Piven Responds To Beck: “It Only Takes One Person Who Is A Little Deranged”
January 25, 2011 10:27 am ET by Eric Boehlert
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Beck’s fans have recently taken notice of Piven. On a website Beck runs, The Blaze, which also traffics in the Piven smear campaign, readers began posting lurid threats against the elderly academic. “ONE SHOT...ONE KILL!" announced one.
"Why is this woman still alive?" asked another. And this particularly shocking threat: "Maybe they should burst through the front door of this arrogant elitist and slit the hateful cow's throat."
The warnings prompted the Center on Constitutional Rights to write Fox News chairman Roger Ailes, urging him to stop Beck from portraying Piven as a terrorist, and falsely accusing her of advocating political violence. “You can stop the reckless endangering of the safety of Professor Piven,” the Center wrote.
Through it all, Piven has watched with a growing sense of amazement, as well as guardedness.
“It only takes one person who is a little deranged to take such rhetoric and make it real,” Piven told Media Matters in an interview.
“It’s a big county and there’s all kinds of people. And there are also right-wing guerilla groups who have a kind of culture, or code, of death and it may prod them into action.”..........................
The violent taunts (“We should blowup Piven's office and home”) have made Piven “wary,” but she remains unbowed.
“I think what the death threats are intended to do is extort silence from me. Although I think there is danger out there. I think most of them are simply ridiculous.”...........
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