technoextreme
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No wonder Shepard Smith oppenly mocked him on his show. He is so far past loonback.
The Glenn Beck Thread....
- Thread starter dudalb
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Tsukasa Buddha
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God I love him. He is completely nuts and shows how O'Reilly and the gang really aren't.
Policenaut
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I agree. He is hilariously insane. What is sad is that he has a LOT of fans and they probably agree with him on every crazy thing he says. Olbermann is insane also but just compare the two shows and you'll see just how uninteresting Countdown actually is.
boloboffin
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That YouTube I posted, it's edited. A section is taken out where Beck reveals the greenscreen behind him and talks about turning on the lights and facing and confronting your fears.
And then he talked about the fasces on the 1912 Mercury dime.
ETA: I keep hoping that Fox is using Glenn Beck to catch his audience and talk him and them down. Who else could convince this demographic to chill out?
But I don't see it. I see Fox riding him for the ratings, empowering him -- and he's like the deep sea fish that come up too fast.
And then he talked about the fasces on the 1912 Mercury dime.
ETA: I keep hoping that Fox is using Glenn Beck to catch his audience and talk him and them down. Who else could convince this demographic to chill out?
But I don't see it. I see Fox riding him for the ratings, empowering him -- and he's like the deep sea fish that come up too fast.
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Policenaut
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That was todays program he was talking about the dime. He is so dumb but I can't stop watching. "We've been on the road to socialism for longer than I thought!"
blobru
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Some more Godwining from G_B
[Mar. 10, interviewing a pro-life prof on his radio show about the evils of stem cell research, excerpts]:
Fear-mongering, ignorance and buffoonery nonpareil. 
(and why I often mispronounce his name, "Glib Dick".)headscratcher4
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Beck is the most extreme example of Obama derangement syndrome...the right-wing version of the left's Bush derangement syndrome (of which I am a proud, slowly recovering proponent). And, in fact, that is what makes people like Beck, scary as he is, ultimately so silly. Such bald statements of fear over creeping socialism or even, gasp, Obama now as neo-facist, where were the similar concerns as Bush/Cheney undermined the Constitution in persuit of an un-checked and un-checkable "unitary" executive that was nothing short of a Monarchy?
Apparently, when the right undermines the Constitution for the sake of "national security" it is permissible, because, after all, it somehow preserves our culture and our vision of ourself as a nation, if not exactly preserving the nation (a tricky slippery-slope that lead many a conservative in Germany to embrace Hitler as the savior of the German nation and the German ethic and culture).
One funny thing, at least to me, is whatever Beck is worried about Obama doing to bring about whatever islamo/socialist/facist/anti-christian/anti-American state that Obama is clearly plotting, is that to do so, Obama would have to assert the same sort of monarchical (if not Dictatorial) powers that Bush/Cheney essentially asserted. In other words, he would have to completely de-couple the powers of the Presidency from Congressional or Judicial oversight -- and, me thinks, he would have to do so in a way that didn't cause a Constitutional crisis (something that, thankfully, Bush/Cheney didn't figure out how to do).
Anyway, this is talking about Beck as if he had some rational point instead of demogogic theatrics...which he doesn't.
Below is an article from today's Salon...I reprint it nearly in full because you need to be a subscriber to access Salon (but I note it is from another sorce as well). Horowitz is a noted "conservative" columnist. I found his perspective interesting.
Get over your Obama Derangement Syndrome
My fellow right-wingers, calm down. The new president is not the antichrist, Stalin or even a radical.
By David Horowitz
Apr. 02, 2009 |
I have been watching an interesting phenomenon on the right, which is beginning to cause me concern. I am referring to the over-the-top hysteria in response to the first months in office of our new president, which distinctly reminds me of the "Bush is Hitler" crowd on the left.
Speaking of this crowd, have you seen any "I am so sorry" postings from that quarter as Obama continues and even escalates the former president's war policy in Afghanistan and attempts to consolidate his military occupation of Iraq?
Conservatives, please. Let's not duplicate the manias of the left as we figure out how to deal with Mr. Obama. He is not exactly the antichrist, although a disturbing number of people on the right are convinced he is.
I have recently received commentaries that claim that "Obama's speeches are unlike any political speech we have heard in American history" and "never has a politician in this land had such a quasi-religious impact on so many people" and "Obama is a narcissist," which leads the author to then compare Obama to David Koresh, Charles Manson, Stalin and Saddam Hussein. Excuse me while I blow my nose.
This fellow has failed to notice that all politicians are narcissists – and that a recent American president was a world-class exponent of the imperial me. So what? Political egos are one of the reasons the Founders put checks and balances on executive power. As for serial lying, is there a politician that cannot be accused of that? And once, the same recent president set a pretty high bar in this category, and we survived it. As for Obama's speeches, they are hardly in the Huey Long, Louis Farrakhan, Fidel Castro vein. They are in fact eloquently and cleverly centrist and sober.
So what's the panic? It is true that Obama has shown surprising ineptitude in his first months in office, but he's not a zero with no accomplishments as many conservatives seem to think -- unless you regard beating the Clinton machine and winning the presidency as nothing. But in doing this you fall into the "Bush-is-an-idiot" bag of liberal miasmas.
It is also true Obama has ceded his domestic economic agenda to the House Democrats and spent a lot of money in the process. But what's the surprise in this? After all, Bush and McCain both proposed (and in Bush's case pushed through) massive government giveaways (which amount to government takeovers as well). This is bad, but it doesn't make Obama a closet Mussolini, however deplorable the conservatives among us may regard it. Moreover, he's already run into political resistance even within his own party. Charlie Rangel has made it clear that the itemized deduction tax hike is not going through his committee -- and that should tell you that the American system, the one the Founders created, is still in place.
Even as astute a conservative thinker as Mark Steyn has been swept up in the tide that thinks Obama is a "transformative" radical. But look again at his approach to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In both cases, as noted, he is carrying out the Bush policies -- the same that he once joined his fellow Democrats in condemning. And that should be reassuring to anyone concerned about where he is heading as commander in chief.
In other words, while it's reasonable to be unhappy with a Democratic administration and even concerned because the Democrats are now a socialist party in the European sense, we are not witnessing the coming of the antichrist. A good strategy for political conflicts is to understand your opponent first -- not to underestimate him, but not to overestimate him either.
Once conservatives do that, they will find some silver linings in the first moves of the Obama administration. Through a combination of ineptitude and zeal, Obama has in two short months locked down the conservative and Republican base. On fetal stem-cell research, on borders (e-verification), on spending, on unions, on shutting down talk radio, Obama has flexed the leftist muscle so nakedly and unmistakably that there isn't a conservative left who will vote Democratic in the next election (and there were many who did so in the last).
As we move forward, Obama faces increasingly tough choices in the wars against Islamic fascism in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gaza and Iran. Hopefully, he will make the right choices, and should he do so conservatives will need to be there to support him. If he makes the wrong choices, conservatives will need to be there to oppose him. But neither our support nor our opposition should be based on hysterical responses to policies that we just don't like. Let's leave that kind of behavior to the liberals who invented it.
This piece first appeared in FrontPage Magazine.
Apparently, when the right undermines the Constitution for the sake of "national security" it is permissible, because, after all, it somehow preserves our culture and our vision of ourself as a nation, if not exactly preserving the nation (a tricky slippery-slope that lead many a conservative in Germany to embrace Hitler as the savior of the German nation and the German ethic and culture).
One funny thing, at least to me, is whatever Beck is worried about Obama doing to bring about whatever islamo/socialist/facist/anti-christian/anti-American state that Obama is clearly plotting, is that to do so, Obama would have to assert the same sort of monarchical (if not Dictatorial) powers that Bush/Cheney essentially asserted. In other words, he would have to completely de-couple the powers of the Presidency from Congressional or Judicial oversight -- and, me thinks, he would have to do so in a way that didn't cause a Constitutional crisis (something that, thankfully, Bush/Cheney didn't figure out how to do).
Anyway, this is talking about Beck as if he had some rational point instead of demogogic theatrics...which he doesn't.
Below is an article from today's Salon...I reprint it nearly in full because you need to be a subscriber to access Salon (but I note it is from another sorce as well). Horowitz is a noted "conservative" columnist. I found his perspective interesting.
Get over your Obama Derangement Syndrome
My fellow right-wingers, calm down. The new president is not the antichrist, Stalin or even a radical.
By David Horowitz
Apr. 02, 2009 |
I have been watching an interesting phenomenon on the right, which is beginning to cause me concern. I am referring to the over-the-top hysteria in response to the first months in office of our new president, which distinctly reminds me of the "Bush is Hitler" crowd on the left.
Speaking of this crowd, have you seen any "I am so sorry" postings from that quarter as Obama continues and even escalates the former president's war policy in Afghanistan and attempts to consolidate his military occupation of Iraq?
Conservatives, please. Let's not duplicate the manias of the left as we figure out how to deal with Mr. Obama. He is not exactly the antichrist, although a disturbing number of people on the right are convinced he is.
I have recently received commentaries that claim that "Obama's speeches are unlike any political speech we have heard in American history" and "never has a politician in this land had such a quasi-religious impact on so many people" and "Obama is a narcissist," which leads the author to then compare Obama to David Koresh, Charles Manson, Stalin and Saddam Hussein. Excuse me while I blow my nose.
This fellow has failed to notice that all politicians are narcissists – and that a recent American president was a world-class exponent of the imperial me. So what? Political egos are one of the reasons the Founders put checks and balances on executive power. As for serial lying, is there a politician that cannot be accused of that? And once, the same recent president set a pretty high bar in this category, and we survived it. As for Obama's speeches, they are hardly in the Huey Long, Louis Farrakhan, Fidel Castro vein. They are in fact eloquently and cleverly centrist and sober.
So what's the panic? It is true that Obama has shown surprising ineptitude in his first months in office, but he's not a zero with no accomplishments as many conservatives seem to think -- unless you regard beating the Clinton machine and winning the presidency as nothing. But in doing this you fall into the "Bush-is-an-idiot" bag of liberal miasmas.
It is also true Obama has ceded his domestic economic agenda to the House Democrats and spent a lot of money in the process. But what's the surprise in this? After all, Bush and McCain both proposed (and in Bush's case pushed through) massive government giveaways (which amount to government takeovers as well). This is bad, but it doesn't make Obama a closet Mussolini, however deplorable the conservatives among us may regard it. Moreover, he's already run into political resistance even within his own party. Charlie Rangel has made it clear that the itemized deduction tax hike is not going through his committee -- and that should tell you that the American system, the one the Founders created, is still in place.
Even as astute a conservative thinker as Mark Steyn has been swept up in the tide that thinks Obama is a "transformative" radical. But look again at his approach to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In both cases, as noted, he is carrying out the Bush policies -- the same that he once joined his fellow Democrats in condemning. And that should be reassuring to anyone concerned about where he is heading as commander in chief.
In other words, while it's reasonable to be unhappy with a Democratic administration and even concerned because the Democrats are now a socialist party in the European sense, we are not witnessing the coming of the antichrist. A good strategy for political conflicts is to understand your opponent first -- not to underestimate him, but not to overestimate him either.
Once conservatives do that, they will find some silver linings in the first moves of the Obama administration. Through a combination of ineptitude and zeal, Obama has in two short months locked down the conservative and Republican base. On fetal stem-cell research, on borders (e-verification), on spending, on unions, on shutting down talk radio, Obama has flexed the leftist muscle so nakedly and unmistakably that there isn't a conservative left who will vote Democratic in the next election (and there were many who did so in the last).
As we move forward, Obama faces increasingly tough choices in the wars against Islamic fascism in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gaza and Iran. Hopefully, he will make the right choices, and should he do so conservatives will need to be there to support him. If he makes the wrong choices, conservatives will need to be there to oppose him. But neither our support nor our opposition should be based on hysterical responses to policies that we just don't like. Let's leave that kind of behavior to the liberals who invented it.
This piece first appeared in FrontPage Magazine.
technoextreme
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I love Glenn Beck's sanity..... and I fear for it.
TraneWreck
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The thing that bothers me about Beck is how the media creates this false equivalence between what he does and what goes on with left-leaning or progressive bloggers (Daily Kos, Atrios, Glenn Greenwald...etc).
The correlate to someone like Beck on the left are no-planer 9-11 conspiracy tards. The poeple who think Bush masterminded (should have red flags right there) some grand crime and can make 757s disapear into thin air.
Once a pot-smoking goofball like that gets a favorable time slot to voice those views, you might be able to make a case, but until then the "liberal media" trope is just a joke.
Same thing goes with Hannity, Limbaugh, and O'Reilly. THose guys are radical crazies, there's not equivalent in major media on the left.
The correlate to someone like Beck on the left are no-planer 9-11 conspiracy tards. The poeple who think Bush masterminded (should have red flags right there) some grand crime and can make 757s disapear into thin air.
Once a pot-smoking goofball like that gets a favorable time slot to voice those views, you might be able to make a case, but until then the "liberal media" trope is just a joke.
Same thing goes with Hannity, Limbaugh, and O'Reilly. THose guys are radical crazies, there's not equivalent in major media on the left.
G-K-4
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You may be interested in reading Dave Neiwert over at "Crooks and Liars". He's a reporter and a blogger who is a rather centrist liberal, having grown up an Idaho conservative. He has been keeping an eye on Beck for some time now, as part of his many years of reporting on the various flavors of the far right. He has a recent post specifically about this currency non-issue.
"Bachmann-Turnip Overdrive: Clueless 'global currency' paranoia in high gear"
http://crooksandliars.com/node/27066
Beck had on Michelle Bachman, congresscritter from Minnesota, talking about her bill to prevent this imaginary replacement of the dollar -- by using a Constitutional amendment, no less!.
Neiwert writes, "What's clear is that this is a bill intended to prevent a 'global currency' being forced upon Americans. The problem, of course, is that no one is even remotely suggesting such a thing."I understand your point about the Overton Windows around U.S. media. But the funny thing is that the closest media opposites to Beck (at least the biggest names I can think of) are not Troofers.
If Beck is (maybe) around the Sarah Palin and Chuck Baldwin corner of the political compass, and almost certainly leaning toward Ron Paul territory, his opposites would have to be pretty far in the libertarian left corner. So let's look at some leftist media figures.
Amy Goodman isn't as far left as Beck is to the right (as I see it), but she doesn't seem too disposed toward the Troofers. And her show may be the biggest leftist media program on television and radio today.
Noam Chomsky is probably a better political opposite of Beck, but he's not a Troofer and has received a lot of flak for it. He's one of the big names on those "left gatekeeper" charts the conspiracists put out.
How about an anti-capitalist such as Michael Albert? Or an anarchist such as Chuck Munson? Maybe you've heard of these people (but more likely you haven't), but even though they have been longtime and well-known Left media figures, they aren't 9/11 conspiracists either.
You can indeed find all kinds in the peanut gallery, including the druggy goofball you describe. But you are right that it's hard to find the real far left in the media. Stewart and Olberman don't make the cut, and O'Reilly is barking up the wrong tree.
dudalb
Penultimate Amazing
I was taliking about Beck's now infamous interview with the first Moselm elected to the US house, where he kept on trying to get the guy to admit he had sympathies with Al Quida. That is totally different then disagreeing with somebody's theology.....
dudalb
Penultimate Amazing
I think Keith Olbermann is pretty much as far to the left as O'Reilly is to the right.
What is amusing is that people on either end of the poltical specturm invariably think that all the kooks and extremists are on the other end.
What is amusing is that people on either end of the poltical specturm invariably think that all the kooks and extremists are on the other end.
dudalb
Penultimate Amazing
Bullcrap. I would say that Olbermann is about as far to the left as O Reilly is to the right.
But then Ideologues are always quick to assume that everybody on the other political wing are all a bunch of crazies, and everyone on their side is a rational person. It's called tunnel vision and the left, since November, has a bad case of it.
TraneWreck
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See, you've fallen in the equivalency trap.
It has nothing to do with "how far" left or right you are, that's an ambiguous, impossible to substantiate issue.
It has to do with your approach to issues. If you can find a tenth of the cases of Olbermann completely making things up, or tenaciously asserting long discredited lies like O'Reilly does on a regular basis, you'll have an argument.
Please, I'm inviting you to support that claim. To begin, I will submit the recent situation where O'Reilly sent a producer to track a woman down and shove a microphone in her face. Not only was the act itself something that Olbermann has never done, but O'Reilly blatantly lied about both the event's prelude and its aftermath:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/23/oreilly-ambush/
That is by the woman who was harassed.
As for the other people listed, Chomsky, Amy Goodman, these people are leftists, but they approach issues ethically and reasonably. I would love to see someone come up with a quote by a major figure of the left that anywhere approaches the nuttiness of this:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Glen-Beck-thinks-Obama-has-built-FEMA-camps-for-republicans
The awesome starts around 2min.
Again, the challenge isn't that there aren't similarly nutty people on the left, there are, I gave 9-11 troothers as an example because they approach topics with the same nutty, fact-free nonsense as Beck, O'reilly, Hannity, and Limbaugh, but you have to show that these people are given significant air time on major networks.
Remember, congressmen, senators, and other leaders of the right regularly appear on Beck's show, find me the left-leaning correlate.
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Gate2501
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My take:
Clearly Biased: All Pundits
Crazy: Olbermann, O'Reilly
Batcrap Crazy: Hannity, Limbaugh
Crazy like a Fox: Coulter
Insane: ?
Criminally Insane: ?
Charles Manson Insane: Charles Manson
Moonbat Wingnut Upside-Down Insane: Glenn Beck
Clearly Biased: All Pundits
Crazy: Olbermann, O'Reilly
Batcrap Crazy: Hannity, Limbaugh
Crazy like a Fox: Coulter
Insane: ?
Criminally Insane: ?
Charles Manson Insane: Charles Manson
Moonbat Wingnut Upside-Down Insane: Glenn Beck
Foster Zygote
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That whole dime incident would have been funny to me if it came from some tinfoil hat living in the spare room above his mom's garage, but the fact that it was coming from a tinfoil hat with a nationally televised platform that puts him in a position to tell a lot of gullible people what to think just pisses me off. The fasces as a symbol of unity and power has been used by many western institutions since the Roman Empire. Its use on the US dime predates its use by the Italian fascist party by a few years. It would be like Beck finding an ancient Hindu temple with swastikas on it and concluding that India was about to become a Nazi state.
dudalb
Penultimate Amazing
Yeah, Chomsky who whitewashes the Pol Pot regime approaches issues responsibly and reasonably.
I think you just proved my point about your biases.
Frinkiak7
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I am so stealing that.
XXX
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I wounder if you put any energy into looking into the claims that Olbermann makes on his show to see how much truth is in them.
Olbermann seems borderline obsessed to me. All his show is now is mostly attacks on Fox News and O'Reilly. And a lot of the same ones over and over again too. Tons of stuff to cover out there, but every night it's the same things.
Seriously, with the Democrats now in charge and tons of stuff to cover, so much that you can fill all day with news channel talking heads discussing these issues, does a show that's just one hour from Olbermann really deserve multiple segments about Fox News, GlennBeck, and O'Reilly?