Glenn Beck v. Anti-Tutsi Genocide Propaganda

[mikelewis]

Yesterday or the day before I did something I haven't done in quite a while, I flipped over to the A.M. frequency and tuned in to Glenn Becks program. I only listened for a moment and I didn't inhale but I was able to catch a smattering of what he was talking about. He was saying that there was no way he and his ilk could possibly be responsible for stirring up violent sentiments within the Republican party and that Jared Loughner's (a LEFT-wing radical - I guess if you say it enough it becomes true) actions had nothing to do with him or Sarah Palin. He said that he has no authority, no robes, no indoctrination program and listeners are not forced to tune in and thus he had no real influence or part in this story... he's just "telling the truth". After that, I turned it off and went back to my one of my TLC Lecture Series (boring is better). Anyway, his statement has really bothered me because I've been around long enough to know that that statement is total bullshit. Raido personalities have a very great effect and weild enormous influence over their listeners. One needs only to look back to Rwanda before the genocide to see just how strong a reaction hateful vitriol married with political idealism can be. Beyond any shadow of a doubt, it was the Rwandan radio stations which were completely culpable in the incitement of the Hutu people against the Tutsi people. It was constant warnings of danger to livelihood and way of life, it was fearmongering that led to blood... in the case of Rwanda, hundreds of thousands died; in the case of Jared Loughner, 6. Did Glenn (or Sarah for that matter) incite violence against Mrs. Giffords directly? Is he culpable? Is Sarah? I don't know, but I do know that they create a hostile environment with thier constant warnings and calls to violent nonviolence. I started searching through some of the transcripts in Rwanda for 1993 and luckily I found a poster from April 2010 who had the same idea.

http://www.theawl.com/2010/04/transcripts-glenn-beck-v-anti-tutsi-propaganda

Last week, prompted by the, oh, let's call it "strange tenor of modern American public discourse," I sought out a website that allowed me to peruse some RTLM transcripts. (RTLM, or Radio-Télévision Libre des Milles Collines, was the "news" station that broadcast anti-Tutsi propaganda during the Rwandan genocide.) I wasn't sure what I'd find, but I thought it might be interesting to read some historic vitriolic hatred while living in a time of other, newer vitriolic hatred-it was sort of like how people sip decades-old wine to help them better appreciate their veal.
After browsing around for a few minutes, I did what any thinking person would do: I went to Glenn Beck's website, where, as you might imagine, I discovered that many of Beck's declarations were jarringly, frighteningly, stupidly similar to the RTLM's.

Here are some of the excerpts from the transcripts he found... though there are a great many more...

RTLM: "It is not only today that the want to take and monopolize power in order to oppress the Hutus and cast democracy out of the window; the Batutsis' superiority complex has been around for a very long time. … It is this superiority complex which set the Tutsis apart because, even today, many of them are still convinced of their intellectual superiority to the rest of the Rwandans."
Glenn Beck: "Isn't that exactly the thing that we used to like about America, that the average Joe could have a voice? That's what progressives don't like about Sarah Palin, and listen to the vitriol. … They don't like Sarah Palin, they don't like Joe the Plumber because they're average people, and if you're an average person, well, you're just not good enough."

RTLM: "The Tutsis] … are wicked and a wicked person always finds a way of performing evil arts."
Glenn Beck: "I know who our czars are now. And this collection of these czars, these are evil people. These are wicked, crazy, frightening people."

RTLM: "When you look at them, you wonder what kind of people they are. In any case, let us simply stand firm and exterminate them…"
Glenn Beck: "There's a time for everything. To every purpose, there is a season. And let me tell you, today the season is clubbing people over the head with shovels."

RTLM: From Salon: "Radio Democracy, the voice of Hutu rebel forces fighting Burundi's Tutsi-controlled national army from neighboring Zaire, routinely brands government soldiers as 'bloodthirsty vampires.'"
Glenn Beck: "I think this is a sign that the government won't think twice before they jam their fangs into your neck. … These bloodsucker vampires are not going to be satisfied with just sucking the blood out of GM's top guy, the AIG executives or any other business or businessperson. Their thirst for power and control is unquenchable. They will not stop. There's only two ways for this movie to end: Either the economy becomes like the walking dead, or you drive a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers."

RTLM: "We then ask you seriously to help us and work with us on discovering and protesting against anyone who would still have evil plans of bringing us back to a worse situation. … give information to the soldiers, and all those who are in charge of security…
Glenn Beck: "I beg you, America, I beg you. Great and powerful evil is on our doorstep. Great and powerful evil is here. I beg you, read about the progressives."

RTLM: "This has been diffused by journalists of Radio France Internationale, who serve as Tutsi tools. The wish of these white men is that the preferred race, by God, must rule Rwanda.
Glenn Beck: "Van Jones is yet another community organizer. This is yet another black nationalist in the same way that Reverend Jeremiah Wright is a black nationalist. … And America, you need to wake up, because this country is being transformed, and if you don't think-it's way beyond socialism. It is way beyond socialism. It is into black nationalism."

RTLM: "People from Uganda, Burundi and elsewhere … instead of coming in peace, they steal our country, they destroy it. Therefore, let us get up and fight for Rwanda.
Glenn Beck: "Your country is being hijacked. They are using things like green jobs as a front. They are using healthcare as a front. In the context of Obama style reparations, that's what they're doing."

RTLM: "Another thing is that so far, the RTLM radio station has told the whole truth. And what it said happened. It has been proving what it said. … It will never be discouraged. It will never stop its transmissions."
Glenn Beck: "As for Fox, they only seem biased compared to the one-sided reporting of NBC, ABC, CBS and especially MSNBC. The fact is, I don't know of ANY lies Fox News has told. Fox gives both sides of the argument of virtually every issue."

[Tansy_Gold]

1. Just google Hitler Radio Propaganda

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/propaganda_in_nazi_germany.htm

>snip>

The(sic) ensure that everybody could hear Hitler speak, Goebbels organised the sale of cheap radios. these were called the "People's Receiver" and they cost only 76 marks. A smaller version cost just 35 marks. Goebbels believed that if Hitler was to give speeches, the people should be able to him. Loud speakers were put up in streets so that people could not avoid any speeches by the Fuhrer. Cafes and other such properties were ordered to play in public speeches by Hitler.

<end snip>


No, radio has no effect whatsoever. :sarcasm:


TG,TT

[Ian David]

6. Nothing has changed...

Hitler's Radio
By Glenn Aylett

"The radio will be to the twentieth century what the press was to the nineteenth"
-Josef Goebbels, 1933.

All totalitarian states strictly control the media and broadcasters. Even in modern times, where there is now the internet and international digital broadcasting, dictatorships have found ways to strictly control what the populace watch, download and hear. In Saddam's Iraq, access to the internet and satellite television was limited only to senior Ba'ath Party members, members of the general public were only allowed to watch state television and were banned from owning PCs with modems and from owning satellite dishes. In previous decades the Soviet Union spent millions of roubles on jamming the BBC World Service and the Voice of America. Typically in most totalitarian states the electronic media are run by a state monopoly which is controlled by the government - think of a BBC type broadcaster run from the totalitarian version of the Home Office with the senior executives chosen by the government.

Nazi Germany was the first totalitarian state to use radio as a propaganda tool and, uniquely, brought out a series of affordable radio sets - the Volksempfänger, or people's radios - so poorer Germans, who generally did not have radios before 1933, could listen to Nazi propaganda and the infamous Nuremberg rallies, and little else.

More:
http://www.transdiffusion.org/radio/features/hitlers_radio

[Jim__]

2. Excellent juxtaposition of Glenn Beck with Rwandan hate radio.

I bookmarked that. It's something beck is always denying - his own hate speech.

[fascisthunter]

3. Off to the Front Page!!! (nt)

[DCKit]

4. Just another RW plagiarist.

Great analysis mike.

[democrat_patriot]

5. Please put this on the front page. Wish I could rec more.

It really shows the comparisons in a truthful way.

Is there anything on the left that is close? The left called for impeachment, the right calls for blood.

[Doctor_J]

7. I have been saying for a year that Hate Radio = Radio Rwanda

And, if we do nothing about it, we will end up like the Tutsis, much sooner than you think

[The Doctor.]

8. Wow. This is frightening.

[Ian David]

9. I'm in the process of turning this into an animated movie on XtraNormal. n/t

[Ian David]

10. Here, I turned this into an animated video...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x543929