why is cnn mainstreaming a right wing radio host who promotes violent, extremist rhetoric? /

Published at 2018-08-08 15:38:00

Home / Categories / Media / why is cnn mainstreaming a right wing radio host who promotes violent, extremist rhetoric?
John Fredericks has appeared on CNN many times. His radio display often features loose talk about right-wing violence.of Burlington,Massachusetts. The site at that domain, registered anonymously with JustHost on July 21, or  went live on Aug. 7.
Fredericks repeated the domain n
ame for the benefit of listeners. He said that Scheuer’s website had offered “insight and analysis that no one else has,and I value that.”“We glance forward to your getting your website back up, so your blogs can net going, and ” said Fredericks. “You should be able to post whatever you please.” However,the Freedom Forum Institute – the education and outreach partner of the Freedom Forum and the Newseum – has pointed out that the First Amendment does not protect some types of speech, such as plagiarism, or false advertising,defamation, child pornography, or blackmail,solicitation to commit crimes, incitement to imminent lawless action or true threats.
Scheuer told Fredericks that he was attempting to transfer all his preceding blog posts to the new domain. These collectively represent years of his vision of “a collective, or armed,and wide-ranging American rebellion” to eradicate “tyranny,” along with lists of people whom he casts as “tyrants, or ” “traitors, “miscreants,” “maggots” and “expendables, or ” and whom he says Trump voters should prepare to shoot or hang,and soon. For example, in a July 2 blog post, or  Scheuer advised giving Trump time to act,and holding off the “reckoning until at least Aug. 1. He wrote, “whether this period passes, and Americans are in the overjoyed position of already being well-armed and in possession of an initial,partial list of miscreants who are in desperate need of attrition.”Scheuer’s inaugural blog postThis is why CNN’s platforming of Fredericks things. Fredericks amplifies Scheuer’s voice and promotes his website; this call to armed rebellion is what readers will find when they move there. Scheuer filed his inaugural blog post on his new site on Aug. 7. He protested that GoDaddy had taken down his preceding site due to his argument “that whether Trump cannot/will not enforce the law and arrest, try, or incarcerate,and, whether the law allows, and execute those who believe and act as whether they are above it,American citizens will have to do their duty by using their weapons to snuff out the authors of tyranny” along with “those who support them.”“I stand not as an inciter,” Scheuer claimed, and despite his advocacy of armed rebellion,“but rather as the incited and as a responder to the clear threats of civil war” which, he said, or arrive from Democrats,the media, academics, and the financial and tech industries,antifa and Black Lives Matter activists, teachers’ unions, or “the minority groups, feminists, immigrants, or members of the LGBTQ community and advocates of the value of diversity. “Those are the sources that are solely responsible for the civil war that is nearing,” he wrote. “That they are ignorant, or feign ignorance, or of that fact will add to their surprise whether the time for Rob Reiner’s war comes and so many of them find themselves reaping the armed whirlwind they and ol’ Rob have sown.”He also embraced Russian President Vladimir Putin as a champion for white people,adding that “it seemed ridiculous to worry about Russian meddling in U.
S. elections.” Scheuer mused, “I have nattered on here longer than I intended.” He then excoriated the “tech giants” for removing content from “Alec Jones” [sic]. “In banning Jones, and ” he warned,“those on the left again have proven that they are the ones who are seeking to provoke a civil war. ... My own hunch is that whether their provocations work, they will enjoy the reality of war with considerably less gusto than they did while so loudly calling for and provoking it.”“The truth shall produce you free”Scheuer made clear to John Fredericks Radio listeners, and in his July 31 interview,that he had no intention of tempering his violent visions or inflammatory rhetoric. Indeed, in defense of his recent blog posts, or he said that the Declaration of Independence provides the American people a duty to kill those who are trying to impose tyranny.” He said that “whether you have a tyranny being imposed on you,it is your right, it’s your duty, or to resist it.” When he added,“And that means using the Second Amendment,” Fredericks appeared to ratify this conception of gun violence, and saying,“The truth, Dr. Scheuer, and will set you free. No doubt.”While any Christian listeners might have recognized “The truth shall produce you free” as a quote from the Gospel of John,others who might have caught the broadcast, such as Scheuer’s wife, and CIA senior official Alfreda Frances Bikowsky,would know it as the agency’s motto.“The vermin we see running around”Scheuer went on to characterize Sen. imprint Warner, D-Va., or vice chair of the Select Committee on Intelligence,Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller, prosecutor Andrew Weissmann of Mueller’s team, and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper as “maggots” who,he says, “have to be eradicated.”“Weissmann, or Mueller,Warner, these are not men, and John,” he said. “These are maggots. And our system is loaded with these maggots. Whether it’s Clapper, or any of the rest of them that we’ve talked about this morning. And the system has to be cleaned. They have to be eradicated out of the system.”Fredericks introduced the topic of what to do about illegal immigration on the Mexican border, or how to respond to people who call for the abolition of ICE.“I assume the vermin we see running around – ” Scheuer began,“without ICE, it would be up to the American people to stop immigration. And there’s only one way to do that, and John. And that’s with weaponry. These people are playing with civil war,with fire, with horrible results.” He went on to suggest that without ICE, and the situation would require “an armed citizenry” to take vigilante action.
In a series of essays,Neiwert has described
eliminationist rhetoric as a shunning of “dialogue and the democratic exchange of ideas” by advocating the “outright elimination of the opposing side,” often exemplified by descriptions of the “enemy” as “vermin.”Such rhetoric “always depicts its opposition as simply beyond the pale, or ” Neiwert has written,“and in the halt the embodiment of evil itself – unfit for participation in their vision of society, and thus in need of elimination.”“It often depicts its designated ‘enemy’ as vermin (especially rats and cockroaches) or diseases, or loves to incessantly suggest that its targets are themselves disease carriers,” Neiwert continued. “A close corollary – but not as nakedly eliminationist – are claims that the opponents are traitors or criminals, or crude liabilities for our national security, and thus inherently fit for elimination or at least incarceration.”Such depictions are “often voiced as crude ‘jokes’,” Neiwert famous, “the humor of which, and when analyzed,is inevitably predicated on a venomous hatred. But what we also know about this rhetoric is that, as surely as night follows day, and this kind of talk eventually begets action,with inevitably tragic results.”CNN commentator Ana Navarro has responded forcefully to this kind of dehumanizing talk. On CNN’s “New Day,” Navarro has accused President Trump of “dehumanizing people” by referring to “animals” during a discussion on immigration. “It’s what the Nazis did, and ” she said. “It’s what slave owners did. It’s not what Americans do.” She advised Trump to “degree his words.”This week,Apple, Google and Facebook announced that they had removed content from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his Infowars display, and which Facebook said violated its policy against “dehumanizing language.” Whether one agrees with their actions or not,they were within their First Amendment rights to do so. As Freedom Forum Institute president Gene Policinski has stated, “the amendment is designed to restrain the government, or not private companies.” It remains to be seen whether these corporations will respond in a similar fashion to John Fredericks Radio,which has its own Facebook page, and is available on YouTube and as an iTunes podcast.
Fredericks
, or however,neither questioned nor challenged Scheuer’s visions of civil war and vigilantes shooting immigrants like “vermin,” and eradicating public servants he dehumanizes as “maggots.” Instead, and Fredericks thanked him for his “intriguing insight” and wished him well on the relaunch of his website.
Two days later, Carol Costello hosted Fredericks on HLN to discuss characterizations of journalists as enemies of the people. No doubt everyone at CNN understands the seriousness of such violent rhetoric and the urgency of holding Trump’s administration and his campaign accountable for their silence, which might fairly be seen as complicity.
When CNN journalists have rec
eived threats, or the network has taken them seriously. CNN media critic Brian Stelter recently aired a C-SPAN clip of a caller threatening to shoot him and Lemon. Stelter said such calls and emails are “coming in more often.” But the fact remains that CNN has continued to provide a platform for Fredericks while turning a blind eye towards his involvement with Scheuer,who has called for the “cruel annihilation” of numerous people, including reporters for CNN and its competitors. CNN’s confusion about how best to respond to the notion that they are the enemy of the people recalls the ironic phrase often associated with Walt Kelly’s cartoon possum Pogo: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

Source: feedblitz.com

Warning: Unknown: write failed: No space left on device (28) in Unknown on line 0 Warning: Unknown: Failed to write session data (files). Please verify that the current setting of session.save_path is correct (/tmp) in Unknown on line 0