Glenn Beck Edges A Little Closer to...What?

[paft.livejournal.com]

January 20

Progressives = Nazi War Criminals!

I’m going to be like the Israeli Nazi hunters. I’m telling you, I’m going to find these big progressives, and to the day I die, I’m going to be a progressive hunter. I’m going to find the people who have done this to our, to our country, and expose them! I don’t care if they’re in nursing homes. I’m going to expose what they have done and make sure that the people understand…

Watch on YouTube

Well, see, the Israeli Nazi hunters were exposing Nazis so they could be prosecuted for war crimes. They even went so far as kidnapping Eichmann and hauling him back to Israel.

Is that what Beck has in mind for elderly progressives? Does he think they should be dragged from their nursing homes and put on trial for being progressives?

Nahhh. He’s just using a little hyperbole… right?

January 21st

Progressives Are a Cancer Destroying the Republic!

This is the poison that is killing our constitution. This is the reason why you see Che t-shirts, this is the reason why you see Mao Christmas ornaments on the Christmas tress. And it must be corrected! If it is not corrected, if we don’t correct – this is the fundamental root of the disease. If we don’t correct this root of disease, it is only a matter of time. the body will eventually die of cancer. We’ve got to irradiate it! We must burn this out of the American system! We must make sure that progressivism cannot slink away and cover itself again.

Watch on YouTube

Well, of course, Glenn means conservatives should do this through our political process, right? He thinks progressives should be voted out of office. That’s what he means by burning us out of the political system. That’s what he means by “correct.”

Right?

….right?

Wrong

January 22

This isn’t about winning the next election. This isn’t about “how can we get a few more Republicans elected?” This is about saving the republic. The republic and the progressive cannot coexist, as you will learn all next week on the program. They cannot coexist. They are diametrically opposed to each other.

Watch on YouTube

So if it’s not going to be done through elections – what is he proposing?

Comments

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

...

[paft.livejournal.com]

What he has in mind is that bad, eh?

[hannahsarah.livejournal.com]

STAY TUNED AND FIND OUT!

That's what he wants you to do. It's shtick, pure and simple. I don't really care if he believes it or not, the thing is that he's stumbled onto an entertainment formula that generates listeners and drives up his ratings. He's a showman, that's all.

[mercystars.livejournal.com]

This x 1,000.

It's what he's paid to do, and he does it very well.

[paft.livejournal.com]

He's a showman with a large following who take him absolutely seriously.

We have GOT to get over this idea that if a demogogue is crazy, he's harmless.

Crazy people with the kind of bully pulpit Beck has can do an awful lot of damage.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Beck has reinvented himself a few times. He started as a comedian, then became a pretty normal conservative, then a libertarian when he realized there were a bunch of pissed-off conservatives, and finally a madman when Obama got elected.

He's just moving into new markets.

[paft.livejournal.com]

And hey, what could be the harm in a madman commanding an audience of Glenn Beck's size... Right?

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

I saw a clip yesterday in which he was laughingly joking that Scott Brown, a Republican (!), was going to end with "a dead intern", a reference to the Chandra Levy case which was supposed to be hilarious judging by his laughter. This because of Brown joking about his daughters being available. I'm pretty sure the man, Beck, is mentally ill, but certainly not worth taking seriously.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Right. If someone is mentally ill and has a national show and a large following, what harm can they POSSIBLY do?

[zebra24.livejournal.com]

Claiming of mentally illness for everyone who is not understandable to you is bad for you.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Uh, yeah, that is funny. You just don't get the joke apparently.

[schquee.livejournal.com]

He should die.

[zebra24.livejournal.com]

Nice point here: everyone will die someday.

Or you meant somebody should kill him?

Then who of you two is more mentally ill and dangerous for the society?

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

He is proposing an ideological take-over of academia and the media.

Oh wait.

Hrmmm... devious bastard... riffing on our playbook!

[paft.livejournal.com]

"Our" playbook. Who is this "our?"

[x-eleven.livejournal.com]

I'm going to find these big progressives, and to the day I die, I'm going to be a progressive hunter.

You might want to start Here (http://www.dailykos.com). I betcha you can find a whole bunch. It's not like they're exactly keeping a low profile.

Glen: you're not helping.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

This is Pornstache's shtick with a paycheque, nothing more.

He is very emotional

[zebra24.livejournal.com]

In Russia he would had a good chances to be in the jail..

Let me explain his point of view, how I understand it.

"This isn’t about winning the next election."
Means that more important than just current political agenda.

"They cannot coexist. They are diametrically opposed to each other. "
Means: you can lose all your freedom if "progressive" will take the lead.


"So if it’s not going to be done through elections – what is he proposing?"

You did wrong:
he said that "it's more than just next election" you can, in perspective, lose your ability to elect if this ideology will take the lead. (besides the persons or party, pay attention to the ideology)

Re: He is very emotional

[paft.livejournal.com]

Looks to me that I could lose all my freedom if people like Beck "take the lead." He is painting me and mine as a "cancer" to be "cut out" of America. He says this country cannot co-exist with people like me,

This kind of rhetoric has a history. Are you familiar with it?

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

You're getting it wrong. But I shouldn't be surprised. I somehow suspect it'd be a waste to try to explain, though. So I'll only say...
Revolution? My ass.

[paft.livejournal.com]

dd:You're getting it wrong. But I shouldn't be surprised.

How?

dd: I somehow suspect it'd be a waste to try to explain, though.

It must be very frustrating for you to be so inarticulate.

Gunning for Progressives

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Glenn and his friends are simply going to round up all those mean, nasty, red-neck disrespecting progressives and put them in concentration camps. Once he and his cohort build pyres of Che t-shirts and copies of books on the proscribed list, he will be hailed as the savior of the nation. That will prove that he is on the right side of the Republic.

As for his assertions about the Nazis learning from America, there is some validity to his arguments. The Nazis admired the American military machine and sought to imitate it. They admired the American genocidal campaign against the native population. They republished Henry Ford's International Jew about the artificial international Jewish conspiracy. Until they invaded France, they had quite a degree of moral support in the US.

Re: Gunning for Progressives

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Actually, his point had more to do with Hitler's admiration of Manifest Destiny, Jim Crow, US Immigration policies, and Hitler was actually such an admirer of the USA that up until about 1943 his special train was code-named Amerika. Asshats *can* have a point once in a blue moon.

And what you described makes him out to be a Cicero. He's not even a Cato the Elder.

[prog-expat.livejournal.com]

Other than suggesting he start his progressive witch hunt by digging up Teddy Roosevelt's corpse, all I have to say is that it's Glenn Beck, his job is to rant and rave and stir the pot.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Do you not see the danger in that kind of ranting, raving, and pot-stirring?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

As opposed to Keith Olbermann who finds comparing rich people making donations to the institution of slavery, which is a brutal dehumanizing institution that ranks as one of the worst long-term bad ideas in the long sad history of bad ideas, presumably.

Not that Beck isn't an utter tool, though.

[paft.livejournal.com]

As pompous and over-the-top as Olbermann can be, he has not engaged in the kind of eliminationist rhetoric Beck has.

[dudeuhman.livejournal.com]

so i don't know what you're advocating beyond "be aware of the danger of someone preaching something that could easily be interpreted as violence against a group of people." i agree with that. but i don't think anyone in this group a) is influenced by Beck's diatribes or b) knows what to do about the many loyal viewers he has being influenced by these sorts of rants.

Sounds familiar

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

Re: Sounds familiar

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Of course it was all the evil power of mass media and there was no history of abuse of the Hutu on the part of the Tutsi under the colonial regimes and arguably before then. There was no previous history of bad faith between both sides to make this rhetoric potent. Those damned blacks are incapable of doing anything beyond what Big Brother wants them to do.

Bullshit, the radio was one thing. The history of ugliness when the Tutsi established themselves as landowners (who have a far from perfect at best record of treating clients well) and under and after colonialism had more to do with it than the radio alone did. Leaving aside that even with the greater power and prestige of the Far Right it is still currently at its weakest point in the entirety of the country's history.

[schquee.livejournal.com]

2:15 am, really?

[paft.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, the inevitable attempt to "argue" by hyperbolizing. You can't actually argue with what I've actually posted, so you just make something up.

No, I don't envision death camps. It does seem, however, that many on the American right are in the process of talking themselves into doing something pretty horrible. It's what I call "The Pinochet rationale," stemming from Jonah Goldberg's piece a couple of years when he argued that Pinochet's mass slaughter of liberals and leftists led to "a civil society."

The idea is to paint political mass murder as the sole province of the left (hence the screwball attempt to paint Hitler as a leftist.) Sure, Allende SEEMED not to be planning any roundups, tortures, and killings of his opponents, sure, there's not a shred of evidence he was planning such a thing, but since he was a leftist, he would surely get around to it sooner or later. And he was destroying his country!

Ergo, Pinochet rounding up liberals and leftists after the coup for torture and execution, was not a crime, but a sad-but-necessary prophylactic against even greater mass murder and chaos in the future.

Isn't that kewel? Heads we win, tails you lose. If a leftist leader kills mass numbers of people, it's the left's fault, and if a RIGHT winger kills mass numbers of people, it's STILL the left's fault because the left made it necessary for the right winger to do it.

Given that mindset, the fact that many on the right -- including Glenn Beck -- are now painting Obama as a Marxist destroying the country, it looks as though, at the least, the right are flirting with the idea of violence.