Glenn Beck: What Next? Dune Buggies?
Look, Glenn Beck is doing a great service to the nation: inspiring ordinary people to stop their impotent muttering and get active. He and his fellow talk radio host Mark Levin also launched a timely revival of interest in the Constitution and the Founding Fathers.
But sometimes? Yeah, he loses me.
Yesterday on his radio show, he overreacted to Scott Brown’s “my daughters are available” victory speech throwaway line.
And much as it pains me to agree with Media Matters on something, I too was thrown by Beck’s analysis of The Beatles’ song “Revolution,” on his radio show this morning.
I get it: it’s part of his ongoing analysis of the Progressive movement’s “long march through the institutions.” And the song does contain an oddly appropo line about “carrying pictures of Chairman Mao.”
But Beck should reconsider spending minute upon excruciating minute of valuable airtime stopping and starting an old (and aurally unpleasant) pop song, while impatiently interjecting “Listen! Listen!”, like a teenaged boy with a new favorite album, who’s trapped his hapless friends in his rec room to share his enthusiasm.
Tearing a page from the Charles Manson School of Exegesis just looks bad.
I just hope he’s not planning to spend one of his upcoming TV shows on that whole Pink Floyd/Wizard of Oz thing…
Sorry, but 5 minutes of 3 hours on the radio is not the most consequential thing in the world. I do think, however, he should contact Paul McCartney to find out the story behind the song.
The Scott Brown thing was meant to be a jokey aside on the radio, but Pat and Stu latched onto it.
I think he's trying to cement the point that progressives have been at this for years. I did a college paper on the song, he is right. The song was a warning to radicals that violence would sour public opinion of the "revolution". Beck is using this point to try and add depth to his argument. Remember, we know all of this stuff. Beck is rallying those who don't have a clue. I will never forget Hannity's man on the street a few years back on Pearl Harbor day. He asked several citizens what was so special about the day. The responses were hillarious but pathetic at the same time. "We celebrate a great victory this day. We bombed the Nazis at Pearl Harbor" all the way to "Pearl Harbor was where George Washington dumped the Tea". Using that as a reference, how many soccer moms and football dads need that kind of repetition of BASIC history. I enjoy Beck, but, as with a lot of commenters (and bloggers here), his show is more of a recap for us. Think of it as modern American history (1900-present) 101 WITHOUT the NEA/socialist editing.
ignorance is bliss
For too long, popular culture has been ignored by conservatives. When a freakin' comedy show (Jon Stewart) becomes the main news source for people under 35, then we have a serious problem.
Now don't get me wrong. I think Glenn Beck is a hugely wrong. He favored the bailouts, for example. But conservatives need to go after popular culture, and even create a counter to the invariably progressive pop culture.
He favored bailouts?? Not that I ever heard.
I think Beck was for bailouts for a day, before he was against them. Like a retraction I guess. It's the danger of a 24 hour news cycle without proper vetting and analysis. For the most part Beck works for me. Nobody's perfect ,not even the black massiah who fell to earth on special eletion day. Beck's still got that "Morning Zoo" itch now and then, pandering to the camera and mike. I think he should be driving a Pickup not a Dune Buggie.
I hope he analyzes some of Bob Marleys music – Redemption Song, Get Up Stand Up, Stir it Up, Revolution and Rebel Music. For more than 40 years there has been a huge struggle between socialism and democracy in Jamaica. They are songs of faith, fredom, and political discontent.
To Javelineer and the inquisitor
Beck did support the bail outs at first because he believed that it would "stop the airplane (which was the economy in his example) from crashing into the side of the mountain and allow it to land in the field next to the mountain" then two days later he came back and said that he was sorry that he had supported the bail out because he had realized that the politicians had lied to everybody and that they were going to use the money to do whatever they wanted
In my opinion Beck is one of the more honest commentators though I do not agree with every thing he says and sometimes he goes over the edge with some of his examples but he reinvigorated my love of the founding fathers and I think he is pretty funny
I have been watching Glenn Beck carefully lately, because he is calling the "Truthers" DANGEROUS…. He called them "nutcases" – "the likes of Timothey McVey" – that they should be "Locked up"…. etc. etc.
I don't know how that would line up with his: "Question without Fear" and: "Speaking the Truth with Boldness" line….. something is very wrong here….
I'm a big Beck supporter and I write to his staff A LOT! From a pedagogical point of view, I understand why he repeats a message often and sometimes uses juvenile examples. His audience is not monolithic. He has the entire range of conservatives who bring a swap of education from K12 to PhD. He repeats the message because it's necessary at the weakest end of his audience, which justifiably bothers his minority PhD's! I agree that he wastes valuable time that could otherwise be effectively spent on more data points. That's the issue I take with GB and his staff. But, you have to hand it to Glenn, he has captured a large piece of the cable market. He must be doing something right! I hate the format and his substance is sometimes lacking but, he's got the best message out there today. I love the guy!
It's "apropos" not "appropo". Even this comment box is spellchecking me on it yikes!
Abbey Road kicks The White Album's anarchic butt.
I'm with Cmax……I love the guy too but no one's without faults. I thought Thursday's show was just about a waste of time. At least 30 minutes was spent simply promoting tonight's show. I know he's anxious because it's his "first documentary", but the repetition is chasing my husband into another room, and it's cocktail hour! Another hour I would like to have skipped was his "interview with Sarah" last week. When he interviews, it's very often all about Glenn and his views and not the guest, and I find myself feeling embarrassed for him. My opinion, he's a master at many things but needs some help with his ego. I've also been in touch with Stu on a number of occasions. Don't know that it's helped.
Hey Cathy, you and everyone seem to miss the broader point. What he is doing is working! When it stops working I am sure he will change it. When you are doing things that come natural to you you are far more effective. No one will be perfect but for me I will not quibble with his success. He does not need me to tell him what works!
I am a former prisoner of Countdown Keith, Hardball Chris, NPR, etc. For years they enunciated the anger many felt toward Bush and the Neocons over the Shock & Awe stragegy inflicted upon the innocent people of Iraq. They represented the O as a halo that promised to bring troops home and get us out of Iraq. After the election, the O quickly slipped from a halo over HIS head, to a band he is trying to put around OUR necks. Those commentators forgot all about the war and ignored O’s expanding case of lies. My escape became possible when Glenn Beck pried open my TV cell door to fresh air and sunlight of the American Spirit.
Glenn Beck is a true, direct, smart as they come, American. I recognize in him the spirit and attitude of neighborhoods, classmates, of kids I grew up with. It’s called the American Spirit, which is NOT apparent in most of our seemingly “lost” kids today. Within the past year of watching Beck, I have learned more information proveable as facts by my own research and investigation, than I learned in years of connecting to the others.
Why Ever did parents LET schools STOP enabling kids with their RIGHTS to understand and absorb the American Spirit through Civics and American History classes and to learn the truths about Socialism, Communism, all the systems that hate America, and to learn the truths about mean, cruel people who supported those “isms” like Bernard Shaw, Lenin, Trotsky, Marx, Hitler, Che Guevara, Mao, et al?
Americans, you MUST protect your children and your country by insisting that those lessons be taught again… and get that cancerous Safe School Czar OUT of ALL influence in our society. Make O give up his personal records to us to prove his eligibility to sit behind the desk in the oval office and to Command our troops. Clean it all up. Let’s go PICKET the White House and make them give up that ball with Mao’s ugly mug on it that some AS****E hung on our WHITE HOUSE CHRISTMAS TREE as an ornament, and lets all smash it. AND make them tell us just who that AS****E was so we can make sure they don’t touch any of our American Heritage anywhere ever again. This is your mission. Don’t let it evaporate after you read it.
WEDWKT……What you bring out and quite well done I might say is the fact that the__generational continuum of education has had a series of cusps which separate__ the understanding of Who What Where When and How we are American Citizens. __ __Knowledge of being and American was drilled into my head in school in the__early 1950's, American History was a cornerstone of education. Civics was mandatory__as was English. World History was taught as to just how we were connected to the__outside World. The old school books were correct and should be brought back.__Hollywood degraded our heritage, TV gave a false image also to American patriots__starting in the early 1960's. One of the first Communist actions in taking over is to ridicule,__make fun of the establishment, meaning Government, Church and Societal organizations.__Think Laugh In and its destructive fallout in Churches and my point is made. You are__dead on with American Heritage, it is so very important, all may hinge on its revival.
Grateful for your response. Sorry I missed putting my correct "name" on that comment. You are exactly right. Students were respected as Americans in the '50's and were taught by good teachers from good textbooks – Who they were as Americans, What it meant to be an American, and When, Where and How to apply that information and Why to have pride and gratitude in being an American. Today's graduates from any level have not been given that knowledge or identity. Parents tried to keep the good textbooks in the system and had to fight revisionist "progressive" publishers, but were too polite. Gradually the slimy little revisionist worms ate the good pages and left their dung for the kids to flip through. Hellywood undermined our society and is spreading its evil even more blatantly through daily tv commercial production companies… like the Insurance company that makes males look like idiots carrying purses, obedient to a powerful wife standing next to him; a motorcycle-jacket wearing man who is a prospective customer, intimidated and brought down by the B*** B***ing sales girl; Soup company commercial making a male chef look goofy; a cable service door-to-door salesman made to look like a wimp whose mom appears next to him as he knocks on a prospect's door and the mom tells the prospect that she is the salesman's mom and is there to make sure he tells the truth… oh my gosh there are so many knockdowns of American males and American fathers by Commercials. There are a few good commercials respecting men. I'll bet you know the product of the one where the dad walks into his home and without removing his coat, smiles and stoops down to hug his 4-5 yr old son and while hugging him, spies a wrapped package with a tag "Dad" on it. That commercial respects the man and fatherhood. Insulting men and fathers is the fulltime job of the man-haters and those working to destroy our homes and country. IT IS GREAT when men call those businesses and tell them off. How does this fit with the topic? It's "their" way to continue humiliating and damaging ANY male who might try to stand up to them and stop them. Product commercials are currently a killing field being used to destroy the masculinity of the AMERICAN male, and following up on what has been done to boys by our insane "educational system." Re your "Laugh In" comment – the show made me uncomfortable when I was young and didn't understand why, until I was older and could see how they were destroying the human-connection with laughter and comedy. They were "making fun" of us for laughing, for our American appreciation of humor and telling us to laugh not at our own human actions, which is a good thing, but instead, at our structures our society.
I see this and you see this and I will shout this and I hope you will and there will be
a chorous of voices letting the world of socialist America that the patriots and lovers
of American culture remember their background and are determined to pass that
information on to our successors. Demanding good programing is difficult from the
purveyors on TV who sell items produced by America hating companies. PC as a
disease can only be cured by a boycot of all programing by enlightened consumers.
We can make headway, people are awakening to what has been going on and have
reached the limit of tolerance (I hope). If we do not stand up for America it will
fade into the past, if we have to go I hope it is with a loud bang….Regards…..WJ
Sorry I missed your comment until now. Yes, you are right. Several people including me are calling Sponsors who Support Stupidity and who Send Anti-male Anti-America commercials into our homes. We are becoming expert channel flippers and boycotters, and absolutely spreading the news… even standing at store shelves holding Ugly Sponsor Products that are advertised "on sale" – we announce to whoever is nearby that "UGH, I will NEVER buy products from (Sponsor) BECAUSE they hate America and they are trying to destroy our freedoms." Some people have shown shocked faces that changed to thoughtful when explanations for that statement were made, and everso wonderfully, SOME said YES, you are right. Lets BOYCOTT. Sooooooo maybe some of the dips in the GNP relate to a nationwide under-the-radar boycott system. Having been taught that "every penny counts" I have no problem with understanding every word has a meaning and elicits a response of some sort.
Glenn Beck often says he's a rodeo clown in a self-depreciating way, but I wonder if he realizes how very accurate his description of himself really is. The bits like the Scott Brown/daughters thing add comic relief. But as anyone who has gone to a rodeo knows–while the clowns make the kids laugh, it's only a break in what is the most serious and DANGEROUS roll the clown plays: To fight and distract the bull so the rider can either escape to safety, or an injured rider can be pulled out of harm's way. When you think about it, that's exactly what Beck does. And there is not a circuit cowboy who doesn't get down on his knees and thank the Lord for the rodeo clown every night because he knows without him, he wouldn't have survived to ride another night.