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Glenn Beck is now beyond drooling-raving-on-the-streetcorner insane

Puppycow

Penultimate Amazing
Puppycow
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It's hardly worth commenting on every stupid thing Glenn Beck says anymore, but lately he has really gone way, way, way too far down the rabbit hole of his own fevered imagination. It's getting to the point, like with Helen Thomas, that I'm starting to wonder how a major news network can still justify employing this man. Even mainstream conservatives like Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard and Rich Lowry of National Review have noticed and are starting to speak out (finally!).

Just one of many recent examples: Beck has a man on his show who literally claims to be a prophet, and who wrote an article in World Nut Daily comparing Obama to the Antichrist. And he's presenting this guy as an expert on "the end times" and claiming that the protests in Wisconsin have something to do with the end times.
 
The trouble is that Maddow is quite right. Although he's saying the type of utter lunacy that would only usually be broadcast on fringe UFOlogy TV or radio stations what Beck broadcasts will end up being repeated utterly po-facedly by formerly bog-standard conservatives.
 
Well, if this is the end times coming along with Obama/antichrist and so on, shouldnt those crazy people be wellcoming it?
 
Yeah, you'd think all the fundies would be quivering in anticipation. "Finally! We've only been waiting for 2000 years!"
 
Beck for over a year has been positioning himself as a religious evangelist, with all the trappings of preacher and prophet. His strategies are parallel as well: create fear, offer safety/salvation, sell products.

The genius of his company and his writers is how they have been able to take the emotional and psychological dependencies that the TV and radio evangelist is so good at manipulating, and integrate those with a more modern format and theme. They call it "The fusion of entertainment and enlightenment".

If you listen to his radio shows, where he seems to have more space to rant, I think you'll see how much he does weave religious themes into his political conspiracies and rants. I wonder if anyone has pointed out to him the interesting similarities his character has to that antichrist: enthralling to many, lots of people like him, involved in the world of politics, and setting himself up as a religious prophet?

(Is there a specific fallacy for fighting conspiracies with conspiracies? :) )
 
I think the feud with Lowry and Kristol is a tipping point for Beck. He is now attacking other conservatives for being in on the conspiracy.
If it is any comfort his ratings are dropping,and since he has never brought the big advertising bucks in on his show (most big advertisers don't want to be identified with him) rumors have it he will go the way of Keith Olbermann by the end of the year.
 
nah, Beck is a bit off mark, because the End Times will come not with the Antichrist, but with Duke Nukem Forever :D
 
I sat next to someone on a flight recently. He said that there was "something to" this end-times stuff. I nodded politely. We ended up exchanging cards when he offered to send me something regarding a mutual business interest. In the envelope with the thing he sent was a photocopy of a chapter of some end times tract. I can't believe the stuff people believe.
 
Glenn Beck = Howard Beal of Network.

Beck had best hope it ends a little better for him than it did Mr. Beal. :D
 
I think it's funny when Beck bangs on college students for not exercising better critical thinking skills.
 
dudalb said:
I think the feud with Lowry and Kristol is a tipping point for Beck. He is now attacking other conservatives for being in on the conspiracy.
If it is any comfort his ratings are dropping,and since he has never brought the big advertising bucks in on his show (most big advertisers don't want to be identified with him) rumors have it he will go the way of Keith Olbermann by the end of the year.
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Yup, if Beck is as crazy as he sounds, it's only a matter of time before he goes too far. Then it'll be curtains for him, because Fox News can always find another right-wing talking head; they don't need Beck, but he needs them.

I think Beck is too disconnected from reality to realize that fact.
 
Puppycow said:
It's getting to the point, like with Helen Thomas, that I'm starting to wonder how a major news network can still justify employing this man.
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Major sponsors asked to be moved off Beck's show many months ago. His ratings are dropping, and are probably strong only among less-desirable demographics. (I mean, look at all the scary newfangled stuff that he says is a threat, like Google.)

I am starting to wonder if Beck has a contract that says he can't be fired because of the content on his show. I also suspect that the contract will be up in January 2013, after the Muslim usurper's interregnum is over. Mission accomplished.
 
C_Felix said:
I'm starting to think GB has more in common with Andy Kaufman than Rush or Hannity.

I'm starting to think that GB is a performance artist (and the joke is on [some] of us.)
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.
All of the talking heads are performance artists.
Each has found his/her schtick that the networks will pay for.
 
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