Beck Inciting Violent Threats Against 78-Year-Old Professor, Frances Fox Piven

Frances Fox Piven
The Center for Constitutional Rights has sent a letter to Fox president, Roger Ailes, warning him that Republican propagandist Glenn Beck’s on-going, libelous criticism of Dr. Frances Fox Piven has generated threats of violence against the 78 year old professor:

the CCR asks that Ailes distinguish between First Amendment rights, of which they are “vigorous defenders” and an “intentional repetition of provocative, incendiary, emotional misinformation and falsehoods [that place that person] in actual physical danger of a violent response.”

Beginning in September of 2010, Glenn Beck started branding Piven, a distinguished professor of Political Science and Sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, as an “enemy of the Constitution.” Piven, well known for advocating for the organizational rights of the poor and encouraging voter registration, has since received threatening phone calls and letters, and has become the subject of many death threats left open to the public on Glenn Beck’s website, The Blaze.”

The CCR letter cites many of the incendiary quotes from Beck in reference to Piven. Beck compares Piven to the Hutaree militia, infamous for violent threats against government and law enforcement workers, and equates her calls for social movements to “terrorism.” On December 31, a headline on The Blaze read, “Frances Fox Piven Rings in the New Year by Advocating Violent Revolution,” further stating that “violence has always been Piven’s preferred method of collapse.”

The Center for Constitutional rights details a backlash through some of the many violent quotes on Beck’s website. Examples include, “Maybe they should burst through the front door of this arrogant elitist and slit the hateful cow’s throat,” “We should blow up Piven’s office and home,” and “I am all for violence and change Frances: Where do your loved ones live?”

The letter states that the “threats must be taken seriously by Fox News,” and that “Professor Piven’s life could well be at stake.” It further asks that Mr. Ailes “order an immediate investigation into this, and insist on a speedy and fair resolution which will stop the Fox and Beck generated threats on Professor Piven.”

The Center for Constitutional Rights should not hold its breath waiting for Ailes to investigate Glenn Beck. Ailes and the Republican Party are fully aware of what Beck is doing.

Sadly, the best that can be expected from CCR’s letter to Ailes is that it serves as a marker that can be produced later, should the worst happen to Dr. Piven, to prove that Ailes and the Republican Party’s propagandists at Fox had been warned.

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