The Glenn Beck Advertiser Boycott Must Be Working

The way you can tell if a protest is effective is when the target of the action can’t stop complaining about it. For two days in a row, Glenn Beck has devoted valuable airtime to castigating the proponents of an advertiser boycott that began last year in response to Beck calling President Obama a racist with “a deep-seated hatred of white people.”

For Beck to divert so much time from fabricating paranoid conspiracy theories to fabricating smears on his perceived enemies is revealing. His anxiety could not be more apparent, even as he pretends that the efforts directed against him are making him happy:

“The fact is, I haven’t felt this good and positive in a long time. Why? Because the boycott attempts are the most transparent AstroTurf attacks I have ever seen or ever heard of.”

Ever? The truth is that the boycotts were initiated by a very small group that most people (including me) had never heard of. Color of Change began the effort with a small email list and a campaign to communicate with Beck’s advertisers. This shoestring effort produced surprising results, getting more than 100 advertisers to refuse to permit their commercials on Beck’s show. [Note: StopBeck later joined the effort further enhancing its effectiveness]

Beck spent the majority of his rebuttal inventing a plot that went all the way up to the White House. The first brick thrown by Beck was at his perennial nemesis, Van Jones. However, while Jones was a co-founder of Color Of Change, he left the organization two years prior to the Beck boycott. That didn’t stop Beck from building his cloud castle of hate.

He then tied Jones to Rev. Jim Wallis of the Sojourners. However, Wallis had nothing to do with the advertiser boycott, then or now. Wallis entered the picture after Beck took an astonishingly stupid stand against social justice and advised his listeners to “run” from any church that advocated it. Wallis responded by calling for Christians who believe in the venerable Christian practice of social justice to run from Glenn Beck.

And of course, Beck had to inject his distaste for working Americans by slandering unions. So he tethered Andy Stern to the boycott effort, although Stern and his SEIU had no part in the year-old boycott until about two weeks ago when they signed on with a new push by MoveOn.org.

After this hallucinatory construction of a widespread cabal attacking him, Beck capped it off with a wild accusation that it was a high level plot that the President was “coordinating from the Oval Office”:

“Is it possible, maybe, that pointing out every night that there are radicals, Marxists, and communists, in the White House, maybe that struck a nerve? Has someone decided that they must destroy my career and silence me because we’ve stumbled onto something? […] Has there ever been a case in American history…where an American president administration tried to destroy the livelihood of a private citizen with whom they disagree. Can’t think of any.”

Beck’s paranoia led to this declaration that nothing like this had ever happened before. He then immediately contradicted himself by comparing it to Richard Nixon’s famous “enemies list.” The only problem with that comparison is that Nixon’s list was documented and Beck’s delusions still only exist in his twisted cranium. What’s more, Nixon sought to use the power of the government against his opponents, but the Beck boycott relies entirely on the efforts of individual citizens engaging in free expression. Nevertheless, Beck elevates this to an absurd altitude wherein he literally compares himself with victims of Nazi atrocities:

“Where’s the media? Do the rest of you in this business think it’s gonna stop with me? Really? Once they get me what happens to you? Is there absolutely no chance whatsoever that you might be a target at some point in the future? What is that poem…First they came for the Jews and I stayed silent…”

Now they are coming for Glenn Beck. It is so like Beck to manifest his Messianic complex in this fashion. He is the persecuted one that suffers for his congregation. And his stylings are getting more televengelical and Apocalyptic by the day. Witness this fire and brimstone sermon:

It is a bizarre world. It is an upside down, inside out, quantum physics world. […] It is the eve of destruction in America.

I believe in God. I believe rights come from man, and this Constitution, and the founding of this nation, were divinely inspired. These are God’s rights and God’s freedoms.

If we appreciate those rights, if we do the right thing […] we are going to have to pay the consequence for our living and mistreating these rights. But in the end, have no fear, because nothing will thwart Him. Because these are His rights. This was His Constitution. This was His country for His purposes, not ours. And nothing…nothing…will thwart Him in the end.

Hallelujah. This may be the first time I have heard anyone declare that the Constitution was “divinely inspired.” To my knowledge, it has not been included in any version of the Bible. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison have not been beatified, nor is George Washington a saint. But in Beck’s mind a new holy doctrine has been proclaimed. One that permitted human slavery and denied women the right to vote. If the Constitution was divinely inspired, then what right did later generations have to amend it? Were they also the servants of God? And if so, did God screw up when he ratified Prohibition or the right to levy income taxes?

I have said this before, and it is all too apparent that it must be repeated: I genuinely hope that the people who care for Glenn Beck get him the help that he so obviously requires. It is way too tempting for his family and his producers and his hangers on, to hold back and revel in the riches he generates for them. But they will surely regret it when he self-destructs and splatters them all with the blood of their greed.

Now I’m sounding a little Biblical. And so I speaketh not further for the time is at hand for me to shuteth up. For now…..

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28 thoughts on “The Glenn Beck Advertiser Boycott Must Be Working

    • You’re quite right – sorry. However, if it makes you feel any better, I added you to my blogroll a couple of months ago. You’re doing great work.

      • Oh no worries at all!

        I wanted to bring UK thing to your attention more than anything else.

        It’d be really really really hard for me to get upset with this site, for obvious reasons. 🙂

        Thanks!

      • You should better read your history and talk to people who lived under communists in socialistic countries. Why do you think these countries did strive periodically to make revolutions? Out of happiness living under all grasping totalitarian regimes? As planes are going to put such in action here?
        Having so called “social justice?” WOW! I know what social justice is. The greatest lie to get to power on backs of poor, uneducated, brain-washed and stupid…
        Gullibility and misinformation of Americans is staggering. I’ve never seen so much brain washing living in several countries and growing under communists.
        You should celebrate Glenn Beck as ONLY one having guts to tell you truth as it is.
        But you deserve what coming to you, get ready for surprise!

        • It is so sad that you regard Beck as truthful. Even after the obvious lies I posted above.

          You want more Beck lies?

          Van Jones is a convicted felon – LIE
          ACORN receiving billions – LIE
          Eco-terrorists bombed radio tower in Washington – LIE
          1.7 million tea baggers at 9/12 rally – LIE
          UAW workers earn average $154.00 per hour – LIE
          Carbon dioxide not a dangerous pollutant – LIE

          And you still believe in him?

        • Van Jones: not sure i will educate myself

          Acorn, wait, oh you mean the corrupt company caught registering dead people to vote. Yeah your right they said they didn’t so i believe them.

          Eco terrorists: you mean those loonies that worship a fraud by the name of Al Gore yeah its possible but i don’t know it to be a fact.
          I mean its not like Al Gores set himself to financially benefit from a manufacture theory that in pretty much every account has been proving wrong, Oh wait that’s right he has.

          1.7 million Americans that have read and actually understand the constitution attend the rally, maybe not most of them have jobs.

          UAW workers making 154 dollars an hour. Let me see since a UAW works an average of 10 minutes an hour Glenn probably was a little low with that guess.

          CO2 dangerous? could people please educate themselves on this topic. I Know, I know Al Gore, EPA and the respectable IPCC have done their best to convince the world how dangerous that gas is and i believe them, because that don’t have anything to gain by controlling a harmless gas that every living thing on this planet produces yes even trees. So us Americans will go on and chip away at the fraud and inaccuracies that has currently plagued and crippled this country.

  1. I guess thats why Beck is on the cover of fortune this month ?

    • A) That has nothing to do with the advertiser boycott.
      B) It isn’t Fortune. It’s Forbes.
      C) Forbes has a close relationship with Fox, including its own TV show.

  2. maybe the three of us could get our “fox is the devil” t-shirts and flip-flops and get together and tell amusing anti-fox stories ?…….that would be cool, wouldn’t it ?

  3. I helped get Allen Brothers Steaks to drop Glenn Beck. Oddly enough, they picked up Ed Schultz although they still have Rush on board.

  4. reached for comment in the Oval Office, President Obama responded, “Boycott? What boycott? All the way back to last summer? I’ve been so busy attending to my job that I’m just hearing about it now.” And the naysayers said nice try at plausible deniability, Mr. Lying Socialist.

  5. While I agree that Beck is certainly on a path to some kind of destruction, he isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and it’s hard to believe he genuinely sees the advertising boycott as a threat.

    If he did, it seems to me he would either be spending his time quietly trying to lure advertisers back, or focusing the vast majority of his contempt on the advertisers rather than guys like Jim Wallace, concentrating on riling up his followers and hitting the boycotters back financially.

    The boycott is a good thing, but Beck, too, welcomes it. Like you said, its evidence of his martyrdom and, when spun right, legitimizes his claim to be a Messiah. More than that, it gives him something to fill air-time with.

  6. The funniest part of all this? Fox will most likely continue to run his show, losing money the whole while.

    Because, let’s face it, it never was about the money. It is, has, and will always be about the HATE.

    -RevChrismok

    • The commercials fox runs at 3:00AM have better ratings than CNN’s prime time (don’t take that literally its called a joke). In 2009 Fox for prime time was rated 2 out of all cable networks (Glenn Beck time slot anyone) CNN 17th.
      This is just more proof that anybody that finds themselves on the far left which seems to be everybody commenting here are actually in the minority of the country. And the silent majority is finally starting to speak out and take action. NPR bankrupt, CNN NYtimes USA today all close behind. You wanna talk about boycott the American people are boycotting media with an agenda. Truthfully fox is probably the only non bias network, but the liberals don’t see it that way because they have never been held accountable.

      • Go Greg. I couldn’t have said it better. CNN is going down the tubes. Fox is number 1. Fair and Balanced.

      • Greg, are you an american? because you sound like a toady for australian murdoch (making billions out of idiots like you for himself and his saudi investors – yes, look it up). murdoch and corporate repubs want to kill the unions, kill social security and kill medicare so they can suck the wealth out of the american middle class until this once great country looks like mexico. i hope you get sick soon and die in the street because it’s the fault of gullible idiots like you, that this will come to pass.

        • Jenn, I was with you up until the “hope you get sick soon and die” part. I’m gonna assume that you don’t mean it and it was just a case of “blogging while pissed.” But it is really unnecessary and unwelcome. And it doesn’t help your other points which were all spot on.

  7. i wish i was this effected by a boycott……….ya’ll are killing his ability to make a living……….

    We’re an entertainment company,” Beck says. He has managed to monetize virtually everything that comes out of his mouth. He gets $13 million a year from print (books plus the ten-issue-a-year magazine Fusion). Radio brings in $10 million. Digital (including a newsletter, the ad-supported Glennbeck.com and merchandise) pulls in $4 million. Speaking and events are good for $3 million and television for $2 million. Over several days in mid-March Beck allowed a reporter to follow him through his multimedia incarnations, with one exception, his 5 p.m. daily show on Fox News, which attracts just under 3 million viewers. (FORBES has a relationship with that channel via Forbes on Fox.)

  8. Me thinks you doest protest too much……

    I watch Glen Beck every day.. while his delivery may be over the top… I have yet to hear anyone coming up with a point by point denial of what he says.

    I would also like to point out that MSNBC’s news commentators can be extremely hateful in their rhetoric against the conservatives…. I haven’t heard any liberal speak out against what they say.

    The boycott and those against Beck have made one thing very clear…. He must be hitting a nerve, he must be very close to the truth.

    • FYI: I made a point by point denial of Beck in the very article you presumably just read (the one directly above these comments). Point by point I showed how Beck’s attack on Van Jones, Jim Wallis, and Andy Stern were flat out wrong.

      Your problem isn’t that you haven’t heard a point by point rebuttal. It’s that you CAN’T hear one even if it’s right in you face.

  9. I discovered that any contradictory truthful statement doesn’t have a chance here..
    Keep on being brain-washed. I did live under communists.
    It would be just great you’ll find out how it feels.

  10. You guys that keep repeating the notion that ‘since people are so upset and angry with this dude, it is because he is telling the truth’

    This couldn’t be FARTHER from the truth.

    The man may be compelling, a social butterfly, and may have a way with words, but this is what is truly terrifying. He keeps brainwashing and manipulating a HUGE number of people. People that have a hard time separating fact from fiction. People that loved Bush. People that do not have the brain capacity to question what they hear and search out the answers that hold TRUTH, not just answers that make them feel better.

    This is why I am outraged. Masses do wonders. Masses of morons do even more. the cartoon of a sheep watching Bush on the TV will forever be so true of a scary majority of Americans.

    I am just so friggin’ happy I live in Canada. That dude wouldn’t have lasted a day here.

  11. First they came for the communists. He can’t even keep his lines straight. Oh, wait. Communists, that doesn’t jive with his gibberish, does it?

    • EXCELLENT point!

      And right after the communists and Jews, they came for the trade unionists and the “social justice” practicing Catholics. The whole list are people Beck despises.

  12. When the boycott started I perused the list to see which ones bailed and saw a cheese company I would purchase sometimes. Now every trip to the grocery store I buy it every time to make the point. And it’s good cheese. It is so funny these days when Fox will “insert” ads on GB, even at NO COST to advertisers, who are pushing out press releases as soon as the phone calls start denying anything to do with this lowlife. Glod bless them!

  13. Beck told the crowd at his American Revival meeting in Salt Lake City that he’d been diagnosed with macular dystrophy.

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