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CREATED:20110128T165800Z
DESCRIPTION:Glenn Beck has issued a Mormon 'fatwa' to his christofascist minions. The 
 target? Dr. Frances Fox Piven.  \n\n\nLast week, Democracy Now! covered 
 Glenn Beck's growing obsession with CUNY professor of political science, 
 Dr. Frances Fox Piven. Dr. Piven and her late partner Dr. Richard Cloward 
 sparked the welfare rights movement in the 60s and 70s. Beck has made Piven 
 public enemy #1 on his Fox "News" Show, attacking her for ostensibly 
 advocating violent revolution in the US and blaming her for everything that 
 ails America's capitalist dictatorship. Since the Democracy Now! interview 
 last week, credible Beck-inspired death threats against Piven have 
 escalated to the point that she requires bodyguards. Hear what she has to 
 say about it all.\n\nDespite the very real threat to her personal safety, 
 the 78 year old professor refuses to back down. She has been fighting back 
 and eviscerating Beck during interviews in the corporate media and the 
 leftish independent media alike.\n\nIn my view, Dr. Piven's politics are 
 not even remotely radical these days. However, her metamorphosis into a 
 run-of-the-mill "progressive" reformist, while unfortunate, belies the 
 somewhat more radical approach she took in earlier years--she did in fact 
 espouse the rhetoric of class warfare, for example. Although I have not 
 personally read anything where she calls explicitly for the complete 
 dismantling of the  hierarchical social and economic institutions that 
 perpetuate the US state-corporatist plutocracy, she arguably flirts with 
 such possibilities in some of her work.  \n\nRegardless of what one thinks 
 of Piven's politics, one cannot help but ponder the implications of the 
 liberal corporate media's call for the assassination of a center-left (at 
 best) activist/academic for those of us who identify as "radical". The 
 ruling class has systematically used the media to paint moderate reformists 
 as extreme leftists, and they have cited the "radical" ideology of such 
 individuals as justification for murdering them. In fact, the elite's 
 mouthpieces in the liberal corporate media have cleverly disseminated the 
 notion that doing so is socially acceptable. Indeed, they go so far as to 
 insinuate that it is every American's patriotic duty to shoot these "left 
 wing extremists" in the head.  \n \nWhat does this current spectacle tell 
 us about the imminence and nature of the elites' plans for those of us who 
 are anarchists, marxists, and anti-capitalists of all stripes? And what 
 does it especially mean for those of us who also inhabit other marginalized 
 identities--queers, people of color, women, people with disabilities, etc 
 ?\n\nI am not suggesting their violent tactics to neutralize us are 
 anything new (e.g., Seattle, the RNC Welcoming Committee, etc). What is new 
 is their current level of overwhelming success in defining the political 
 spectrum such that a right-wing pigeon from outer space like Obama is a 
 "socialist". Nevermind that Obama has made Bush look like an amateur when 
 it comes to expanding the police state, silencing dissent, warmongering, 
 grinding the few remaining bones of the virtually non-existent social 
 welfare system into dust, and enforcing a brutal neoliberal agenda around 
 the world. \n\nFar right is the new "left".\n\nIf the ruling class can now 
 effectively order US citizens to threaten and kill right-wing politicians 
 and centrist academics for being too far to the left without any public 
 outcry, without so much as a single disgruntled letter to the editor,  then 
 I fear that those of us who identify as anti-capitalists have thus far had 
 little more than a faint taste of what the statist corporatocracy has in 
 store for us.\n\nI am uring all anti-capitalists to participate in a live 
 interview with Professor Frances Fox Piven this evening. She will of course 
 be talking about the recent events regarding Beck, but she will be on for a 
 whole hour.  It would be interesting to see how the formerly "radical" 
 professor handles intelligent questions and critiques from callers and chat 
 participants from the left. For instance, how does someone go from being a 
 proponent of class warfare to identifying as a democrat? Why is she helping 
 to perpetuate the myth that the entire political spectrum is encompassed 
 between Fox News on the right and MSNBC on the "left"? Why is she 
 minimizing her earlier work which articulated a (relatively) more radical 
 praxis that involved strategic efforts to facilitate the erosion of 
 capitalism's foundation in the US? And given what she knows and has 
 experienced, how can she possibly view voting as anything more than a waste 
 of time that could be better spent doing....well, practically anything 
 else?\n\nFor more information on how to participate in the live chat 
 session during the show, go to  The Wild Wild Left home page. \n\n\n\n\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/01/28/18670471.php
SUMMARY:Interview with Frances Fox Piven Live: On Glenn Beck and Death Threats
LOCATION:Online, details below
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/01/28/18670471.php
DTSTART:20110128T230000Z
DTEND:20110129T000000Z
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