I have posted here a couple of times on the perverse pre-occupation that conservatives have fostered in the writings of political scientist Francis Fox Piven. Well, the inimitable Glenn Beck has kept the focus on Piven with the result that some of his wacko listeners are issuing threats against Piven's life. You can read about the situation here in The New York Times and find a report here on DemocracyNow!.
I disagree with Piven about many things. But this state of affairs is both intolerable and directly attributable to Beck's behavior. Is it a reach to draw a connection between Beck's repeated "remarks" about Piven and her putatively dangerous ideas and the threats she now is receiving? Well, the paper that gets Beck especially exercised is a decades old essay that appeared in The Nation. Before this recent set of events, I (a political scientist and subscriber to The Nation) had never heard of the paper. How would regular Americans have come across the essay? So, 2 + 2 = ... Beck speaks and wackos do his dirty work.
Beck is a blustering, ignorant, bully. It is that simple. And there is simply no "civil" way to put that.
