The Glenn Beck Omnibus of Recent Inanities – The Carnival Edition
Reported by Aunty Em - January 17, 2011 -
This is the second in an occasional series due to the sheer ubiquity of the Fox “News” P.T. Barnum, the newly Passive-Aggressive Glenn Beck. After he launched his topsy-turvy “War Is Over, If You Want It” pledge —like some modern day combination of John Lennon, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Marjoe Gortner —visiting the Glenn Beck Carnival became fun again. It hasn’t been that way for the last 8 months to a year. It was pretty much the same old rides and the same old empty cotton candy. But ever since his phony bologna pledge, and the hilarious E4 concept to start a Revolution, it’s a whole new midway. The Rodeo Clown turned Prop Comedian turned Evangelist has now turned Sideshow Barker. One minute you’re at the House of Mirrors, where everything reflected is totally distorted from reality, and the next you are on a Wild History Roller Coaster, almost being flung from the cart by the hair-pin turns. Don’t despair, the favorites never left. The midway still has the usual “Whack-A-Progressive-Mole”, and Barker Beck will make sure there’s a House of Horrors. Let’s walk the Glenn Beck Carnival together, shall we?
Over at The Fun House Crooks and Liars’ David Neiwert has a great catch. First he unloads the snark with a short article titled “Glenn Beck and Jared Loughner: Separated at birth?”
I know! Let's start a rumor that Loughner is actually the secret love child of Glenn Beck (who in fact used to work in radio in Phoenix). And it will have every bit as firm a foundation as your average "Barack Obama is a secret whites-hating Marxist who is trying to destroy America" rant. Get out your chalkboards!
However it’s the video that makes this a 4-ticket attraction, guaranteed to make you laugh. Neiwert captures “ [T]his weird segue [which] popped up the other day in the Twilight Zone between Neil Cavuto's Fox News show and the Glenn Beck show immediately following.” WARNING: Clear all liquids before getting on this ride:
The House of Mirrors is reflected in another Neiwert column, a far more serious examination of Beck’s continued eliminationist rhetoric. He turns the tables and asks, “OK, Glenn Beck: Are you man enough to take the CrooksandLiars Pledge?” It’s a rational explanation on how Beck is waiving his cockamamie peace pledge with one hand, while still demonizing his foes with the other:
“You see, Glenn, as SEK at Lawyers, Guns and Money explained the other day, violent rhetoric is not always the outright advocacy of violence, as you seem to think: it is just as often rhetoric that invites a specific audience to reach the conclusion that violence is the only appropriate action to deal with a problem. And this kind of rhetoric, as we know all too well, is your specialty in trade.”
Please read the whole thing while we’re waiting in line at Fox “News” Freak Show, where Bill O’Reilly is just another of the more curious and unusual exhibits under the tent erected to defend Sarah Palin, “America’s Professional Victim, in the wake of the Tucson Massacre.” What makes The Falafel King’s exhibit the freakiest of the freaks is how he takes the victimization just one step further than anyone else is willing. Fancy Walking Half Governor Sarah Palin’s not the most vilified person. Glenn Beck is the more vilified, as if there’s really a ranking. Loofah Lad let loose on this topic to that other Fox “News” Fancy Walker, Gretchen Carlson, accompanied by her crown polisher Margaret Hoover, all three trying to remove Palin’s recent tarnish, just as Mama Grizzly will try to do the same at a hunters' convention later this month.
The next night O’Reilly felt he had to top himself. Mediate, which tends to gloss over any Fox “News” Extremism, captured his freakiest exhibit yet, straight from the horse’s ass mouth:
Beck visited O’Reilly for his weekly segment to talk gender bias in the political sphere, and whether Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann were subject to more vicious attacks. O’Reilly didn’t buy this argument, asking Beck if it were possible for the vitriol against him to be worse than it is now. Beck seemed to agree, modestly, that he was one of the more hated figures in political media, and gave up data on why: “I have 15 operating threats on me at any given time.” Despite the violent threats, however, Beck continued to argue that “Americans are fair and decent, and they’re not looking for revenge or anything else,” and encouraged public and private figures alike to take his new pledge to “renounce violence regardless of ideology,” something he perceived as essential for the strength of the nation, especially in light of the recent violence.
And we’re not even at the House of Horrors, our next stop. This is the scariest ride at The Glenn Beck Carnival because it taps into my nightly waking horrors: the dog whistles I believe I’ve been hearing. [I’m either going to be proven right eventually or I am becoming as paranoid as Beck.] I believe Sarah Palin knew exactly what she was saying when she used the term “blood libel,” a phrase that resonates differently to her Dominionist and Teabagger bases. Nothwithstanding Beck’s pledge, he attacked George Soros with smears and other allusions to tangential Jewish issues, while he claimed there was no greater friend of the Jewish people than himself. These dog whistles were also heard clearly by Jewish Funds for Justice. This week the organization attempted to deliver a petition to Fox “News” with 10,000 names attached:
I am outraged. I would like to add my name to the message below:Dear Mr. Rupert Murdoch,
I am writing to express my outrage at the recent Fox News special "The Puppet Master." I agree with Abe Foxman's recent characterization of Glenn Beck's attack on George Soros as "not only offensive, but horrific, over-the-top, and out-of-line." On his show on November 9, Mr. Beck stated that "he would be fired" if he "started leveling baseless charges that can't be backed up." Given his false accusation that Mr. Soros "help[ed] send the Jews to the death camps," I hope you will act on Mr. Beck's prediction and end his tenure at Fox News.
Just around the next bend something else jumps out and frightens me. Soon after JFfJ tried to deliver its petition Media Matters rightfully asks, “Why Are There So Many Jews In Beck's Rogues Gallery?”
So who are these nefarious figures from government, finance, media, and academia who believe they can and should control everyone's choices, "not just in politics, but everywhere"? In tonight's episode, Beck singles out nine of them. One is AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka. Here are the other eight:• Propagandist and ad man Edward Bernays, who revolutionized 20th century public relations.
• Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, who was Bernays' uncle and influenced his method.
• George Soros, who Beck claimed shared Freud and Bernays' philosophy that people are "animals" who can be "experimented with."
• Cass Sunstein, who Beck insisted "is Edward Bernays" and has called "the most dangerous man in America."
• Former SEIU president Andy Stern, who Beck said is part of a self-proclaimed "intelligent minority" of powerful men trying to manipulate the "bewildered herd" of America.
• Walter Lippman, a prominent columnist of the mid-20th century, who Beck accused of viewing government "as a way to control people."
• Frances Fox Piven, professor at CUNY, who Beck accused of "sowing the seeds" of revolution.
• Ed Rendell, the governor of Pennsylvania, who Beck said thinks of himself as "one of the elites that are there to guide the herd."Eagle-eyed readers might notice what all eight of these people have in common. Yes, eight out of the nine villains Beck identified tonight are Jewish.
Even if one takes Beck at his word [yeah, yeah, I know, but bear with me for a moment] that he’s the best friend to the Jews since Pharaoh let the people go, there are others attuned to hear the specific frequency of the dog whistle that sings “Jews control the media”—because that’s what they truly believe. The Jewish Funds for Justice petition and the recent MM article will only reinforce their attitude, their resistance, and their defense of Glenn Beck, the most vilified man in America.
Like any carnival Glenn Beck delivers a lot of fun and a lot of darkness. It will interesting to tune in this week, corn dog [whistle] in hand, catch the Jew du Jour. However, I just know that today will be all one of the giants of American history, Civil Rights, Progressivism, and Social Justice: Martin Luther King, Jr. You have to admit it’s laughable that pipsqueak Glenn Beck will distort King’s message and legacy in order to purloin King’s mantle.
