, that's because it's one of those offenses that's painfully ubiquitous; how many times in just the last year or so have you seen the media devote days of coverage or volumes of copy to the partisan battle over a particular incident without even bothering to dissect what all the fighting's about? It's this kind of disservice to the viewer, reader and the truth -- propagating conflict over understanding -- that drives people's hatred of the modern press.

Von Drehle manages to conveniently omit any of the really awful things Beck has said in the recent past -- about the families of the 9/11 tragedy he regularly and shamelessly exploits, about wanting to beat Charlie Rangel to death with a shovel, the bombastic comparisons of Barack Obama to Hitler -- choosing instead to paint Beck in the most innocuous terms possible: as an "immensely talented" carnival barker, populism's clown prince. Once again, there's nothing inherently wrong with admitting that Beck's shtick can be damn entertaining, but it's a pretty glaring breach of journalistic ethics to purposely overlook the reasons why a lot of people can't stand him (beyond simply the fact that he comes off as a weepy loudmouth with persecution issues).

Likewise, as Media Matters points out, the Time piece commits one of the most obscene and prevalent sins in modern American journalism: the false-equivalence. Right off the bat it claims that depending on whom you ask, left-wing or right, the crowd at the Beck-inspired 9/12 Teabagger rally in Washington, DC last weekend was either 70,000 or two-million strong. This is, of course, ridiculous, because there actually are official numbers for how many people were there; that 70,000 number didn't come from liberal sources -- it came from the DC fire department. Von Drehle doesn't mention this though; he makes it seem as if the whole thing is up for debate -- a matter of perspective. What kind of journalist does a story and doesn't bother to get an official and easily verifiable statistic?

My biggest issue with the Beck piece, though, is personal. Von Drehle, as so many have done before him when talking about Glenn Beck, invokes the legacy of the most important and prescient film about broadcast journalism and the media of all time: 1976's Network. I've mentioned more than once that Network stands as one of my absolute favorite movies, and with good reason: Not only is it a bona fide masterpiece of screenwriting and directing -- from Paddy Chayefsky and Sidney Lumet, respectively -- it's a movie that's almost impossible to wrap your head around these days, simply because what you see and hear in it seems incongruous with the notion that it was released more than three decades ago. It's that prophetic. The truth is that almost every grotesque, rotten and corrupt thing that Chayefsky predicted about the future of television news and the media in general has come to fruition in the years since Network debuted in theaters. There's never been a better movie made about the business of television, and I'm not sure there ever will be.

But whenever anyone thinks of Network the first thing that comes to mind is the film's doomed anchorman -- the so-called "mad prophet of the airwaves" -- Howard Beale. And whenever any hack writer pens a piece on Glenn Beck, he or she invariably compares him to Beale. The reality of course is that, beyond the ability to tap into a certain level of populist rage -- which almost anyone can do these days -- Beck doesn't have a damn thing in common with Beale, and to assume so misses the very point Paddy Chayefsky was trying to make (and I personally think that if you're a journalist and you don't get Network, you need to toss your laptop out a window and go sell Amway). The character of Howard Beale was literally going insane -- having a very ugly and public nervous breakdown -- and he was exploited by cynical, ruthless forces within his own network who knew that the sideshow nature of his downward spiral spelled ratings and revenue. Beck isn't crazy; he's only acting that way.

What's more, Beale didn't rant about just anything; his main target was the corporate takeover of what he called "the most awesome goddamned propaganda force in the whole godless world." That would be television. In the movie, his crusade against corporate oversight of the media begins just as a communications conglomerate has officially taken the reins of his network and its news department has been put under the control of the entertainment division (making the two seemingly antithetical entities practically indistinguishable, sound familiar?). Glenn Beck isn't railing against his overlords at News Corp (although the image of Rupert Murdoch taking a timid Glenn Beck into a darkened conference room and shouting, "YOU WILL ATONE!" at him is a damn funny one to ponder); he's making money hand-over-fist -- supposedly more than 20-million last year alone -- by pretending to be an everyman on the side of the little guy. Beck's a showman -- pure and simple. Beale raged against the artificial; Beck is the artificial.

And yet the unimaginative continue to bring up Beale in the same sentence as Beck -- and Beck himself continues to cite Beale as an inspiration.

I guess that means he won't mind if Murdoch has him shot dead on the air if his ratings ever drop.