Journalist Max Blumenthal attended Glenn Beck’s 9/12 Million (Minus 930,000) Paranoid Malcontents March on Saturday and documented a far more realistic representation of the Tea Baggers confederation than anything you would have seen on Fox News. Enjoy:
Speaks for itself. My favorite part was the English-only advocate who had a bit of a problem with English himself. Overall, Blumenthal produced an outstanding depiction of the hypocrisy and ignorance on display by the Beck Brigades. And despite boasting that the event would draw a million people, it couldn’t produce even five percent of that.
I attended a rally in Los Angeles that drew a pathetic 300-400 Fox Pods. They had the usual array of crayon-drawn signs with insulting and childish slogans, i.e. “Ted’s Dead – So is Obama Care” and “Just Say NO to Lucifer Obama.” Then there was the enterprising tea bagger with the giant poster of the President in African witch doctor attire. That was typical of the crowd that spanned the racial spectrum from Pasty Trailer Parker to Alabaster Aryan.
There were less than a handful of minority protesters in attendance. Yet when a counter-protester showed up asserting that the event was racist, one of the organizers complained that he was offending the African Americans in the crowd (all four of them). But the same organizer didn’t seen to think that the witch doctor poster would be the least bit offensive to anyone.
The speakers were a parade of nobodies spouting memorized talking points. Each was announced with a flowery introduction touting their talent and notoriety. That was followed by blank stares, furrowed brows, and whispering to neighbors in a vain attempt to recognize the honored guest.
This was the best they could do. And this was not some charming little agricultural village in the plains states. This was the megalopolis of Los Angeles with a population of more than eight million. This was the entertainment capital of the world, but not one celebrity of note. And there were no local politicians either. I counted four buses with a capacity of 100 passengers. That means that it’s possible that the entire crowd was bused in, rather than being a spontaneous aggregation of locals.
That’s a grassroots movement as done by Fox-driven, Beck-ified, commie-fearing wingnuts.
In a column that portends a possible recovery by Republicans from their lunatic stupor, David Frum, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and erstwhile conservative icon, has composed a defense of sanity over the “recklessness and political cowardice” represented by the Glenn Becks of the world. Frum’s commentary is supportive of the Cass Sunstein nomination (confirmed yesterday by the Senate) that has drawn attacks from Beck despite being hailed by respected conservatives and free-market economists. Here are a couple of excerpts:
“Glenn Beck is not the first to make a pleasant living for himself by reckless defamation. We have seen his kind before in American journalism and American politics, and the good news is that their careers never last long. But the bad news is that while their careers do last, such people do terrible damage.”
~~~
“We conservatives are submitting our movement to some of the most unscrupulous people in American life. This submission disgraces conservatism, discredits Republicans, and damages the country. It’s beyond time for conservatives who know better to join us at NewMajority in emancipating ourselves from leadership by the most stupid, the most cynical, and the most truthless.”
Well said, David. But on this morning, when much of the conservative rabble is applauding the childish antics of Rep. Joe Wilson (who heckled President Obama’s speech on Wednesday), it may be tougher than you think to wean these wankers off of their adulation of clowns like Beck, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and Joe the Plumber. But good luck to you.
The big story on Fox News yesterday was the undercover video of ACORN employees improperly advising a couple of conservative activists, posing as a pimp and a prostitute, on how to deceive the IRS and acquire funds to operate their illegal business. The video was featured throughout the day on just about every program on the Fox network.
It was a pretty revolting spectacle. The ACORN workers were utterly unethical and outside any standard of decency. This is the sort of behavior that ought to get someone fired. And that’s exactly what ACORN did. Both of the women who appeared in the video were terminated the same day as it was exposed. But that didn’t stop Fox News from exploiting and sensationalizing the story.
So far anyone has been able to determine (including Fox) the events depicted in the video were limited to the two people caught up in the sting. Of course, everyone from Glenn Beck to Sean Hannity implied that the the video documented what they alleged was the rampant corruption of the entire ACORN organization. The facts, however, reveal just the opposite. One fact that Fox News neglected to report (so that their audience could decide) was that the sting operation attempted to snare at least three other ACORN offices but came up empty. The phony journalists (James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles) who sought to entrap ACORN just kept running the scam until they got a bite. Nothing wrong with that, really. The problem is that they didn’t report that most of their targets proved to be honest and uncorruptable. They deliberately left the false impression that all of ACORN was a sewer of sleazeballs.
It should be noted that O’Keefe and Giles are not journalists, but conservative activists. O’Keefe has plotted scams aimed at Planned Parenthood, and Giles is a Yaffie (a member of the uber-rightist Young Americas Foundation). Also, despite the pathetic behavior of the two women in the video, no actual crime took place. There is no reason to assume that more senior ACORN officials would not have been appalled by this and turned in these women themselves if the episode had progressed up the chain of authority. Indeed, that has been the norm within ACORN.
It is standard procedure at Fox to misrepresent news events, that is, when they aren’t inventing them entirely. Just yesterday, Fox News ran another ACORN story under an intentionally misleading headline that read “ACORN INSULT.” So did the Fox Nation, whose version of the same story said “Arrest Warrants Issued for 11 ACORN Workers.” But what actually happened was that ACORN had discovered evidence of fraud and reported it to the state attorney’s office. So while Fox portrayed ACORN as crooked, it was ACORN who turned in their own people and were praised by law enforcement for their diligence.
When Fox News goes out if its way to create scandals based on intellectually dishonest conclusions that everyone in an enterprise is guilty if anyone in it commits a crime, they are leaving themselves wide open. Following the Fox model of culpability it would be easy to declare Fox News guilty of numerous abhorrent crimes.
Earlier this year, Fox News producer Aaron Bruns was arrested for trafficking in child pornography. Another Fox Newser, Don Broderick, committed hit-and-run on a bicyclist. Fox News contributor Dick Morris was famously caught with a hooker, whom he let listen in on phone calls with the White House. And Bill O’Reilly himself was the subject of a sexual harassment case that he settled privately for millions of dollars.
With evidence like this it is pretty clear that Fox News is a venal criminal enterprise, steeped in the most repulsive sorts of violence and sexual assaults. That is, if we use the Fox criteria for establishing guilt. And while ACORN fired their offending employees, three of the four Fox felons above still report there for work.
This is all reminiscent of another case where Beck accused ACORN of having a criminal culture because a few employees were found to have filled out forms improperly. Beck analogized that no one would ever eat at Burger King if it were found that BK employees were as criminally prone as he alleged ACORN’s were. Unfortunately for Beck, it was easy to show that Burger King employees were indeed a rather lawless bunch that made ACORN look like a Sunday school.
Therein lies the fallacy of this variety of guilt by association. Burger King, ACORN, and even Fox News, have thousands of employees. And since they are, for the most part, human, some of them will behave poorly. That does not mean that the rest of the enterprise is similarly prone to misbehavior. Unless, of course, you’re Fox News and it is your intention to slander your political enemies. Fox News, and the whole of the Rupert Murdoch empire, is by design a vicious smear machine and ought not to be taken seriously by anyone interested in the truth.
Posted by Mark NC on September 10, 2009 at 1:54 pm.
NOComments :
America is presently undergoing a sort of devolution that is unprecedented in its history. The Tea Party fanatics who are disrupting town halls and appearing at rallies with signs associating the President with socialism, fascism and Hitler, are contributing to a hostile political environment that pits neighbor against neighbor and divides families and all citizens. This advances the premise that those with whom you disagree are traitors and enemies, as opposed to fellow Americans with a different point of view.
The deep divisions in our nation that are ripping at the seams of democracy are being exacerbated by a rightist media that is more interested in its own welfare than that of the nation. It is becoming ever more critical that Americans speak out against this propaganda crusade and make certain that our elected representatives don’t take the bait.
It is already too late for Van Jones, who was hounded by a manic Glenn Beck into resigning, despite the fact that the allegations against him were ludicrous smears that were demonstrably untrue. Beck has already set his sights on his next targets for his mudslinging. They include respected and effective public servants like Cass Sunstein, Carol Browner, and Mark Lloyd. And of course, ACORN will be drudged up along with irrelevant players like Rev. Wright and Bill Ayres.
Leading this crusade is Fox News who have abandon any pretense of impartiality as they have literally boarded the Tea Party Express, reporting its progress as it rambles across the nation inciting phony dissent and worse. This bus tour is wholly sponsored by lobbyists and powerful partisan enterprises like Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works. Yet the media has been ignoring a bus tour by Health Insurance Reform Now that has been attracting crowds just as big.
And rising to the helm of Fox’s crusade is certifiable nutcase, Glenn Beck. His ravings have riled up a pitifully uninformed audience of frightened political outcasts. And worse, he is beginning to have an impact outside of the padded halls of Fox News.
Now, FreePress.net has initiated a real grassroots campaign to collect signatories to a statement alerting the president to the fact that Glenn Beck and his ilk do not speak for us. The press release announcing this project reveals how uniquely dangerous the current situation is:
“At Free Press, our focus is on structural media policy, not on media content. But we take this extraordinary step because what’s happening is so poisonous to American political discourse.
“That Fox News Channel lets Beck use its media megaphone to stir up hatred and fear of others is repulsive, divisive and beyond all common sense or decency. By giving Beck a nightly platform for such McCarthy-esque witch hunts and smear campaigns, the national news network undermines our democracy. But Fox News is not alone. Unfortunately, this kind of rant is endemic to a media system that cares about ratings far more than about the truth.”
In the wake of Beck’s attacks on Van Jones and others, this is an important campaign that deserves the support of the country. Beck has promised to escalate his witch hunts and to continue his assault on anyone he deems an enemy. At the center of all of this is a brazen disregard for the truth in pursuit of a conservative coup. They want to derail the health care, environmental, and economic reforms that the American people have been fighting for. These media megaliths want nothing less than to destroy the presidency of Barack Obama. They have said so explicitly. This is an attempt to reverse the results of a fair and historic election. They must not be allowed to succeed.
For almost as long as Glenn Beck has been attacking Van Jones, he has also been smearing Cass Sunstein, President Obama’s nominee for Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. However, this afternoon the Senate passed a cloture vote cutting off debate and permitting a final vote on Sunstein’s confirmation.
The 63-35 vote for cloture included Republicans Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Robert Bennett (R-UT), Judd Gregg (R-NH), Richard Lugar (R-IN), Susan Collins (R-ME), Olympia Snowe (R-ME). Democrats voting against: Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), James Webb (D-VA).
Beck has been bashing Sunstein as another dangerous radical who is bent on destroying America. He has taken out of context remarks by Sunstein that Beck characterizes as insane (well, Beck should know). For instance, Beck says that Sunstein wants animals to get lawyers to represent them in cruelty cases against humans. Beck also said that Sunstein is in favor of forced organ donations. The truth is very different. Sunstein is an academic who has written on many issues from a theoretical perspective. That’s what academics do. But Beck isolates these professorial musings and recasts them as zany plots to impose some sort of tyrannical dictatorship that exists only in Beck’s diseased mind. And the funny thing is, Sunstein had been favorably received by many conservatives when his nomination was announced.
Beck seemed so dejected when announcing the results of the cloture vote. It was as if he couldn’t quite comprehend that the world wasn’t bending to his will. When the vote passed, Beck told his audience that their lives had changed FOREVER! Beck described the office Sunstein will hold as the most powerful position anywhere. He said that Sunstein will be able to tweak any and every law to pursue whatever ends he desires – and those desires, you can rest assured, are evil. Listening to Beck you would think that Sunstein’s post was even more powerful than Obama’s.
But this is just the typical hyperbole that Beck employs to scare the bejeebus out of his slack-jawed viewers. If whatever Beck is talking about at the moment isn’t the most fearsome thing of all time, his audience will become distracted by a leaf fluttering outside the window and it will take half an hour to get them worked up again. Beck was even downplaying the Van Jones matter, saying that while everyone wanted us to focus on Jones, the real threat was Sunstein. Of course it was Beck that was blathering incessantly about Jones for some sixteen programs. Now he accuses “someone” of using Jones as a diversion while the Senate secretly pushed Sunstein through.
Don’t expect Beck to loosen his grip. He will certainly resume his attack on Sunstein. But the truth is that Sunstein will shortly be confirmed by the Senate, which means he is not actually a “czar” at all (actually, there no czars. The whole concept was developed to deceive and frighten ignorant wingnuts). And Beck will expand his smear campaign to bash Mark Lloyd and Carol Browner and whoever else Beck thinks he spread his lies about. That is, if we let him.
A North Palm Beach, Florida radio station has announced that they will be testing a new program to be hosted by congressional sexual predator, Mark Foley.
As a refresher, Foley was the Republican representative of the 16th district of Florida. He resigned his seat after it had been revealed that he had engaged in sexually explicit communications with Congressional pages, some of them underage.
Now WSVU is preparing for broadcast what may be the first episode of “Inside the Mind of Mark Foley.” Now there’s a place I surely would not want to go. The selection of that name suggests a certain tone deafness by the folks at WSVU. But the irony couldn’t be any worse than the station’s call letters themselves, which mirror the name of the television crime drama “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” How appropriate is it that the station that presently airs Don Imus, and is seeking to put Foley on it’s roster has call letters that bring to mind sexual perversity and assault?
Joe Raineri, the show’s producer, when asked about the project being syndicated said “I don’t see anything stopping it.” Really? Not even the fact that the host is a sleazeball who was forced to resign from Congress in disgrace? I suppose that in the world of talk radio, that may not be an impediment to success. After all, convicted felons Ollie North and G. Gordon Liddy haven’t been hurt by their malfeasance. And the number one talk radio personality, Rush Limbaugh, is still riding high (pun intended) after getting caught in an Oxy-Contin scandal.
Here’s a taste of the program from a promotional snippet:
“So do you want to know what’s inside the mind of Mark Foley? A real insider’s view into the inner workings of Washington, D.C.”
No I don’t. And this is just what we need – more bloviating from Washington insiders. There certainly isn’t enough of that in the media.
Fox News is reporting its distinctly dishonest version of a story concerning voter registration fraud in Miami. The article on the Fox News home page features a blaring headline and photo that declares an “ACORN INSULT” has been made against the late Paul Newman in commission of voter fraud. Clicking the link to the full article delivers Fox’s story about eleven ACORN workers for whom warrants have issued in conjunction with an investigation. Only here does Fox reveal at least part of the truth with a headline that reads “ACORN Turns in Florida Workers on Voter Fraud Charges.”
That’s right, ACORN turned in the fraudulent registration forms and the employees responsible for them. How does that square with the sensationalistic rhetoric about “insults” that Fox attributed to ACORN?
But the gesture Fox made after clicking the false headline still did not repair the error. The case against the ACORN employees was not one of voter fraud. It was voter registration fraud. The distinction is significant because the former can produce an improperly cast ballot. However, in these cases of registration fraud, there was no possibility that fake votes could occur. What’s more, the actual victim of the crime is ACORN itself, as they were being duped by personnel attempting to receive payment for work they did not do.
Another problem with Fox’s reporting is that it took them until halfway through the story to address the fact that it was ACORN who turned in the false registrations and employees. In a terse, single sentence, Fox conceded that a spokesperson for the Florida state attorney’s office told Fox that it was ACORN who alerted the authorities to the crimes. Fox didn’t bother to go further and report that the state attorney’s office praised ACORN for their diligence, saying…
“We’ve been very aggressive about a lot of these cases. But we would not have known about these workers unless ACORN brought it to us.”
Finally, Fox closes their article with a reprise of insinuations against ACORN for fraudulent activity during last year’s presidential campaign. Once again, those accusations were brought to the attention of authorities by ACORN. But Fox merely reports that “ACORN’s activities were frequently questioned…” Fox does not report that it was Fox, and the conservative organizations they front for, who were doing the questioning.
This is just another in the endless stream of bias that is part and parcel of the “fair and balanced” pseudo-news enterprise that is best known for how it Fakes News.
That’s right, you heard me. Van Jones defeats Glenn Beck.
The big news of the night is that Van Jones, the President’s advisor on green jobs and the economy, has resigned under pressure from far-right brownshirts. On the surface this is disappointing, to say the least. Jones has proven himself to be a creative and effective advocate for environmental reform. His book, “The Green Collar Economy,” became a best-seller despite having little support from the conventional publishing circles. But after weeks of battling rightist slander and disinformation, Jones issued this statement:
I am resigning my post at the Council on Environmental Quality, effective today.
On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me. They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide.
I have been inundated with calls – from across the political spectrum – urging me to “stay and fight.”
But I came here to fight for others, not for myself. I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future.
It has been a great honor to serve my country and my President in this capacity. I thank everyone who has offered support and encouragement. I am proud to have been able to make a contribution to the clean energy future. I will continue to do so, in the months and years ahead.
The near-term downside to this is that the residents of the Beck Asylum for Paranoid Thumb Suckers are going to be celebrating triumphantly for a while. That will be annoying but bearable. Beck himself will feel emboldened and anxious to take aim at a new target. He has already laid the ground work for post-Jones assaults on Valerie Jarrett and Mark Lloyd. (Do I need to point out that Jones, Jarrett and Lloyd are all African American members of the Obama administration?)
My personal regret is centered on what I consider to be a flaw in the administration’s strategy. I suspect that they view this matter as a distraction and want to focus on health care. That is a worthy goal. However, to the extent that this is a distraction, it will not be alleviated by jettisoning Jones. For the rightist bullies Jones was not really the issue. He was a symbol and, with him out of the way, they will just find another symbol to attack. Consequently, Obama will not be relieved of the so-called distraction. It will just have a new face attached to it. The question is, how will he respond to the next contrived controversy? How many qualified and capable advisors will be hung out to dry in a vain search for comity – an outcome for which Republicans have zero interest.
But Beck and his ilk may rue the day they set Jones free. As a private citizen he will not be constrained by diplomacy and the political fear of controversy. He will be able to speak with conviction and take aim at the real villains in our midst. The organization he co-founded, Color of Change, was largely responsible for Beck losing 57 advertisers (so far). And, let’s face, Beck’s obsession with Jones was driven by vengeance for that association, even though Jones has not been affiliated with the group for over two years. Clearly Beck is afraid of Jones, hence the incessant coverage. But Beck has made a serious strategic error, because Jones is a far bigger threat to Beck outside of government than inside of it.
The effectiveness of the advertiser boycott can now be expanded upon by an unfettered Jones, who can bring his skill, experience, and passion to a new field of battle. He will be joined by an invigorated community of reform-minded Americans who believe that aggressive advocacy will lead to social, political, and legislative victories. Beck has given Jones a gift of sorts, in the form of valuable and hard to procure media attention. If Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber can parley their media notoriety into national prominence, despite their abundance of ignorance and deficit of charisma, just imagine what Jones can do. This fight has only just begun, and progressive activists are committed to principle, not President or party. We will not be cowed by demagogues and fear mongers.
If Glenn Beck is proud that he was able to demonize an honest and patriotic man like Van Jones, he may soon discover that he is not immune from the hardball tactics he employed to tarnish this man’s reputation. There is plenty of video evidence of Beck’s repulsive commentaries wherein he…
agreed that America’s only hope is for Bin Laden to blow us up.
accused Obama of having a deep seated hatred of white people (but isn’t a racist?).
Glenn Beck hates America. He has said so explicitly. He proves it everyday with his hate-filled screeds and his promotion of anti-American rhetoric. His show is a compendium of insults, provocations to violence, secession, and revolt. It is imperative that his treasonous ravings be exposed so that the people can make an informed judgment of him. And Fox News must be held accountable as well for their complicity in this abomination of truth and justice. Even though the inanity of Fox News has done more to hurt the Republican Party than anything the Democrats have done, they must still shoulder the responsibility for the harm they produce to civil discourse and honest journalism.
If you believe this country is great but it is suffering from a tiny but virulent infection of hatred and stupidity, then stand up and, come on, follow me.
Update: Beck responds to Van Jones resignation – and proves my point:
“The American people stood up and demanded answers. Instead of providing them, the Administration had Jones resign under cover of darkness. I continue to be amazed by the power of everyday Americans to initiate change in our government through honest questioning, and judging by the other radicals in the administration, I expect that questioning to continue for the foreseeable future.”
As I said above, this distraction will not be alleviated by Jones’ resignation. Beck will continue to make mischief for “the foreseeable future” regardless of what Obama does. Therefore, Obama should just Ignore Beck and Fox News altogether.
A little over two years ago I wrote an article titled, The Cult Of Foxonality™. It’s premise was that…
“Fox viewers appear to be more loyal to Fox than to Republicans or conservatism. This misdirected allegiance bestows a far more influential authority onto a media entity than ought ever to be considered. It suggests that the bombastic demagogues that Fox has shaped into celebrity anchors truly do weigh down their transfixed disciples.”
That piece employed an analysis of ratings and viewer habits at the time that confirmed that Fox News viewers were wedded to their cable hearth and would not be moved. Subsequent events reinforced the theory. For instance, prior to the election, a Rasmussen poll reported that nine out of ten Fox News viewers intended to vote for John McCain. That’s a higher percentage of McCain voters than amongst Republicans.
Recently, Fox News has been building on their ratings dominance. In an attempt to understand why Fox would be increasing their audience at a time when Republicans are reaching new lows, I revisited the cult hypothesis. No other model adequately explains the stark divergence of the fates of Fox News and the Republican Party.
Looking at the current cable news landscape, there is an obvious separation of the primary players. Fox News is far and away the leader. MSNBC is the spunky challenger that has recently overtaken the old master, CNN. It would be easy to assign labels that reflect the partisan programming philosophy of these networks. However, in truth, there is only one truly partisan network among them.
Fox News’ success is firmly rooted in its primetime lineup. With Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Greta Van Susteren all easily winning their time periods. Add to that Glenn Beck’s arrival that has put him in competition with perennial leader O’Reilly. But it doesn’t stop there.
Fox’s business anchor (and head of their business network) is Neil Cavuto, an aggressively conservative advocate for right-wing viewpoints. Fox’s Washington editor is the blatantly partisan Bill Sammon. The White House correspondent is the equally biased Major Garrett. The Fox morning program is an almost laughable cliche of wingnut dunces.
Compare that to MSNBC’s schedule that consists of only two reliable liberals. Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. [Edit: Add Ed Schultz] Chris Matthews swings both ways and is close buddies with folks like Tom Delay and Rudy Giuliani. Their morning program is three hours hosted by the conservative Republican, former congressman, Joe Scarborough. (Can you imagine Fox News giving three daily hours of airtime to a liberal Democrat?) CNN has become devoid of any personality at all. Their leading figures are null types like Larry King and Anderson Cooper. Although Lou Dobbs does stand out a bit.
So here is the interesting part. Glenn Beck was on CNN just a few months ago with nowhere near the audience he has today on Fox. CNN’s Dobbs, and MSNBC’s Scarborough are as conservative as anyone on Fox, but they can’t duplicate those numbers. What this tells us is that cable news success has little to do with partisanship. If it did, Dobbs and Scarborough would be doing Fox-like business, and Beck would not have had to move to Fox to find an audience. But he did have to move. Because Fox viewers, despite their obvious idolization of him now, were not going to go to CNN to see him. And it wasn’t because they didn’t know who he was. He was already the third biggest star on talk radio.
Therefore, the key to the popularity of Fox is that it is Fox. Their viewers are not interested in programs that feature the same ideology if presented on other networks. CNN could hire Sarah Palin and she would flop. But not on Fox. In fact, I would wager that if Dobbs and/or Scarborough shifted to Fox, everyone would be astonished at their newfound popularity.
Fox is the home of the forlorn, conservative, tea bagging, town howler. They have found their happy place, and they have no intention of moving from it. It is what gives them solace in a time when liberals (or socialists/fascists) have taken over the House, the Senate, and even put a dark-skinned, Muslim, illegal alien in the White House. They need the camaraderie. They need the affirmation. They need the reassurance that the world isn’t crumbling beneath them (or in Beck’s case, that it is). They are even marketing the Fox Nation web site with the undisguised message of a promise of togetherness.
It’s just so sad. I think I’m gonna cry. But that would be Glenn Beck’s shtick.
In the 1982 film Blade Runner, Rutger Hauer plays a replicant (human clone) who returns to Earth from an extraterrestrial labor colony to find what all humans want – more life. In a climactic scene with Harrison Ford he tries to convey the depth of his passion for life saying that “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.” His character’s name is Roy Batty. And batty would certainly describe Glenn Beck’s latest hallucinatory escapade in pursuit of demonizing progressives. He too is seeing things, and yes, we don’t believe it. [See Beck’s previous Messianic Delusions]
“I’m trying to show you the things that seem to be hidden but they’re not. They are out in plain sight. Those with eyes will not see and those with ears will not hear. You’re awake. You need to see the things that are hidden in plain sight.”
Those with fingers will not touch and those with feet will not smell. If only some of those with tongues did not speak.
Beck has used his divine vision to reveal the evidence of Satan’s secret seeds. Planted amongst us are the vile devices of communists and fascists meant to steal our thoughts and sway our allegiances to the dark side. And what are these tricks of the netherworld’s master? They are paintings and sculptures and other works by history’s subversives – the artists! These mental traps were set decades ago by devious social perverts with a century long plot and an abundance of patience.
In this sermon (captured on YouTube), Beck associates the evil artists with their patron, Rockefeller. Unfortunately, he doesn’t specify which one. In fact, he jumps around to several of them without making any distinction. It’s as if they were all incarnations of the same demon spirit. Was Beck referring to John D. Rockefeller, Sr., the ultra-capitalist business maven who founded Standard Oil? Or was it his son, the real estate magnate who built Rockefeller Center? Or was it Nelson, who was the Republican Governor of New York and Vice President of the United States? Or was it Jay, the current Senator from West Virginia? No matter. In Beck’s mind, they were all socialist stooges.
Beck begins his unveiling with a denouncement of a relief at the entrance to Rockefeller Center. The work shows two men on either side of the doors. Beck tells us that one is holding a hammer, and the other a sickle. Ergo communism! It’s right there in plain sight. Except that the first man is actually holding a shovel according to the historians curating the Center’s artwork. The figures were meant to represent the strength of America’s industry and agriculture, which I’m sure Beck views as treasonous.
Then Beck focuses on a bas relief carving by Italian American sculptor Attilio Piccirilli called Youth Leading Industry. Beck’s interpretation of this work centers on his theory that the artist, and thus the work, were avowedly fascist. Beck asserts that a strong male figure in the piece is Mussolini. Whether or not that’s true, and there is some debate, it is illustrative of Beck’s dementia that he can jump from warnings about progressives being communists to progressives being fascists without taking a breath. In the real world, Mussolini was a bitter foe of Stalin and vice versa. And the artwork itself is simply heralding a young, creative, and prosperous America. Another subversive concept in Beck’s mind.
Turning to a more conventional subject matter for art, Beck finds fault with a biblical representation of the verse regarding turning swords into plowshares. I’m not even sure what Beck’s complaint is here, but he’s upset about something. Perhaps it just has to do with the fact that there is another swords/plowshares sculpture on the grounds of the United Nations. And the site for the U.N. was donated by – Rockefeller. Obviously there’s something sinister in there somewhere. I also like Beck’s explanation for why he keeps his own sculpture depicting the swords and plowshares. It isn’t because of the message of a peace delivered by God. It’s because it reminds him that something beautiful (the statue) can come from someplace ugly (Russia). Evidently he has never heard Tchaikovsky or seen Chagall or read Dostoyevsky.
The next piece for which Beck provides his striking analysis is a painting by renowned Mexican artist Diego Rivera. Beck is concerned by the presence of people like Stalin and Lenin in the artwork. The funny thing about this hypothesis is that the painting Beck is reviewing doesn’t exist at Rockefeller Center. Beck is reviewing a version of the painting that Rockefeller rejected because of his objection to the very iconography that Beck is pointing out. Rockefeller had commissioned a work from a draft that did not contain those elements. Yet Beck still blames him for the piece he had thrown out. And, of course, it is not one of those works of propaganda that Beck said is hidden in plain sight. Unless you’re walking around Mexico City.
For Glenn Beck to set himself up as an art critic/historian is funnier than anything Monty Python ever thought up. While his interpretations lack any knowledge of the subject, they are jam-packed with paranoid fantasies that would make David Berkowitz’ dog shudder. And Beck is the only one who can see any of it. He’s the only one who can see that Rockefeller (whichever one) was not a capitalist captain of industry at all, but a clandestine communist (or was it fascist) revolutionary. He is the only one who can see the coded symbols in the wicked artwork.
Beck has just recently recognized the malicious power of art as propaganda. He took on the National Endowment for the Arts for holding a tele-conference with artists for the purpose of promoting public service and volunteerism. Now I actually would have agreed with him that that may be outside the mandate of the NEA, but his manic distortions of reality make it impossible to even tangentially agree with anything that comes out of his warped brain. If he regards an initiative to boost the Peace Corps as a dangerous example of propaganda, how can he be taken seriously?
Rightist demagogues have long feared the power of artistic expression. In January of 2003, shortly before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Colin Powell assembled the media at the United Nations to comment on his presentation in support of war. But before the media arrived, the tapestry of Picasso’s masterpiece, Guernica, was covered by a blue drape. A press conference to discuss launching an unprecedented war of aggression could not be held in front of one of the twentieth century’s most moving anti-war statements. The symbolism of literally throwing a blanket over this representation of truth is unmistakable.
But Beck is not demystifying art, he is attacking it. He is assigning false intentions to the artists and their work. He is denigrating these long-respected icons of free expression and celebrations of American prosperity and spirit. And worst of all, Beck is virtually inviting his disciples to do harm to these works, or any others in which they imagine horrors lurking. He is no better than the Taliban mullahs who destroyed the Buddhas of Bamyan, giant statues in Afghanistan that were over 1,500 years old.
If Mullah Omar had a show on the Taliban Fox Network he would have been making the same sort of claims about the Buddhas that Beck is making about this art. Hopefully Americans are more tolerant than the Afghans that allowed Omar to blow up the Buddhas. And hopefully they are smarter than Beck and his congregation of glassy-eyed followers who wouldn’t know art if it was right in front of them everyday – like the over 100 works commissioned for Rockefeller Center.
I attended a rally in Los Angeles that drew a pathetic 300-400 Fox Pods. They had the usual array of crayon-drawn signs with insulting and childish slogans, i.e. “Ted’s Dead – So is Obama Care” and “Just Say NO to Lucifer Obama.” Then there was the enterprising tea bagger with the giant poster of the President in African witch doctor attire. That was typical of the crowd that spanned the racial spectrum from Pasty Trailer Parker to Alabaster Aryan.
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