Glenn Beck

Fox News FINALLY Refudiates Violent Rhetoric

Posted by on August 31, 2010 at 3:02 pm. 9 Comments :

Almost since its inception, Fox News has been a hotbed of irresponsible discourse that encouraged intolerance and hostility. They have harbored hosts, contributors and guests whose language was sometimes thinly veiled advocacy of violence, and sometimes there was no veil at all.

  • Bill O’Reilly threatened to “hunt down” and “strangle” members of the media.
  • Liz Trotta joked that “somebody knock off Osama … uh … Obama … well, both if we could.”
  • Rush Limbaugh told his listeners to start riots at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, “with burning cars, protests, fires, literal riots, and all of that. That’s the objective here.”
  • Sarah Palin has taken to giving her followers this advice: “Don’t retreat…Reload!”
  • Glenn Beck agreed with his guest Michael Scheuer that the only hope for America “is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States.”

Beck is one of the worst perpetrators of hostile rhetoric. He used to have a regular radio bit wherein he speculated about who he would like to beat to death with a shovel. He fantasized about choking Michael Moore to death with his bare hands. And more recently he frequently condemns progressives as a cancer that has to be “cut out.” So perhaps it was Beck to whom this Fox News story was referring when they said that provocative remarks “could easily incite a rabid fan to commit violent acts.” And that fans “could be influenced because of their devotion.” The article quoted Cooper Lawrence, the author of “Cult of Celebrity” saying that:

“The fear isn’t that a celebrity will influence someone to do something violent or out of character due to the sheer devotion to the celebrity, the fear is that someone who is already vulnerable, mentally disturbed, already considering something dangerous, may be encouraged to do so if it is advocated by their favorite star.”

Image consultant Michael Sands concurred saying that he “is taking his fame too seriously. He is having delusions and his anger” could “get him arrested!”

These criticisms ought to be taken seriously by anyone, left or right, who ventures into such disturbing scenarios and has the ability to influence others who may not be of particularly sound mind. Certainly that would apply to someone with the public posture of Glenn Beck. Just one little thing…The article was not referring to Beck or any of the other viscerally divisive characters above. It was referring to actor John Cusack who Tweeted…

“I AM FOR A SATANIC DEATH CULT CENTER AT FOX NEWS HQ AND OUTSIDE THE OFFICES ORDICK ARMEYAND NEWT GINGRICH-and all the GOP WELFARE FREAKS”

Much of the reaction at Fox News, and elsewhere in the rightist blogosphere, is that Cusack was articulating some kind of threat. That just illustrates how deficient their comprehension skills are. Anyone with a functioning cerebrum can see that Cusack was responding to the bigoted and illogical arguments against the Islamic community center being planned near ground zero in Lower Manhattan. Cusack was satirically turning the controversy on its head by proposing a church of Satan near Fox’s offices. But the dimwits at Fox, and their ideological peers, just don’t get it.

It’s too bad that when Fox News finally gets around to making a principled statement against violent hate-speech that they direct it toward someone who wasn’t engaging in it and ignore their own complicity. It would be nice if those getting so worked up about this phony misinterpretation of Cusack’s comments would be similarly outraged by the very real violent rhetoric that is a regular part of Fox’s programming, as noted above. But I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that expression of fairness and balance to occur.

Beck-Stock Postmortum

Posted by on August 30, 2010 at 12:54 pm. 8 Comments :

I think it’s fair to say that the promised miracles for Glenn Beck’s Right Power Rally failed to materialize. There were no sightings of the Virgin Mary in tea leaves and no healing of lepers. [FLASH: Beck announced a “miracle” that occurred at the rally. Some birds flew overhead. Yep, that’s it. Sends chills down your spine, doesn’t it?] It was less a turning point for America than a veering off into ditch. But there were a couple of things that deserve notice:

First, Beck appeared on Fox News Sunday the day after his revival meeting and walked back his famous assertion that President Obama is a racist, telling Chris Wallace that…

“You see, it’s all about victims and victimhood; oppressors and the oppressed; reparations, not repentance; collectivism, not individual salvation. I don’t know what that is, other than it’s not Muslim, it’s not Christian. It’s a perversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ as most Christians know it.”

Well, that clears that up. Obama isn’t really a racist, he just believes in oppression and is perverting the gospel. That’s much better. Thanks for the clarification.

Secondly, prior to Beckapalooza, he appeared with Bill O’Reilly to hype the event. In the course of their discussion O’Reilly bet Beck that there would not be more than 100,000 people at the rally. If there were, O’Reilly promised to give Beck his primetime spot on the Fox News schedule. Crowd estimates have varied widely from an expert’s analysis at CBS of 87,000, to Beck’s own guess of between 300,000 and 600,000. Since O’Reilly would never concede that CBS would get anything right, it leaves us with a figure that was certainly in excess of 100,000. So I’m wondering when O’Reilly will step down and let Beck move into his studio.

Finally, it should be noted that Beck’s sermon about how it is now time to “concentrate on the good” didn’t last even 24 hours. He was already bashing the President the next day on Fox News Sunday. So I wouldn’t get too excited about a new, positive Beck. In fact, I would expect his petulant tirades to continue into the foreseeable future

Has Our Honor Been Restored Yet, Glenn Beck?

Posted by on August 28, 2010 at 1:15 pm. 9 Comments :

Pope Glenn BeckThis was the big weekend for Glenn Beck, and allegedly, America. He went from the Kennedy Center Friday night to the Lincoln Memorial Saturday, on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream Speech.” That’s three murdered progressive heroes in two days. Is there a name for that sort of psychosis?

I watched over three hours of Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally this morning. I watched it very closely. I didn’t leave the room even once. But I’m afraid I may have missed something.

For months prior to the event Beck promised that it would be a turning point for America; that it would be an awakening; that miracles would happen. Well, unless a leper was healed in the reflecting pool off-camera, I must have missed the miracle. In fact, all I saw was a live, extended episode of the 700 Club with Glenn Beck as the guest host.

If I had spent several hundred dollars on transportation and lodging to hear an alcoholic, drug abusing, former morning zoo radio shock jock, tell me that I should heed the word of the Lord, I would feel somewhat disappointed right about now. Especially if I was expecting some premium Obama bashing and anti-government blather.

For the most part, Beck kept his promise to avoid politics. While there were a few indirect aspersions to political issues, the bulk of the presentation focused overwhelmingly on Christian fundamentalism. It was an old-school revival meeting without a lick of originality wherein Beck announced that America is “turning back to God.” And although he promoted the event as one that would unite all faiths, there wasn’t a single representative from Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, or any other non-Christian sect (not to mention Atheism). The only Jewish participant was a rabbi (and former associate of convicted felon, Jack Abramoff), who was introduced on stage but did not address the crowd.

Also on stage were numerous African Americans, mostly members of gospel choirs. I would venture to say that there were more African Americans on stage than amongst the tens of thousands in the audience.

The sermon Beck delivered was notable in that he defined 9/11 as “a wake up call” from God. That may come as a surprise to those who assumed terrorists from Al Qaeda were responsible. He also stressed that “America is at a crossroads” and that “we must advance or perish.” Beck courageously declared that he would choose to advance. I guess that should silence all those radicals who think we ought to perish instead. However, I wonder if advancing might not be a little too suggestive of the progressive course that Beck so feverishly abhors.

One of the most frequently expressed themes articulated by Beck was that we have been spending way too much time on what’s wrong with America and that it is now time “to concentrate on the good things in America, the things that we have accomplished – and the things that we can do tomorrow. That would be refreshing if Beck were able to sustain it for more than a heartbeat.

Ninety-five percent of show his about what’s wrong with America. He hates the government. He hates the people. He hates the Democrats. He hates the Republicans. He hates health care and the environment and unions and churches and Social Security. To Beck we are a crumbling empire awash in debt, ruled by Marxists and estranged from God. And this guy is lecturing the rest of us about concentrating on the good things? A few days ago he expressed his thoughts on the future in a more foreboding tone that is common on his radio and TV programs:

“I’m begging you to get down on your knees. What is coming is not good. I don’t know how things end. I should rephrase that. I do know how things end. But I know how things end after a long struggle. I don’t know how that struggle is going to work out. I don’t know how much time each of us has. I don’t know how much time the country has.”

How does he expect his flock to concentrate on the good while he is advising them to liquidate their assets and hoard gold and guns? It will be interesting to see if Beck’s new-found evangelistic optimism can be maintained for even the next week of his broadcasts, or if his familiar doomsday fear mongering will continue to dominate his message. Either way, I’m still waiting for evidence of his Miracle on the Mall. And for the record, my honor never needed restoration in the first place.

Addendum: Attendance estimates for Beckapalooza have begun buzzing around the media hive. Predictably, they range from 87,000 (certified by a CBS expert analyst) to 600,000 (by the certifiably insane Beck).

Fox News Posts Review Of Glenn Beck’s Rally Before It Happens

Posted by on August 27, 2010 at 10:53 am. 5 Comments :

Fox News promos often tout the network as “The Most Powerful Name In News.” Now that power extends into the supernatural as FoxNews.com is caught publishing a story reviewing Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally in Washington, DC, the day before it takes place. This demonstration of journalistic clairvoyance may just be a part of the “miraculous” occurrences that Beck promised would take place at tomorrow’s historic event. However, despite the obvious scoop that Fox could claim with this pre-porting, the story was quickly removed from the site, but not before I captured this picture of the screen:

Whether or not the event plays out as depicted in this visual account, we will just have to wait and see. But many prognosticators are laying down their bets for how the event will be portrayed after the fact. Even Glenn Beck has submitted his prebuttal to the media’s reaction:

“My prediction is that this will be covered incorrectly, they will take one line from somebody, or one thing, or they will find one person on the stage that shouldn’t have been there, and or there will be somebody in the crowd, whatever, they will focus on one thing.”

It’s not surprising that Beck would produce this prediction since it mirrors so precisely his own patented method of incorrectly covering people and events in the news.

In the weeks preceding the rally, Beck made some rather grandiose predictions concerning the impact it would have on the attendees and on America. He said to expect a miracle on 8/28; that it would be a turning point for the nation; and that it would be both the Woodstock and the anti-Woodstock of the next generation. But he said the most profound impact would be on the children who would forever remember the experience, and “will be indelibly marked. It will be marked forever. … It will be a brand on them.”

Now, I’m not a Bible scholar, but the only Biblical reference to being “branded” that I can recall had to do with the “Mark of the Beast” (aka Satan). So we may want to check the kids leaving Beck’s Rally on Sunday for the telltale “666” on their foreheads.

[Numerology Alert: The numerological summation of the phrase “Restoring Honor” is “6.” The numerological summation of the date “8/28/2010” is “3.” Hence three sixes.]

The big challenge for Beck is to manage to live up to the rhapsodic buildup he gave for his Revival meeting. In what form will the promised miracle take place. Will a Heavenly aura embrace the mall? Will tears of blood run from Lincoln’s marble eyes? Will all the toast in DC sport images of Sarah Palin in biker shorts? Will the lame be healed (good news for Beck)? Will Jesus sing the lead of Cat Scratch Fever in a duet with Ted Nugent? Who knows? But if the world isn’t wholly transformed by Sunday morning, this event will have to be perceived as a failure. Can Beck deliver?

There was a noticeable evolution in the buildup to the rally as the original announcement portrayed it as a launch party for his next book, “The Plan, a 100 year blueprint for the restoration of America.” Said Beck…

“On August 28, 2010, I ask you, your family and neighbors to join me at the feet of Abraham Lincoln on the National Mall for the unveiling of The Plan and the birthday of a new national movement to restore our great country.”

Subsequent to that announcement the affair took on several different agendas culminating with the current version that celebrates (exploits) fallen soldiers, even though Beck recently removed the reference to honoring veterans from his permit application. The press kit (pdf) still portrays the event as a tribute to veterans but, at the same time, it dismisses any suggestion that it has any political affiliations:

“The Restoring Honor Rally is neither a 9/12 nor a Tea Party rally. There will be absolutely no politics involved. This rally will honor the troops, unite the American people under the principles of integrity and truth, and make a pledge to restore honor within ourselves and our country.”

It is hard to see how an event featuring Beck along with Sarah Palin and Ted Nugent, that is sponsored by the NRA, and has as its organizational partners FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity, can be characterized as non-political. It is likewise difficult to grasp how he can claim that it isn’t a Tea Party or 9-12 rally when the 9-12 Project is explicitly cited on the permit as an organizer, and both 9-12ers and Tea Partiers are actively involved in planning and transportation activities. These distinctions are important because the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, which is identified as the charity benefiting from the event, risks losing their non-profit, tax-exempt status if they engage in political activities. Although the matter of charitable contributions may be moot due to this fine-print disclaimer at the bottom Beck’s “Restoring Honor” web site:

“All contributions made to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation (SOWF) will first be applied to the costs of the Restoring Honor Rally taking place on August 28, 2010.”

That’s sweet. Beck is getting the entire event paid for by people who believe they are contributing to a charity for veterans. It won’t be long now until we have the answers to these and other perplexing questions. The historic significance that Beck promised will be realized, or not, in the next 24 hours or so. Are your affairs in order?

And if the report from Fox News pictured above isn’t sufficient evidence of the event’s pivotal impact on our nations future, then make plans to watch Fox News Sunday where Beck will be the featured guest and will surely give an unbiased assessment of his monumental festival of Beck Worship. The Sunday morning news program will cap months of Fox News supposedly not being involved with the rally while promoting it incessantly.

Glenn Beck: Obama Is Not A Muslim – Or A Christian

Posted by on August 25, 2010 at 12:39 am. 13 Comments :

For someone who continually broadcasts disclaimers that he is not an expert on anything, Glenn Beck sure pontificates on every subject imaginable as if he were the world’s supreme authority. In today’s episode Beck chose as his topic the actual supreme authority, God!

The message that Beck sought to convey to his jello-brained viewers was that President Obama is some sort of spiritual chameleon whose only prayerful commitment is to a collective holy borg. The presumptuousness of Beck believing that he could analyze the President’s faith reveals a measure of pride that would surely condemn him to eternal damnation were it actually the mortal sin it has been advertised as.

A new poll was released that shows that about one in four Americans are still so stupid and ill-informed that they think Obama is a Muslim. Amongst Republicans (who must be even stupider) it’s one in three. Beck blamed Obama for this mass asshattery that, in truth, was more the result of people like Beck and his talk radio lie brigades.

But Beck went further to construct a tower of trash and innuendo that was designed to leave his flock in a state of uncertainty and panic regarding this alien figure residing in the White House. For Beck is was pretty much routine. He simply trotted out the ghosts of Jeremiah Wright and social justice and wove them into a new fabric of fear. And of course, he employed his patented use of out-of-context quotations and eerie micro-focusing of otherwise mundane citations.

Prominently featured in Beck’s fantasia was a passage from Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope, wherein Obama described his spiritual introduction to Christ:

“Kneeling beneath that cross on the south side of Chicago I felt God’s spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth.”

To which Beck responded:

“Even that statement is confusing. Submission? That’s Islam.”

Umm…..Glenn may need to brush up on his scripture:

James 4:7 – Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Job 22:21 – Submit to God and be at peace with him; in this way prosperity will come to you.

This is typical of the way Beck invents red herrings against which he can rail. He simply makes a declarative statement, like “submission is Islam,” and then castigates his target for violating some principle that Beck just made up. Another of his favorite methods of misinformation is to quote some authority and claim that the quote validates his position. Today Beck did this with a citation that he has used before from Pope Benedict:

“Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes not divine but demonic.”

Beck intended for this to be an indictment of Obama’s belief in “collective salvation.” All that means is that Obama places importance on helping others as a method for enhancing his connection to the holy. But Beck, due to his revulsion of helping others, twists it into some sort of evil plot to suppress individual will. That is an invention of Beck’s making and has nothing to do with Obama’s intention. But even more damning, so to speak, is that the Pope’s remark is more an indictment of people like Beck who insert religion into government works. The Pope is saying that when government and politicians try to do God’s work they are actually doing the work of the devil. So all you congressmen who want to draft legislation to outlaw abortion or gay marriage had better wise up.

Finally, I thought it would be fun to note that Beck took a back-handed swipe at CBS News anchor Bob Scheifer. Scheifer’s sin was to express the shocking opinion that there is false information on the Internet (you don’t say) and that that was where some of the misperception of Obama’s faith came from. That didn’t sit well with Beck who wanted to blame everything on Obama. So Beck said…

“Bob Schiefer. You seem like a nice gentleman. I don’t know you. And I’m sure you are a good journalist. I don’t know, because I don’t watch CBS News and, quite frankly, I don’t know anybody who does.”

Oh boy, that’s funny. Beck slammed Scheiffer for having so few viewers. That’s gotta hurt. Except for this little fact: Scheiffer’s CBS News draws twice as many viewers (5.2 million total/1.6 million 24-54) as Beck’s lame cable show (2.1M total/603K 25-54). So the fact that Beck doesn’t know anybody who watches CBS just reaffirms what a sheltered little world he lives in.

Glenn Beck Drops Veterans From 8/28 Rally

Posted by on August 19, 2010 at 7:06 pm. 32 Comments :

Glenn Beck Deploring HonorIn a notice posted today at Congress.org, Glenn Beck finally got the permit for his 8/28 rally approved. It was also noted that he changed the purpose of the rally from a “demonstration to honor veterans” to simply a “restoring honor rally.”

Why would Beck alter the purpose to something so generic it that it doesn’t have any real meaning? Could it be that his little scam was revealed and he could no longer pretend that this event was for charity? It was previously revealed that the Special Operations Warrior Foundation would not receive any money until after all of Beck’s expenses had been covered. So the possibility exists that there will no donation at all.

With this more vague description of purpose, Beck can turn the affair into the evangelical revival meeting that he always wanted it to be. It can be the celebration of his “Divine Destiny” which, by the way, is the name of his event to be held the night before where he promises to “heal your soul.” We already know that he believes this event will be a turning point in history, and he said today that it will be this generation’s Woodstock (?). And don’t forget that he was told by “someone” in the Vatican that what he is doing is “wildly important.”

This isn’t the first time that Beck has changed the purpose of the event. At one time the purpose was to launch the publication of his next book, “The Plan,” a 100 year blueprint for the restoration of America. Here is how he described it in his original announcement:

“On August 28, 2010, I ask you, your family and neighbors to join me at the feet of Abraham Lincoln on the National Mall for the unveiling of The Plan and the birthday of a new national movement to restore our great country.”

After that he claimed that God had chosen the date:

I believe in divine providence. It was not my intention to select 8-28 because of the Martin Luther King tie. It is the day he made that speech. I had no idea until I announced it and I walked off stage and my researchers said, New York Times has already just published that this is Martin Luther — and I said, oh, geez. We were going to use 9-12 but 9-12 is a Sunday. I’m not going to ask anyone to work on the Sabbath. I’m not going to ask anybody to honor God on a Sunday.

I have no idea what he means by not honoring God on a Sunday. And apparently he isn’t expecting any Jews to attend his rally because for them (and many Christians for that matter), Saturday is the Sabbath.

Beck’s next explanation for the event was that he was doing it all on behalf of our brave fighting men and women and their families. That didn’t last long. Now he has dropped the reference to the veterans from his permit application, though I’m sure he will continue to exploit them.

One other amendment to the permit application concerns the attendance. He raised the projected figure from 150,000 to 300,000. He must be feeling pretty confident. Which is funny because he said on his radio program today that he was discussing the event with Bill O’Reilly who guessed that between 10 and 15 thousand people show up. Beck was obviously surprised by O’Reilly’s estimate so O’Reilly asked him how many people he thought would be there. Beck said modestly, “I don’t know. Over a hundred thousand I hope.” This seems like false modesty from someone who just doubled his official projection to 300,000.

Apparently O’Reilly is not as optimistic as Beck. According to Beck, O’Reilly told him that if that many people showed up that Beck could take over the O’Reilly Factor. Now that would be fun. I bet Beck would hold O’Reilly to this. I would love to see the two of them go at it for the primetime slot. We’ll see how that unfolds in a couple of weeks.

Glenn Beck Refudiates Glenn Beck And Opposes His Own Rally

Posted by on August 17, 2010 at 9:52 am. 2 Comments :


Once again Jon Stewart has embarrassed the Conventional Media by conducting better research and placing current events in more relevant context. This time the subject is the New York City non-mosque that is being planned for not-ground zero. Here is what Beck had to say about America’s role in motivating the 9/11 terrorists, compared to his dumbfounded (with an emphasis on the “dumb”) outrage at remarks by Imam Feisal Rauf:
 

Glenn Beck, 8/10/2010: What did this “moderate” say just a few days after 9/11? Well of course what all moderates say, quote:

Imam Feisal Rauf, 9/30/2001: Glenn Beck, 4/15/2010:
I wouldn’t say that the United States deserved what happened, but United States policies were an accessory to the crime that happened. Did we deserve 9/11? No. But were we minding our business? No. Were we in bed with dictators and abandoned our values and principles? Yes. That causes problems.

What this tells us is that Beck is at least as guilty of radical hyperbole as Rauf. Beck believes that a cultural center two blocks from “hallowed” ground should not be permitted due to Rauf’s allegedly extremist views. But using the same logic, Beck should cancel his “Deploring Honor” rally at the Lincoln Memorial which is just across the Potomac from the Pentagon, another “hallowed” site of 9/11 terrorism. Beck’s views are no less extremist than Rauf’s, and no less an insult by Beck’s standards.

And it isn’t the first time that Beck has insulted the victims and survivors of 9/11. He previously said “I didn’t think I could hate victims faster than the 9/11 victims.” That was a reference that also insulted the victims of Katrina whom he called “scumbags.”

If Beck were consistent he would immediately announce that his August 28 rally has been canceled or moved to a less sensitive location farther from the Pentagon. He simply cannot tolerate having the graves of our brave soldiers being defiled by the likes of himself. It’s time for him to rebuke himself and decline any further association with himself and his television and radio programs. Glenn Beck is an extremist who hates America and Glenn Beck should have nothing to do with him.

Update: Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren agrees:

On August 28th my colleague Glenn Beck is going to lead an event on the mall in Washington, DC. It is the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech. The event is causing much controversy …some support and some don’t support and some are even furious and upset. Yes he has a First Amendment right to do it…but what about the wisdom of it? Remember…the Muslims in NYC have a First Amendment right to build a mosque but most Americans don’t want it…and you have to ask the wisdom of the Muslims to push the issue. Just because you have the right to do something does not mean you should. My view? No mosque at ground zero and Glenn should move his event.

Van Susteren was taking so much flack from the FoxBots that infest her blog that she had to post a disclaimer walking back her remarks and claiming she was just “raising a question.” Of course, that isn’t true. She explicitly stated that her view was that Beck should move his event.

Glenn Beck: We Are Only Delaying Our Death

Posted by on August 12, 2010 at 4:23 pm. 3 Comments :

On his radio program today, Glenn Beck laid out a plan for creating economic havoc and bankrupting the country. This exceeds Rush Limbaugh’s famous desire for President Obama to fail. Beck is proposing an action plan to achieve that end.

In a discussion that began with a biblical reference to Ecclesiastes, Beck preached that “To everything there is a season.” and that “This is the season for awakening.” Beck’s awakening is one that calls for Americans to recognize the futility of striving to make America a better country, and instead to let it collapse into ruin:

Beck: For this system to work you’ve got to spend money. But I’m telling you this system will never work. We’re only delaying our death. Let us do what Coolidge did. Let it come down and retool. It led to the roaring twenties.

Beck is expressly advising his disciples to withhold spending. Our fragile economy is thirsting for the consumer confidence that will drive growth, create jobs, and save families, but Beck is telling his viewers to that there is no hope, that “this system will never work.” That advice can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Which, of course, is exactly what Beck wants. He says so explicitly when he calls for “let[ting] it come down.”

There is a great deal wrong with that advice. First and foremost it is an advocacy of failure and hardship. It would cause profound and unnecessary pain for millions. But his justification for this dreadful path is that it could lead to something resembling the roaring twenties. Well, we know how that turned out: The stock market crash of 1929, followed by the Great Depression. This is what Beck is actively engaged in bringing about by misleading his gullible congregation into deliberately making matters worse.

Perhaps he believes that we deserve to suffer; that we have brought this hardship on ourselves. Perhaps he believes that God has forsaken us, and for that we must endure the cleansing pain of a divine fire. He spoke repeatedly of fire on television today, which fits nicely with what he was saying on the radio this morning:

Beck: Is this land less blessed than we’ve all been raised? Well not all of us. Not the Marxists – almost everybody who works at the White House. Are we somehow or another less blessed as a land than we always have been? I think the answer to that one is yes.

So Beck has concluded that America is less blessed, which is another way of saying that God has turned his back on us. Then Beck went full-throttle televangelist, discarding all talk of politics and policy. He sermonized passionately that the only hope for America is to turn to faith. And then he made it an article of faith to attend his revival meeting in Washington DC in a couple of weeks.

All that’s left of Beck’s spiel is hucksterism and lies. He sees himself as the sword of God and the shepherd of his unhinged flock. With every day his appeal to fear escalates. But what’s truly frightening is that he has said that his upcoming rally will be an historical event that will be a turning point for the nation. Now he must feel some pressure to deliver. I wonder what the Hell he is planning (with the emphasis on Hell).

Glenn Beck Admits That He Is A Terrorist

Posted by on August 10, 2010 at 4:09 pm. 7 Comments :

A few minutes ago Glenn Beck made a declaration that ought to cause some consternation in the executive suites of his employer, Fox News. It ought to, but it probably won’t. They have already dismissed his declarations concerning…

  • The President being a racist.
  • A Jewish leader being the cause of Nazi death camps.
  • A major News Corp shareholder (Saudi Prince Alwaleed) being involved in 9/11.
  • The Jews killing Jesus.
  • The only hope for America being Osama Bin Laden deploying a weapon of mass destruction in the U.S.

That’s a long (and incomplete) list of astonishing and repulsive commentaries that Beck has gotten away with to date. The only conclusion is that Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes and the rest of the Fox News hierarchy agree with Beck. So presumably they agree with this as well:

Beck: “Terrorism, in its broadest form, is just designed to scare you into changing your way of life.”

That makes sense to me. And it works pretty well too. After 9/11, Americans, through fear, accepted changes to their way of life that included having their phones tapped without warrants; abandoning habeas corpus; restrictions on travel; and engaging in apparently endless wars that have nothing to do with national security.

But if you were to select someone in the American media that conforms best to Beck’s definition of terrorism, it would be none other than Beck himself. His program is a daily rant on fearsome policies, politicians, and prospects for the future. Beck believes that President Obama should be feared as a Marxist bent on destroying the country. He believes that Congress should feared for their alleged efforts to usher in Socialism. He believes progressives should be feared as a cancer that will “eat the Constitution.” He believes that the economy portends a future so frightening that you must liquidate your investments and buy gold and guns with the proceeds. He fervently believes that America is in grave danger, as are you and your family and all the values and principles you hold dear.

Beck’s entire raison d’etre is to incite fear and persuade his viewers to change their way of life. It goes far beyond his investment advice. Beck wants to shape your spiritual development. He warned his disciples to “run as fast you can” from any church that espouses social justice. He regularly condemns churches for abandoning what he regards as their mission. He even accuses them of perverting their faith. This may be the most terrifying example of Beck’s scare tactics because he is exploiting people’s fear of their relationship with God and eternity.

In pursuit of that goal, and in his role as a wannabe-Messiah, Beck is promoting a new event that promises to “heal your soul.” Is this some new ability he has acquired? Perhaps you can touch the hem of his robe if you buy his latest book. The event will be held on the evening before his DC rally on August 28, and is called “Glenn Beck’s Divine Destiny.” Seriously! This is a play for worship or martyrdom. Beck is plainly moving closer to becoming a full-fledged televangelist, or more accurately, a cult leader in the vein of Jim Jones or David Koresh, religious figures who also used fear to subjugate their followers. The pre-8/28 event is being advertised by Beck as…

“…an eye-opening evening at the historic Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C that will help heal your soul. Guided by uplifting music, nationally-known religious figures from all faiths will unite to deliver messages reminiscent to those given during the struggles of America’s earliest days. The event will leave you with a renewed determination to look past the partisan differences and petty problems that fill our airwaves and instead focus our shared values, principles and strong belief that faith can play an essential role in reuniting the country.”

I wonder if these “religious figures from all faiths” will include Muslims or Buddhists. And it will be interesting to see how Beck transcends “the partisan differences…that fill our airwaves” when his rhetoric is so weighted down with hatred for progressives and others with whom he disagrees. The notion of Beck placing himself in the position of “reuniting the country” is nothing short of surreal.

Glenn Beck is the archetypal fear monger. He has adapted the fire and brimstone model of spiritual revivalists to his brand of theo-political crusades. He routinely warns that if we do not quickly change our course, our way of life, we are doomed. If that doesn’t fit the profile of the terrorist that Beck spoke of today on his program, I don’t know what does.

Fox News Stands By Glenn Beck’s Hate Speech 1000%

Posted by on August 4, 2010 at 2:32 am. 6 Comments :

This should tell you all you need to know about Fox News and their commitment to bigotry and division.

Earlier today Michael Calderone of The Upshot posted a story describing the most recent example of Glenn Beck’s intolerance and insensitivity. It all began when Beck broadcast a brazenly offensive attack against Simon Greer, chief executive of Jewish Funds for Justice. As you might imagine, the fact that Greer runs an agency that advocates justice of the social variety is enough by itself to set Beck off. But when Greer wrote about the benefits, both personal and spiritual, of pursuing the common good, Beck couldn’t restrain himself:

“This leads to death camps. A Jew, of all people, should know that. This is exactly the kind of talk that led to the death camps in Germany. Put humankind and the common good first.”

Not surprisingly, Greer took offense at being portrayed as an instigator of Holocausts. Especially when he was merely expressing what his faith teaches him as written in the Talmud:

If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am for myself alone, what am I?

Calderone’s article goes on to state that Greer had a meeting with Fox News CEO Roger Ailes and senior vice president Joel Cheatwood. In Greer’s account of the meeting the Fox executives agreed that Beck had “crossed the line” and they promised talk to him. A couple of days later Greer received a letter from Beck that was something less than an apology, but which Greer graciously regarded as “a peace offering.”

But the story doesn’t end there. After Calderone’s article was published, Cheatwood ran to the press to deny that there was ever any agreement with Greer and that both Cheatwood and Ailes stand “behind Glenn Beck 1000%.” That’s right. They felt it was imperative to quickly correct the record and make it known that they believe, along with Beck, that caring for your neighbors, and your community, and the community of mankind, will lead to fascist death camps. And, of course, those who do care are budding Hitlers. Thanks for clearing that up.

Veteran Beck observers will not be surprised by any of this. His racism, and his employer’s support for it, has been documented before. When Beck called President Obama a racist with “a deep seated hatred for white people or the white culture,” Rupert Murdoch declared that he was right.

To top off this story, it was just revealed that Beck had listed on his “favorites” on Twitter a Tweet from a white nationalist that said to “Embrace White Culture” and included the logo and acronym for “White Pride World Wide,” a known slogan of white supremacy groups. After it became public, Beck deleted all of his favorite Tweets. Unfortunately for him, the evidence was captured before he was able to destroy it.

And this is the guy who compares himself to Martin Luther King and still thinks he has a moral right to hold a self-glorifying rally on the anniversary of, and at the same location as, King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.