Glen Beck is right – there is something terribly wrong with America, and the most glaringly obvious evidence is that anyone takes his drooling drivel seriously. As the object of so much undeserved attention, Beck is proof our values have gone completely to hell in Crapitalist America. The fact that so many (myself included) feel compelled to waste words on a complete idiot is further proof.
Beck’s shtick may have begun as a con by a two-bit TV hustler, but it is becoming harder and harder to tell if he is a con-man or madman or both. The eerie event at the Lincoln Memorial was heavy-laden with megalomaniacal over-and-undertones.
Beck asked for a “sign”, and all of America should have gotten a very clear one. He showed all the signs of someone suffering from an acute martyr complex. With each further step into the heart of darkness, he gas grown more and more delusional, until at long last, he not only has no shame, he has no sanity.
Glenn Beck is Howard Beale without a conscience or a cause.
By claiming to “take back” the Civil Rights Movement for those who opposed it, Beck blasphemed not only the memory of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, but the memory of millions of good, decent folks – black and white – who sacrificed so much for so many for whom the American Dream remained a nightmare.
But the fact that so many Americans see things Beck’s way is proof he is not alone in his madness. Something is very rotten in Denmark, South Carolina, and other backwater towns in America’s heartland. So what’s up?
Obviously, terrorism, the real estate bust and lost jobs are causing real and unsettling fears not only among the poor but among the incredible shrinking middle class as well, and clowns like Beck and Limbaugh are preying on and exacerbating those fears. Far worse, they are engaging in some of the worst race-baiting in this country in decades.
But Beck and Limbaugh are hardly alone. Disgusting politicians who cower and kow-tow to them are complicit in this evil. And if there are any Republicans of conscience left, they are laying exceedingly low. Perhaps they’ve forgotten the words of Edmund Burke:
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Or perhaps they are just cowards. In that case, Glen Beck is right – America is going to hell, and he is leading the way.
©2010 Tom Cordle
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Comments
rated.
And mixing religion with government- yeah- that's proven to work out well- just ask the women of our ally Saudi Arabia....
But fuck Beck. I didn't click this to talk about him, I'm just happy to see you. :) xoxo
Good to see you back spewing your misguided, liberal claptrap old man. :)
Lezlie
With the exception of one post, out of the tsunami of text devoted on OS to the above, I don't recall a single line that actually dealt with any issue of substance. I don't recall a single line that acknowledged even the remote possibility that that Beck or his "followers" might have at least one legitimate beef.
For me, reading these posts was like thinking I was going to a debate and finding that I arrived at a lynching.
If the "liberal" position on social and other issues is so overwhelmingly compelling, why doesn't anyone ever present an argument for it? Instead, it's just all ad hominem, all the time.
I think perhaps most OS members do not understand that the ad hominem argument is not really an argument; it is the absence of an argument, and a failure to discuss issues is not a strength but a weakness. Like it or not, there is an entire other side to the political spectrum involving tens of millions of people. If anyone thinks that demonizing them and ignoring their issues will make them go away or weaken their influence, he or she is very wrong.
I'm really concerned about the polarization in America now. It is increasingly us vs them and the more we call each other names, the more entrenched each side becomes. I'm beginning to believe that the divide is a bigger issue than the issues themselves.
All of which is not to say that you're not spot on. You are.
http://open.salon.com/blog/bluestocking_babe/2010/08/29/glenn_beck_vs_al_sharpton_two_rallies_on_king_anniversary/comment
I was just saying that I wish there were a way to get the (legitimate) media to ignore Beck and Sarah Palin and others whose volume is inversely proportional to how much sense they make or in Beck's case their sanity, we would all be better off.
Bible Spice/Beckham Young 2012 !!!
please, please, please run them, repub-er-tea party, er ... scared white folks who no one would have any problem with if they just left everyone else alone, you know, follow their own advice.
Please run these 2 for prez and veep, please!
rated.
I personally don't think one kind of American right wing religious nut is any better or worse than another, but I'm surprised at how effectively Beck has been able to ingratiate himself with the non-Mormon religious right that historically has rejected Mormons and their magic underwear as practicing an unacceptable/cult-like form of Christianity.
Excellent line and this was exactly my reaction. I was almost dying to read something of substance so I could learn more about Beck myself -- I don't get Fox news so I literally know very little about the guy. In Los Angeles his radio show has only just started to play out here and very early in the morning.
But I have to tell you if this is the reaction against him I'm all for him. It tells me more about the shallowness of the haters than it does about Beck.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/08/the_education_of_glenn_beck.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/08/the_education_of_glenn_beck.html
Beck's assertion that he is reclaiming the Civil Rights Movement is absurd, and his using it to promote his overtly racist agenda is vile. His claim is purely and simply propaganda, and there is no necessity to disprove such an obviously false claim. Any man who would make such a claim is just as obviously a liar and a charlatan. And dismissing criticism of such evil as an ad hominem attack is a dubious claim in its own right.
Not is it an ad hominem attack to suggest as I did that Beck's behavior borders (at least) on delusional -- that is a diagnosis. And while I am not qualified to make such a diagnosis, that doesn't make me wrong. Surely suggesting Hitler was nuts does not require a medical degree or a note from his doctor.
Surely stating Stalin was a stone-cold killer does not require listing the names of the millions who died by his hand or his order. To assert that Huey Long or Joe McCarthy or Joe Barton or John Boehner or Rush Limbaugh or Glen Beck were/are self-serving blowhards does not require any more than a firm grasp of the obvious.
But apparently that insight is beyond some people's grasp.
http://tinyurl.com/257govy
If you can't provide specific links to what you are saying then all you are doing is spewing hate which is an ad hominem attack.
"The reason why an Ad Hominem (of any kind) is a fallacy is that the character, circumstances, or actions of a person do not (in most cases) have a bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made or the quality of the argument being made."
source: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ad-hominem.html
Well done, sir.
In a comment on one of my previous posts, you attempted to link the Obama administration to the BP oil spill without a shred of evidence. And somehow, you connected that insinuated conspiracy to Columbine and the Oklahoma City bombing -- and now you have the gall to accuse me of not complying with the rules of argument?
(R)ated for roof-top ranting, a necessary function of a democracy either busy being born or something....
Try limiting discussion to the topic at hand, that might help.
"I'm always perplexed by people who latch on to policies and philosophies that are ultimately against their own best interests."
Can you explain what you mean by this?
I'm not concerned about a single post. But when almost every post on the topic follows the same theme, then I wonder what's going on.
Tom: "Beck's assertion that he is reclaiming the Civil Rights Movement is absurd, and his using it to promote his overtly racist agenda is vile."
I don't know what you mean by an "overtly racist agenda." On OS that could mean anything from disagreeing with Al Sharpton to opposing the 9/11 mosque (or whatever it is) to being an active member of the KKK.
Tom: "Any man who would make such a claim is just as obviously a liar and a charlatan. And dismissing criticism of such evil as an ad hominem attack is a dubious claim in its own right."
The claim here is that he is reclaiming the civil rights movement, I assume. Is this is the literal assertion or is this your interpretation? If literal, what did he mean? And if he meant exactly that, maybe he's mistaken. Maybe he's overly ambitious. Maybe he's delusional. Without his actual statements, who knows?
Tom: "Not is it an ad hominem attack to suggest as I did that Beck's behavior borders (at least) on delusional -- that is a diagnosis."
Right. This is Beck diagnosis #326 this week on Open Salon. Everyone has a diagnosis, but nobody wants to talk about the issues.
Tom: " . . . and Glen Beck were/are self-serving blowhards does not require any more than a firm grasp of the obvious."
Ok, here's a theory: Glen Beck is a self-serving blowhard AND right about the issues. Oh wait, since nobody wants to talk about the issues we can't evaluate that.
Tom: "But apparently that insight is beyond some people's grasp."
On OS I think this is how it works: if someone can make a case that a person is sufficiently unlikeable, then it's not necessary to talk about the positions that the person actually holds. Call someone a bigot, homophobe, or racist, and it's Miller Time and high fives all around, and nothing more need be said. That's part of the culture here.
I am sticking with the subject -- you accuse me of making broad accusations without sufficient evidence. I may be a sophist, but better a sophist than a conspiracy theorist.
Again, on my Shill, Baby, Shill post deriding Joe Barton and the Drill, Baby, Drill/ crowd of crapitalist apologists and psuedo-conservatives, you warned there was a possible connection between the BP oil spill and Hitler's birthday. That canard was part and parcel of another lame-brained conspiracy thrown up by the Far Wrong insinuating Obama the Communist was involved.
I'm puzzled by the fact the Far Wrong idiotically portrays Obama as both a Fascist (Hitler) and a Communist -- do they not know the difference? That isn't the only oxymoronic charge applied against Obama by the Far Wrong, who don't want Obama to socialize their Medicare.
By they way, I have a conspiracy theory of my own I'd like to Rush into this discussion -- I suspect a connection between oxymoron and OxyContin.
As for the ever-popular Hitler, there is far more that connects him to Beck than to Obama, beginning with scapegoating minorities and preying upon people's ignorance and prejudice. If you don't see that as part of Beck's appeal, perhaps its because as you admit you haven't caught his act.
If we can't agree that Beck is a liar and a charlatan, I doubt there is much room for discussion about his "positions" -- such as they are.
If you mean to discuss the positions taken by Republican leadership to privatize (gut) social security, undo the paltry gains (thanks to Republican intransigence) made in healthcare reform and financial re-regulation, and extending massive tax cuts to those who least need them, I am in favor of exactly none of those positions.
Teabaggers in particular, and too often Republicans in general, want all the benefits of a civilized society without paying for them. And just because that's a generalization doesn't make it wrong.
Beck's brain sparks ain't reaching the right connections.
FIRST - this was to be a giant book coming out party.
NEXT - He didnt know (uh huh) that it was scheduled for the same day and place as the famous Civil Rights rally.
THEN - It became a rally to restore honor and hope to an America that lost its way (when it elected a Black Democrat to the White House)
FINALLY - It was to raise money for a veterans childrens organization (percentage to be determined).
Lets face it. Those who choose to argue in the comments that no real argument against Beckistan has been properly set out ignore the FACT that he presents a moving target so that you cant. But then, the FACT that his switchbacks, public pirouettes, racist rants about the President and wildly idiotic greaseboard conspiracy lessons display either an unstable personality or a digression into cheap hucksterism should be enough that one can make broad assertions without repeating each of these events to begin the argument.
Yes Tom, you have summed it up well -
"Glenn Beck is Howard Beale without a conscience or a cause. "
I want you on TV and radio, Cordle. Man, I've missed seeing you here. I hope this means you'll be back with more regularity.
(By the way, if you're having a problem with regularity, I'm told there's this yogurt that's quite helpful.)
Beware Comet Hale-Beck
Tim4Change
Thanks for your support -- it is sad that what is obvious can never be seen by those who are willfully blind
ManTalkNow
Thanks for the kind words. As for my regularity, I have no problem in that regard. Vulgarity? Well, that's another matter.
Funny thing, mishima -- I notice you're not talking about what Beck actually said either.
Tell me one of his actual political positions and let's discuss it. I'm having too much trouble getting past the rah rah rah and demonization of all folks left of Reagan to have any knowledge of his taking any actual positions. That's a big chunk of the problem; most of his followers have no idea what they're really for or against.
As I don't see much point in arguing what was said on another post and on a totally different topic on this post, I'll just say I don't think you understood my point, and I said nothing about Obama.
In the interest of civility, I'll mention something I agree with you on and something I don't:
You said "If you mean to discuss the positions taken by Republican leadership to ... undo the paltry gains (thanks to Republican intransigence) made in healthcare reform... [then] I am in favor of exactly none of those positions." I'm not in favor of trying to overturn heathcare reform even though I don't agree with it or the way it was passed. So we agree there.
You said: "Teabaggers ... and ... Republicans ... want all the benefits of a civilized society without paying for them. "
I don't know of anyone who doesn't accept paying taxes and paying their fair share and paying more if they earn more. What almost everyone I know objects to is the tremendous waste and the favoritism involved when the government gives hand outs. When the top %50 of wage-earners are paying %97 of the taxes, the bottom %50 simply don't care if the money is spent wisely or not because it's not their money that is being spent.
People define "civil society" in different ways. To me it's not civil to punish people for being successful and to have policies that view Americans as lacking in generosity. It's not civil for the city manager of a poor area of Los Angeles (Bell) to receive an annual salary of $800,000. (The city is run by democrats.) To me it's not even civil to have to feed a parking meter on a Sunday, but thanks to our democratic mayor that's what we now have to do. So we disagree on what "civil" means.
The ENTIRE GOP fits into that category: they keep on advocating tax cuts no matter how huge the deficit gets -- and even when they've started TWO WARS that aren't being paid for. And everyone who even mentions the possibility of raising taxes to pay for anything is automatically slammed as a socialist who wants to destroy capitalism. So yes, there are PLENTY of people who (admit it or not) do indeed reject the basic concept of paying their fair share.
What almost everyone I know objects to is the tremendous waste and the favoritism involved when the government gives hand outs.
Puh-lease! The state of California is nearly broke as a result of Prop 13, they're cutting back on basic services (as are other states with similar taxophobic measures), not as a result of deciding they're "wasteful," but simply because there isn't enough revenue to pay for them at all, and a blindly selfish minority prevent any action that might raise more revenue. So again, yes, it really is about people refusing to pay their fair share.
Awwww, poor baby...ever wonder WHY you suddently have to feed a parking meter on Sunday? It's probably because people like you supported so many tax cuts for so long, with so little regard for the consequences, that your jurisdiction has NO OTHER WAY to pay for ANYTHING. My state (which is run by Republicans) got rid of a car tax, and ever since then they've been talking about jacking up traffic fines, by orders of magnitude, as an extra source of revenue. Also, one of my former home counties openly supports pre-conviction asset siezures, not for justice purposes, but for revenue purposes. The "right" people don't wanna do their part, so now we're looking for ways to make the "other" folks do their part for them.
I admit I am painting with a broad brush, but it's difficult not to do so when you have people holding up signs at Teabagger rallies saying "Don't socialize my Medicare" . That suggests these people know little or nothing about socialism, economics, politics or much of anything else.
Their solution to everything seems to be cut taxes, despite the fact that much of the Teabagger crowd appears to be beneficiaries of those taxes and of socialism -- not only the obvious manifestations like Social Security and Medicare, but things like public education, public highways and public transportation. You may recall this is also the same bunch that whined about public transportation in DC being inadequate to cart them around to their anti-tax rallies. Duh.
Again, these people want all the benefits of a civilized society without paying for them. Would that, as you suggest, they willingly, let alone gladly, paid their fair share of the burden of operating the world's largest corporation, but alas that is a delusion. They somehow imagine this corporation can be run without taxes, or they simply don't care if it goes bankrupt -- or so it appears.
Are you aware the tax rate on billion-dollar hedge fund income was reduced to 15% -- and hedge fund managers are still using every devious accounting trick in the book to avoid paying that low rate? And who assumes the burden when the wealthy don't pay? The vanishing middle class. If you disagree with that assertion, you are disagreeing not only with me and govt statistics, but with America's foremost capitalist Warren Buffet.
As for the 50% of low-income earners who don't pay income taxes, they are taxed far more heavily percentage-wise than hedge fund managers and the rest of the investor class when you factor in SS and Medicare deductions, state and local taxes, gasoline taxes, etc, etc, etc. So spare me the canard that they don't pay taxes.
Are you aware that during the Fifties, the Golden Age conservatives seem so desperate to return to, the top tax bracket was 92% and the average tax burden for the wealthy was 50%? The folly of Voodoo Economics -- that reducing taxes increases revenues -- was based on an aberration during the Kennedy years when taxes were reduced from those levels, levels that approached confiscatory.
Not that I'm against confiscatory taxes -- I'd love to see John Paulson pay 92% of the $3.7 billion he earned in a single year by scamming the system. Ditto for all the Wall Street Wizards who were rewarded handsomely for nearly bringing down the world's economy. I'm all for the same rate for Tony Hayward and other oil company execs and the execs at the large health insurance companies that have made a mockery of the promise to "first do no harm".
Yet conservatives continue to spout this Supply-Side tax nonsense in spite of a mountain of clear evidence to the contrary -- thanks to the huge deficits rung up under Reagan and Bush the Lesser.
As you can see, I am happy to discuss policies, but please don't expect me to waste my time or yours discussing the validity or sanity of Beckonomics or Beckology or Beckistory. The man is an utter fool, and the fact that so many can't see that scares me a lot more than any terrorist.
I assume you are talking about the reduction in the capital gains tax ... passed when Clinton was president. Do you include Clinton in your list of supply-siders? If not, you should.
"In 1997, the Republican-led Congress passed a tax-relief and deficit-reduction bill that was resisted but ultimately signed by President Clinton. The 2007 bill (among other things) ...[l]owered the top capital gains tax rate from 28 percent to 20 percent....Despite its modest size, tax cut advocates had high expectations for the tax cut's effects on the economy because the reduction in the capital gains tax rate was expected to unleash a torrent of entrepreneurial and venture capital activity. They were not disappointed....The Clinton years present two consecutive periods as experiments of the effects of tax policy. The first period, from 1993 to 1996, began with a significant tax increase as the economy was accelerating out of recession. The second period, from 1997 to 2000, began with a modest tax cut as the economy should have settled into a normal growth period. The economy was decidedly stronger following the tax cut than it was following the tax increase." (1)
I also found this quote interesting:
"There is surely no reluctance among proponents to argue that higher taxes on tobacco materially reduce tobacco consumption or that higher taxes on energy would appreciably reduce energy consumption. Yet, somehow, the argument persists that raising taxes on labor does not diminish the supply of labor or that raising taxes on capital does not appreciably reduce the amount of capital in the economy. In both cases, tax hikes weaken the economy and reduce the amount of income earned by American families."(1)
I'm all for taxing the Warren Buffets and the Oprah Winfrees of the world more, the problem is they are in the top 2%. So even if you take all their money away it won't accomplish much.
An important thing to remember regarding capital gains, it's a tax that people have easily avoid paying by not selling whatever the item to be taxed is. That means if the capital gains tax is high, people just won't see their stock (or other investment), whereas if the tax is lower people are more willing to sell the asset and thus pay the tax.
In addition, the capital gains tax represents a second tax on the item, because the stock purchased reflects a value on a company's earnings that are taxed and then you are taxed a second time when you sell that stock. It's explained pretty well in this report:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=1101
Tom says: "As you can see, I am happy to discuss policies, but please don't expect me to waste my time or yours discussing the validity or sanity of Beckonomics or Beckology or Beckistory."
So what exactly are you willing to discuss on a blog you have titled "Glen Beck is Right"? Apparently not Glen Beck. Well, I guess we wouldn't agree on him either.
1. http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/03/tax-cuts-not-the-clinton-tax-hike-produced-the-1990s-boom
He's sick and the people that follow him are also, which is scary considering the number of them.
Well, one could start by talking about what Beck said at the recent rally, supposedly the topic of this Open Call.
I listened to perhaps two-thirds of his remarks. Given that some on OS have called him "one of the most dangerous men in America," I was waiting for him to say we should exterminate the Jews, or send all the blacks back to Africa, or nuke Iran, or something like that. But there was nothing.
One of his opening remarks went like this: "American has done great things and also terrible things. Rather than dwelling on the terrible things it is important that we learn from them so that we don't make the same mistakes twice."
He talked about the importance of belief in God, and said that families should pray together.
At one point he presented 240 members of the clergy, both male and female. He said that they had both political and theological differences of opinion, but that they all agreed on the importance of faith and belief in God.
He quoted extensively from the Gettysburg Address and Lincoln's Second Inaugural address. He said they were a kind of "scripture" for the country.
The speech had a sermon-like quality to it. I'm not a big fan of speeches like that, but it was Ok.
These were the kinds of things that he actually talked about during the rally. I didn't notice anything very controversial. And perhaps that explains why, given all the OS posts about Beck, I only found one that discussed what he actually said.
I'm sure a dedicated Beck hater could sift through the speech and find something to be offended about. But I kept thinking -- "this is it? This is one of the most dangerous men in America?"
Beck to the Future
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