Beck launches attack on 80-year-old labor legend
September 01, 2010 10:48 pm ET by Jocelyn Fong
On his Fox show tonight, Glenn Beck dedicated a segment to attacking Dolores Huerta, the 80-year-old labor activist who founded the United Farm Workers with César Chávez. Huerta has been widely recognized for her work, including by the Girl Scouts and the Community of Christ, which shares roots with Mormons.
Beck introduced the segment by claiming that "all the people around our president come from the same creepy circle of radical 60s types." Beck evidently objects to Huerta's participation in a Labor Department campaign informing workers, including unauthorized immigrants, about the wage and labor standards to which they are entitled. Beck didn't go into detail about the Labor Department initiative, which is interesting since Beck himself frequently asserts that illegal immigrants are being "enslaved" by corporations. For instance, this is from the July 29 edition of his radio show:
BECK: Illegal immigration is slavery. You are enslaving people. These giant corporations -- the government is doing it for voters. The corporations are doing it for cheap jobs. They don't have to provide health care. They don't have to provide -- they don't have to provide anything. They can screw with these people any way they want, put their hands in a meat grinder; "Oh really? What are you going to do?" It's slavery.
Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Dolores Huerta are trying to fight the very problem that Beck routinely decries. Contrary to Beck's claim that employers "don't have to provide anything," the courts have established that undocumented workers are protected by the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Labor Department has long held a policy of enforcing labor laws without regard to immigration status. The problem is that exploited unauthorized immigrants don't know that. Solis and Huerta are trying to make sure they do.
Sure, Huerta may be trying to stop the same exploitation that infuriates Beck. But Beck finds her political views distasteful, so who cares about the substance of her work; she's getting the witch-hunt treatment.
From the September 1 edition of Fox News' Glenn Beck:
Huh? "Government?" is that synonymous with Democrats?
How many of those 12 million illegals register to vote? The Bush DOJ found how many? How many did they prosecute?
Yet another lie designed to whip up low information voters.
Wait, you mean nearly 1 million illegals have left the US during Obama's presidency? And Beck isn't cheering? This isn't a headline every hour on FauxNoise? Why not?
When Bush took office there were 8.4 million illegal immigrants in the country. When Bush left office 12 million illegals = an increase of 3.6 MILLION illegals during the Bush years.
Apparently, you're just a groupie, not a conservative. Turn off Fox/hate talk radio and inform yourself, you look foolish.
Nope . . . GWB . . .he OWNS this mess, and he was no "progressive," just incompetent. I knew that. That's why I refused to vote for him for ANYTHING, EVER.
Oh, and I've called Beck a "zoo radio DJ," not a "shock jock," but thanks.
I see you're one of his blind followers. He calls you an idiot, you know. Get some respect for yourself, man.
There are many things I disagree with Beck on. You have no idea what you are talking about like most mmfa useful idiots....just take your mmfa medicine and spew your talking points.
Talk about ignoring things. You don't really think that's the reason the economy is where it is, do you ?
I was just wondering why you were focused on "progressive housing policies" (whatever those are) while ignoring the major cause of our problems.
Have a great day, stay out of traffic.
She was praising Hugo Chavez's socialism in Venezuela to students.
She also told them "Remember, Republicans hate latino's"