Sentinel readers deserve better

By Sandy Arsham

On one hand the

Sentinel

touts a tone of “less venomous remarks” and less “deceitful misinformation” designed to “ confuse and obfuscate truth.” And on the other — in fact on the same page — you are a megaphone for the long discredited far-right John Birch Society, reborn today as the Tea Party.

Mr. Beck’s rant and mission is so similar as to be indistinguishable from the JBS website. Indeed, there was no “sudden realization” or “spontaneous reaction,” as he states, by people to the events of the days after President Obama’s election. There was only an ugly and hateful resurgence of certain groups that were banished from civil public discourse long ago.

The ultra-conservative mantra of “The Communists are out to get you” was sung by the Birch Society in 1958 and 50 years later it’s still being sung by the Tea Party. The John Birch Society warned in a recorded 1963 speech that “Americans must always be on high alert against a takeover of America in which Communists would infiltrate the highest offices of government in the U.S. until eventually the office of the presidency is occupied by a Communist, unknown to the rest of us.”

It was the John Birch Society that branded American General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower “an agent of Communism.” Even JFK was accused by the John Birch Society as being a Communist sympathizer and an American traitor.

Today, the Tea Party/John Birch Society vehemently supports an anti-communist, limited government, and “personal freedom” political platform, even if accomplishing their objective comes at the expense of wrongfully smearing Americans who stand up for civil rights, labor unions, a diverse America, and the limiting of big business’ influence in our government and in our lives.

Mr. Beck has invited the community to the monthly “educational” forums promoted by the Ramona Tea Party/John Birch Society. He parades a list of “notable” speakers who include disgraced former politicians, American nativists, KKK associates, pseudo-scholars, Islamophobes, and even one who thinks women shouldn’t have gotten the right to vote. Maybe we should all go.

I notice that Mr. Beck thinks those who disagree with him are the “enemies.” Yet, if one does not speak out, voices like his will fill the void. C’mon,

Ramona Sentinel

, we deserve better on your pages.

Sandy Arsham is a Ramona resident.