Monday, September 21, 2009

Glenn Beck

I'm sitting at Tumbleweed, waiting for dinner.

Glenn Beck (remember Howard Beale from "Network"? If not, rent it) is on TV, with a chart with lots of names of people and organizations, all connected this way and that. The sound is turned down, so I cannot comment on what he's saying (Deo gratias); but Morton Blackwell, one of the wisest men in politics, warned me about folks who draw complicated charts explaining how "it's all interconnected"--meaning vast, spidery conspiracies. It's a snare and a delusion--which is what Glenn Beck is--he who hap'ed upon his moment of success skewering the Obama Administration because it's a target-rich environment and most of the big-game hunters are all not interested.

I hold Mr. Beck no personal animus, but--I'm cautioning you, he's going to be a major embarrassment, sooner or later.

23 comments:

Catawissa Gazetteer said...

Father,

Before you dismiss Beck, do some research on what he and his charts are saying. Not all charts are used for the purpose of obfuscation.

While his style may at times be manic his facts are generally well researched. If the people that he opposes could prove him an idiot they would. They haven't done it yet.

Kathy said...

He'll be proved an embarrassment unless he's *right*.

TerryC said...

I've got to agree. Beck seems to have a very competent staff who pins down his facts pretty tightly. Much of the stuff he reports on would have been uncovered by the so-called "mainstream media" had they actually dug into Obama's associations during the election cycle, instead of giving him a pass.
He is a bit of a media loon sometimes, though he doesn't actually seem to take himself too seriously. He once stated that if the media was actually doing its job we, the public, would not have to be finding all this out from a rodeo clown (indicating himself.)
I believe he is a Catholic convert.

mamacantrix said...

Terry -- Mormon, actually, and a recovering alcoholic as well. Married...kids...generally sane life away from the camera by all accounts.

Father -- Enjoy your dinner. Have another beer, perhaps facing the Monday Night Football monitor.

Greta said...

Beck has been doing his thing for a few years now. The left hates him and many have gone after him with everything they can including Soros who has had people looking at everything he does. If they could do anything with his charts and comments, they would have done so. Most stories that involve politicians are fairly complex and filled with details that make them kind of boring. Look at all the connections that they went through on Nixon before having enough to convince most that he needed to go. The main street media does that with liberal leaders, only conservatives. That leaves it to those like Beck to put things together to present. It is a shame that the media does not do its job.
Look at who has been involved in the massive problems of Acorn, who first brought the attention of Terri Schiavoto light, and several other stories; Glenn Beck.
But you are right, at some point it is possible he will make a mistake and the left will use it to crucify him and many will not back him up when that time comes.

Anonymous said...

Father, you of all people should know enough not to judge the book by the cover. Content is the key. Try watching his show for a week or two.

Beck does what the news media is supposed to do...be a watchdog for society.

James said...

Glenn Beck blew right past embarrassment long ago, like Tony Stewart going past a riding lawnmower.
From the comments, it looks like many in your flock are sheep.

Anonymous said...

But we don't drink the kool aid. By the way, how's that change working for you?

mark scotch said...

I think he makes sense. As mentioned, watch him for a week or two.
Have you ever thought to put the book of Genesis on a chalk board, connecting all the "begots"?

humm....

Anonymous said...

Ours is an envionment where evil is perceived to be rewarded while good is punished. As with everything the Gods have a reason for creating this perception::::
People who fall on the good side of the good/evil scale have more favor, and when they do something wrong the Gods punish them BECAUSE THEY WANT THEM TO LEARN. The Gods want them to receive this feedback in hope they make corrections and begin to behave appropriately. The Gods DON'T like evil and refuse to grant this feedback.
EVERYBODY pays for what they do wrong, only evil people must wait until their next life before they will experience the wrath of the Gods, manifested in their reincarnation as a lower form of life into environments with increased/enhanced temptations.
Sadly, this allows the Gods to position this perception of evil rewarded as temptation, one which they use as an EXTREMELY effective corruptor.

Both Africa and the Medittereanean are regions which have sexual issues. This is a sign of morbid disfavor once you understand that females are the God's favored gender. Muhammad's (Mohammed's) polygamy halfway through his life as a prophet was preditory. Now a huge percentage of Muslims believes in male superiority and that the abuse of women is God's will. Female genital mutilation is still practiced in Africa. Black misogyny is the most eggregious example in the recent past.
Black member size is temptation to a predisposed population.
The patriarchal cancer spread throughout Europe because of Christianity, of which the majority of policy makers were Italian men. Expect the largest landowner in Europe and the continent's original superpower also played a major role in African slavery.

Militancy in Africa is consistant with the Iraqi example, as was slavery and the KKK here in America:::Fear enforces proper behavior. Without it we see what happens as a result of gross/morbid disfavor:::::AIDS, crack babies, dead young men in gangland retaliation killings. This is the purpose behind many black's historical tendancy towards resistance.
The same principle was true in Europe and throughout the world for centuries:::People whom lived under iron fists were conditioned to think the right way. As a result they experienced higher numbers of children accend into heaven because they were taught to think and behave appropriately, which they passed on to their children. Our preditory envionment of "freedom" was the primary purpose the Gods had when implimenting this strategy that is the United States, one which they used to spred the cancer of democracy and westernization throughout the world. And the Gods use this tool that is America to prey on the disfavored both at home and abroad:::Much like the ghetto, America in general experiences a heightened level of temptation due to the people's disfavor.

Even the Old Testiment is not to be taken literally, but the Gods do offer clues throughout to help the disfavored:::The apple is a tool of temptation used to corrupt Adam and Eve and cast them out of the Garden of Eden.
There is another lesson to be learned from this passage, and it is quite similar to the vailing issue and the discourse over women's attire which ultimately died in the 70s:::Women are responsible for and control the fate of mankind.

Think about what I say. Consider what I teach. Society is going to become disturbingly ugly as we approach the Apocalypse due to spiralling, runaway disfavor.
I do not know when this will occurr, but it is the God's way to grant some time before they end on Planet Earth.
Make the decision to always be good and never look back. Until you do this technology will employ tactics to test your resolve:::Ridicule, beligerance, doubt and refusal to abandon what people perceive to be their "investment".
Pray daily. Think appropriately. Too many are confident, unaware of the God's awesome powers or their status as antients. Others may fall prey to their positioning.
Be humbled, God-fearing and beware of the God's temptations, for everyone is tested to evaluate their worthiness.
Search rest

mamacantrix said...

How did we get from Glenn Beck to global misogyny and feminism? I'm confused. Maybe I should have a beer and watch a football game....

Chase said...

Probably the best testament to Beck's credibility is in his transition from Headline News to Fox "News". In 16 months, in Glenn Beck's words, we went from "the nightmare that is our healthcare system" to "you're about to lose the best healthcare system in the world". Source: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Fr Martin Fox said...

Marley:

I actually think he was right...the second time.

But...yeah...

mark scotch said...

Jon Stewart....now that's a guy that is causing more harm, especially to our young people, than Beck could ever do.

Green said...

So is Beck now the big evil guy of the day for the left? Has Rush now no longer the leader of the republican party? I find it interesting that so many seem to attack Beck, but fail to make a point by point attack to show where he is wrong. I also find that those who are most critical are ones who do not watch his program on any routine basis for any length of time. Some have never seen him kind of like politicians who vote for bills they have not read.

The other point to be considered is that the left now in total control of the white house and both houses of congress are led by wingnut radicals. Over time, they whacko's have built up many left wing organizations with solid funding by Soros and others most often using the hatred of Bush as their impetus. When you have this many groups each doing something with an aim at the destruction of everything that conservatives and most independents believe, you begin to feel overwhelmed and some might begin to say paranoid. I read a book a few years back on Germany in the 1920-30's and the chaos that led to the rise of the Nazi and Hitler. People back then were also overwhelmed with change after WWI when the US, England, and France forced a settlement on Germany that left it crippled and in depression long before the rest of the world. Hitler and his followers saw this as an opportunity for radical change and we hear that today with Obama team saying never let a crisis past but use it to make changes people would not normally accept.
With each of the czars, you have a radical put in place and given power and funding to do their thing in some critical area. These people have horrible backgrounds and radical beliefs. So with the daily onslaught, anyone that begins to string them together to make the point is going to be viewed as some sort of a nut unless you pay attention and see that what is going on is indeed a major play by radicals to forever change the USA toward a socialist state. They are following a well laid out playbook much as the Nazi followed the playbook of Mein Kempf. Now it comes out that as Hannity reported that the book Obama was supposed to have written really came from the ideas and thoughts and writing of Bill Ayers, the radical terrorist of the 60's and from the ongoing sermons of Rev Wright.

We can be like the Germans on the time and ignore what is going on or listen as things are laid out for us by Beck and others or with our own research. The other choice is to get involved and put pressure on the congress to stop this and to expose the MSM for their failure to cover serious breeches like Acorn.

Anonymous said...

I'm shocked at the amount of people, here and in America, who buy Beck's baloney. Let me sum it up for you all: there's nothing wrong with his facts. His facts are all correct and well-documented. The problem is WHERE HE GOES with those facts. That's what makes a conspiracy theorist: taking TRUE facts and making outlandish connections.

So YES, there are some corrupt people in the Obama whitehouse, and some who hold far-left viewpoints. And we should hold the administration accountable for promoting corruption and anti-American ideals. But that doesn't necessarily imply the Massive Commu-Fascist Coup that Glen Beck is staying up all night shivering about. Whether it's moon hoaxes, assassination theories, or whatever, the art of the conspiracy theorist is to take true facts, often connected, and say they prove his pet theory.

Finally, everyone says that to understand Obama you need to read "Rules for Radicals". Let me point out that to understand Beck you need to read "5000 Year Leap". It's a book about how America started off as a good Mormon country with the constitution written by God and some sort of nonsense. It's completely ahistorical, and Beck takes it as representing American ideals. It's no wonder he's so nutters.

mark scotch said...

What's shocking to me is not who buys into what Beck says, it's the complete lack of investigative reporting of pretty much all news outlets except FOX and guys like Beck.

You can't hold up an apple as a fact and state that it COULD give you orange juice. Everyone knows this is not possible and anyone trying to sell you on this you'd write off.

Beck is holding up the facts of what certain people and organizations are and stating that this is what it COULD produce.

Where did the facts lead when Van Jones was outed by Beck? He left quietly without a singe word from Obama. Did Obama not know Jones the same as he did not know Rev. Wright? Bill Ayers? ACORN? Of course he knew Van Jones and what Van Jones COULD PRODUCE as a product of who he is, much the same as an apple will give you apple juice, not orange juice. Jeff Jones, Mark Lloyd and the list goes on as to what "juice" the COULD produce, far left juice. They, as an apple, can not produce juice they are incapable of producing. They have to produce what they are based on who they are by words and actions of their past.
I believe Father could inject a similar entry at this point based on the teachings of Christ?

Where did the facts lead when 2 kids took the initiate to out ACORN?
Yes, certain individuals within ACORN were getting hammered for voter registration fraud, but it took 2 from the non-main (fringe?) stream media to really blow up ACRON for what they may really be and the juice they are producing.

Beck taking facts and making outlandish connections?
How about those taking facts and trying like hell to distance themselves from any connections?
Are you drinking the kool-aid (juice?) 180 degrees from Beck's pet theory to prove your own pet theory about Beck?

From watching Beck, I can't remember him ever saying. "this is what is happening and will happen" He rather presents the facts and possible connections based on those facts and asks " is there these possible connections" and lets the listener decide.

Obama has been confronted with certain facts since the election and doing his best to distance himself from "outlandish connections" since he threw his Grandmother under the Rev. Wright bus. Then, when the heat didn't go away, did he throw Rev. Wright under a different bus? For me, this is only one example in the past year or 2 of Obama not telling it straight, or changing his story to get the correct juice he needed to serve to get what he wanted from those drinking it. Some, even a certain elected official, most recently have called it outright lying.

Even if Beck's claims are only half or a third as crazy as some think, why is only he and few others reporting the FACTS?

That's the real question for me and the real danger. Not Obama, his juice, his czars and his political machine. Not anyone on the Right either, for that matter.

Beck stated this week that based on our current Republican party that McCain would have been a worse choice FOR OUR COUNTRY than Obama as President. Would that be a comment made by someone who is protecting his status quo? Take the time to read why he said this.

One thing I like about Beck, even if you agree with him or not, he states what he believes is best FOR THE COUNTRY as he interprets the Constitution. Not as a member of any political party.

Is our press deciding what facts we should hear in effort to control what we believe? If so, how can we hold any party accountable if we don't have the facts?

mark scotch said...

Con't

To that end, how are we as a nation going to hold Obama accountable, as the past poster stated, when our press is not doing their job? Where are you going to "get the facts" from if the press has decided for us in advance where the facts lead and don't even bother reporting the facts so we can make up our own minds?
Why after 3-4 days of being reported did Charlie Gibson, when asked about ACORN and the pimp/prostitute story not even know about it?
If he didn't know, why not? Why did it take 2 kids outside our "main-stream press" to get this story? A story 60 minutes could have broke if they had wanted to even try.
Further, if Gibson felt it was not important enough to report on, why not? Seems our elected officials felt it was important as they voted to stop tax money being given to ACORN while investigating them.

No, to me Beck is reporting the facts and offering some logical "end" BASED ON THEM.

If one thinks he's nuts, that's fine with me, he may very well be and time will prove that.

But even more "crazy" to me is how some Americans don't seem to care that most in the press it seems have decided for us as a nation what facts we should get and as a result what those facts could produce in the minds of Americans and not in the minds of the few in the press.

Afro Seminarian said...

Is Beck the one who said: "Obama's a racist, he hates white people"
Wow, Obama hates half of himself and half of his family and people are buying this.

Beck lost me at Day one.

But issues like racism are not that important since it only affects half of what Obama is as a person.

mark scotch said...

As with any quote taken out of context, it normally makes a little more sense when surrounded by the whole.....

QUOTED from: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/29/politics/main5195604.shtml

Fox News Channel commentator Glenn Beck said he believes President Barack Obama is a racist.

Beck made the statement during a guest appearance Tuesday on the "Fox & Friends" morning show. He said Obama has exposed himself as a person with "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture."

His remarks came during a discussion of Obama's reaction to the arrest of Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. Gates is black and was arrested for disorderly conduct by a white policeman over a misunderstanding about a break-in at Gates' home.

An Obama spokesman, William Burton, said the White House had no comment on Beck.

Beck's statement was challenged on the air by Fox host Brian Kilmeade, who noted that most of the people who work for the nation's first black president are white.

"I'm not saying he doesn't like white people," Beck said. "He has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist."

Beck wondered, during the discussion, what other president would immediately jump on the police for their actions in the case. Obama said in a news conference that he believed the police acted stupidly in the case, but later backtracked from the statement and invited Gates and the police officer, Sgt. James Crowley, to the White House for a conciliatory meeting later this week.

Bill Shine, Fox News senior vice president of programming, told the TVNewser Web site that Beck had "expressed a personal opinion which represented his own views, not those of the Fox News Channel. And as with all commentators in the cable news arena, he is given the freedom to express his opinions."

UNQUOTE

Is it right calling Obama a racist when he, as the President, stuck his nose in the Gates thing and got egg on his face? Don't know.

QUOTE
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — The Cambridge police commissioner says his department is "deeply pained" by President Barack Obama's statement that his officers "acted stupidly" when they arrested a renowned black scholar in his home.

In his first statement since the arrest, Commissioner Robert Haas on Thursday commended the arresting officer, Sgt. James Crowley. Haas said Crowley's actions were in no way motivated by racism.

Crowley, who is white, has been criticized for arresting Henry Louis Gates Jr. last week. Police say Gates flew into a verbal rage when officers asked him for identification while investigating a report of a break-in.

On Wednesday, Obama said officers "acted stupidly" in arresting Gates. On Thursday, he softened his stance and said cooler heads should have prevailed.

UNQUOTE
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/23/cop-obamas-gates-response_n_243517.html


Obama, the cool, calculating one who needs to take his time to understand how to fight the "good" war now but when during the campaign he had all the answers at the tip of his tongue, sure didn't waste any time weighing in on how the police "acted stupidly" when treating Gates.
Seems odd, Obama was all over this but when asked about ACORN last week he said in effect it didn't warrant his time.
Funny how he picks and chooses.

I think that's what Beck was getting at. Obama shouldn't have said a word about the Gates thing, especially calling police stupid for doing their job. Maybe Beck shouldn't have gone so far to call Obama a racist, either, but still, why did Obama react in such a way?

Rudy said...

I like Glenn Beck. He is the new Rush Limbauhg for a new generation. I love how he makes liberals foam with rage. And how he upsets moderate and "sophisticated" conservatives and republicans.

As long as we have the democrats in power in the House of Representatives, the Senate, the Presidency and a majority of governorships, we need people like Beck.

Anonymous said...

Glenn Beck is no different from Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh. It's all about ratings and delivering a demographic to the sales department for advertizing dollars. A very large, yet idologically narrow age-determined demographic is priceless. Cable news and commentary is not about content; it's about sales.

mark scotch said...

yeah, calling out Van Jones was all about ratings.

Exposing ACORN for what they are is all about advertising dollars.

How deep is that apathetic, cynical cave? Don't get lost in it.