Presented by: The Religious Freedom Coalition of the SouthEast
If you are interested in
becoming Spiritually Enlightened...Click
HERE or on the Red Dragon Below.
You will be taken to a page which will reveal the gateway to
Enlightenment.
Click on the below
image and read the Quest - you will discover the secret
Grail of Immortality. Then click on and read the Way and finally The
Word. The three books are available in
Kindle
format. Go to Barnes and Noble for
Nook format.
The
following web page is an excellent source of true Progressive and
Liberal Information which allows you to form honest opinions about
Neo-conservative and Conservative extremists who infest our
government and society:
http://professionalleft.blogspot.com/ We will
also list others as they are created by the true patriots of this
country.
Question: "Separation
between Church and State." Who coined the Phrase? Give up?
Answer: Thomas Jefferson - one of the founding fathers of this
great Nation and a creator of the U.S. Constitution and the First Amendment
to that same Constitution. Thomas Jefferson, in 1802, wrote a Letter
to the Danbury Baptist Association, referring to the First Amendment to the
US Constitution. In it he said:
To messers. Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim
Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist
association in the state of Connecticut.
Gentlemen
Believing with you that religion is a
matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to
none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of
government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with
sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared
that their legislature should "make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church &
State. Adhering to this expression of the
supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I
shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments
which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no
natural right in opposition to his social duties.
Th Jefferson
Jan 1, 1802
Original Letter is in the Library of
Congress
We will leave it up to you,
the reader to determine whether Glenn Beck: is the Spawn of Satan, a Liar, a
Traitor to American values; Hates America; has made serious errors in
judgment; is the Anti-Christ; Hates Jesus or is Just Bat Sh*t Crazy!!!
Mr. Beck has
seemed to support a Conservative Christian Extremist position
especially when it comes to Church and State issues ever since he was
recruited by Satan.
But, it is apparent from the data collected, that
the first amendment is in danger from his past and future actions. In
our opinion Glen Beck will reside in Dante's Ninth Level of Hell.
Mr. Becks' office like many other Conservative Pundits we
called, stated that his position is that Mormonism is the only "Real
Religion," but he does not practice any form of Christianity we have ever
heard of.
Mormonism does not practice what Beck claims to believe (do they?).
Go to Mormons to
learn what they believe. "What have you been practicing Mr. Beck?"
Read the following and remember: "By their Works may they be known."
This is a summary of information collected from several media sources about
Glenn Beck in his own words.
And remember Mr. Beck tells Lies. Fox News tells lies.
We can NOT trust his word about anything including church and state issues.
(It is best to investigate on your own when looking at
allegations about anyone. Don't believe us, think
for yourself and investigate for yourself! And remember, the Religious
Freedom Coalition does not represent any political party nor do we recommend
any political candidate, nor are we involving ourselves in the political
process. )
In Our Opinion Glenn is NOT Taking His
Meds Again!
Excerpts from an article
posted on huffingtonpost.com July 26, 2011
On his Tuesday radio show, Glenn Beck obliquely defended his
much-maligned comment
that the Norwegian camp attacked by right-wing extremist Anders
Breivik reminded him of a Hitler Youth site.
Beck caused an outcry on Monday after his comments hit the
Web. On Tuesday, he did not mention the stir directly, but instead
discussed a
book about the early days of Nazi Germany
that he is reading.
He said he saw parallels between Hitler's
statements to the Germans and President Obama's statements to the
American public. Anybody who expressed concern with what Hitler was
doing was "ridiculed or marginalized or rounded up and killed," he
added.
Beck's co-host jumped in to stress that this did
not mean that there were "gas chambers in Kansas." An agitated Beck
cut him off.
"Don't start," he said, his voice rising. "Don't
even. Don't!" He got more and more heated as he continued.
"If we're living in a society where we can't say X
in the same paragraph as Y and not be told we are comparing it...we
are going to be a society of gas chambers," he yelled. If you can't
have a logical conversation...the question is, does this country
bypass the mainstream media faster than it's destroyed. I'm betting
yes. It's called GBTV."
Beck then went on to make more comparisons between
Hitler's Germany and Obama's America.
Unconditional support for Israel plays brilliantly with
Beck's fans, and proximity to the ‘original seat of power’ can’t hurt
when you’re embarking on a new venture.
July 31, 2011 |
At his “Restoring
Honor” rally last
August, speaking from the spot in Washington DC where Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech, Glenn Beck and guests blamed
liberals for the state of the nation and the world. Joining him in the
seat of American power was Sarah Palin, who, with her signal lack of
originality and predilection for repetition, told the crowd: “We must
restore America and restore her honor.”
For this year’s “Restoring Courage” rally on August
24, Beck has set his sights even higher, gathering the elite of the
conservative faithful in the Israeli capital of Jerusalem—or, in the
Christian Zionist imagination, God’s ‘seat of power.’ In his
announcement of the rally, writes the Washington Post’s Dana
Milbank:
Beck offered the apocalyptic prediction that “the
force of darkness” would “attack the center of our faith” with “a
two-state solution that cuts off Jerusalem.” He further predicted
that, at his rally in Jerusalem, “the very gates of Hell are going
to open up against us.” Later, he said that Israel may be destroyed
“by
Labor Day weekend”
and that his gathering “may be the last time you get to see the holy
sights.”
Many American social conservatives share a pessismism
concerning the sorry state of the world; a world that only God, and not
humans in their hubris, can redeem. But there is one sign in recent
history that demonstrates that God does still move in history: He
returned the Jews to their land. One can see why Beck, positioned
between the end of his Fox TV program and the beginning of his internet
broadcast venture, would stage his next rally in Jerusalem. After all,
unconditional support for Israel plays brilliantly with his fans, and
proximity to the ‘original seat of power’ can’t hurt when you’re
embarking on a new venture.
Early Christian Zionist pilgrims to Israel were
dismayed to find that the country’s political and cultural elites were
for the most part assertively secular. Today, however, the Israeli
religious right wields considerable power, prompting Beck, during a
recent meeting with a select group of Israeli politicians, to lean over
to his assistant and whisper “Can you believe how much God plays a role
here?”
Yet the plan attracted little media attention when it
was first announced, with the exception of Rachel Maddow, who quipped:
In terms of America not helping matters in the
Middle East, what could be worse than Fox News exporting its
end-of-the world conspiracy theorist who sees communists and George
Soros as a Jewish puppet master in everything? What American export
could be less helpful to the Middle East than that?
In early June, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) appeared on
Beck’s now-defunct TV show to announce that he would be joining Beck and
the faithful at the rally. When Milbank confronted the former Democrat
with evidence of Beck’s strange rantings about “the Elders of Zion” and
his claim that the Jews killed Jesus, the senator backed away from his
commitment,
saying:
“am I going to go? I don’t know… I’ve got a lot of other things going
on.”
Whether or not he shows it appears that
Restoring Courage won’t have trouble drawing a crowd as all 600 of the
$5,000 prime seats have all sold out.
On the July 11, Beck visited Jerusalem to lay the
groundwork for this year’s events and to speak with Knesset members
allied with the Christian Right. In his conversation with Likud Party
members (including Danny Danon, the MK who invited him to address the
group of Israeli lawmakers), Beck referred to the ancient areas of
Jerusalem as “the original seats of power.” According to a Jerusalem
Post report,
Beck implied that his idea for the rally “came to him in divine
inspiration.”
And returning to the proposal of a two-state solution,
which he had denounced initially, Beck made clear to the Likud
politicians that he now shared their view that there’s no room for
compromise, since “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is about the
destruction of Israel and the West.” Danon nailed it when he said to
Beck, “You support Israel unconditionally.”
It’s the unconditionality of Beck’s declared
commitment to Israel that appeals so deeply to fans for whom the State
of Israel is God’s favorite, and can literally do no wrong. As Jerry
Falwell stated in the 1960s, “Israel is God’s timepiece. When I want to
understand what is happening in history—I look at what is happening to
Israel.” And if we want to understand the career of a conservative
Christian personality like Beck, perhaps we need only take a good look
at his relationship to Israel.
We already know
that Glenn Beck sees the world through his own peculiar filter, but this
one really takes the cake. Notice the
trembling lip, the catch in his voice.
He's so into his vision of himself as the Second Coming. Poor Glenn
Beck, the man who's targeted so many liberals that they got death
threats and lost their jobs... It wouldn't even occur to him to have an
"aha!" moment:
Today on his radio show, Glenn Beck tearfully recounted an
incident from Bryant Park last night when he and his wife and
daughter turned up to see a showing of the Hitchcock classic The 39
Steps. Apparently some fellow picnickers began harassing the Becks,
even at one point "accidentally" kicking a glass of wine onto his
wife's back. It sounded genuinely unpleasant and a little scary,
though the famously paranoid Beck played up the dramatics in his
retelling. "I swear to you I think, if I had suggested, and I almost
did, 'Wow, does anybody have a rope? Because there's [a] tree here.
You could just lynch me.' And I think there would have been a couple
in the crowd that would have," he said. He called Gawker, which ran
some user-submitted photos of the Becks, "especially horrible."
"They have done everything they can to stalk me and my family," he
said. "They’ve put my family in jeopardy in their own home."
Then, for almost ten minutes, Beck went on an extended rant
against New Yorkers and the type of twentysomethings that harassed
him. "These people were some of the most hateful people I had ever
seen," he said. "I was told a lot last night about how New York
hates people like me."
"I really feel sorry for you," he continued. "Here you are, 25
years old, and you are so lost and so arrogant and so convinced that
you are absolutely 100 percent right. And you are helping craft a
system that is fueled by hate. You're being used, and you don't even
know it. You're building a system fueled by the very things you say
you hate: special interests, the rich, the powerful, global
corporations — that’s who's pulling your string."
So that tearful part where he's so worried about leaving his family
to the mercy of the horrible crowd? He forgot to mention the bodyguards.
Here's a different version from
Just
a quick FYI -saw your article on Mr. Beck and his numerous FALSE
claims about the way that he was treated at Bryant Park last night.
Myself and several of my friends were seated immediately behind Mr.
Beck & co (have pictures) and I can tell you that while the crowd
was certainly not *thrilled* that he had shown up, his family was
left completely alone, and for the most part he was too. Conversely,
it was his security detail (two body guards) that seemed to be
unnecessarily prickly with the crowd, scolding myself and my friends
for acrobatics and other harmless activities taking place well
before the movie started, and contributing to a considerably less
relaxed atmosphere than is typically experienced during BPMN (I've
been going for about six years now).
It was my friend that spilled the glass of wine on Tanya -and I
can assure you that it was a complete accident. A happy one, to be
sure, but nonetheless a complete and utter accident. As soon as the
wine spilled (and I question how Tanya became soaked from a half
glass of wine) apologies were made and my friends pretty much
scrambled to give Tanya & co napkins -no doubt aware that it would
look terrible and that their actions could be perceived as
purposeful. No words were exchanged after that, as I think that it
became pretty clear to Beck & co that my friends and I were doing
everything in our capacity to help clean the "mess".
I'm sure it's unnecessary to point out the hypocrisy in Glen's
statements that we were being hateful. I can assure him that we
don't need his sympathy. Incidentally, none of us have made a career
of "spewing hate" on the radio, or any other media platform. We live
our lives intolerant only of those who don't tolerate: We have
chosen New York as our city for that very reason. We do things like
go to Bryant Park Movie Night, and vote to legalize gay marriage. We
don't taunt Glen, or his family. And we certainly don't waste our
wine, even on Tanya.
Glenn, you're such a liar. I feel sorry for you.
Glenn Beck Asks, "Why Would You Get a Gun?"... Then Points to Obama
Hey,
I guess even though the Glenn Beck show is due to
leave the foul Faux airwaves in the "not too distant
future, can't come soon enough future," Beck still
can't resist taking a few shots at President Obama.
Or, to be more accurate implying that people who
watch his show take a few shots at Obama (and the
head of the Office of Regulatory Affairs Cass
Sunstein). Here's the video from Media Matters:
One would think after the attempted
assassination of Gabrielle Giffords, Fox would have done a
little something to rein in Mr. Beck, a TV personality known
for pondering such weighty questions as whether he could
kill Michael Moore (he concluded he could), and pretending
to give Nancy Pelosi poisoned wine.
Yet here is is again, blaming Obama again for civil
unrest, food shortages, and of threatening to take your guns away. Then he
asks his rhetorical question "Why would you get a gun" and guess who pops up
on his TV screen but the President and close adviser Cass Sunstein to whom
he immediately points with arm outstretched and answers his own question,
stating "To prepare for tough times."
Then he continues his anti-Obama screed by suggesting that
high energy prices are part of Obama's own plan to bring about those tough
times. One has to wonder if there is any line Beck and his employers at Fox
News (home to the next Beck in waiting, Eric
Bolling).
Coming mere days after the release of photos of a recovering
Gabrielle Giffords, it's a stark reminder that the conservatives who control
so many media platforms in this country are hellbent on demonizing Obama,
Democrats (just ask Janice
Hahn) and liberals before the next election. And
no, there is no line they won't cross, even the one that suggests you need
to buy a gun to "prepare for tough times" while displaying pictures of our
nation's president.
Excerpts from Media Matters December 30, 2010 10:38 am ET
In 2010, Glenn Beck repeatedly lied about facts on Fox
News show -- a barrage of lies that would force any
credible news outlet to fire him. Media Matters
listed the following most notable lies that Beck
told this year on Fox News, culminating with the biggest
lie of all.
No. 15 The Fed Hoards Its Profits
Beck Complains That "Nobody" Is Looking To
Recover The Fed's Profits. During a January interview with
Sarah Palin, Beck discussed the Federal Reserve's 2009
profits, and claimed, "Exxon had their record profit a
couple of years ago. It was $45 billion. The Fed just had
record profit, over $50 billion. No one's having hearings on
the Fed. Nobody is looking for a windfall profit tax on the
Fed. We can't even open the Fed's books." [Fox News,
Glenn Beck,1/13/10, via Nexis]
REALITY: The Fed "Returns Its Profits To The Treasury."
The Washington Post reported that the Federal Reserve "will return
about $45 billion to the U.S. Treasury for 2009 ... the highest earnings in
the 96-year history of the central bank. The Fed, unlike most government
agencies, funds itself from its own operations and returns its profits to
the Treasury." The Post added that these profits "are good news for
the federal budget and a sign that the Fed has been successful, at least so
far, in protecting taxpayers as it intervenes in the economy -- though there
remains a risk of significant losses in the future if the Fed sells some of
its investments or loses money on its stakes in bailed-out firms." [The
Washington Post,
1/12/10]
No. 14 Tax Dollars Funded An Art Exhibit Actually
Paid For By Private Donors
BECK: "And Then You Have The Tax Dollars
Funding This Wonderful Art Display. It's Christmas At The
Smithsonian." Beck said of an exhibit at the Smithsonian's
National Portrait Gallery, which is titled "Hide/Seek:
Difference and Desire in American Portraiture":
Perfect storm. Eroding values. Hard work, sacrifice,
thrift, honor, truth, God. As a nation born out of faith in God, how's
that going today, huh? Twenty-five percent of those under 30 years of
age describe their religion as atheist, agnostic, or nothing in
particular. Now, as you get older, it goes down. Thirty to 40 years old,
only 19 percent. Ages 40 to 50, 15 percent. If you're over 60, less than
10 percent say that.
And then you have the tax dollars funding this
wonderful art display. It's Christmas at the Smithsonian. Here's this
wonderful -- oh, look, it's Jesus with ants on him. They describe it as
the first major exhibition to focus on the sexual difference in the
making of modern American portraiture.
What? You got to be kidding me, right? What does this have
to do with the birth of the baby Jesus, and why is he now covered in
ants? Whose values are these? And you wonder why there's the breakdown
of the family. [Fox News, Glenn Beck,
11/30/10]
REALITY: Smithsonian "Receives Public Funds" But "Does Not
Use That Money For Exhibitions." The Washington Post reported:
The exhibition, which opened Oct. 30, was funded by
the largest number of individual donors for a Portrait Gallery show. The
show, which cost $750,000, was also underwritten by foundations that
support gay and lesbian issues.
[...]
As part of the Smithsonian, the gallery receives public
funds. Overall, the Smithsonian gets about 70 percent of its annual
budget from the federal government, but it does not use that money for
exhibitions. [The Washington Post,
11/30/10]
No. 13 Obama Did Not Make Oil Spill "Our Priority"
BECK: Obama Did Not Prioritize The Oil
Spill. Beck falsely claimed that Obama did not prioritize
ending the oil spill in the Gulf:
BECK: What are we doing now with the spill? If this
were really about the spill, we would first work on, what? Stopping
this!
Before talking about energy and taxes and cap and trade or
solar panels or saying, "Don't tell me that we can't fundamentally
transform the country into solar panels and green energy." You would
stop the oil spill. You would get a tourniquet. This should be our
priority. But it's not. [Fox News, Glenn Beck,
6/17/10]
REALITY: Obama Said "Make No Mistake: We Will Fight This
Spill With Everything We've Got For As Long As It Takes." During an address
from the Oval Office prior to Beck's claim, Obama stated: "But make no
mistake: We will fight this spill with everything we've got for as long as
it takes. We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused. And
we will do whatever's necessary to help the Gulf Coast and its people
recover from this tragedy." [Remarks By The President To The Nation On The
BP Oil Spill, WhiteHouse.gov,
6/15/10]
REALITY: Obama Had Called The Spill "My Top Priority."
During an earlier press conference, Obama said: "Those who think that we
were either slow on our response or lacked urgency don't know the facts.
This has been our highest priority since this crisis occurred." He also
said, " But here's the broad point: There has never been a point during this
crisis in which this administration, up and down up the line, in all these
agencies, hasn't, number one, understood this was my top priority -- getting
this stopped and then mitigating the damage; and number two, understanding
that if BP wasn't doing what our best options were, we were fully empowered
and instruct them, to tell them to do something different." [Remarks By The
President On The Gulf Oil Spill, WhiteHouse.gov,
5/27/10]
No. 12 U.S. Sending "Another Trillion Dollars,
Your Tax Dollars" Over To Europe
BECK: "Now We Find Out Through The Fed
That We Are Going To Do Almost Another Trillion Dollars,
Your Tax Dollars, Over To Europe." Discussing efforts by the
International Monetary Fund to stabilize European economies,
Beck said:
BECK: We also told you that the IMF would bail out
Europe. Here we were on this program, oh, I don't know how many months
ago. Watch.
BECK [video clip]: We're not only bailing ourselves
out, Fannie and Freddie, but now we're trying to bail out Europe as
well. The European Union, along with the IMF, is giving $1 trillion to
Greece -- $1 trillion. The U.S. contributes 17 percent of the IMF funds.
BECK: OK. So, we told you that, and nobody really paid
attention. Now we find out, through the Fed, that we are going to do
almost another trillion dollars, your tax dollars, over to Europe.
We also found out that we have sent $3.3 trillion in our
bailout, a lot of it went over to Europe, went over to France, went to
Germany, Spain, et cetera, et cetera. And we're sending more. [Fox News,
Glenn Beck,
12/2/10]
REALITY: The WSJ Reported, "The U.S. Isn't
Discussing A Larger International Monetary Fund Contribution To The European
Rescue Package." The Wall Street Journal reported:
The U.S. isn't discussing a larger International
Monetary Fund contribution to the European rescue package, a U.S.
official said Wednesday.
European Commission officials have been discussing
whether to increase the EUR750 billion rescue package as a way to handle
possible sovereign debt problems in Spain and other countries. A bigger
fund would likely include a larger financial contribution from the IMF,
which now is committed to spending as much as EUR250 billion on
euro-zone rescue loans.
(This story and related background material will be
available on The Wall Street Journal Web site, WSJ.com.)
U.S. Undersecretary of Treasury Lael Brainard is now in
Germany discussing the Europe's plans to contain the euro zone's
sovereign debt woes. A U.S. official said those talks don't now include
a larger IMF contribution. [The Wall Street Journal,
12/1/10]
REALITY: AP Reported That A U.S. Official "Said That An
Addition To The IMF Support Package Was Not Something That Was Being
Discussed Currently." The Associated Press reported:
A U.S. official, who would speak only on condition of
anonymity because discussions were still ongoing, said that an addition
to the IMF support package was not something that was being discussed
currently.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner did dispatch
Treasury Undersecretary Lael Brainard, Treasury's top official on
international matters, for talks with European officials. Brainard had
meetings in Madrid with economic officials on Wednesday and was
scheduled to be in Berlin on Thursday and Paris on Friday.
The U.S. "can't afford to let Europe implode," said
David Gilmore of Foreign Exchange Analytics. But the reported statement
by the U.S. official does not necessarily mean that the U.S. has already
agreed to a deal allowing the IMF to contribute more money or that it
will pony up more money for Europe itself.
Investors were relieved by the implication that the EU
and the IMF might be assembling a larger bailout fund, Gilmore said,
because of the threat of there not being enough funds for Spain, should
it need a rescue.
A spokesman for the EU's monetary affairs chief Olli Rehn
said he had not heard of talks about extending the EFSF fund.
[Associated Press,
12/1/10]
No. 11 Beck Time Travels To 1995 To Show George
Soros "Didn't Mince Words" In 2004
BECK: In 2004, Soros Called The Election
"Not A Normal Election," And Said That "In Periods Of Regime
Change, Normal Rules Do Not Apply." Accusing financier and
philanthropist George Soros of setting up a "shadow party"
to interfere in the 2004 elections, Beck cited David
Horowitz and Richard Poe's The Shadow Party and
said:
BECK: A shadow party is not a political party, it is a
-- at least not in a tangible sense. It works outside the normal
electoral system. In 2000, Soros funded one-third of the shadow
conventions. Do you even remember these? They were run by Arianna
Huffington, the president's favorite source of news. And one of the lead
organizers next to her was Jim Wallis, one of the guys who is
campaigning against this program, surprise, surprise.
The idea was to parallel the Democratic and Republican
conventions -- the shadow convention. Huffington said at the time, the
message of the shadow conventions was, quote, "Not left or right, and
the answers to these issues are not going to be found in the old ideas
of the past. Clearly, the Great Society solution of top-down programs
has failed." Top-down programs. "Instead, the answers could be found in
the raw power," quoting, "of government appropriations." Wow.
But it was the next election cycle that truly launched
the shadow party. In 2004, when Soros didn't mince words, he stated,
quote, "This is not a normal election. These are not normal times." And,
quote, "I do not accept the rules imposed by others. If I did, I would
not be alive today. And in periods of regime change, normal rules do not
apply. One needs to adjust one's behavior to the changing
circumstances."
By the 2004 election cycle, Soros' shadow party had shaped
the Democratic message. Under Soros, the guidance of the shadow-party
infrastructure had assumed the coherent shape by early 2004. They were
seven extensively independent nonprofit groups, which included
MoveOn.org that would help the Democrats. Really? [Fox News, Glenn
Beck,
11/09/10,
emphasis added]
REALITY: Soros Said "I Do Not Accept The Rules Imposed By
Others" And "In Periods Of Regime Change, Normal Rules Do Not Apply" In 1995
- Not 2004. Those comments are actually from the 1995 book
Soros on Soros: Staying Ahead of the Curve:
KRISZTINA KOENEN (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung):
You have been accused of playing by your own rules and changing the
rules when it suits you.
SOROS: I plead guilty. I do not accept the rules
imposed by others. If I did, I would not be alive today. I am a
law-abiding citizen, but I recognize that there are regimes that need to
be opposed rather than accepted. And in periods of regime change, the
normal rules don't apply. One needs to adjust one's behavior to the
changing circumstances.
Look at the tremendous changes I have gone through on
a personal level. Consider my career as a philanthropist. In the
beginning, I avoided any personal involvement. I sought to remain
anonymous and shunned publicity. Later, when the revolution gathered
momentum, I accepted the fact I was deeply involved. After 1989, I
actively sought to gain a hearing for my views. That alone was a major
change. At the same time, I continued to abstain from doing business in
Eastern Europe. Now, I have given that up to. The reversal from my
starting point, when I dissociated myself from my philanthropy, is
complete. I accept everything that I do, whether as an investor or as a
benefactor as an integral part of my existence. And I am very happy
about it because in a sense my whole life has been one long effort to
integrate various facets of my existence.
There is a remarkable parallel in the evolution of my
attitude toward philanthropy and my attitude toward making money. At
first, I didn't want to identify myself with my business career. I felt
there was more to me than making money. I kept my private life strictly
separate from my business. Then I went through a rough patch in 1962,
when I was practically wiped out, and it affected me deeply. I had some
psychosomatic symptoms, like vertigo. It made me realize that making
money is an essential part of existence. Now I am completing the process
by doing away with the artificial separation between my activities as
investor and as philanthropist.
The internal barriers have crumbled and I am all of
one piece. It gives me a great sense of fulfillment. I realize that I
cut a larger-than-life figure and I feel ambivalent about that. On one
hand, I find it gratifying, but on the other, the sheer magnitude of my
activities, both in business and in philanthropy, makes me uneasy. I
must admit that I wanted it that way and I probably could not feel all
of a piece if I weren't larger than life. It makes me somewhat abnormal
and that is the source of malaise. Still, it is better to have abnormal
accomplishments than to harbor abnormal ambitions. For the first 50
years of my life, I felt as if I had a guilty secret now it is out in
the open and I am proud of what I have accomplished. [Soros on Soros,
Pages 145-146, emphasis added]
No. 10 "Every Single American Who Invests" Earns
More Than $250,000 Per Year
BECK: President Obama Proposed To Increase The Capital Gains
Tax On "Every Single American Who Invests." Beck falsely
said that Obama "sought to raise the capital gains tax,
which affects every single American who invests, which -- I
know that sounds like the big Wall Street fat cats, but if
you have a 401(k), that would be you." [Fox News, Glenn
Beck,
4/7/10]
REALITY: Obama Proposed Capital Gains Increase Only On
"Upper-Income" Earners. The White House budget for fiscal year 2011 called
for reinstating the 20 percent capital gains tax rate only on families with
income greater than $250,000 and on individuals with income greater than
$200,000. [Budget of the United States Government,
Fiscal Year 2011]
No. 9 Rauf Is Not A "Peaceful Muslim" Because
Someone Else Said Something Nine Years Ago
BECK: "Would A Moderate Imam, A Peaceful
Imam Employ Another Imam Who" Said 9-11 Attacks Were "The
Jews' Fault"? Discussing Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who is a
member of the board of trustees at the Islamic Center of New
York and who is spearheading efforts to build an Islamic
community center in Manhattan, Beck claimed:
Now, let me ask you this: would a moderate imam, a
peaceful Muslim employ another imam who told an Arabic language Web site
that, quote, "Only the Jews could have perpetrated the 9/11 attack."
That kind of sounds like Jeremiah Wright, doesn't it?
And if Americans only knew that it was the Jews'
fault, they, quote, "would have done to Jews what Hitler did," end
quote. And that Jews, quote, "disseminate corruption in the land and
spread heresy, homosexuality, alcoholism and drugs." Oh, that's the kind
of moderate imam I've been looking for right there at ground zero. How
about you? [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 8/10/10, via Nexis]
REALITY: Comments Attributed To Muhammad Gemeaha. In
October 2001, the Middle East Media Research Institute posted a translation
of an October 4, 2001, interview that Muhammad Gemeaha gave to the website
lailatalgadr.com:
Q: "Does this mean that the
Jewish element played a role in igniting the flame of fitna (internal
strife)?"
Gamei'a: "The Jewish element is as Allah described it
when he said: 'They disseminate corruption in the land.' We know that
they have always broken agreements, unjustly murdered the prophets, and
betrayed the faith. Can they be expected to live up to their contracts
with us? These people murdered the prophets; do you think they will stop
spilling our blood? No." "You see these people (i.e. the Jews) all the
time, everywhere, disseminating corruption, heresy, homosexuality,
alcoholism, and drugs. [Because of them] there are strip clubs,
homosexuals, and lesbians everywhere. They do this to impose their
hegemony and colonialism on the world." "Now, they are riding on the
back of the world powers. These people always seek out the superpower of
the generation and develop coexistence with it. Before this, they rode
on the back of England and on the back of the French empire. After that,
they rode on the back of Germany. But Hitler annihilated them because
they betrayed him and violated their contract with him." "We saw these
Zionists, just one hour after the event, broadcasting on the BBC, the
biggest media channel, that the Arabs, and particularly the
Palestinians, were celebrating and rejoicing over the American deaths.
[To do this] they broadcast a video from 1991, [filmed] during the Iraqi
invasion of Kuwait. But Allah thwarted them when a professor from a
Brazilian university stated that the video was a forgery, because she
had a copy of it. These people have a script prepared in advance, and
they have the ability to fabricate events in their favor."
[...]
Q: "What about the American
president's declarations that the war that the U.S. is waging is a
crusade?"
Gamei'a: "Herein lies the danger. As President Bush said,
this is a crusade against Islam and against Muslims, but the American
people are innocent in this matter, because the war was planned
falsely." "This war will destroy everything. This is [the kind of] war
that the American president tried to avoid, when he [tried] to take back
what he said. He went to the Islamic center in Washington and took back
his words, but he did this only after he incited the souls and revealed
what happened behind the scenes of American policy." "For this reason, I
advise every Arab and every Muslim leader not to offer any aid
whatsoever to the oppressing superpower [to help it] attack Muslims,
because this is a betrayal of Allah and his Prophet..." "On the news in
the U.S. it was said that four thousand Jews did not come to work at the
World Trade Center on the day of the incident, and that the police
arrested a group of Jews rejoicing in the streets at the time of the
incident... This news item was hushed up immediately after it was
broadcast... The Jews who control the media acted to hush it up so that
the American people would not know. If it became known to the American
people, they would have done to the Jews what Hitler did! ..." [The
Middle East Media Research Institute,
10/10/01]
REALITY: NY Times: Gemeaha Departed Islamic
Cultural Center Of New York City Before Making Those Comments. The New
York Times reported:
Three days after the terrorist attack on the United
States, Sheik Muhammad Gemeaha, leader of a prominent mosque on East
96th Street in Manhattan, delivered a sermon in English to an interfaith
audience calling for peace, healing and love among people of all
religions.
Two weeks later, he suddenly moved his family back to
Cairo, telling an Arabic-language newspaper that he left because his
family had been threatened at their home on the Upper West Side. He sent
a letter of resignation to the mosque.
His departure from the Upper East Side mosque, the Islamic
Cultural Center of New York City, which regularly draws 4,000 Muslims
for Friday prayers, comes amid questions about an interview he
reportedly gave to an Arabic Web site on Oct. 4 saying that Muslims in
America were being persecuted, that their children were being poisoned
by Jewish doctors in American hospitals, and that ''Zionists'' in
command of the nation's air traffic control towers aided the suicide
hijackings. [The New York Times,
10/23/01]
REALITY: Conservative Author David Horowitz: Gemeaha Left
ICC Before Comments. David Horowitz wrote:
Rauf is a
permanent trustee
of an Islamic Cultural Center (ICC) which his father founded in New York
City. Until September 28, 2001 -- seventeen days after 9/11 -- the ICC
employed Imam
Sheik Muhammad Gemeaha, who later
would say that
"only the Jews" could have perpetrated the
9/11 attacks;
that if Americans only knew about this Jewish culpability, "they would
have done to Jews what Hitler did"; and that Jews "disseminate
corruption in the land" and spread "heresy, homosexuality, alcoholism,
and drugs." [DiscoverTheNetworks.org]
REALITY: NY Times: Head of Islamic Center's board
was "outraged" by comments. The New York Times also reported that
Mohammad Adbullah Abulhasan, "who heads the mosque's board," criticized the
comments, saying they did "not represent at all the policy and the beliefs
of the Islamic Cultural Center." A November 2, 2001, New York Times
article further reported that Abulhasan was "outraged" by the comments,
which he said "did not reflect the position of the mosque":
Ambassador Abulhasan said that he was outraged by the
remarks and stressed that they did not reflect the position of the
mosque. He said he had expressed his displeasure to Imam Gemeaha in a
call to Cairo.
He said he told Sheik Gemeaha that the essence of what he
said was wrong, was against Islam and was "against what you taught us."
[The New York Times,
11/2/01]
No. 8 Soros Manipulated Congress To Introduce
Energy Legislation Eight Years After Congress First Introduced It
BECK: Soros Manipulated Lawmakers To
Pursue Cap And Trade. Discussing an interview with Soros
that was published on November 24, 2008, Beck said:
BECK: Soros also heavily promotes green jobs and cap
and trade. Also, days after Obama was elected, he called for a new
energy bill. "I think this is a great opportunity to financially deal
with global warming and energy independence. The U.S. needs a
cap-and-trade system with the auctioning of licenses for emissions
rights. I would use the revenues from these auctions to launch a new,
environmentally friendly energy policy that would be yet another federal
program that could help us overcome the current stagnation."
Well, Congress introduced, but you stood up, and you said,
"Uh, I don't think so." Hm-mmm. The audience started to resolve. Cap and
trade failed. [Fox News, Glenn Beck,
11/9/10]
REALITY: Cap And Trade Has Been Debated In Congress For More
Than 10 Years. Contrary to Beck's claim that Soros manipulated Obama to
introduce cap and trade legislation "days after" he was elected, Congress
has been debating similar proposals for more than a decade. [The
Washington Post,
8/19/01]
REALITY: Obama Supported A Cap And Trade Bill
During The 2008 Election. In fact, then-Sen. Barack Obama supported
legislation that would have created a cap-and-trade system while campaigning
in 2008. [The Washington Post,
6/1/08]
No. 7 "Zero Warming For Over A Decade"
BECK: There Has Been "Zero Warming For Over A Decade." Beck
claimed, "Cap-and-trade is the biggest socialist scam,
totally discredited climate change industry and zero warming
for over a decade. Zero warming for over a decade." [Fox
News, Glenn Beck,
4/23/10]
REALITY: NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies
(GISS), The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) of the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), The U.K. Met Office, And The World
Meteorological Organisation Have All Stated That 2000-2009 Was The Warmest
Decade On Record For The Globe.
NASA Goddard Institute For Space Studies: 2000-2009 Was "The
Warmest Decade On Record." ["2009: Second Warmest Year on Record; End of
Warmest Decade," National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard
Institute for Space Studies,
1/21/10]
NOAA: "The 2000-2009 decade is the warmest on record."
["State of the Climate Global Analysis," National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration,
October 2010]
Met Office: 2000-2009 "has been, by far, the warmest decade
on the instrumental record." ["'Noughties' confirmed as the warmest
decade on record," Met Office,
12/7/09]
WMO: "2000-2009, The Warmest Decade." ["2000-2009, THE
WARMEST DECADE, World Meteorological Organization,
12/8/09]
No. 6 Obama's Trip To India Would Cost "Up To $2
Billion"
BECK: Obama's Trip To India Will Cost "$2 Billion." Beck
falsely claimed that Obama's November trip to India "could
cost up to $2 billion to make sure he's safe." [Fox News,
Glenn Beck,
11/4/10]
REALITY: White House Spokesman Matt Lehrich Called That
Figure "Wildly Inflated." In a statement Media Matters for America
obtained and made public the day before Beck's broadcast, White House
spokesman Matt Lehrich said that the figure -- which had been reported by
the Press Trust of India -- had "no basis in reality." Lehrich also said,
"Due to security concerns, we are unable to outline details associated with
security procedures and costs, but it's safe to say these numbers are wildly
inflated." [Media Matters,
11/3/10]
No. 5 Obama's "Fishing Ban"
BECK: Obama Wants To Ban Fishing. Beck said that a "report
claims that Obama will no longer listen to the public as he
tries to prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing on some of the
nation's oceans, coastal areas, and great lakes, even some
inland waters. No more fishing." Beck also said, "How about
a fishing ban? A fishing ban that would put jobs at risk in
the middle of an economic crisis, but beyond that, you and
your son being told you can't go there to fish! What the
hell is happening to us?" [Fox News, Glenn Beck,
3/10/10]
REALITY: "Fishing Ban" Falsehood Debunked As "Absurd"
Before Beck Promoted It. The day before Beck promoted the "fishing ban"
claim, Charlotte Fishing Examiner.com columnist Jeffrey Weeks wrote:
In what may be the worst example of outdoor sports
reporting in the history of America, ESPN has claimed that President
Barack Obama is on the verge of banning recreational fishing.
ESPNOutdoors.com
writer Robert Montgomery posted an article
today claiming that the administration's decision to end the
public comment phase of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task
Force means that Obama is likely preparing to issue an
executive order outlawing recreational fishing in America.
As a sportsman who covers fisheries management and
politics I do think there are many issues surrounding the Interagency
Ocean Policy Task Force and its eventual recommendations that all
fishermen should be aware of and concerned about.
But to go from concern to suggesting that President Obama is
about to ban fishing in America is the most absurd and irresponsible
thing I have ever seen a major news outlet publish. There is not even a
remote possibility that a standing president of the United States will
outlaw fishing in America. [Charlotte Fishing Examiner, Examiner.com
3/9/10]
No. 4 The Brazilian Oil Conspiracy Theory
BECK: The Obama Administration Loaned
Money To Brazil In A Plot To Enrich George Soros. Beck
falsely claimed that the Obama administration was lending $2
billion to Brazil to benefit foreign oil interests at the
expense of the U.S. economy in order to enrich George Soros:
BECK: I'm not sure if [Soros] knew that the
administration would be making a $2 billion preliminary commitment for
Petrobras, for Petrobras, for exploration, just days after he
strengthened his investment. Isn't that weird? You see, he's got some
connections here, but I'm sure he had no idea what was coming on the
other side of the circle? No. It's probably just another one of those
bad luck situations for Obama, because this doesn't seem to pass the
smell test at all. No. Billionaire investor dumps money into a
state-controlled Brazilian oil company; days later the American
administration dumps $2 billion into the exact same company. What are
the odds, Gilligan?
Let's go here. George Soros starts the Center for
American Process with John Podesta. John Podesta, Center for American
Progress, selects the Obama transition team. Soros buys $900 million in
gasoline powered bras. Then, in a completely unrelated story, BP has
their oil spill. But wait a minute, who's this guy? John Podesta. John
Podesta is the guy who does all the lobbying for BP? Certainly -- I'm
sorry, Tony Podesta -- certainly no relation to John Podesta, other than
they're brothers. We'll have to come back to that one later in the show.
So then Center for American Progress starts to make Obama policy. This
one, we'll show you, laid out by Bloomberg and The Wall Street
Journal. One of the policies: cap and trade, which goes right to
Crime Inc. and all of the Obama friends with the Climate Exchange in
Chicago. That's weird.
Then Obama suspends the deepwater drilling at 1,500 meters.
He says "Hey, hey, that's dangerous! Fifteen hundred meters, that's
crazy." Petrobras is drilling at 2,777 meters. Obama knows it and loans
$2 billion to Petrobras. Last stop, Petrobras shareholders get rich. Oh
my gosh, we're back at the beginning: shareholder, Petrobras. Getting
rich. You getting screwed. You see how this works? [Fox News, Glenn
Beck,
6/21/10]
REALITY: Bush Appointees At Export-Import Bank -- Not Obama
-- Unanimously Approved Loan To Brazil. FactCheck.org called the claim
"bogus," noting that the Export-Import Bank of the United States approved a
"preliminary commitment" to Brazil to finance "their purchases of U.S.
equipment, products and services." At the time, "the Bank's Board consisted
of three Republicans and two Democrats, all of whom were appointed by George
W. Bush." [FactCheck.org,
9/18/09]
REALITY: Loan Is "For The Purchase Of American Goods And
Services." Politico's Ben Smith reported:
A spokesman for the bank, Phil Cogan, noted to
POLITICO that the bank does not rely on tax money and that Palin's
statement ignores the bank's central function: To lend money to foreign
companies for the purchase of American goods
and services.
"It has to be produced by U.S. workers," Cogan said.
Palin's statement refers to "creating] jobs and health benefits in the
U.S."
"That's exactly what a purchase financed by the U.S.
government would do," Cogan said.
In this case, Cogan said, the proposed loan would likely
finance engineering services, sales of ships to service oil platforms,
or drilling equipment. [Politico.com,
8/19/09]
No. 3 Ohio City "Hasn't Taken Any Money From The
Government"
BECK: Wilmington "Hasn't Taken Any Money From The
Government." Promoting his Fox News special in Wilmington,
Ohio -- a city hit by significant job losses in recent years
-- Beck falsely claimed, "this town hasn't taken any money
from the government." [Premiere Radio Networks, The
Glenn Beck Program,
11/22/10]
REALITY: Wilmington Had Received Millions In Stimulus Funds
As of November 22, recipient reports posted at Recovery.gov showed that the
city of Wilmington received at least $2.6 million in stimulus funds.
[Recovery.gov, accessed
11/22/10]
REALITY: Surrounding County Received Millions In Stimulus
Funds. As of November 22, 2010, recipient reports posted at Recovery.gov
showed that Clinton County Ohio had received at least $4 million from the
stimulus. [Recovery.gov, accessed
11/22/10]
REALITY: Wilmington Officials Asked For $63 Million In
Stimulus Funds. Wilmington city officials confirmed to Media Matters
that the city requested more than $63 million under the stimulus. State
officials said that use of Medicaid, food stamps, cash assistance, and
unemployment insurance have increased in recent years. [Media Matters,
12/15/10]
No. 2 Soros Was Responsible For "Taking Property
From The Jews As A Teenager"
BECK: "Soros Was Asked If He Felt Guilt At
All About Taking The Property From The Jews As A Teenager.
He Responded, No." From Glenn Beck:
BECK: There's a lot of meat here that I need you to do
your own homework on and learn the truth yourself. But we want to find
out a little bit more about him and who he is and where did he come
from.
His childhood is shocking, traumatic. He grew up in
Nazi Europe. Fourteen years old, he had to help the government
confiscate the lands of his fellow Jewish friends and neighbors. He
didn't grow up in a Jewish household. His mother was a strong
anti-Semite -- George Soros' words, not mine.
But when he had to go over and take the lands from the
people, his Jewish friends and neighbors who were being sent to the gas
chambers, I can't imagine what that would do to a teenager, or anybody,
an adult. Well, what did it do to George Soros? In an interview with
Steve Kroft, Soros was asked if he felt guilt at all about taking the
property from the Jews as a teenager. He responded, no. [Fox News,
Glenn Beck,
11/9/10]
REALITY: Soros Said He "Had No Role In Taking Away That
Property." In an interview with Kroft, Soros explained that he felt no guilt
because he "had no role in taking away that property":
KROFT: My understanding is that you went out with this
protector of yours who swore that you were his adopted godson.
Mr. SOROS: Yes. Yes.
KROFT: Went out, in fact, and helped in the
confiscation of property from the Jews.
Mr. SOROS: Yes. That's right. Yes.
KROFT: I mean, that's--that sounds like an experience
that would send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many, many
years. Was it difficult?
Mr. SOROS: Not -- not at all. Not at all. Maybe as a
child you don't -- you don't see the connection. But it was--it created
no--no problem at all.
KROFT: No feeling of guilt?
Mr. SOROS: No.
KROFT: For example that, 'I'm Jewish and here I am,
watching these people go. I could just as easily be there. I should be
there.' None of that?
Mr. SOROS: Well, of course I c -- I could be on the
other side or I could be the one from whom the thing is being taken
away. But there was no sense that I shouldn't be there, because that was
-- well, actually, in a funny way, it's just like in markets -- that if
I weren't there -- of course, I wasn't doing it, but somebody else would
-- would -- would be taking it away anyhow. And it was the--whether I
was there or not, I was only a spectator, the property was being taken
away. So the -- I had no role in taking away that property. So I had no
sense of guilt. [CBS, 60 Minutes,12/20/98, via Nexis]
REALITY: Biographer Reported Soros "Collaborated With No
One." In Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire -- a
book cited by Beck during the program -- Michael T. Kaufman detailed Soros'
reaction during the interview, as well as Soros' actions in Nazi-occupied
Hungary:
While he was living with Baumbach as Sandor Kiss, an
event occurred that more than a half a century later would become the
basis of charges that George Soros, the international financier and
billionaire, had somehow collaborated with the Nazi occupiers of his
homeland and had exploited his fellow Jews. The issue was raised in a
bizarre television profile and interview of Soros aired on the CBS
television program 60 Minutes in December of 1998. In the
segment, Steve Kroft, the interviewer, noted with prosecutorial gusto
that George's father had "bribed a government official to swear that you
were his godson," and added that this survival strategy "carried a heavy
price tag." For, he continued, "as hundreds of thousands of Jews were
being shipped off to the Nazi death camps, a thirteen-year-old George
Soros accompanied his phony godfather on his rounds, confiscating
property from the Jews." Visibly dumbfounded by the line of questioning,
Soros could only manage to say that he had no role in the seizure of
property and was merely a spectator. To underscore Kroft's point, film
footage showed masses of Hungarian Jews being led away at gunpoint.
This is what actually happened. Shortly after George
went to live with Baumbach, the man was assigned to take inventory on
the vast estate of Mor Kornfeld, an extremely wealthy aristocrat of
Jewish origin. The Kornfeld family had the wealth, wisdom, and
connections to be able to leave some of its belongings behind in
exchange for permission to make their way to Lisbon. Baumbach was
ordered to go to the Kornfeld estate and inventory the artworks,
furnishings, and other property. Rather than leave his "godson" behind
in Budapest for three days, he took the boy with him. As Baumbach
itemized the material, George walked around the grounds and spent time
with Kornfeld's staff. It was his first visit to such a mansion, and the
first time he rode a horse. He collaborated with no one and he paid
attention to what he understood to be his primary responsibility: making
sure that no one doubted that he was Sandor Kiss. Among his practical
concerns was to make sure that no one saw him pee. [Soros: The Life
and Times of a Messianic Billionaire, Page 37]
No. 1 Fox Will Fire Beck If He Tells Lies
BECK: "Do You Really Believe That I Could
... Just Make Things Up And Remain On The Air?" Beck said:
What is it that we make up? I would ask you to just take a
moment here -- do you really believe that I could -- or anybody here at
Fox News could -- just make things up and remain on the air? No. [Fox
News, Glenn Beck,
11/29/10]
BECK: "If I Get Out Of Control And Start Leveling Baseless
Charges ... Guess What Happens? I'm Fired." Beck claimed, "If I get out of
control and start leveling baseless charges that can't be backed up, guess
what happens? I'm fired. I lose my job. If Congress does the same thing, you
lose your freedom." [Fox News, Glenn Beck,
6/14/10]
BECK: "If I Were Making Up Lies ... Rupert Murdoch Would
Fire Me." Attacking Soros on his show, Beck said: "If I were making up lies
about you, I couldn't stay on the air. First of all, you wouldn't have to
pressure. Rupert Murdoch wouldn't put me on the air. He would fire me."
[Premiere Radio Networks, The Glenn Beck Program,
11/10/10]
BECK: "If I Was Inaccurate, [Fox] Would Have Fired Me Long
Ago." Responding to groups putting pressure on Fox News because of Beck's
rhetoric, Beck said:
I have nothing bad to say about Fox. They have left me
alone. They have let me do -- they hold me responsible for what I say.
They make sure that it's right and it's accurate. They do that. They -
If I was inaccurate, they would have fired me long ago. Long ago.
[Premiere Radio Networks, The Glenn Beck Program,
10/28/10]
REALITY: Despite A Litany Of False Claims, Fox News Has
Not Fired Beck.
Beginning with this excerpt, I am going to
expose Glenn Beck as a fraud. A dangerous faker who
deliberately manipulates his audience by appealing to their
basest instincts. As a man who only embraces conservatism
and the tea party movement as a means to furthering his
significant personal wealth and career as a successful TV
goon.
Glenn Beck is engaged in a carefully orchestrated performance
that, if taken to its logical end, can only end up in tragedy -- a tragedy, not
in the name of some great political or social or religious cause, as too many of
his viewers might believe, but rather in the name of pure careerism and greed. A
tragedy in the name of Glenn Beck's personal drive for fame and fortune, not to
mention the similar motivations of Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch.
Right. I get it. I should probably ignore him. Why should I
waste time writing about Glenn Beck? As hard as it is to believe, most days I
intentionally ignore Glenn Beck posts and videos on the blogs. My reoccurring
reaction is generally twofold. One: he's exhausting to watch because just as I'm
wrapping my head around one line of googly-eyed horseshit, he belts out another
ridiculous, melodramatic or dangerous line, and before I know it, I'm faced with
a log-jam of crazy, forcing me to scramble for either an oxygen mask or a stiff
drink. And, two: why pay attention to the television equivalent of an escaped
mental patient screaming gibberish on the median strip at a busy intersection?
But to underestimate Glenn Beck as just some sort of random
extra from Cuckoo's Nest, as I admittedly have done, is a mistake as it barely
scratches the surface of what his scam is all about. A schizoid raving street
loon tends to command attention purely for the freak show curiosity of passers
by, yet the nonsense is rarely taken seriously.
This isn't the case with Glenn Beck. Several million people
every day take his word for it. They're suckered into buying the ruse. And it's
bad for America.
What his regular viewers haven't grasped yet is that he's
putting on a show. He's playing a role. He's tricking his audience. Unlike a
left-leaning audience, Beck's audience is mostly composed of white conservative
Christians who pride themselves on taking certain things on faith, and who often
act against their own financial interests for the sake of patriotic
cheerleading. It's an audience that embraces gun ownership and tends to be more
reactionary and militaristic. (Incidentally, there's no equivalent to this on
the "other side" simply because it's not in the nature of liberals to be, you
know, conservative.)
But it's hard to blame Beck's audience for being fished in.
There's no wink and nod, so he's clearly not attempting some sort of obviously
satirical character like Stephen Colbert or even a more bizarre character like
Andy Kaufman's Tony Clifton. He performs this role as seamlessly as any decent
character actor, but he never tips his hand (we're generally told when an actor
is acting). Just an occasional mention of himself as a "rodeo clown." There's no
crawl at the end listing "Glenn Beck as 'Glenn Beck.'" It's not a fiction
program.
Glenn Beck is playing a character with a personality and a
style that is laser focused at the souls of an intended audience. It doesn't
take many minutes of viewing his television show to see that he's mashing up the
most effective and successful aspects of Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones and '60s
Bircher author Cleon Skousen, and filtering it all through the performance
techniques of a televangelist. Listen to any random monologue by Glenn Beck and
then watch some clips of televangelist Jack Van Impe. Both are master
manipulators and (crazy aside) riveting speakers. They each nail their audiences
with rapid-fire barrages of nonsense presented as dramatic fact -- so twisted
and obscured that it begins to seem real and anything that might not seem
entirely plausible, just have faith. After all, there are complicated drawings
on a blackboard! Oh, and he cries. So he must be serious. (We learned last year
that
This is all stuff that's been proven to resonate with (and
utterly manipulate) certain American audiences who also willingly hand over
their cash to obvious flimflam artists claiming to provide salvation. Glenn Beck
is just pooling these techniques and applying them to American politics.
Instead of asking for donations, by the way, Beck just markets
all varieties of crap-on-a-stick to his people. Beck has released seven books
since 2007. Seven books in three years! Add to the mix three DVD releases and 26
compact disc releases. There's his subscription-only "Insider Extreme" website
which charges $75 per year. There's a print magazine called "Fusion" (20 issues
for $66). There are the obligatory t-shirts, mugs and other forms of cheap swag.
All of this is heaped on top of a multimillion dollar Fox News contract and a
syndicated radio deal worth $50 million over five years. Capitalism is one
thing, but Beck is manipulating his audience to hand over their cash in exchange
for swag that can't possibly be worth the price, considering the volume of his
output (seven books in three years!). As the saying goes:
how hard he prays depends on how much you pay.
One of the reasons why the network news media was generally,
in decades past, kept separate from the ratings and profit-motive of
entertainment divisions was that to cross these streams, so to speak, would lead
to the corruption of the news, forcing it to be driven by what sells, not
necessarily by what's true.
(FOX News?) And, it goes without saying that such a
corruption of the news is inherently damaging to democracy.
To that point, Glenn Beck likes to say that he's the new
Howard Beale, the tragic and suicidal anchor from the movie Network.
He's not. In fact, Paddy Chayefsky's screenplay was a prescient warning about
the rise of charlatans like Glenn Beck infiltrating the news media -- regardless
of whether or not they're presented as "opinion journalists." Actually, Beck
goes far beyond the scope of opinion journalism as well, and has settled in a
danger zone where he incites easily-manipulated, often militaristic audiences
based on theories and claims that don't hold up to even the most cursory
fact-checking, say nothing of empirical reality.
In terms of his impact, Beck isn't Howard Beale at all. He's
closer to Lee Atwater.
In the riveting,
must-see documentary,
Boogie Man,
about the rise and fall of the infamous Republican political operative, it's
revealed that Atwater once considered politics to be nothing more than a game.
Professional wrestling. Atwater, we learn, would have been perfectly happy doing
what he did for either political party. Republican or Democrat. It didn't matter
to him. After all, it was just a game. A show. And he was really good at
producing a hell of a show -- no matter how many lives he left in his wake.
Yet at the end of his life, Atwater realized that treating
politics like a wrestling match was a mistake. In politics, unlike wrestling,
the societal damage is real. The lives are real.
Bloated and crippled from his cancer treatment, Atwater
regretted using the Southern Strategy -- exploiting race as a wedge. He
regretted making so many enemies, one of which being Ed Rollins who he had
double-crossed during the waning years of the Reagan administration. He
regretted the creation of his own reality at the expense of empirical reality.
While he was very successful in treating national affairs like
a cornball burlesque show and throwing all professional ethics aside in the name
of winning, the lesson of Lee Atwater is that such behavior is ultimately
destructive.
The Glenn Beck Show might seem like the political equivalent
of professional wrestling, but it's not even that sincere. At least with
wrestling, we're all most aware that wrestling follows a script even though some
of the moves require a high caliber of strength and athleticism (and
occasionally resulting in real injuries to the performers). The difference
between Beck and wrestling is that with Beck the fakery isn't common knowledge
and the consequences of what he talks about on his show are very real.
This week,
Beck attacked the president's deceased mother
and grandparents as being Marxists. Which other
innocent bystanders will turn up on your commie hit list, Glenn? Who will you
attack next with McCarthy-style abandon in the name of bilking your audience,
Glenn? And do you honestly expect that your audience will remain passive
observers of all of this?
And so I intend to expose Beck as the dangerous grifter he
really is. He's committing a nationally televised fraud and, given the sorts of
people who are the most susceptible to his trickery, it's only a matter of time
before Beck's deception takes a tragic turn.
This past week, Glenn Beck
publicly revealed that his staff is moving beyond simply twisting the news
for ideological ends to now
funding opposition research
and internet attack campaigns with the stated purpose
of destroying the personal credibility of pastors who dare to question
statements made by FOX commentators.
This is what the Nazis did in 1938.
By now, many people are probably familiar with Glenn
Beck's statement from a couple of weeks ago that any church that talks about
"social or economic justice" is not of Christ but is instead spreading Nazi
or communist propaganda, and that Beck's listeners should leave those
churches. (Funny, Beck's own Mormon faith uses those terms throughout its
website.)
There was an immediate response
from pastors around the country citing the overwhelming call for economic
and social justice in Scripture ... and Rev. Peg Chemberlin, president of
the National Council of Churches,
provided a wonderful summary of the Scriptural case on
the Huffington Post.
But the pastor who quickly rose to the lead of the Catholic, mainline, and
evangelical rebuke of Glenn Beck was Rev. Jim Wallis, President of
Sojourners.
And so with no scriptural or theological arguments to fall
back upon, Glenn Beck apparently decided that his only option is to try to
destroy Rev. Wallis personally. Personal attacks aren't uncommon from
partisan commentators, but what is especially troubling about this most
recent development is that Glenn Beck isn't just planning to throw insults;
he said that he has been using his FOX staff to research everything that
Rev. Wallis has ever said or done and to dig up dirt on the people who work
with the pastor.
I know Rev. Wallis both professionally and as a friend.
I've watched him coach my son in Little League baseball and prayed with him
for the strength and success of our great nation. Beck's attacks are
contextually fictitious to the point of being imaginary. It's quite sad,
actually. He's about to overcook my grits. But Rev. Wallis continues to take
the high road, speaking out for the power and calling of social justice,
refraining from personal attacks, and reminding us that Dr. King stood down
injustice and promoted social justice by confronting, not attacking.
But that is all for another time. Why is FOX funding
research to discredit an American minister?
Clearly Beck knows that he doesn't stand a chance of
winning this debate about the proper application of Christian principles to
the public square on Scriptural or theological grounds. And he clearly has
no intention of following St. Paul's command, found in Ephesians, that
Christians "not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were sealed
for the day of redemption. All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and
reviling must be removed from you, along with all malice." No, sir. Beck is
on a mission to discredit and destroy the pastor who dared to question him
... and he's using FOX staff and resources to do so.
Does FOX agree with Beck's statements and command that
Catholics, Protestants, and Mormons leave their churches? Will FOX allow
Beck to continue to use staff and FOX airtime to conduct his promised
week-long campaign to discredit Rev. Wallis? Will they continue to let him
use their resources to launch Twitter and blog posts attacking Rev. Wallis
and attempting to discredit the power of social justice?
Excerpts from an article posted:
March 13, 2010 in huffingtonpost.com by Dr. David P. Gushee, Professor of
Christian Ethics
Speaking as a Christian ethicist, I can say with certainty
that in flippantly attacking the concept of social justice, Glenn Beck
inadvertently poked a finger in the eye of every person who takes the Bible
as God's revealed Word and (according to Scripture) poured contempt on a
central concern of God Himself:
"For I the Lord love justice." (Isaiah 61:8)
"You must not distort justice; you must not show
partiality; and you must not accept bribes, for a bribe blinds the eyes
of the wise and subverts the cause of those who are in the right.
Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue." (Deuteronomy 16:19-20)
"What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and
to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8)
"Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness
like an ever-flowing stream." (Amos 5:24)
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after
righteousness [Greek dikaiosune, also translated as justice],
for they will be filled." (Matthew 5:6)
"And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who
cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell
you, he will quickly grant justice to them." (Luke 18:7-8)
"Woe to you ... for you have neglected the weightier
matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith." (Matthew 23:23)
This is a target-rich environment. I could have picked
hundreds of other verses. By our count in
Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context
(Intervarsity Press, 2003), fellow ethicist Glen Stassen and I find in the
Bible 1,060 uses of the two Hebrew and two Greek words for justice. In
contrast, the main words for sexual sin appear 90 times. There really is no
theme more central to biblical faith than the matter of justice. This is
very widely recognized to be true for what Christians call the Old
Testament, but in our book we show that it is just as true for the New
Testament. We offer an entire chapter detailing the forty occasions in which
Jesus confronted the powers and authorities of his time over their
injustice. We show that justice is one of the core themes of the kingdom of
God that Jesus preached about and died to bring into existence.
In that chapter, we break down Jesus' confrontation with
injustice into four primary categories:
1. Jesus confronted the injustice of greed and gross
economic exploitation and unfairness. He demanded/invited justice for the
poor and hungry.
On this theme, a key passage is the parable of Lazarus and
the rich man dining in luxury inside his gated home (Luke 16:19-31). The
rich man is scored for his indifference to his poor neighbor and his ability
to live in complacent opulence while a man slowly dies outside his door.
2. Jesus confronted the injustice of domination and
bullying and demanded/invited his followers to exercise power in the form of
mutual servanthood.
Here a memorable passage is the one in which Jesus
contrasts the power-over-lordliness of the pagans with the true greatness of
servant-leadership (Mt. 20:25-26). He embodied that servant-leadership
throughout his ministry.
3. Jesus confronted the injustice of violent killing
and demanded/invited peacemaking.
His earliest followers often remembered how Jesus grieved
outside Jerusalem over the coming destruction of the city in a rebellion
against Rome that would be ruthlessly crushed by the Roman legions, at the
cost of 1.2 million Jewish lives (Mt. 23:37-39). No early Christian
participated in that revolt.
4. Jesus confronted the injustice of exclusion from
community and demanded/invited into existence a new kind of community in
which everyone has a place at the table.
Jesus was constantly criticized for the way he and the God
he served were about welcoming the despised, the rejected, the sick, the
marginalized, and even sinners, offering mercy rather than judgment (Luke
5:27-32).
To summarize: for Jesus, as for the Jewish prophets in
whose line he came, social injustice consists of misuses of power
to create distortions of human community in which greed, domination,
violence, and exclusion come to dominate human life. Social justice
consists of human acts to resist social injustice by repairing such
distortions of human community. We work today for social justice when we
seek to create religious and political communities characterized by more
economic justice, less domination, less violence, and more inclusive
community. When we do so, we can have every assurance that we are attempting
to put into practice God's will and indeed God's passion for a world that he
made for precisely such justice.
I have never before written about Glenn Beck, and this is
not really a post about him. I think of Mr. Beck as a hugely skilled
political entertainer whose meteoric rise reflects his own considerable
skills and the equally considerable political polarization of a nation that
I love.
He has made his rise on skillfully inflammatory rhetoric
that has hooked the emotions of millions. But this time he hooked the Bible
and the God of the Bible. He managed to do something few have been able to
do -- speaking only of my own religious community, he has united Catholics
and Protestants, evangelicals and mainliners, Christian progressives and
moderates and conservatives. He has offended all Christians who know that
our God is a God of justice, and that advancing justice is central to our
mission as a people and to the kingdom of God for which we work and wait.
Glenn Beck
(born February 10, 1964) is a right-wing American talk show host, a Wingnut,
and a Traitor to Justice and the American way. His nationally syndicated
three-hour radio show, The Glenn Beck Program, is heard daily on 260
stations and the satellite radio service XM. He also has a nightly hour on
Fox News channel, making him yet another arrow in the crowded quiver of Fox
traitors that include Hannity and O'Reilly. If you were so inclined, you
could spend over 16 percent of each weekday in the company of Glenn Beck.
Beck is credited as the author of two books, The Real
America: Messages From the Heart and the Heartland and An Inconvenient
Book, which spent a week atop the New York Times bestseller list. He
is also the editor of Fusion, which fancies itself a conservative comedy
magazine. This, like “jumbo shrimp,” is an oxymoron.
Beck also tours twice a year with a one-man stage show
that combines alleged comedy with so-called inspirational speaking. His last
tour was called “An Inconvenient Tour.” Either Beck really loves the word
“inconvenient” or he thinks he’s making fun of Al Gore by using it.
Personal Life
Beck talks about his life all the time, so even the most
casual listener or viewer knows that he grew up in the Seattle area with a
serious case of attention deficit disorder, and his mother drowned herself when
he was 13, one of his brothers committed suicide, another brother died of a
heart attack, and he was a major pothead and an alcoholic who downed a gallon of
Jack Daniel’s a week, all of which cost him his first marriage.
After his divorce, Beck met his second wife, Tania. As a
condition for marrying him, Tania said that she and Beck would have to
jointly find a religion that suited both of them. They picked Mormonism, an
odd choice considering that it’s the kind of religion where you feel sorry
for those poor kids who are born into it and can’t imagine anyone joining it
voluntarily
Radio and TV
Beck did the traditional radio bounce-around, doing deejay
duty in Washington, Corpus Christi, Baltimore, Houston, Phoenix and Hartford.
His career was undistinguished until he subbed for a talk show host and
“suddenly realized I’ve been in the wrong format.” In January 2000, he landed on
WFLA-AM in Tampa, where The Glenn Beck Program combined right-wing talk
with a form of humor, one example of which is: “Hezbollaerobics...because no one
fears a tubby terrorist!”
Okay, you’re not laughing, but the show started out
in 18th place and went to #1 not long before September 11, 2001.
Beck, like Rep. Gary Condit (D-CA), whose sex scandal
story evaporated in the heat of the 9/11 flames, was a direct beneficiary of
the planes flying into the buildings, since the result was that jingoistic
and xenophobic talk show hosts were suddenly in higher demand. The Glenn
Beck Program was nationally syndicated and quickly found a very large
audience of people eager to believe that ignorant criminals were not running
the country.
Newly empowered as a nationally syndicated right-wing
radio pundit just as White House traitor George W. Bush was drumming up
support for what would turn out to be the most humiliating,
reputation-trashing fiasco in the nation’s history, Beck organized pro-Iraq
War “Rally for America” events in 18 cities for his Bush-buddy bosses at
Beck used the forum of the people’s
airwaves to go after the
Dixie Chicks, who’d had the effrontery to
share with a London audience their shame at what was being done in America’s
name. He also felt compelled to weigh in on the
Terri Schiavo case, leading the charge of
rant radio against letting the poor woman die.
In May 2006, Beck’s empire expanded into television when
he began hosting the eponymous prime-time hour Glenn Beck on CNN
Headline News. Not long after, he declared himself to be “sick of this whole
global warming thing.” Beck claims it takes generations before we can tell
anything about climate change, so what we should do now is just go about our
lives in a business-as-usual fashion and not worry so much about finding out
later that we’ve destroyed the planet.
In November 2007, Beck signed a five-year deal with
Premiere Radio Networks said to be worth $50 million.
In his 2007 Washington Post profile of Beck, David
Segal wrote, “Listen to a few of Beck’s shows and what strikes you most is
the enormous ratio of words to substance – how Beck can monologue for
minutes at a time and leave behind almost nothing except the impression of
great vehemence.”
In the spring of 2009, Beck departed CNN for Fox News. The move provided
more money and even lower journalistic expectations making it a win-win for
Beck, but a lose-lose for people who like information. Though, as some have
noted, this will leave a gaping hole in CNN's "department of embarrassing
conservatives we keep around to help us appear unbiased," insiders expect
that other
irritable commentators will continue to
step up in this area.
Prove To Me That You Are Not Working With Our Enemies"
In November 2006, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim
U.S. congressman, appeared on Glenn Beck. Beck told him, “I have been
nervous about this interview with you because what I feel like saying is, 'Sir,
prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.’” This prompted Jon
Stewart to comment, “Finally, a guy who says what people who aren’t thinking are
thinking.”
The incident earned Beck a spot on the alternative weekly
Buffalo Beast ’s list of 2006’s most loathsome people. The paper wrote,
“It’s like someone found a manic, doom-prophesying hobo in a sandwich board,
shaved him, shot him full of Zoloft and gave him a show.”
Botched Hemorrhoids Operation
Beck started out 2008 as the victim of a botched hemorrhoids operation when
what should have been a routine outpatient procedure sent him to the hospital
for five days. In the hospital, the serious painkillers he was on led him to
contemplate suicide. A video of Beck, unshaven, disheveled, bleary-eyed and with
his head propped up on a pillow as he told his fans about his disastrous health
care experience, became a YouTube sensation in early 2008.
Beckisms
“Every night I get down on my knees and pray that Dennis
Kucinich will burst into flames.” (2003)
"I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm
wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to
do it." (2005)
"When I see a 9/11 victim family on television, or
whatever, I'm just like, 'Oh shut up' I'm so sick of them because they're
always complaining." (2005)
“The only [Katrina victims] we’re seeing on television
are the scumbags.” (2005)
“Let me tell you something, there ain’t [nothing] better
than looking at a hot, naked chick.” (2006)
Trivia
On August 9, 1988, Jessica Hahn parlayed her role in the
Jim Bakker sex scandal into a tryout for the woman’s slot on The Y-Morning
Zoo, on KOY-FM (“Y-95”) in Phoenix. Beck was one of the three gentlemen who
made up the rest of the team.
Beck’s fans are often referred to, and happily refer to
themselves, as “
Sick Twisted
Freaks,” thereby embracing an irony that is nonexistent.
When Glenn Beck told
listeners of his radio show on March 2 that they should "run as fast as you
can" from any church that preached "social or economic justice" because
those were code words for Communism and Nazism, he probably thought he was
tweaking a few crunchy religious liberals who didn't listen to the show
anyway. Instead he managed to outrage Christians in most mainline Protestant
denominations, African-American congregations, Hispanic churches, and
Catholics--who first heard the term "social justice" in papal encyclicals
and have a little something in their tradition called "Catholic social
teaching." (Not to mention the teaching of a certain fellow from Nazareth
who was always blathering on about justice...)
He
also managed to bring the National Council of Churches--once a powerful
umbrella organization for Christian churches--out from hibernation, in the
form of
a withering
response from leader Peg Chemberlin.
Progressive evangelical leader Jim Wallis, taking a page from his
conservative counterparts, is
calling for
Christians to boycott Beck's shows. And
Beck has given the folks who come up with slogans every week for church
signs plenty of material to work with.
After initially doubling-down on his
statements, Beck is now trying to walk them back somewhat, making a
distinction between religious injunctions for individuals to help the poor
and the broader notion that society has an obligation to care for the "least
of these." But as religious scholar and blogger Mark Silk points out,
that's not what Beck's own tradition--the Latter-Day Saints--believes:
"Not to belabor
the point, but the Judeo-Christian
tradition from which Beck's Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
springs expects the poor to be
provided for as a matter of public
law. And indeed, in the days when
the LDS Church ran its corner of
North America as a theocracy, that's
just what it did."
And Philip Barlow, a
professor of Mormon history at Utah
State University,
told the
New York Times
that, "One way to read the Book of
Mormon is that it's a vast tract on
social justice," adding, "A lot of
Latter-Day Saints would think that Beck
was asking them to leave their own
church."
The
term "Social Gospel" has been considered
a dirty phrase by conservatives for a
while now. But if that's what Beck
meant, he has quickly learned the
consequences of sloppy language. And in
any event, he has certainly discovered
the dangers of publicly practicing
theology without a license.
Excerpt from an
article posted
03-12-10
on
huffingtonpost.com
Christian author
and social
justice advocate
Rev. Jim Wallis
appeared on
"Countdown with
Keith Olbermann"
Friday evening
to talk about
Glenn Beck's
recent attack on
churches and
religious
leaders who
preach social
justice.
Last week,
Beck, a Mormon,
told his fans to
scour their
churches for any
mention of
social justice
or economic
justice. He said
that both terms
are "code words"
that were used
by Nazis and
Communists and
that if a church
preached either,
one should "run
as fast as you
can!"
Wallis told
"Countdown"
guest host
Lawrence
O'Donnell
that not only
are Beck's
claims false,
they're at odds
with the
teachings of
Jesus. Contrary
to Beck's claims
that social
justice is a
perversion of
the gospel,
Wallis told
O'Donnell that
helping the poor
is at the heart
of the gospel.
Wallis:
"The God
of the
Bible is
the God
of
justice.
Though
the poor
are in
the
center
of God's
concern...
Poverty
breaks
the
heart of
God. And
it
breaks
the
heart of
the
church.
So, this
is about
Christians
who may
disagree
on
politics.
Republicans,
Democrats,
it
doesn't
matter.
Left or
right.
We have
different
views on
the role
of
government.
Doesn't
matter,
But
justice
is
integral
to the
gospel.
And
across
the
spectrum,
Christians
are
saying
Glenn
Beck got
it
wrong."
Wallis told
O'Donnell
that Mormon
leaders have
called him
to apologize
for Beck's
comments. He
hopes that
Beck will
call him to
apologize
and talk
about social
justice.
Excerpts from an article by
Paul Raushenbush, Posted on huffingtonpost.com March 15,
2010
When we
launched the
Religion
section of
the
Huffington
Post one
month ago, I
wrote a
letter
addressed to
"Religious
(and Sane)
America."
Since that
time, we
have had
extraordinary
contributions
from across
the
religious
landscape
including
Evangelicals,
Roman
Catholics,
Main Line
Protestants,
Muslims,
Jews,
Hindus,
Buddhist,
and Atheists
as well as
those who
defy easy
definition.
The
conversation
has been
enlightening,
honest and,
of course,
impassioned.
But perhaps
most
promising -
it has been
sane. Our
discourse
has been has
healthy and
productive
and the
language has
been
intelligible
across
religious
divisions
and beyond
simple the
categories
of religious
vs.
non-religious.
HuffPost Religion's beginning has
been bookended by what I would call: insane
religion. Pat Robertson and Glenn Beck provided us
with a disturbing reminder of what is unhealthy
religious rhetoric and it has reminded us of the
desperate need for a sane Christian witness in the
world. I don't mean to say that Robertson and Beck
are mentally unbalanced - I don't think they are.
And I don't think that they mean to do American and
Christianity harm, I think they are making these
pronouncements out of their own worldview, which
they have every right to do. However, I do not think
that the way they spoke about the Christian faith
was 'sane' in its original meaning of health. Their
pronouncements were unhealthy and not within the
range of what I would like to promote as a
productive, intelligible and redemptive Christian
discourse for the 21st century.
It started at the Haiti
earthquake.
Robertson's explanation
was that God sent this earthquake because of a "pact
with the devil" the Haitians had made to throw off
the oppression of the French. Robertson reminded us
that our patience with religious leaders who talk
such nonsense has run out. Hopefully the outcry his
comments evoked will act as a caution to those with
a compulsion to offer such ludicrous explanations.
In addition to the tone deaf cruelty, religious
insensitivity and obvious racism - sane Christianity
rejects the futile and self-serving delusion of
offering a pat answer on behalf of God as to why any
natural disasters occurs, or why bad things happen
to any individual or group.
Sane Christianity doesn't see
God's hand in hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes;
or in cancer, AIDS, and Tuberculosis - except in a
way that is so far beyond our comprehension as to
forbid speculation (My ways are not your ways says
the Lord). The response of the Christian is to mourn
the dead and honor their memory, and commit their
spirits into God's keeping. Sane Christianity also
rejects the fantasy that these catastrophes are
signs of end times or rapture or any other
pre-millennial inventions from the 19th Century -
they are simply the reality of our world which
includes natural tumult as well as sickness and
death.
For explanation of the natural
world, sane Christians turn to those who are
studying it in detail and who are often those who
most perceive the true wonder of life - the
scientific community. We share in the awe scientists
hold for what they are encountering. In seeking to
uncover the mysteries we embrace the language of
science which is meant to explain without
interpreting, and we give thanks for the
Enlightenment and the continued growth of scientific
inquiry into the origins of the universe and of
humanity. Sane Christianity sees a vibrant
conversation rather than conflict with science.
However, it is religion we turn to
for guidance on how to respond and act in the world.
In the case of an earthquake such as in Haiti or in
Chili, the sane Christian recognizes that life has
been harmed and responds with compassion and love as
we have been taught by our Christian tradition.
Inspirited by our faith we insist on standards for
protecting life such as buildings that won't
collapse so easily, using warning signals against
tsunamis, and levies that do not break so that we
might protect as many as possible the next time a
disaster occurs. While science can tell us much
about the world it does not give us the moral
imperative of our faith. For that we turn to Jesus
who gives us an ethical framework for how to act in
the world and a vision for what a just society looks
like and for which we should strive.
That is why Glenn Beck's comments
that social justice in a church can be equated with
Nazism or Communism is also repugnant to the sane
Christian. The responses to Beck were swift and
wide, from
Evangelicals,
Catholics,
and
Mainline
all of whom rejected Beck's unhealthy vision for
Christianity. Were the Christian church to forsake
its mission to create a world that reflects Jesus'
teachings in Matthew 25 and Luke 4, it would lose
much of its reason for being -the church would
become a sick and useless institution indeed. As the
20th century pastor William Sloane Coffin said to me
once: "Ethics do not exhaust the Gospel but they are
not ancillary either. " Beck's unhealthy statement
reminded us that sane Christianity cares for the
individual soul as well as for the common good of
the entire society, and we will never forsake either
one. What Beck decries as the Church's "social
justice" and "progressivism" has been responsible
for such consequential commitments as the
abolitionist and civil rights movements. Unless Beck
is suggesting that these efforts, largely fueled by
the church, were a waste of time then he should
reassess his thoughts about social justice and the
church.
But we should thank Robertson and
Beck. They have reminded us that we crave - no,
DEMAND sane Christianity, and that actually there
are many millions of us who profess it. If Sane
Christians, Sane Jews, Sane Hindus, Sane Muslims,
Sane Buddhists, Sane Atheists etc, would join
together, I think we would have a healthier
religious discourse, and a healthier and more
compassionate world.
Excerpts from a article on
mediamatters.org, December 21, 2009
Glenn Beck's
well of ridiculous was deep and
poisonous before he launched his Fox News show, but the inauguration of
the 44th president of the United States -- and the permissive
cheerleading of his Fox News honchos --
uncorked the
former Morning Zoo
shock jock's unique brand of vitriol,
stage theatrics, and hyperbolic fright, making him an easy choice for
Media Matters'
2009 Misinformer of the Year.
When he wasn't calling the president a racist,
portraying progressive leaders as
vampires who can only be stopped by "driv[ing] a stake through the heart
of the bloodsuckers," or
pushing the legitimacy of seceding from
the country, Beck obsessively compared Democrats in Washington to Nazis
and fascists and "the
early days of Adolf Hitler." He wondered, "Is this where
we're headed," while showing images of Hitler, Stalin, and Lenin;
decoded the secret language of
Marxists; and
compared the government to "heroin
pushers" who were "using smiley-faced fascism to grow the nanny state."
Like his
predecessor, Beck spat on scruples,
frequently
announcing his
goal to get administration officials
fired. He increasingly acted not as a media figure, but as the head of a
political movement, while
helping to bring fringe conspiracies of
a one-world government into the national discourse.
And he all too frequently
helped to set the mainstream media's
agenda.
Appearing on Fox & Friends in June to discuss a White House
"beer summit" between President Obama, a white Massachusetts police officer,
and a black Harvard professor who had been arrested entering his own home,
Beck uttered perhaps his
most infamous words to date, calling
the president a "racist" with "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the
white culture." The statement drew
widespread derision and
condemnation, and Fox News immediately
sought to distance itself from the
statement. But Beck's divisive commentary was likely no surprise to his
followers, coming as it did at the end of a week-long
deluge of race-baiting that included
the
claim that Obama "has real issues with
race," and Beck's
incessant
talk of Obama's policies as a form of
minority reparations. Just one month earlier, Beck had agreed that Obama was
elected because of race and not policies,
and in May he
called then Supreme Court nominee Sonia
Sotomayor a "racist."
In the controversy that followed Beck's inflammatory
charge that the president is racist, his Fox News show began to
hemorrhageadvertisers, and Beck began to
beg his viewers to "call a friend and
tell them to watch the show this week." By September, Beck, who had become "tired
of the race thing" and who claimed he doesn't "think the race
thing works anymore," apparently decided it was time to move on. He later
would
blame politicians for charges of racism
and
call "false cries of racism"
"dangerous." Beck then sat down for an interview with CBS' Katie Couric
where he would
express regret for the way he phrased
the claim that Obama is a racist, but then emphasized that the issue of
Obama's racism is a "serious question."
In the months since Beck called Obama a "racist" with a
"deep-seated hatred of white people," at least 80 advertisers have
reportedly
dropped their ads from his Fox News
show, yet he has faced no apparent repercussions from Fox News. Then again,
Rupert Murdoch apparently
agrees with Beck that Obama is a racist.
(Or
maybe not.)
Beck introduced himself to Fox News viewers in 2009 by
announcing that he was "tired of the
politics of left and right," which leads its participants to do insane
things, like accusing political opponents of "trying to turn us into
communist Russia." Setting aside for the sake of brevity Beck's
long
history
of
calling progressive figures communists
and Marxists, he almost immediately put lie to his professed aversion. Yes,
taking to the airwaves the following week on his radio show, Beck
concluded, "I do believe that Barack
Obama is a socialist" who "has Marxist tendencies." Beck explained:
BECK: He may be a full-fledged Marxist. He has
surrounded himself by Marxists his whole life."
Alas, the remainder of 2009 would see Beck unleash a
tirade against Obama's "full-fledged" Marxism,
blaming "fearless leader, Comrade
Obama" for overseeing the "destruction of the West"; citing Obama
administration policies and
promising to show how "they line up
with some of the goings-on in history's worst socialist, fascist
countries";
calling Obama's economic recovery
package "truly stepping beyond socialism" and "starting to look at
fascism";
declaring that Obama is "so clearly" a
socialist,
citing his work as a community
organizer as clear proof of such;
claiming that Obama is "a Marxist who
is "setting up a class system"; and
comparing health care reform to
socialism.
Beck's red scare was not limited to Obama himself. During
a May 28 discussion with Bill O'Reilly, Beck
proclaimed of Obama, "His friends and
nominees and everything -- they're all Marxist." And over the course of
2009, Beck's McCarthy-esque list of known communists proved to be long and
distinguished, including the Democratic and Republican
parties, former White House
communications director Anita Dunn, SEIU president
Andy Stern, the Federal Trade
Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, FCC official
Mark Lloyd,
proponents of maintaining free market
principals in Internet competition,
Sonia Sotomayor, and media reform
activists at
Free Press.
By way of example, Beck spent most of his hour-long Fox show one October
evening discussing video of then-White House communications director Anita
Dunn, who had cited Mao Zedong as one of two political philosophers -- the
other being Mother Theresa -- she cites to illustrate the advice that "you
don't have to follow other people's choices and paths" or "let external
definition define how good you are internally."
Ignoring the numerous political figures
on the right -- including those who routinely appear on Fox News and
Glenn Beck's very show -- who have
cited Mao's teachings in the past, Beck
distorted the video, claiming she
"worships" "her hero" Mao.
By October 30, Beck -- who began the year decrying those
who would denigrate the national debate by calling political opponents
socialists -- had
redrawn the battle lines:
BECK: I have said to you before, and we laid the
case out last night. These are revolutionaries. You must decide,
America, and your friends must decide. There's no sidelines here.
You're either on the side of the revolutionaries for Marxism and a
new Venezuela here in America, or the revolutionaries of 1776.
On June 30, 2010 Wal-Mart
joined the Center for American Progress
and SEIU in announcing support for health care reform efforts. The next day
on his Fox News show, Beck
made one of the countless Nazi and
Hitler comparisons he made this year:
BECK: This is what happened in the 1940s. Look,
this is what happened in Europe in the 1930s. It's what happened in
Italy. It's what happened in the national socialist country of
Germany in the 1930s under Hitler. These companies get into bed and
think, "Well, we're going to be fine. We'll just take a little bit
of this."
Then, they're trapped. These are bullies that are
pushing these companies. And these companies are naive, at best,
that they think they can get into bed with the devil, and then be
able to control it.
In his uninterrupted efforts to attack and smear
progressives, Beck would repeatedly prove the accuracy of
Godwin's Law. Beck
called Obama's proposal to expand the
foreign service, AmeriCorps, and the Peace Corps "what Hitler did with
the SS" and
compared the closing of car dealerships
to what happened under the Nazis, warning, "Gang, at some point, they're
going to come for you." Incidentally, this would not be Beck's only
reference to
Martin Niemoller's lectures. Responding
to Anita Dunn's
criticism of Fox News' overt
partisanship, Beck
compared the channel to Jews during the
Holocaust, with other media outlets representing the silent bystanders.
Beck's adoration of theatrics reached a fevered pitch in April. After
claiming, "I think it would be just faster if they just shot me in the
head," Beck created a classic cable news moment when, in criticizing the
president's policies, he
pretended to pour gasoline on an
average American, stating, "President Obama, why don't you just set us on
fire? For the love of Pete, what are you doing?" Beck would go on to use
violent imagery throughout the year,
distorting the face and voice of a
"concerned parent" who attacked Dunn for her Mao reference as if he were a
mafia informant,
purporting to boil a frog to illustrate
that "we've been tossed quickly into boiling water," and
invoking civil rights marchers having
fire hoses turned on them to spur opposition to health care reform.
Rhetorically as well, Beck spent 2009 at the forefront of
the emerging right-wing culture of paranoia, his persecution complex
manifesting itself in
claims that "they are going to silence
voices like mine" and
suggestions that "you" would "have to
shoot me in the forehead before I will let you into my house to tell me how
to raise my children; you will have to shoot me in the forehead before you
take away my gun; you will have to shoot me in the forehead before I
acquiesce and be silent." This especially unhinged rallying cry continued:
BECK: [T]hey cannot move on these things, because
they are building a machine that will crush the entrepreneurial
sprit and the freedom that our founding fathers designed. This
machine, whatever it is they are building, will crush it. Do not let
them build another piece. So while I turn away, I want to make sure
that I have at least 10 million eyes watching -- watching every
single move they're making.
[...]
We know why they're doing what they're doing. Now
you need to do what you do, and as long as that is peaceful, we will
save our country.
Beck alternately suggested that former White House
adviser
Van Jones or
ACORN would kill him and that
SEIU would break his legs. He stated
that he "fear[s]" that he'll be
silenced by a "thug-ocracy" that
includes ACORN, SEIU, and Obama. Beck compared the Obama administration
to the bat-wielding Al Capone from The Untouchables,
claiming, "You take these guys on, and
they will bash your brains out";
suggested that the administration was
out to destroy him;
argued that the Obama administration
would use bombings of a Canadian pipeline to justify taking over oil
companies; and
suggested that government wants "more
problems" so "they can use the iron fist and crush people."
Beck
claimed the 2008 election was a coup
conducted "through the guise of an election" and
warned that "the country may not
survive Barack Obama"; he hosted a guest who
claimed the "only chance we have as a
country right now is" for Osama bin Laden to "detonate a major weapon"
in the United States. Beck
charged the Obama administration with
"putting a gun to America's head" through its approach to legislating,
attacked White House advisers Cass Sunstein and John Holdren by
stating that they "will be responsible
for many, many deaths," and
said the White House and progressives
are "taking you to a place to be slaughtered."
Against the backdrop of this hyperbolic fright, Beck
discussedpoisoning Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi,
encouraged his followers to "hold a
meeting" with politicians "in front of their house," and encouraged
people to attend a November rally in Washington to "see the whites of
their eyes,"
warning, "There is coming a point to
where the people will have exhausted all of their options; when that
happens, look out."
Beck was simultaneously
calling on his followers to eschew
violence, since "one lunatic like Timothy McVeigh could ruin
everything," and
claiming, "It's not time to pick up
guns" or "blow anything up," all while
warning, "Somebody's going to do
something stupid, and it will change the republic overnight."
On March 13, 2010 Beck used his Fox News show to
tearfully announce his 9-12 Project, weeping as he
declared, "I just love my country, and
I fear for it," then stiffening his spine to add, "They don't surround
us; we surround them." Within days, Beck was denying interest in running
for office,
telling Fox News' Patti Ann Browne that
"we would run out of missiles. Seriously, that would be the most
overused phrase in my administration, 'What do you mean, we're out of
missiles?' "
As Media Matters demonstrated, the
anti-government tea party protest movement operated as a de facto
subsidiary of Fox News, and no one
better illustrates the interconnected nature of Fox News and the tea
parties than Glenn Beck. On April 6, with an image of his 9-12 Project
flag waving behind him, Beck
let his followers know where they could
"celebrate with Fox News" at "FNC Tax Day Tea Parties." Three days
later, Beck
announced that he would be
participating in a tea party fundraiser prior to speaking at a tea party
event and used his Fox News show to
tie the tea party protests to Thomas
Paine. Then, his persecution complex in overdrive, Beck declared that
"[t]here are forces at play that are doing everything they can to make
this -- tax day at San Antonio, the Alamo -- about me,"
informing his followers that he would
not be giving the keynote address at the San Antornio Fox News Tax Day
Tea Party, as had been originally planned. Beck would eventually marry
his anti-government paranoia to his tea party advocacy, claiming that a
Department of Homeland Security report on right-wing extremism was
somehow directed at tea partiers.
Beck's political activity continued in August as he
began
aggressively promoting "the biggest
9-12 tea party yet, on Capitol Hill." Beck's involvement with the 9-12
protest movement led CNN's Howard Kurtz to
ask whether Beck is "a talk show host"
or "a leader of a movement." Underscoring Beck's role leading the
9-12/tea party movement, Fox News footage of the rally
included signs paying homage to one of
Beck's numerous conspiracy theories, that of Obama's nefarious "civilian
national security force." Beck would go on to
dubiously claim that the protest was
the "largest march on Washington ever," a claim he based on "overseas"
reporting; he would subsequently cite a university he could not recall
to claim that 1.7 million
attended his protest. To cap it all
off, Beck laughably
argued that President Obama should have
given his Nobel Peace Prize to "the Tea Party goers and the 9-12
project."
In the aftermath of his successful rally, Beck looked
to more traditional ways to use his perch to engage in political
activity. As the special election in New York's 23rd Congressional
District drew to a close, Beck, along with several of his Fox News
colleagues,
aggressively campaigned for independent
conservative candidate Doug Hoffman, on the grounds that GOP candidate
Dede Scozzafava was too moderate, and thus did not pass their
ideological purity test. He also
offered to host a fundraiser for GOP
Rep. Michele Bachmann, and
encouraged his followers to "leave" the
Republican Party as "the best way to get Republicans to change."
Having used his radio and Fox News shows to cultivate
a legion of followers, Beck now seems poised to push the movement
forward, promising a new "multi-level"
plan for his 9-12 project that
involves more conventions, meetings
with conservative "minds," and a rally at the Lincoln Memorial. Becks'
laudable goal: nothing less than to "save
our country." And it seems the GOP and the tea partiers have
finally
answered Beck's call.
Regular viewers of the Glenn Beck show this
year were treated to a
litany of charts and graphs,
purportedly laying out a myriad of suspicious connections among things
with names like ACORN, SEIU, the Tides Foundation, and two brothers
named Rathke. Oh, and
occasionally fictional characters.
These charts were frequently
depicted as trees, and often
represented by encircled words with
lines showing how each circle is connected. Occasionally they involved
defacing the U.S. flag.
When Beck
famously spelled "OLIGARH" to
illustrate the type of political system the grandest of conspiracies was
constructing, he simply claimed a day later that his misspelling
proved "you can't spell 'oligarch'
without the czars." When he used a game of Connect 4 to illustrate one
of his many conspiracy theories, he accidentally won before he could use
the game piece representing Obama, but pressed on anyway, only able to
make his grand point after
cheating at a child's game in which he
was playing against himself.
In Beck's conspiratorial world, union officials make
decisions on whether to send additional troops to
Afghanistan, community organizers are
deliberately
undermining the financial system, ACORN
is
designing "government-run health care,"
and the whole cast of conspirators is establishing a "maximum
wage" to redistribute wealth and
fixing elections in New York and
Minnesota. Oh, and New Orleans' response to Hurricane Katrina was an
effort to hide ACORN corruption.
The irony, of course, is that for each of the illusory
connections Beck draws between his political enemies, there exists an
actual connection between Beck and some
of the more controversial actors in the world of right-wing activism.
One of the methods to Beck's madness is the attempted
debunking -- a clever little trick whereby Beck professes his desire to
prove false a wild conspiracy theory, but finds himself unable to,
thereby lending it credibility without actually endorsing its veracity.
A fine illustration of this technique can be found in Beck's efforts to
"debunk" rumors of the Obama administration's FEMA concentration camps.
On March 4, Beck
appeared on Fox & Friends and
declared, "We are a country that is headed towards socialism,
totalitarianism beyond your wildest imagination." He subsequently stated
that he "wanted to debunk" the theory that FEMA was building camps, but
added: "I can't debunk them." His non-debunking continued:
BECK: It is -- it is our government. If you trust
our government, it's fine. If you have any kind of fear that we
might be headed towards a totalitarian state, look out, buckle up.
There is something going on in our country that is -- ain't good.
On his Fox News program later that day, Beck claimed,
"I don't believe in the FEMA prison," and later stated, "If these things
exist, that's bad, and we will cover it. If they don't exist, it's
irresponsible to not debunk this story." One month later, Beck hosted
James Meigs, Popular Mechanics' editor-in-chief, to debunk the
stories. To recap, Beck had first warned of "a country that is headed
towards socialism, totalitarianism beyond your wildest imagination,"
then had brought up the rumors of FEMA concentration camps that he
"wanted to debunk" but could not. Later that day he professed, "I don't
believe in the FEMA prisons," but again suggested he could not debunk
them. It was a month before he got around to definitively debunking
them.
Beck rejoices after America loses bid to host 2016
Olympics
On September 28, White House officials
announced that President Obama and
first lady Michelle Obama would travel to Copenhagen in order to help
the Chicago Olympic Committee present its bid to host the 2016 Olympics.
One day later, Beck took to the airwaves,
leading the charge in attacking Chicago
as a city unfit to host the Olympics. In addition to
asking "[w]hose agenda" Obama was
"really pushing," Beck complained that the Second City was
too violent for the Olympics and said
that Chicago was less favorably suited to hold the Olympics than Rio de
Janeiro, Madrid, and Tokyo because of the city's history of
organized crime:
BECK: Rio de Janeiro is one of the three other
cities competing against Chicago for the 2016 games. Madrid and
Tokyo are the other two. It's a tough choice, what should we do?
What should we do?
Well, in the America that I grew up in, we would
use logic. The way the IOC normally does it is do select the city
which presents the superior plan. OK, that makes sense. All right,
does the best job in organizing. Oh, Chicago is good at community
organizing, and organized labor, and organized mafia. Oops. Did I
say that out loud?
When the IOC subsequently awarded the games to Rio de
Janeiro, Beck giddily
begged his followers, "Please let me
break this news to you. Oh, it's so sweet." As his sidekick Stu began to
make the news, Beck implored his followers to "savor" the moment,
claiming, "We can always hope" that Obama is the first head of state to
fail to secure an Olympics bid. Beck subsequently
claimed to have "no problem" with
Chicago hosting the Olympics.
During a February 2010 appearance on Fox &
Friends,
Beck
said of the economic stimulus plan, "It
is slavery." Beck's enslavement to that metaphor nearly rivaled his
obsession with Marxists, Leninists, and 1930s Germany for his most
ridiculous rhetorical flourish.
In a May 1, 2010 statement on the
retirement of Supreme Court Justice
David Souter, Obama stated that he considered the "quality of empathy"
one of the qualifications he would seek in a nominee. The morning of May
26, Obama
announced Sonia Sotomayor as his
nominee, and Beck
immediately combined the right's
willful ignorance of the long list of
conservatives citing empathy as a desired quality in a judge with his
own brand of racial invective:
BECK: They're just like, "Hey, Hispanic chick
lady! You're empathetic?" She says yep. They say, "You're in!"
That's the way it really works.
During the confirmation process, Beck would
argue that Hitler's empathy led to
genocide and
allege that Sotomayor is "a Marxist"
and evidence of a "hostile takeover" of the country.
In a February 9, 2010 Bloomberg commentary, long-time
health care
misinformer and former New York Lt.
Gov. Betsy McCaughey
launched the falsehood that a provision
in the economic recovery act would allow the federal government to take
over health care and "dictate treatments." The following day, McCaughey
appeared on Beck's Fox News show to
repeat her false claim, and by Feburary 11, Beck had
fully adopted the falsehood as his own:
BECK: So this is -- really, this is the beginning
-- I mean, this is the way it happens in every society. I mean, you
know, the extreme example is what happened in Germany, when -- they
actually had a chart on how many potatoes you could, you know, make,
how many hours you could work, how many fields you could till, et
cetera, et cetera. And if you couldn't do very much, well, then, you
didn't get, you know, the primo health care.
That's just the way it works when everybody has to
share for the common good. Sometimes for the common good, you just
have to say, "Hey, Grandpa, you've had a good life. Sucks to be
you." That's not compassion.
Indeed, throughout the 2009 health care reform debate,
Beck has repeatedly tied reform efforts to
Nazi efforts to kill the elderly and
newborns,
taken
ownership of Sarah Palin's
egregiously false death panels smear,
and
adopted the
distortion that the uninsured would
face time in jail under reform proposals. When a nonbinding task force
in November
recommended that women aged 40 to
49 years not get routine mammogram screenings, Beck was driving the
conservative demagoguery machine,
adopting the tired death panels smear to claim that these guidelines --
that are binding on no single entity or human -- were yet further proof
that death panels existed.
Suffice it to say that the moment Fox News issued
Glenn Beck its imprimatur to spread conservative misinformation, the
national public discourse was destined to be slightly off-kilter, and
the national media's self-proclaimed
rodeo clown took viewers and listeners
on one wild ride through distortions and falsehoods.
Since the election of
Barack Obama as president, a current of
anti-government hostility has swept
across the United States, creating a
climate of fervor and activism with
manifestations ranging from incivility
in public forums to acts of intimidation
and violence.
What characterizes
this anti-government hostility is a
shared belief that Obama and his
administration actually pose a threat to
the future of the United States. Some
accuse Obama of plotting to bring
socialism to the United States, while
others claim he will bring about Nazism
or fascism. All believe that Obama and
his administration will trample on
individual freedoms and civil liberties,
due to some sinister agenda, and they
see his economic and social policies as
manifestations of this agenda. In
particular anti-government activists
used the issue of health care reform as
a rallying point, accusing Obama and his
administration of dark designs ranging
from “socialized medicine” to “death
panels,” even when the Obama
administration had not come out with a
specific health care reform plan. Some
even compared the Obama administration’s
intentions to Nazi eugenics programs.
Some of these
assertions are motivated by prejudice,
but more common is an intense strain of
anti-government distrust and anger,
colored by a streak of paranoia and
belief in conspiracies. These sentiments
are present both in mainstream and
“grass-roots” movements as well as in
extreme anti-government movements such
as a resurgent militia movement.
Ultimately, this anti-government anger,
if it continues to grow in intensity and
scope, may result in an increase in
anti-government extremists and the
potential for a rise of violent
anti-government acts.
Though much of the
impetus for anti-government sentiment
has come from a variety of grass-roots
and extremist groups, segments of the
mainstream media have played a
surprisingly active role in generating
such segment. Though a number of media
figures and commentators have taken
part, the media personality who has
played the most active role has been
radio and television host Glenn Beck,
who along with many of his guests have
made a habit of demonizing the Obama
administration and promoting conspiracy
theories about it. Beck has acted as a
“fearmonger-in-chief,” raising anxiety
about and distrust towards the
government.
The most important
mainstream media figure who has
repeatedly helped to stoke the fires of
anti-government anger is right-wing
media host Glenn Beck, who has a TV show
on FOX News and a popular syndicated
radio show. While other conservative
media hosts, such as Rush Limbaugh and
Sean Hannity, routinely attack Obama and
his administration, typically on
partisan grounds, they have usually
dismissed or refused to give a platform
to the conspiracy theorists and
anti-government extremists. This has not
been the case with Glenn Beck. Beck and
his guests have made a habit of
demonizing President Obama and promoting
conspiracy theories about his
administration.
On a number of his TV
and radio programs, Beck has even gone
so far as to make comparisons between
Hitler and Obama and to promote the idea
that the president is dangerous.
The ADL report was issued
that same day as
Sam Stein's
devastating examination of the
extremists Beck has historically promoted on
his programs:
The Huffington Post
took a look some of the bombastic host's
past guests and found names steeped in
controversy. Beck has hosted, and even
occasionally praised, a renowned white
supremacist, a devout southern
secessionist, a defender of slavery, and
a 9/11 skeptic.
... If Beck were a
self-avowed journalist -- which he's not
-- these guests could be chalked up as
an effort to foster intriguing debate,
whether about immigration policy,
constitutional principles or the
strength of the dollar. But, taken as a
whole, the roster reflects the host's
partiality to an ideology that is
far-right if not outright extremist.
Of course, this is a
subject
C&L readers are well
familiar with. But the evidence
keeps piling up: Glenn Beck is perhaps the
foremost conduit for extremist belief
systems and ideas to infect our mainstream
conservative in the history of the mass
media.
And he's just getting
started. God only knows to what effect.
Summary: Glenn Beck declared
that "the globe was the hottest" in 1934; in fact, according to NASA's
Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the hottest year on Earth was
actually 2005, and 1934 -- now designated the hottest year on record in
the U.S. after a revision in climate data -- does not even rank among
the globe's five warmest years. Beck also suggested that the statistic
"was, I believe, intentionally distorted by the guy the left holds up as
the scientist on global warming," an apparent reference to GISS director
James Hansen. In August, the GISS revised historical climate data
because "the monthly more-or-less-automatic updates of our global
temperature analysis had a flaw in the U.S. data."
Discussing global
warming during the October 24 edition of his nationally
syndicated radio show,
Glenn Beck
declared that "the globe was the hottest" in 1934, and claimed
that this "stat ... was, I believe, intentionally distorted by
the guy the left holds up as the scientist on global warming."
Beck was apparently referring to James Hansen, director of
NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which in
August
revised
its climate data and stated that 1934 was the hottest year on
record in the United States, as Beck noted moments later. The
hottest year on Earth, however, was actually 2005, according to
a
temperature analysis
by the GISS. In fact, the GISS does not even rank 1934 among the
globe's five warmest years.
Beck also suggested that global
warming is "[a] one-degree temperature change that happened at the first
part of the century, not in the last part, at least most of it." In fact,
the GISS
reported
in January 2006 that most of the 0.8° C [1.44° F] temperature rise over the
past century occurred after 1940, with "rapid warming of almost 0.2° C per
decade" after 1975, as Media Matters for America has
repeatedly
documented.
During his October 24 radio
program, Beck stated:
BECK: We'll tell you the
truth. We'll tell you the things that are politically incorrect. I'll go
on and I'll tell you the fires have very little to do with global
warming, if anything. The globe was the hottest in 19 -- was it 1934,
Stu [executive producer Steve "Stu" Burguiere], or '37? -- '34, 1934 was
the hottest year. A stat, by the way, that was, I believe, intentionally
distorted by the guy the left holds up as the scientist on global
warming. America's temperature peaked in 1934. Since 1934, the hottest
year on record was 1998. It has not gotten warmer since 1998. That's a
fact.
Now, why are these fires
burning out of control? Al Gore and everybody else will have you believe
that it is all about global warming. Well, really? A one-degree
temperature change that happened at the first part of the century, not
in the last part of the century, at least most of it, and a temperature
change that hasn't changed since 1998 is causing superfires in
California and only California? Only America? It's in the American
borders. How is that possible?
In August 2007, GISS
revised its historical temperature records after learning that
improvements the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) made
to its climate analysis method in 2001 were not picked up in subsequent
years' Global Historical Climatology Network data stream. The GISS thus
needed to correct temperature data collected between the years 2001 and
2007. The error, according to the GISS, "did have a noticeable effect on
mean U.S. temperature anomalies, as much as 0.15°C." But the GISS also
stated that the error's effect on the global temperature data was "of order
one-thousandth of a degree, so the corrected and uncorrected curves are
indistinguishable," as Media Matters
documented.
According to
Gavin Schmidt, a climate modeler at GISS and a
contributor to the RealClimate blog (posting as "gavin"), the August
2007 revision
resulted in a re-ranking of NASA's list of the warmest years in the
United States. For example, whereas 1998 was previously ranked as the
warmest year for the United States, it is now ranked second, behind 1934.
Moreover, the GISS
stated
that even after correcting the U.S. climate data, the difference in
temperature between 1934 and 1998 in the U.S. is "much smaller than the
uncertainty."
While Beck said he believed that
the temperature data was "intentionally distorted," GISS
explained:
Recently it was realized that
the monthly more-or-less-automatic updates of our global temperature
analysis had a flaw in the U.S. data. We wish to thank Stephen McIntyre
for bringing to our attention that this flaw might be present.
In the 2001 update (described in
Hansen et al. [2001])
of the analysis method (originally published in
Hansen et al. [1981]),
we included improvements that NOAA had made in station records in the
U.S., their corrections being based mainly on station-by-station
information about station movement, change of time-of-day at which
max-min are recorded, etc.
Unfortunately, we didn't realize
that these corrections would not continue to be readily available in the
near-real-time data streams. The same stations are in the GHCN (Global
Historical Climatology Network) data stream, however, and thus what our
analysis picked up in subsequent years was station data without the NOAA
correction. Obviously, combining the uncorrected GHCN with the
NOAA-corrected records for earlier years caused jumps in 2000 in the
records at those stations, some up, some down (over U.S. only). This
problem is easy to fix, by matching the 1990s decadal-mean temperatures
for the NOAA-corrected and GHCN records, and we have made that
correction.
The flaw did have a noticeable
effect on mean U.S. temperature anomalies, as much as 0.15°C, (for years
2001 and later, and 5 year mean for 1999 and later).
The effect on global temperature
was of order one-thousandth of a degree, so the corrected and
uncorrected curves are indistinguishable.
Although Beck went on to claim
that "most" of the "one-degree temperature change [] happened at the first
part of the century," the 2005
Annual Summation
by GISS (updated January 12, 2006) of global temperature trends by GISS
stated: "Global warming is now 0.6° C [1.08° F] in the past three decades
and 0.8° C [1.44° F] in the past century. It is no longer correct to say
that 'most global warming occurred before 1940'. More specifically, there
was slow global warming, with large fluctuations, over the century up to
1975 and subsequent rapid warming of almost 0.2° C per decade."
From the October 24 edition of
Premiere Radio Networks' The Glenn Beck Program:
BECK: We've entered an age in
a time where you just can't have certain opinions. You just can't say
certain things. If you do, the special interest groups take you down.
Well, so be it. We'll tell you the truth. We'll tell you the things that
are politically incorrect. I'll go on and I'll tell you the fires have
very little to do with global warming, if anything. The globe was the
hottest in 19 -- was it 1934, Stu, or '37? -- '34, 1934 was the hottest
year. A stat, by the way, that was, I believe, intentionally distorted
by the guy the left holds up as the scientist on global warming.
America's temperature peaked in 1934. Since 1934, the hottest year on
record was 1998. It has not gotten warmer since 1998. That's a fact.
Now, why are these fires
burning out of control? Al Gore and everybody else will have you believe
that it is all about global warming. Well, really? A one-degree
temperature change that happened at the first part of the century, not
in the last part of the century, at least most of it, and a temperature
change that hasn't changed since 1998 is causing superfires in
California and only California? Only America? It's in the American
borders. How is that possible? You'd think that there would be fires
everywhere; you'd think that people would be bursting into flames on the
equator.
Fires so hot they're making
trees explode, from a one-degree temperature change? "Well, it's, you
know, coupled with water changes and the drought and the whole globe is
changing." Really, and it's just kicked in? Hottest year on record was
1998, but now it's just kicking in? It has nothing to do with the
environmental policies of this country? It has nothing to do with that?
Really? It has nothing to do with the hippie California
environmentalists that won't let you touch the landscape, wont let you
clear the brush on the side of the hills where your house is because
that's natural -- we don't touch nature.
Mating Between Humans and Neanderthals
Could Explain Glenn Beck, Michael Savage and
Rush Limbaugh. (Satire)
SANTA CRUZ (Edited Excerpts
from The Borowitz Report) - Study of the Neanderthal genome at
UC Santa Cruz has revealed that mating between humans and
Neanderthals may explain one of science's most persistent
mysteries: the existence of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and
Michael Savage.
"We believe that sex between a human and a
Neanderthal may have resulted, some fifteen thousand years
later, in several Conservative Talk Radio Pundits and Fox News
Channel's primetime hosts, including Glenn Beck," said a leading
genetic researcher at the university.
But while sex between humans and
Neanderthals may explain the existence of Conservative Talk
Pundits and the controversial Fox host, other mysteries remain,
the researcher said: "While it is likely that a human would have
sex with a Neanderthal, it is unclear who would have sex with
Glenn Beck, Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh."
The discovery
that Neanderthals and humans mated fifteen thousand years ago
took many scientists by surprise: "Previously, we thought the
first time this occurred was on 'Jersey Shore.'" More
here.
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This site created by Georgia First Amendment Coalition
design copyright 1998 an associate
Glenn Beck
(born February 10, 1964) is a right-wing American talk show host, a Wingnut,
and a Traitor to Justice and the American way. His nationally syndicated
three-hour radio show, The Glenn Beck Program, is heard daily on 260
stations and the satellite radio service XM. He also has a nightly hour on
Fox News channel, making him yet another arrow in the crowded quiver of Fox
traitors that include Hannity and O'Reilly. If you were so inclined, you
could spend over 16 percent of each weekday in the company of Glenn Beck.
Excerpts from an article posted on huffingtonpost.com July 26, 2011