{"id":1233,"date":"2009-03-31T11:48:48","date_gmt":"2009-03-31T18:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1233"},"modified":"2009-05-30T15:03:13","modified_gmt":"2009-05-30T22:03:13","slug":"if-you-believe-this-country-is-great-but","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1233","title":{"rendered":"If You Believe This Country Is Great, But&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Glenn Beck, who has been reduced to tears more often than Tammy Faye Bakker, says that it&#8217;s because he loves this country &#8211; and fears for it. Apparently he feels that the country he loves is dangerously weak and will collapse, but for his weepy entreaties.<\/p>\n<p>However, his expression of that love always seems to have a disclaimer attached to it. He only loves America if it conforms to his delusive vision. And it isn&#8217;t just a few principles or values. In fact, he adds new criteria every day. Here is how he opens every episode of his Fox News program, along with some of his qualifications for loving his country:<\/p>\n<p>If you believe this country is great, but&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8230;progressive fascists are trying to destroy it, this is your wake-up call!<\/li>\n<li>&#8230;you believe these weasels are really only as trustworthy as far as you can throw &#8217;em &#8212; then your voice needs to be heard.<\/li>\n<li>&#8230;you feel like the government is trying to steer us to mob rule lately, then it&#8217;s time to get back on the road.<\/li>\n<li>&#8230;our government is trying to demolish everything that our founders stood for, it&#8217;s time to take our country back.<\/li>\n<li>&#8230;fear the tyranny that&#8217;s starting to take hold, don&#8217;t stay silent.<\/li>\n<li>&#8230;the government is clamping down on your freedom, now&#8217;s the time to throw the shackles off.<\/li>\n<li>&#8230;the government&#8217;s solutions are the problem, what do you say we get the government out of the way.<\/li>\n<li>&#8230;the government is putting our lives, liberty and fortunes in jeopardy, it&#8217;s time to say enough is enough.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That&#8217;s just a sampling of the many flaming hoops America must jump through to earn Beck&#8217;s affection. And it is no coincidence that most of them express an overt antagonism and require some sort of adversarial activism on the part of Beck&#8217;s disciples.<\/p>\n<p>So what does Beck love about America? Well, on his program yesterday he hosted Burton Folsom Jr., a revisionist historian who believes that robber barons were beneficial to the country, and that FDR exacerbated the Depression. In the course of the dialogue, Folsom and Beck praised Henry Ford for opposing labor unions and refusing to participate in FDR&#8217;s National Recovery Administration. Of course, it was the labor movement that rescued America&#8217;s work force, and FDR&#8217;s recovery program that restored economic stability.<\/p>\n<p>What Beck didn&#8217;t mention is that, at the very same time, Ford was helping to finance Hitler&#8217;s rise to power. While American workers were desperate for jobs, Ford opened a new plant in Germany. His anti-Semitic tract <em>&#8220;The International Jew&#8221;<\/em> was a Hitler favorite. And the Nazi regime awarded him the highest honor that a civilian can receive.<\/p>\n<p>What, then, is the message that Beck intends to convey? Is it that we should turn to corporatist (i.e. Fascist) policies to allow the robber barons to return and save the nation? You would think so by his defense of AIG executives&#8217; salaries and bonuses. Beck&#8217;s personal interest in this was obvious. Despite the fact that he makes tens of millions of dollars a year, he likes to pretend he&#8217;s a man of the people, and he had the gall to articulate this stuporously insensitive complaint:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color:#0d00d0;\">&#8220;As a small businessman, I don&#8217;t know what they&#8217;re going to do next. I don&#8217;t if they are going try to come after me, if they are going to raise my taxes, if all of a sudden I&#8217;ve got to pay a new carbon tax, or I&#8217;m an unpopular&#8230; So you don&#8217;t know.&#8221;<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That&#8217;s right, Glenn. You&#8217;re a small businessman, they&#8217;re all out to get you, and you&#8217;re an unpopular&#8230;(?). Thanks for enlightening us.<\/p>\n<p>After all that, all I can say is &#8230; if you believe this country is great, but wealthy blowhards who produce nothing but hostility and division are distorting American values with their self-centered griping &#8230; Come on, follow me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Glenn Beck, who has been reduced to tears more often than Tammy Faye Bakker, says that it&#8217;s because he loves this country &#8211; and fears for it. Apparently he feels that the country he loves is dangerously weak and will collapse, but for his weepy entreaties. However, his expression of that love always seems to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1,16],"tags":[530,529,33,44],"class_list":["post-1233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-wankery","tag-adolf-hitler","tag-burton-folsom-jr","tag-fox-news","tag-glenn-beck"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-jT","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":40904,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=40904","url_meta":{"origin":1233,"position":0},"title":"Flip-Flop: Glenn Beck Now Says that Not Reelecting Trump Would Be &#8216;The End of the Country&#8217;","author":"Mark NC","date":"3\/19\/2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Rising from the ashes of his failing media dung heap, Glenn Beck has reemerged to prove that nobody is better at hyperbolic inanities than the once and future master of the blackboard arts. Best known as a conspiracy crackpot, Beck has faded into the ether while grasping desperately at straws\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Glenn Beck","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/beck-chalkwall.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/beck-chalkwall.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/beck-chalkwall.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1592,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1592","url_meta":{"origin":1233,"position":1},"title":"Glenn Beck Forgets To Expose His Latest White House Marxist","author":"Mark NC","date":"3\/16\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"We can chalk this one down to another broken promise from Fox News' star paranoid, Glenn Beck. On last Thursday's program he teased his audience with news of yet another example of the cancer that was eating away our country from within: Thursday, March 11, 2010: \"And a programming note.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4213,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=4213","url_meta":{"origin":1233,"position":2},"title":"Bill O&#8217;Reilly: King Pinhead Reclaims His Crown","author":"Mark NC","date":"4\/9\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Bill O'Reilly used his weekly column this week to pump up his departing pal, Glenn Beck. Somehow I don't think his heart was really in it because his argument was barely coherent. And why not? He does stand to regain his throne as the predominant Fox News bloviator after Beck\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4269,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=4269","url_meta":{"origin":1233,"position":3},"title":"Glenn Beck&#8217;s Youth Bashing Crushed By Van Jones&#8217; Optimism","author":"Mark NC","date":"4\/18\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Glenn Beck has spent much of the past two years dismissing young people as ignorant, brainwashed, and\/or \"useful idiots.\" He regards them as societal appendages whose obligation is to be obedient and silent. Most recently he blamed the uprisings in the Middle East on unruly kids led by Google executives\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Environment&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Environment","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=473"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1575,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1575","url_meta":{"origin":1233,"position":4},"title":"Van Jones &hearts;&#8217;s Glenn Beck","author":"Mark NC","date":"2\/28\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Van Jones received the President's Award on Friday from the NAACP Image Awards. In his acceptance speech he took the time to acknowledge a special someone in his life. http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/qpizoS3HREY I can't say I approve. Glenn Beck has been a relentless foe of Van Jones. He hounded him from the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":51774,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=51774","url_meta":{"origin":1233,"position":5},"title":"Glenn Beck Visits Fox News with a Doomsday Prophesy that Scares the Snot Out of Tucker Carlson","author":"Mark NC","date":"1\/12\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Y'all better get ready, people. The End Times are upon us. And that divine prognosticator, Glenn Beck, sees it all clearly. And, praise Gawd, Fox News is there to welcome the Rev. Beck and disseminate his \"wisdom\" to the masses who gather nightly to soak in the sermons of Friar\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Glenn Beck Messiah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/jesus-beck-11.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/jesus-beck-11.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/jesus-beck-11.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}