Glenn Beck Hate Mongering Of The Day: Suggesting Obama Administration Will Commit Atrocities
Reported by Ellen - January 26, 2010 -
As we have previously reported, Glenn Beck has tottered closer to calling for open warfare against progressives as he has ratcheted up his use of violent rhetoric in his shows. On yesterday’s (1/25/10) show, Beck took a disingenuous baby step back to claim, “No one on this program is saying this administration is setting out to commit atrocities in America.” Then he immediately went on to suggest that that was exactly what is likely to happen. With video.
Beck brought out the violent rhetoric in the preamble to the lengthy monologue that opens each of his shows. “I told you last week that we’re either going to see a progressive revolutionary emerge in our president or Bill Clinton will suddenly appear and they will begin to triangulate and play politics. Well, not only are we seeing revolutionaries, this weekend, they decided to fight with everything they’ve got. But it’s not just revolutionaries, it’s arrogant revolutionaries.”
Before getting to the revolution, Beck reiterated his claim that “this year is going to be different” on his show. As Aunty Em and I have previously posted, the new show is indistinguishable from the old show, except that the rhetoric has gotten even more inflammatory. Claiming he only got a few hours of sleep most nights because he was busy “trying to just figure out what are they doing.” Beck declared, “We figured it out together last year.” Beck added, “This year, I’ve decided that the only way to move forward and to fix it is just to remember who we are as Americans. Learn and remember where we came from.”
Apparently, when Beck says, “remember who we are as Americans,” what he means is, attack progressives as viciously as he can get away with. His next sentences were, “And more importantly, correct the history that progressives have tried to erase. Friday night, we showed you the history of communist revolutionaries. It’s not taught.” Then, after Beck boasted about his great ratings on Friday, the night he showed his “documentary,” Beck said to his audience, “You are eager to learn the history that progressives are erasing, as am I.” Beck probably meant that he was eager to learn the history, not that he was erasing history, as his sentence actually read. But maybe it was a Freudian slip. Because a slew of professional historians have debunked Beck’s “documentary.”
“All this week, we’re going to take a deeper look into what we showed you,” Beck promised, without explaining what that had to do with “remembering who we are.” Apparently, in Beck’s mind, “who we are” is whatever is on his mind that day.
“We’re gonna show you the different things and how it relates, what we showed you on Friday, that was the end game for crazy people. We’re going to see if we can find any similarities that are happening here.” Surprise, surprise, surprise! He found similarities (again) between the fascism of Hitler and Stalin, discussed on Friday, and in progressives and the Obama administration.
But first, more about Beck. The thin-skinned one (when it comes to slights against himself) “joked” about the “outrageous errors” Politico was looking for from “this clown.”
“I’m here to report that they found none,” Beck claimed. Well, unless you count this:
Michael Kazin, a history professor at Georgetown, described Beck's special as "a classic piece of anti-Communist propaganda" which he said doesn't mean most of the facts are wrong, but that the host's selectively using some, while ignoring others.”
Or this:
Clemson University professor Steven Marks, author of "How Russia Shaped the Modern World," said that while Beck doesn't explicitly tie the left-wing totalitarian regimes of the past to contemporary liberals, that's what "he's hinting at here.""No one in their right mind is going to defend Stalin or Mao or Che Guevara," Marks said. "The implication is that this is what's going to happen if Democrats get their way. This is just a complete lie."
Or this:
Alan Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Life at Boston College, said that the film not only isn't accurate, but that Beck "lives in a complete alternative universe." We know Beck read this part because he went on to quote it and deride it later in the segment.
All of the above were cited by Politico.
Beck, Misinformer of 2009, could not even accurately portray his critics.
But Beck either knew he had not been vindicated or else he’s even more thin-skinned than I thought. Because instead of helping us remember who we are, we had to hear more about what he isn’t - according to him. After quoting Professor Marks’ criticism of Beck’s film, he said, “These poor professors have such a hard time finding anything wrong with this special that they have to go with ‘implied lies.’” That brought about the over-familiar clip of Anita Dunn talking about Chairman Mao (as if that had anything to do with his getting his facts about Mao or Stalin or Hitler correctly) and another harangue by Beck about the Christmas tree ornament on the White House Christmas tree, the “glorification” of Che by the left, etc.
Of course, Beck never mentions in these rants how he, himself, seemed to express admiration for the mind of Hitler.
Instead, Beck launched another harangue that could best be summed up as a long-winded, hate-mongering, self-vindication of his hatred for progressives.
Next, Beck tapped the Beatles song, “Revolution” as proof of his thesis. “The key is in the lyrics!” Beck exclaimed, like someone flashing back to an old acid trip. “We all want to change the world. But when you talk about destruction, don’t you know that you can count me out… You say you’ll change the Constitution, well, you know. We all want to change your head.” The words appeared on the screen as John Lennon sang along. Beck went to the chalkboard and wrote “evolution.” He said, “Progressives know you drop the one letter and make it ‘evolution’ and I’m there… The Beatles knew… Openly defending Mao, or attacking the Constitution would be suicidal… You can’t have a revolution but you can make the Constitution evolve… Evolution, not revolution,” Beck said.
I have to admit, Beck completely lost me there, maybe because I never took acid. But it had something to do with the fact that progressives started to make their radical changes by evolution, not revolution until they “became arrogant and impatient” and “So Obama moved ahead, light speed with his agenda.” That meant, for Beck, photos of his usual scapegoats including Dunn, Van Jones, and Andy Stern whom Beck once again falsely labeled “the most frequent visitor at the White House.”
Considering how upset Beck was when he was named Misinformer for 2009 (and PolitiFact has not rated him much higher), you’d think he’d be a little more careful with his facts now.
Still, Beck decided not only was he right but that he knew more than any professor. “I want to make it clear for any professors who might be watching, still believing this bull crap, that they keep teaching every day.” What bull crap are they teaching? Beck never exactly said (and just a few minutes before, Beck was exulting in how the professors found no errors in his work). But one can’t help but think that the “bull crap” Beck had in mind was their criticism of him.
Beck continued, his voice defiant, “No one on this program is saying this administration is setting out to commit atrocities in America." No, nobody said that, Beck "merely" suggested that it will happen. In fact, he did it again immediately following. "What we are saying is the pattern repeats itself and we must be vigilant and watch for warning signs like Andy Stern (Beck played the familiar clip of Stern saying, ‘We’re trying to use the power of persuasion. And if that doesn’t work, we’re going to use the persuasion of power.’ As usual, Beck also ignored that Stern has said, ‘The good news is communism’s dead.’)”
“Is that a threat, Andy Stern?” Beck asked. “The people in this administration have shown us certain warning signs and isn’t it stupid of us to ignore those signs? It doesn’t mean that that’s where the road is going to end up. It just means there’s a warning sign here. Careful! Hazard ahead! But don’t worry. The danger is only really heightened when you couple radical revolutionary ideas with arrogance (and of course, Beck had just said progressives "became arrogant")… If we are not careful, America, their arrogance will not only be their undoing, which it already has, but if we’re not careful, it will be ours as well.”
Please consider giving Beck some feedback at [email protected] or [email protected]. Considering how thin-skinned he is, your comments are sure to have an effect.
