 | October 11, 2010 |
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Dear Friend,
This morning, Media Matters for America posted a striking new report that shows the growing danger of extreme and dishonest right-wing messages coming from demagogues like Glenn Beck.
According to police, Byron Williams engaged in a gun battle with law enforcement officers on a California highway on July 18. A police affidavit states that Williams said he was on his way to San Francisco to "start a revolution" by killing staff at progressive organizations, including the Tides Foundation, a group frequently targeted by Beck.
In an exclusive series of interviews and correspondence, Williams explains how much he relied on right-wing media -- and in particular Fox News host Glenn Beck -- for news. You can read the story here. Beck, who has declared himself a "progressive hunter," put Tides at the center of an alleged left-wing conspiracy, and the conspiracy theories featured on Beck's chalkboard were the basis for Byron Williams' dark revenge fantasies.
As Williams, who said Beck was "like a schoolteacher on TV," explained:
I would have never started watching Fox News if it wasn't for the fact that Beck was on there. And it was the things that he did, it was the things he exposed that blew my mind. I said, well, nobody does this.
What Williams learned from Beck and the right-wing media inspired him to depart on a journey that could have had deadly consequences.
We have the full story this morning at Media Matters for America. I encourage you to read the whole thing here.
Williams' rhetoric and his worldview are shaped by, and echo, the conspiracy theories and falsehoods of the hard-right TV and radio talkers he cites as his inspiration. In this new interview, Williams says he was pushed over the edge by anger over a conspiracy involving George Soros, Obama, a Brazilian oil company, and the BP oil spill -- a conspiracy theory loudly touted by Beck in June (and debunked by Media Matters for America.)
Byron Williams took up arms because he thinks an evil cabal of left-wing extremists is trying to destroy the country and engaging in "hideous corruption." He believes that lie because that's the "very good information" he heard, constantly, from the sources he trusts -- sources like David Horowitz, Michael Savage, Alex Jones and Glenn Beck.
Beck is playing a dangerous game -- convincing his audience that sinister threats are turning the country into a dictatorship and must be stopped, yet carefully backing off from his violent rhetoric just at the edge of incitement. He's instigating fear and rage with his lies while trying to avoid accountability for the results.
As Williams himself said:
Beck is gonna deny everything about violent approach and deny everything about conspiracies, but he'll give you every reason to believe it. He's protecting himself, and you can't blame him for that. So, I understand what he's doing.
Please give this important story a look and send it to others. It's a devastating indictment of the consequences of the toxic misinformation that Beck airs every day.
David Brock
Founder
Media Matters for America
P.S. The violent and extreme rhetoric from Fox hosts is just one of the reasons we support the "Turn Off Fox" campaign from Color of Change. Check it out here.
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