Hey kids, let’s put on a Race War!

At first glance, you may think Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and kooky old Charlie Manson have little in common. I mean, besides all being ringleaders of sad groups of disenfranchised, this-close-to-the-edge, crazy-loyal acolytes.

All three, in their own limited fashion (ie: when addressing their followers) are charismatic, compelling speakers. And Beck and Limbaugh are both working off the same set of notes as Manson but neither one of them has seen fit yet to carve a swastika in their forehead. But then, Charlie has forty years on them. There could still be Nazi body-cravings in the future for the manic-depressive Beck and the voluble Mr. Limbaugh. Although if I were a betting man, between his weight, cigar-smoking and pill-popping, I’d wager Limbaugh works himself up to a heart attack or a stroke before he has time to get his forehead tattoo.

I’m not wishing it on him, I’m just saying… One of these days he’s gonna bounce out of his radio-studio seat in apoplectic indignation all the way to the promised land.

But I digress.

The common theme in all three men’s rhetoric is a transparet desire to incite a race war. It’s part of the historical and legal record that Manson’s purpose for ordering the slaughterings of the late 60s was his hope to start a race war. I remember it from press notices at the time and in subsequent reading on the subject. According to Wikipedia, ‘the murders perpetrated by members of Charles Manson's “Family” were inspired in part by Manson's prediction of an apocalyptic war he believed would arise from tension over racial relations between blacks and whites.’

Granted, Wikipedia is not always the most reliable source, but do a quick Google of Charles Manson + Race War and Wikipedia’s entry is only the first of 61,900 hits.

The difference between the three men is, Manson was up-front about wanting to start a war between the blacks and the whites. Beck and Limbaugh are both cagier as well as much better positioned to actually realize their mad ambitions.

Manson was preaching to handful of drugged-up hippies out in the sticks; Limbaugh and Beck are cloaked in a façade of legitimacy granted to them by their high-profile national media outlets. Which is what makes them much, much more dangerous than Manson ever was.

Beck and Limbaugh might actually succeed.

With a Black man in the White House, the racist rubes whom Jimmy Carter called out this week are charged up and ready to rumble like they haven’t been since LBJ shoved the Civil Rights Act down their collective throat in the 60s.

If I were a more responsible blogger – or an actual journalist or had a staff like Jon Stewart does – I could cite dozens of example of both Limbaugh and Beck inciting their expansively-foreheaded fan-bases. But since I don’t, I’ll just cite two I’ve seen heard/seen first-hand of examples of what I’m talking about:

Limbaugh’s recent rant about how, “In Obama’s America,” it’s okay for black kids to beat up white kids (after footage of such an incident surfaced recently). I was a white kid in the 60s and 70s and I was regularly beaten up on the school bus by everybody from black kids to Jerry’s kids (thanks for the joke, Mr. Stewart) and I’d bet my last oxycontin that a doughty, opinionated introvert like Limbaugh must have also suffered the same peer-to-peer physical abuse as a kid and that it didn’t have a damn thing to with his skin color or who was President.

And Glenn Beck’s oft-replayed assertion that “Obama hates white people” is even more blatant — even his fellow Fox News anchors look like they can’t believe what they’re hearing — but in Beck’s defense, he hasn’t had as much time to hone his act as Limbaugh has.

Obvious bullshit? Transparent fear-mongering? Well sure, to you and me. But to their drooling admirers, these media figures are just puking back at them what they already believe. In the last election, Obama won about 10% of the south. Only in the post-antebellum south were his numbers that dismal. That’s a whole swath of the country that, 150 years later, is still pissed that they have to pick their own cotton and have to pay money to sleep with black women who aren’t their wives or mistresses.

They’re at the starting line. They’re primed and ready to go and Limbaugh, Beck and their ilk recognize it. And I don’t know if it’s in the pursuit of ratings of they’re just following their own demons to their logical conclusions, but they are none-too-subtly pushing the jugheads in their audiences to action.

I don’t have a conclusion. But I really wanted to post my collage of Limbaugh, Beck and Manson. I see it as kind of a Mount Rushmore of hate, a Sistine Chapel of violence, ignorance and intolerance.

I may not be able to stop what they’re doing or change the alleged mind of a single racist, but I think it’s important to frame the argument.

The far-right is trying to whip up a race war, presumably with the intention to make sure America never allows itself to slip up and elect another Black Man to the oval office.

Charlie Manson must be awfully proud of his Family today.