}

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Fuck Glenn Beck



I couldn’t possibly care less what anyone thinks of me for saying “fuck” because Glenn Beck deserves it. He is a fraud, a charlatan, a snake oil salesman, someone beneath attention, let alone contempt. He cares only about himself and making himself ever richer. Those who buy his books—and his rhetoric—are stupid chumps, about whom he laughs to the core of his being.

“828” should be forever remembered not for self-serving, self-promoting nobodies, but for what challenged America to live up to the “true meaning of its creed”, to embrace the “fierce urgency of now”. If you want to know what America can be, what its promised and unrealised potential is, watch the above video. But if your heart is filled with hate, if you're racist and bigoted, if you’re are easily swayed by the fraud that is Glenn Beck, then leave now. You’re not welcome on this blog.

On August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered what is probably the greatest political speech in American history. It is the only speech that can, no matter how many times I hear it, bring tears to my eyes. It will continue to do so long after Beck and his dupes have faded into a collective joke.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring. We shall overcome Beck and his dupes, too.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

this site is for the "TROGS"

epilonious said...

Here's my problem.

Ghandi said it best: They ignore you, the laugh at you, they fight you, you win.

So far, most of my ostensibly left-wing friends have been obsessed with the tea partiers and Glenn Beck... and now they've reached stage three.

I was never particularly fascinated/supportive of Glenn Beck or his politics... I kind of got the idea of what was pissing him off, found merit (at least from his perspective) in some of it and distortion in the rest. But since his entire M.O. seems to be "piss off the liberals so that he get get lots of positive attention from his fans who enjoy pissing off liberals" and well, the liberals have been falling for it pretty good... in such a manner that they make ad hominem attacks rather than calmly itemizing his circumventions of the truth.

Which is what you did here. I don't know what on earth he's lied about to piss you off. I just know he's pissed you off, and if I were interested in seeing liberals pissed off, I'd say good job.

Anonymoose said...

1.) It's "Gandhi"; "dh" is a separate sound in Subcontinental languages, as well as Arabic and Yemeni Hebrew.
2.) So it's o.k if him, or the people backing him and the teabaggers, eventually take away your liberty in the name of Freedom, just so long as the liberals are pissed-off?
3.) I'd just like to know if Mr Beck, who has expressed such admiration for Dr M.L. King, knows Dr King's opinions on (among other things) affirmative action, redistribution of wealth, and a bias toward pacifism?

epilonious said...

1) Thanks for the spelling lesson, doesn't address my points.
2) Thanks for the slippery slope. Only tangentially addresses my points.
3) Not sure what you're going on about but you sure seem convinced of it... so that's nice for you.

Have a nice day, random stranger :).

Anonymous said...

epilonious the fact that you are unsure or just have a lack of self awareness to understand point number 3 says it all for me.

It is apologists like you that will stand up for people's rights to say what ever they want but fail to stand up for what is right.

They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

epilonious said...

Well, I don't expect someone who fulfills Godwin's law to really be open minded to anything other than what they've already settled on, but I'll try anyways.

What I said hardly makes me an apologist. I explicitely said I didn't agree with Glen Beck's views... just that I felt I got a gist of what was upsetting him.

Then I said Beck's entire M.O. seems to be distracting and pissing off people who disagree with him so they'll bluster and say things like "Fuck you" and forget any need to actually attack his points (Like Arthur and anonymoose/mous did). Then I dared to point out he was actually very good at that... and made flippant comments alluding that such breakdowns are pitiable.

Anonymous said...

Nice to see you got sucked into another apologists view that just because I reference an example that is relevant to my argument, you choose to minimize my right to have that point of view, one I might add, that is equally as valid as yours.

Arthur Schenck said...

Boy, I have some things to do that keep me away, and you all are busy! Thanks!

Anonymous (1): I have no idea what a “trog” is, but neither Urban Dictionary definition is relevant. You may find that ordinary English is more useful—you may want to try it.

Anonymoose: Yeah, Beck makes up stuff about Dr. King and pretends that King would agree with him (yeah, right…). It’s the same kind of nonsense that Beck does with history generally—spouting bullshit that’s not in any way true in order to “support” his extremist positions. He knows damn well that his dupes don’t know real history and will buy his lies hook, line and sinker.

Anonymous (2): That quote is completely relevant to this situation (and “Godwin’s law” is irrelevant to your comment).

Epilonious: People use quotes to bolster their arguments which is fine if they’re relevant, but that Gandhi quote is irrelevant to this situation. A better quote is: “The only necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing” (usually incorrectly attributed to Edmund Burke).

Your use of that quote implies that you think fighting back is enabling a Beck/Teabagger victory. That’s frankly the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard anyone argue. Ignoring evil doesn’t make it go away, and it doesn’t reduce the danger or threat. That’s why the famous quote provided by Anonymous 2 is also relevant (and Godwin’s law is totally irrelevant): Ignoring evil makes the triumph of evil easier and faster.

You said that you found “merit” (your word) in some of what Beck said. You mistakenly attribute his “M.O.” as being “piss off the liberals”. Instead, he does it to make money. His theatre is about exploiting the fears of folks on the right in order to make ever more money. He doesn’t care what forces he unleashes as long as the money keeps rolling in. It just happens that attacking and smearing liberals is good for business—as the rest of the attack drones on Fox Noise can attest.

I take strongest exception to the dismissive reference to “ad hominem attacks”. Beck IS the problem in this case, he IS the focus of evil. Your use of the phrase implies there’s no basis for attacking Beck, and there are plenty of reasons to do so.

I don’t need to list (yet again) what Beck’s many sins are, but the short list would have to include smearing and lying about Van Jones, smearing and lying about ACORN, his stirring up racism whenever he can, his making up stuff about history and pretending there’s a shred of fact in any of it. That’s without getting into his constant defamation of liberals.

What set me off THIS time is obvious from the context of the post: He has the unmitigated gall, the hubris, the disgusting temerity to dare to compare himself to Martin Luther King, to declare that he and his fellow white extremists have to “take back” the civil rights movement. He was, to paraphrase a fellow blogger, a jester standing in the place of a King.

You assert a false equivalence between Beck and rational people, and that’s why people are calling you an apologist. There’s absolutely no “merit” in what he says. You may get “the gist of what’s upsetting him”, but that doesn’t make his viewpoint equivalent with that of mainstream Americans or in any way valid. Freedom of speech allows people to be heard, but there’s no right to be taken seriously (as, obviously, the far right will never take me seriously no matter what I say or how I say it).

So, I reject your central theses, that ignoring evil can ever work, and that there’s any “merit” in Beck’s “viewpoint”. I choose to confront both in order to do what I can to prevent the triumph of evil.

Roger Owen Green said...

I was gonna let it pass, but...

No, E- it is NOT that people like Beck and FOX News piss off liberals. It is that they lie. Worse, people BELIEVE their lies, their internal contradictions notwithstanding. Suddenly, it's black people who are the racists, starting with the POTUS and white people the poor, oppressed

Roger Owen Green said...

A e-mail from Human Events I got today:

Notice of Violation
Dear Concerned American,

Imagine receiving a notification like this...

Sadly, that day may be closer than you think.

Even now, blatant thought and speech censorship is woven into the very fabric of American culture. It impacts you. It impacts me. It takes true courage to resist.

What’s more, if Obama and his allies ram proposed new laws through Congress, they’ll use government-enforced speech control to lock in their power -- and keep their promise to “remake” America forever. More than they already have.

Doubt me? Click below for real-life examples of how conservatives like you and me are intimidated nearly every day of our lives by the insidious force of cultural censorship.

Seeing is believing.

Anonymous said...

i'm not even a liberal but i know a phony when i see one! get rid of this goof!