Hear an NPR discussion about the Glenn Beck phenomenon & what it says about the Country. For me, Beck is just a huge con artist who happens to be good at what he does. His popularity is a reflection of our increasingly partisan politics, the intellectual deterioration taking root in the U.S. and "the facts be damned" attitude of the public, an extremely uninformed/misinformed populace, and a deteriorating media that lacks balance and takes part in the misinformation. Beck is also benefiting from anxiety stirred up by the economy... (but that is not the main issue in my opinion). The main reasons for Beck's success are public misinformation from right wing media...and the fact that there is a President in the White House who isn't white.
More examples of how the Right makes things up. I have been trying to tell you all... they're crazy. But they are crazy and organized...which is what bugs the hell out of me.
I guess Elena Kagan is such a blank slate that Republicans have to find others to attack.... even the dearly departed. They were apparently so desperate this week that they dug up a class paper that Kagan wrote decades ago, before she even entered law school. Of course they failed miserably with that effort.
But what annoyed me most was the way that Republican Senators on the Judiciary Committee used Kagan to attack Thurgood Marshall - a giant and American hero. Listen to the highlights of the hearings from last week, where Marshall is repeatedly brought up, attacked and diminished by Republicans. The effort was led by Senators Lindsey Graham, John Kyl, and Jeff Sessions. Their racism was plain to see and it was clear that they were playing to their base - their white Southern audiences back home. By targeting Marshall, they were attacking civil rights, desegregation, and equal justice...all the things he stood for. In their attacks (in front of at least one Marshall family member) they painted Marshall as a radical...as a judicial "activist". Marshall's opinions as a judge -upholding the idea of fairness, equal rights, etc- were out of the mainstream (although there is no evidence of that whatsoever). What they were really criticizing was Marshall's career before he became a judge. They were basically saying that Brown v. Topeka Board of Education was not decided correctly and was a result of Marshall's work as an attorney & agitator, and a result of an activist Supreme Court which overturned years of segregation. They suggested that since racism, esp. Jim Crow, was the law of the land, and was well established, settled law.... someone like Thurgood Marshall was a radical and activist because he came along and stirred things up by daring to challenge what had been legal precedent prior to May 1954. In other words, these Senators were sending the not-so-subtle message that Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 case that upheld segregation in schools, should have been allowed to stand as it was settled law. Racist to the core.
Why has the national corporate media allowed this to go almost unchallenged? I saw the segments on MSNBC...but I have not heard much from any other outlet. Unreal.
Senator Al Franken provided a pretty good rebuttal - see video. Besides Al Franken.... few Senators/House members have spoken out against this blatant racism.
This comes on top of efforts by racist jackasses like Glenn Beck who want to hijack the anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington as a way to mock Dr. Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights struggle. Beck says he wants to "restore honor" and dignity to America..... as opposed to MLK, advancements in Civil Rights, and that nigra being elected President.
Caption: Shhhh... (whispering) I'm making a killing by taking advantage of these idiots on the right, especially the dopes in that Tea Party Movement. They buy my act hook, line & sinker...and none of them have caught on yet. These people are so stupid... I can get them to support just about anything. They believe every lie that I tell, and I'm going to keep making money off of them. Thank God for stupid people...and Thank God for Roger Ailes for giving me this great platform.
I don't know if it's stupidity or genius... because after all, he is the one getting over by taking advantage of the ignorance of his followers. Hell, if I had millions of American zombies hanging on my every word & making me richer, I would probably take advantage of them too, as long as it was legal. Who wouldn't? But then again, I have a conscience and a moral compass, two things that Glenn Beck doesn't have. So I don't think I would do very well as a con artist.
This is the most phony right wing hack on the airwaves. He doesn't even make it a secret anymore. He's openly phony, yet his supporters (idiots) love to watch him. His latest antics involve encouraging his Christian followers to leave their churches if they notice any sort of "social justice" being practiced or preached. Problem is... this includes many right leaning evangelical churches, including The Catholic Church...and even his own Mormon Church.
Even though it is clear (no longer a secret) that his activities are part of an ongoing Republican effort to use fear to excite voters, his followers will unfortunately continue to support him. The idiots in the so-called Tea Party movement will continue to back him, even though they are openly being manipulated by scare tactics from the right...all for political purposes. Many of his followers hang on his every word, and will do exactly what he tells them. As I have stated many times before, it is amazing how the right is able to get these folks to even go against their own economic and political interests and their interests simply as citizens. The level of manipulation and propaganda is truly unbelievable to me. But what blows my mind even more is the fact that it works... the fact that so many people embrace the rights propaganda without questioning anything about what or who they are supporting.
Last week, the conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck called on Christians to leave their churches if they heard any preaching about social or economic justice because, he claimed, those were slogans affiliated with Nazism and Communism.
This week, the Rev. Jim Wallis, a liberal evangelical leader in Washington, D.C., called on Christians to leave Glenn Beck.
“What he has said attacks the very heart of our Christian faith, and Christians should no longer watch his show,” Mr. Wallis, who heads the antipoverty group Sojourners, wrote on his “God’s Politics” blog. “His show should now be in the same category as Howard Stern.”
Mr. Beck, in vilifying churches that promote “social justice,” managed to insult just about every mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic, African-American, Hispanic and Asian congregation in the country — not to mention plenty of evangelical ones.
Even Mormon scholars in Mr. Beck’s own church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said in interviews that Mr. Beck seemed ignorant of just how central social justice teaching was to Mormonism.
The controversy began when Mr. Beck said on his radio show: “I beg you, look for the words ’social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words.
“Am I advising people to leave their church? Yes! If I am going to Jeremiah Wright’s church,” he said, referring to the incendiary black pastor who led the church attended by the Obama family members when they lived in Chicago. “If you have a priest that is pushing social justice, go find another parish. Go alert your bishop and tell them, ‘Excuse me, are you down with this whole social justice thing?’ ”
