American Basij

Everyday in my email, I get a post from Media Matters. Sometimes the items seem like nit picking, but invariably, everyday, they monitor the distortions, the omissions and out right lies that are used in the media to manipulate and shape Amercan opinion.
I cannot think of a single instance where they could be honestly accused of manipulating facts. They monitor the media and honestly report the facts.

This of course is very threatening to the legion of conservative gasbags who depend on their ability to manipulate reality to fit their own agendas.
So threatening that they have become the target repeatedly of vendettas from Limbaugh and his ilk. Most recently, Michael Savage has accused them of being a Stalinist organization and threatened to expose the staffers of Media Matters and their families to the wrath of his enraged audience. Hew is threatening to give all the personal information he can dig up, Names, Addresses, children...ect...ect....
In the video above, Media Mattters replys by letting Savage drown in his own cauldron of hatred...his own words. They also have made it quite clear that they are not going to be sil;enced or intimidated.

This comes the day after another conservative gasbag of hate, Hal Turner, blogger and radio commentator, was actually arrested by Federal Agents for threatening Federal Judges on his website.
Turner, who has a history of violence and inciting violence in the extreme right was outraged over a decision over handgun bans.
Turner was arrested earlier this month as well for threatening Illinois lawmakers.
This time, Turner posted pictures and addresses of the judges with the statement, "Let me be the first to say this plainly: These judges deserve to be killed".

Meanwhile, Ann Coulter is joking about the killing of Dr. George Tiller in Kansas. The level of violent, intolerant and language intended to incite in the media taken as a whole is pretty alarming phenomena from the Conservative right in America.

The Fundamental Christians speak of a culture war. They continiually use languange and refer to themselves as being persecuted by the immorallity they rail against, but what if the tables were turned and they actually attained the temporal power they seek?

We have witnessed the intolerance and rationalization of violence by these people enough already to realize that if they were in charge, we would have a nation patrolled by Religious police...

Consider the Iranian Basij, the thugs on motorcycles spreading terror in Iran right now. They are a loosely organized club, gangs. They are controlled by the Revolutionary Guards to some extent, but they are more like neighborhood militias that enforce morality and pay strict allegiance to the corrupt Ayahtollah. They are rewarded with jobs and paid for their services.
I heard a statement by a Basij member last night on the France2 program, Envoye Special in which the fellow said that for the last few years, the basij were demoralized, they felt demeaned having to enforce fashion against kids who were wearing too much hair gel. Now, they felt important and had a mission.....

Something ugly tells me that it would only be too easy for the same demons propelling the basij in Iran to be unleashed in America if the Fundamentalists got their way.