Beck Uses an Old Obama Clip to Bash Cap and Trade -- And Says Some Other Dumb Stuff, Too
Reported by Julie - April 27, 2010 -
Glenn Beck is marvelous in his simplicity. I mean that sincerely. The fact that the term "simple" when referring to a human being isn't necessarily a good thing . . . well, it is what it is. Here are some samples of Beck's simplistic formulas, as demonstrated on yesterday's (4/26/10) "The One Thing" segment. He's seems big on linking dependency and regulation. To Beck, the Obama Administration = dependent = regulating social justice = red tape = slavery. So . . . the Obama Administration is all about slavery now? Oh, here's another one: "Tough new international capital regime" = global government = New World Order. Since Beck read someplace that "global government" = "really bad, like spooky bad," he's completely appalled at the Americans = total silence thing. Even the Republicans failed to come through. . . "the Republicans were all for this one, wow, how does that happen?" I think he was talking about Goldman Sachs, but I'm not sure. But let me harken back to the "intellectually dishonest" charge I made against Beck in my recent post. He could be simply intellectually dishonest. Or he could be just not real smart. Or, he could be a not real smart, intellectually dishonest person with not real smart, intellectually dishonest fans. In any event, in Beck's universe, Goldman Sachs is the bad guy but not really the bad guy -- certainly not bad enough, in Beck's view, to support what the "Almighty Senate" is going to do to Goldman Sachs on Tuesday in the "good show, I mean, a good hearing." With video.
Remember in one of the Indiana Jones movies when Indiana Jones has to fend off a pit full of snakes with a torch? Remember all of those hundreds of writhing reptiles? Well, that's sort of like Beck's mind, and his show. Trying to follow some semblance of logic is, to use another cliche, kind of like herding cats. Can't be done. But I'll try.
Okay, first Beck mocks the fact that Goldman Sachs ("those evil greedy Sith Lord Wall Street executives") is the bad guy, and wonders why Goldman Sachs is "now the bad guy, why?" Even while admitting that Goldman Sachs probably profited off the housing market, Beck said he's unwilling to throw Goldman Sachs under the bus when so many other people are involved, and continued to mock the process of Goldman Sachs appearing before the Senate, saying, "They're appearing before The Almighty Senate tomorrow . . . it should be a good show, I mean, a good hearing . . . they'll go in front of the inquisitor himself, Christopher Dodd," who Beck referred to as one of the "Goldman haters."
So, did you get that? Goldman Sachs may be bad, but not bad enough to throw under the bus, not if the Obama Administration will somehow benefit from Goldman Sachs being thrown under the bus. Then, Beck turned his own logic on its head, railing on all the former Goldman Sachs people who now work in the Obama Administration. Beck questioned why, if Goldman Sachs is really the bad guy, is the Obama Administration full of Goldman Sachs people? He named various former Goldman Sachs people, including William Dudley, Pres of the Fed Reserve Bank of New York; Gary Gensler, Chairman of the Commodity Futures Commission; Mark Peterson, Chief of Staff for Timothy Geithner; Philip Murphy, nominated for Ambassador to Germany; Diana Farrell, Deputy Director of the National Economic Council; and Neil Michael, White House Fellow.
So, back to the pit of writhing snakes -- Beck doesn't want to throw Goldman Sachs under the bus because there are more people than Goldman Sachs involved, and he doesn't really understand why Goldman Sachs is taking all the heat . . . but wait, the Obama Administration needs to be thrown under the bus for having former Goldman Sachs people in its Administration. Evidently Goldman Sachs is not to be thrown under the bus unless it associates with the Obama Administration. Or something.
Beck speculated aloud, "You've been in a chop shop . . . I don't think I want you guys around advising us on anything." Watch, Beck, that you don't have the Goldman Sachs folks in the Obama Administration breathing bus exhaust fumes from below. Intellectually dishonest? You betcha.
Somehow, from the discussion of Goldman Sachs, Beck segued into a discussion of global warming, but at least he said one thing that smacked, finally, of intellectual honesty. While discussing the resources of his staff and checking stuff out, he admitted that "We're not investigative reporters, it's not what we do." Instead, he praised his "watchdogs . . . that's you," who live for the sole privilege of giving Beck newsy tips.
The obvious segue from a brief global warming discussion is to the Chicago Climate Exchange, which was brought to his attention by a "watchdog about Chicago and caught my eye." The chalkboard came into play, and Cass Sunstein got a shout-out, as did Al Gore, but ultimately his premise is that the voluntary Chicago Climate Exchange is "about to not be voluntary." I suffered through the 17+ minutes of the show, by the way, and never did hear how the CCX is going to soon not be voluntary.
Now, sit back, children, for Beck's, uh, simplistic view of cap and trade, which he described as "a scheme designed to transfer wealth from companies that have to companies that have not through regulation of invisible gases. Cass Sunstein, he's the regulatory God."
According to Beck, cap and trade is all a big game of trading nothing for money. He made a point of saying that Enron, "kings of swindle," loved this. Let's get really simple. You've got your big evil rich company in a big evil rich country and there's invisible gas, and the "evil rich company" can go out of business or downsize, or they can buy some of these puffy clouds that way across the water in a "not evil poor country" is a not evil poor company which doesn't make as many "puffy clouds" . . . and this "evil rich company" takes their money and gives it to the not evil small company and they sell them clouds, invisible gas.
"So," Beck concluded, "They sell that cloud that doesn't exist over here so they can make it . . . it almost looks like you're just transferring dollars from here to here . . . but don't think about that too much, 'cause that looks like Marxism, that's definitely not Marxism or a scam, this is real."
But maybe there's an even simpler explanation: "Let's say Michael Moore is the evil rich fat guy and this is a poor skinny model. Everybody on earth according to regulation can only have ten cupcakes per person. Well, Michael Moore . . . loves his cupcakes as you can tell . . . she not so much . . . so he buys her ten cupcake certificates, she sells him, she gets his money and he gets her certificates . . . she's not providing cupcakes, she just gives him . . . the invisible cupcakes. So he now has 20 cupcakes and she has none, but she's no longer poor -- see, it all works out." I don't get it -- he pays her, he gets "invisible cupcakes," according to Beck, that she doesn't want anyway. But then he says Moore has 20 cupcakes that aren't invisible -- and despite the fact that snakes are writhing everywhere in this logic, what it sounds like to me is the free market principle in action, paying what the market will bear . . . but what do I know?
Beck played a clip of President Obama saying, "Under my plan of a cap and trade system electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket . . . ." I was shocked at that -- I mean, right there on tv I heard President Obama say that -- and so I turned to Google, bless its heart. All right, so remember how I was talking about that intellectually dishonest thing in my previous post? Here ya go. The clip Beck played was of then-candidate Obama talking about a DIFFERENT cap and trade bill ("that would auction off 100 percent of available carbon allowances, and he made no mention at the time of a plan to compensate consumers for potential cost increases") than the current Waxman-Markey bill, which "initially would distribute most of the carbon allocations for free and contains substantial provisions to offset costs to consumers, and thus 'should reduce costs to consumers.'"
There was some more fat people-cupcake scenarios, but basically, Beck claims that the main beneficiaries are the big corporations and the proponents of redistribution of wealth. Summed up Beck, "Somebody's buying invisible gas to save the planet." The general premise here seems to be that rich corporations are just giving away money so, I don't know, people can eat cupcakes? The truth, of course, is a little different. You can read a not-crazy-person's explanation of cap and trade here.
By the time I get through this show, my mind is gonna be like Indiana Jones' snake pit.
Beck claimed that the Chicago Climate Exchange is this huge liberal conspiracy which involves George Soros and -- gasp -- gives money to John Ayers, the brother of Bill Ayers who is "definitely not a friend of Barack Obama, doesn't know him, definitely nowhere near Barack Obama." Intellectually dishonest is an understatement -- we'll call this one a lie. Neither President Obama nor Bill Ayers ever said they didn't know each other. (And John Ayers served on the Board of the Joyce Foundation, a charity, from 1994-2002. That's it.)
Now let's talk about the Chicago Climate Exchange, which treehugger.com explained just a bit better than Beck's tale of puffy clouds and cupcakes. As treehugger.com explained, "Simple - get a bunch of companies together and create your own market! A growing group of companies, including DuPont, Dow, Ford, Bayer and numerous city governments (see the impressive list here) have signed on to a legally binding contract to reduce their emissions, and trade their right to pollute on a free market exhange [sic] based in Chicago - the CCX."
So you see, it's all about the "Sopranos, money laundering," and the Joyce Foundation and the Tides, and John Ayers (and by association, Bill Ayers), and slavery and regulating social justice and George Soros and the New World Order, and, oh yeah, it's about job creation and shoring up the economy and getting America back on track . . . oops, I think that was Sarah Palin. Sorry -- images of writhing snakes in a pit makes me think of all sorts of things.
