Foundation head calls on Corporate America to quit sponsoring hate speech

It was popular revulsion that took immigrant-basher and über hypocrite Lou Dobbs off national TV. It is time to do it again.

It is time to force corporate America to stop financing hate speech. It is time to force Glen Beck off he air.

In the 1970s, this writer became the founding chairman of the board of directors of a new foundation based in Washington, D.C. called the Youth Project. Its purpose was to find funding for progressive organizations of young people — especially of color — that would work to build self-sufficiency in their communities.

Among the first of two staff members we hired was Drummond Pike, who worked wonders finding resources for communities that would have, otherwise, had no contact the East Coast-centric philanthropic foundations.

Pike went on to found the Tides Foundation, and has continued his work with the same goals we had for the Youth Project. This has made Tides, and Pike, a frequent target of right-wing hate mongers, most notably, Fox News’ Glen Beck, whose show — and, let’s face it, that is all it is, a show — is sponsored by the likes of JP Morgan Chase, GEICO, Zurich Financial, Chrysler, Direct Holdings Americas, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, Lilly Corporate Center, BP, and The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. and other high-profile corporate entities.

In a letter to the CEOs and Boards of Directors of these and other Glen Beck sponsors, Pike wrote  letter that included the following:

On July 19th of this year, I arrived at our San Francisco office to learn that a misguided person carrying numerous guns and body armor had been on his way to start a “revolution” by murdering my colleagues and me. The Oakland Police Department called to tell us that, following a 12 minute shootout with the California Highway Patrol, law enforcement officials arrested an assailant who had targeted the Tides Foundation, an organization which I founded and currently serve as CEO, and the ACLU for violence. To say we were “shocked” does not adequately describe our reaction. Imagine, for a moment, that you were us and, had it not been for a sharp eyed highway patrolman, a heavily armed man in full body armor would have made it to your office with the intent to kill you and your colleagues. His motive? Apparently, it was because the charitable, nonpartisan programs we run are deemed part of a conspiracy to undermine America and the capitalist system, which is hogwash.

Wearing full body armor and loaded down with a sizable cache of firearms and ammunition, the shooter wannabe wanted to kill Pike and his staff, and those of the American Civil Liberties Union. After a shootout with California state troopers and Oakland Police officers that lasted 12 minutes, he was arrested and he revealed that he was inspired by Beck, a self-proclaimed “progressive hunter,” who, the potential murderer said, “give[s] you every ounce of evidence you could possibly need” to commit violence.

The First Amendment gives all the freedom of expression. But subsequent Supreme Court decisions have limited it to prohibit people from screaming fire in a crowded theater, or to spew venomous hate-speech that will inspire violence and crime.

In his letter to Beck’s show’s sponsors, Pike asked Beck’s corporate sponsors to pull their advertisement dollars from his show because “The next ‘assassin’ may succeed, and if so, there will be blood on many hands.”