Re: Lay Off Glenn Beck
Posted on September 1st, 2009 by Jack Ross
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All you say may be true, Jack, but I fear that that’s part of the problem. If given a chance, Glenn Beck could well bring down the alternative right the way the Black Panthers and the Weathermen brought down the antiwar movement. Granted, he’s not violent, but he comes across as just as much of a lunatic.
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Glenn Beck has motivated me to take to the letter writing and go to meetings and fight against the socialist. I felt powerless against the racist Obama, but now I know there are MILLIONS of good Americans like me out there…
Keep it up Glenn. I am right there with you.
NOBAMA!
Definitely post-right!
Beck, Hannity, and the rest are indeed popularizers, not intellectuals or genuine political leaders. But I think we hammer them under a certain false assumption. Is it their role to posit political theory or policy?
To quote the old computer geek saying, “Garbage in garbage out.” The GOP is a brain-dead institution serving multiple masters and the conservative intellectual organs, save this one among a few, are in the hands of Neo-con activists. So where would a character like Hannity look for positions to bloviate on? These people are entertainer-salesmen. They are selling a product, and in the case of contemporary GOP-Movement Conservatism, a defective one.
It’s pointless to complain about this unless we can provide a better product. It’s our job to create an alternative right with a coherent voice, policies and institutions. As for the salesmen, they will be just as glad to thump the tub for our policies if there was something in it for them.
Seriously, can we lay off the use of mental health terms to describe people. Whatever Glen Beck may or may not be. Whatever his faults and assets may or may not be. He is most certainly not a “lunatic.”
See my reply to the Glenn Beck post on @TAC.
That is exactly why, Red, I was sure to add the words “comes across”.
I would have said lunacy was the best defense Beck could hope for. If he could claim mental illness, at least some of the blame for his crazed conspiracy theories could devolve on those who knowingly hired a crazy man. If you’d prefer his behaviour be noted as “inexcusable”, so let it be done.
Glenn Beck is part of the movement that is deliberately prodding low-information, fundamentally ignorant and easily manipulated voters to some kind of violent outbreak. I’m sure he wouldn’t be sorry to have some disciple assassinate Obama, although he and his cohorts in crime – and that’s what it is – would settle for simply making the country ungovernable while delegitimizing its president. You know and I know that any of the actions taken to humiliate and scorn Obama, if taken against Bush when he was president would have resulted in the arrest of the perpetrator. Glenn Beck is one of the admirers of that sort of totalitarian government.
Glenn Beck should be expelled from the country he claims to love, while daily disgracing.
I don’t think that Beck “comes off” as a lunatic. If anything, he seems to be the conservative version of Chris Matthews, a bit ADD addled. He is not presenting sophisticated, highly nuanced material that’s for sure. But neither is he a pure hack like Hannity.
I detect a lot of “conspiracy phobia” among some on the right and people who seem more interested in avoiding taint and thought policing wrong thinkers than they do in advancing the cause. They are ever questing after that elusive respectability that they will never attain. If you are a conservative, you are according to the PTB disrespectable. Get used to it.
The problem is you can’t purge the conspiratorialist without both actually and practically purging your ideological hard edge as well.
And aren’t there degrees of conspiracy? I don’t have much use for conspiracy theories, but good grief, have a little nuance. What you are accusing Beck of not having. Believing that some people had foreknowledge is different from believing the 9/11 was an orchestrated inside job. Confidently asserting that Obama was born in Kenya is different than thinking he may be hiding something based on all the unreleased records. Thinking that a small Jewish cabal controls in minute detail all the world’s affairs is different than thinking that influential forces don’t have your best interests at heart. Get the point? What has Glenn Beck said that is overtly conspiratorial of the former type?
The conspiracy phobics make honest debate impossible. Any hint of conspiracy and they howl objection. I say get over yourselves and work for the cause.
“while delegitimizing its president”
Mark, the President is an oath breaking Constitution trampler. He should be deligitimized. He is deligitimizing himself with every bit of legislation he promotes.
Your disdain for Beck Has you guilty of a closed Mind. there are an abundance of facts to at least warrant consideration.The corruption in Washington (Dems & Reps alike) & particularly surrounding this President is rampant.He has surrounded himself with questionable at the very least,and verifyably dishonest(tax cheats)Dont be such a blind fool.These people are NOT watching out for us.