Will President Obama "seize power overnight" in a move to consolidate White House control of the U.S. government? That's the fear of Fox News anchor Glenn Beck who discussed the issue at length today with another broadcasting powerhouse, radio's Rush Limbaugh:
With apologies and gratitude to William H. Gass a contributing editor of Harper’s Magazine, and author of a book review in the August Harper’s:
In order to prepare private citizens for supporting a militarized police state, a humiliating and painful bullying is generally prescribed. Its aim is to inculcate obedience and create callousness. Leaders must be resolute and heartless, prepared to send any enemy “to their deaths, pitilessly and remorselessly,” as Fox has demanded. Next a campaign of denigration of the chosen opponent is undertaken. This is designed to reduce the humanity of the enemy and to prepare a social web of support for behavior that is basically cruel, immoral, and normally disapproved. It strengthens every aspect of your plans if the society that you represent brings to the project a tradition of paternal domination and abuse, reaching from the family to the office of Rupert Murdoch and to its final station, God. Deep feelings of injury, inferiority, and large reserves of resentment—the fresher the better—are nearly essential. Any widespread unhappiness within your country can then be directed at the selected scapegoat by every available instrument of indoctrination and propaganda. If the enemy can be enticed to return fire, that will help solidify the nation’s resolve. Since a saw’s cut is painful either way it moves, the soldier knows that it is safer to risk death at the front rather than execution in the rear. A general sense of uneasiness helps, as if you knew someone were watching where you walked, reading your mail, and overhearing you talk. This atmosphere of anxiety can be sustained when the agents of power are ruthless and pitiless.
If you watch what could only be called the administration's organ - anything involved with GE or NBC - you've got [GE CEO] Jeffrey Immelt on the board of the Federal Reserve, you have him in the Oval Office consulting not only on health care, but the financial situation, and they are an organ.h/t to Ed Brayton
If you watch MSNBC, I contend that you will see the future because they are laying the ground for a horrible event ... anything from the right, there's some awful event and I fear this government, this administration has so much framework already prepared, that they will seize power overnight before anybody even gives it a second thought.
Limbaugh responded, "I don't think they're going to be able to seize it overnight without anybody knowing about it."
With apologies and gratitude to William H. Gass a contributing editor of Harper’s Magazine, and author of a book review in the August Harper’s:
In order to prepare private citizens for supporting a militarized police state, a humiliating and painful bullying is generally prescribed. Its aim is to inculcate obedience and create callousness. Leaders must be resolute and heartless, prepared to send any enemy “to their deaths, pitilessly and remorselessly,” as Fox has demanded. Next a campaign of denigration of the chosen opponent is undertaken. This is designed to reduce the humanity of the enemy and to prepare a social web of support for behavior that is basically cruel, immoral, and normally disapproved. It strengthens every aspect of your plans if the society that you represent brings to the project a tradition of paternal domination and abuse, reaching from the family to the office of Rupert Murdoch and to its final station, God. Deep feelings of injury, inferiority, and large reserves of resentment—the fresher the better—are nearly essential. Any widespread unhappiness within your country can then be directed at the selected scapegoat by every available instrument of indoctrination and propaganda. If the enemy can be enticed to return fire, that will help solidify the nation’s resolve. Since a saw’s cut is painful either way it moves, the soldier knows that it is safer to risk death at the front rather than execution in the rear. A general sense of uneasiness helps, as if you knew someone were watching where you walked, reading your mail, and overhearing you talk. This atmosphere of anxiety can be sustained when the agents of power are ruthless and pitiless.
