[UPDATE 2/25/11]:
Chris Balfe, president of Beck’s production company, says Beck is not an AFTRA member. Woopsies.
------------------------
I’ll give Glenn Beck props for one thing: he’s been one of the few people in the media talking about the massive rallies of union workers and union supporters happening this week in Wisconsin.
People are protesting Gov. Scott Walker’s extremist anti-union legislation which would eliminate collective bargaining for public employees. There are reports of 30,000 protestors descending on the state capitol yesterday, and today’s rally looks to be as big.
Glenn Beck and the rest of the Fox fools have been whipping up the fear, because liberal rallies are always bad things and full of terrorists and terrorist appeasers and verging on violence (as opposed to conservative rallies which are Patriotic and Free Speech and Constitutional and Freedom and Liberty and yada yada.)
Anyhoo, yesterday Beck told the protestors their unions “are anti-western way of life,” which is the kind of thing people like Beck say: it’s just an insult attached to a group they don’t like (Nazi, communist, terrorist, leech, etc. + liberals, Democrats, Muslims, the poor, etc.), then regurgitated without any thought whatsoever. It's intellectually lazy, but it gets the job done, and frankly with their audience, no more is required. “This group = bad thing.” Whatever. It’s boring.
I just want someone to ask Beck one thing: aren’t you a member of a union? AFTRA? American Federation of Television And Radio Artists? The same AFTRA campaigning to save Public Broadcasting? Beck’s name is listed on the Los Angeles chapter’s June 2010 ballot under “newsperson.” Maybe there’s another newsperson named Glenn Beck, to which I have to say: dude, I feel sorry for you.
If Glenn Beck is a card-carrying AFTRA member, then he needs to either tear up his union card or STFU about how unions are anti-Western civilization.
Just sayin’.
Showing posts with label Glenn Beck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Glenn Beck. Show all posts
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Time To Play Glenn Beck Off?
I don’t think this from the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol is a random piece of conservative opinion:
But hysteria is not a sign of health. When Glenn Beck rants about the caliphate taking over the Middle East from Morocco to the Philippines, and lists (invents?) the connections between caliphate-promoters and the American left, he brings to mind no one so much as Robert Welch and the John Birch Society. He’s marginalizing himself, just as his predecessors did back in the early 1960s.
Bill Kristol is one of those intellectually dishonest neocons of whom I’ve said, repeatedly, that he’s been wrong about everything since forever. I happen to think if Bill Kristol had an original thought it would die of loneliness, by which I mean, he doesn’t come up with these ideas by himself. I think some serious seeds are being planted within the Republican Party to shove Beck out the door.
Why? Well, I have long suspected Glenn Beck would become a liability for conservatives, sooner rather than later. He was a very useful tool in rallying the partisan base for the midterms, but a presidential election requires an appeal to more mainstream voters. That requires a less divisive approach and in that regard, Beck is a liability.
Last week I saw this item about Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, who has a 7% stake in NewsCorp. Al-Waleed bin Talal is the billionaire Saudi financier who is nephew to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. I guess he’s been able to overlook all of the Muslim-bashing Beck and other FOX News folks have been engaged in all these years. But now it appears he’s getting a little nervous about his investment. In the U.K. a Murdoch-owned British tabloid is embroiled in a major phone-hacking scandal which took down the Prime Minister’s director of communications and threatens a major deal to acquire BSkyB; Stateside, Beck’s increasingly unhinged rantings offend American rabbis and tarnish the NewsCorp brand:
Those familiar with bin Talal, who has given tens of millions of dollars to charities seeking to bridge gaps between western and Islamic communities, say he will have been dismayed by any whiff of controversy threatening his business interests.
"He is an incredibly intelligent man and deeply honourable; you can only speculate about what he must be thinking now," said an acquaintance.
Coming at a time when News Corp wants regulatory approval to take over British satellite broadcaster BSkyB, both the phone-hacking scandal and the row with the rabbis are damaging not only to the company's reputation but its bottom line.
[...]
Worryingly for Murdoch, who is used to his investors taking a back seat, the prince is a far from passive backer. As a sizable investor in bombed-out banking giant Citigroup, bin Talal has been vocal in calling for its management to improve the firm's fortunes, warning its chief executive last year that the "honeymoon was over".
I have to think that Beck is far too big a liability for both Republicans’ political aspirations and Murdoch’s business aspirations to hang around much longer. It will be interesting to see if I’m right.
I also find it curious that the U.S. media has done so little coverage of Rupert Murdoch’s UK woes, considering what a navel-gazing bunch our American media is. Anderson Cooper gets bonked on the head and it’s headline news from coast to coast. And you know darn well if MSNBC were in this kind of trouble, FOX would be all over it.
Anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised if Beck’s fortunes took a sudden turn south. And when that happens, I’m sure liberals will get the blame -- some cockamamie story will be concocted to allow conservatives to continue to demonize the left and keep the anger and rancor alive.
(h/t DougJ at Balloon Juice.)
Saturday, October 9, 2010
My Last (I Hope) Gene Cranick Post
I’ve been really impressed with the discussion on my Gene Cranick threads here and here. You guys have raised some really good issues, and it’s stuff like this which makes me glad I have a blog.
I really haven’t focused much on the moral issues at play here but I do have something to say about that. To me, focusing on why Cranick didn't pay that $75 fee is almost -- almost -- as mean and heartless as focusing on how the fire started. Fires get put out whether they were caused by a lightning strike or a kid playing with matches or someone burning their trash in the backyard despite a statewide fire advisory (and let me say, this is the first I’ve heard there is a statewide fire advisory. The governor’s office might need to do a better job of getting the word out.)
Sure, if the family were indigent and couldn't afford the $75 fee then that would reveal yet another flaw in the county services. But really to say "he's a freeloader and loser trying to get something for nothing" the way Glenn Beck and a few anonymous folks over here did is just another way of piling on someone who obviously made a mistake.
What, you people never made a mistake? Ever? You’re the only ones, then. It's safe to say Mr. Cranick has learned his lesson the hard way, and has paid a terrible price for it. So shut your yaps.
On second thought, don’t shut your yaps. The Glenn Becks of the world who sanctimoniously (though accurately) claim that Mr. Cranick should have known better and whatnot prove the point we Dirty Hippies have always made: yes. There will always be people who don’t do what they’re supposed to do. That’s correct. Thank you for admitting that. Now the question is, what do we do about it?
Is it best for the community as a whole to let the man’s house burn down, possibly spreading the fire to the homes of neighbors who did do what they were supposed to do? And add a homeless family to the community’s burdens? I mean yeah you can feel all self-righteous that you were right and they were wrong and perhaps that makes you feel better but then what? Does you feeling better benefit the community more than making sure everyone has a home?
And we can take this example across a wide array of social problems. Food stamps, education, you name it. Yes it annoys the hell out of me when people come over here and blithely say “those people should just get a job!” when in case you haven’t noticed, there are no jobs. But that’s really irrelevant. There will always be people who don’t work, even as there are people who can’t. It doesn’t matter, because it’s still an issue we need to deal with.
One of my more clueless commenters claimed that, “there was a time when if you were hungry, you went out and worked to get food. Fish, plant, forage. If you didn't, you starved.” Actually, as any student of anthropology knows, that’s utter bullshit. Every culture around the globe, modern to prehistoric, has developed a way of dealing with those in the community who aren’t doing their fair share. Even those people who inhabit harsh environments -- the Inuit and the !Kung bushmen, for example -- do not let their people starve. They deal with their freeloaders in other ways: public shaming, for example. And perhaps our right-wing commenters like Glenn Beck are serving a valuable community role in this respect as being the public voice of scorn. They sure seem to have that shaming thing down. So, there's that.
Tough noogies might make some people feel better and it might have a role to play in keeping a big chunk of the population in line but it’s not the basis for an effective social policy nor does it build community. There needs to be something else in place, too.
The silver lining in all of this is that we are at least having a national debate about an issue that gets at the heart of what ails America today. Taxes, infrastructure, the role of government, privatized services, etc. I had hoped we could talk about this a little more but our media appears happy to just hit the highlights. Oh well, it seems the conversation has continued on blogs and in other media. This is a good thing.
I'm actually feeling pretty positive about all of this. And I'd like to thank Gene Cranick for -- no pun intended -- sparking a serious conversation about an important issue.
For those of you who don’t lack a cooperative gene a fund has been set up for the Cranicks. Keith Olbermann spread the word about it here.
For those of you who lack that cooperative gene, you can feel all warm and toasty that you did the right thing by paying your bills (you have, right?) and the Cranicks did not and nyah nyah nyah.
I really haven’t focused much on the moral issues at play here but I do have something to say about that. To me, focusing on why Cranick didn't pay that $75 fee is almost -- almost -- as mean and heartless as focusing on how the fire started. Fires get put out whether they were caused by a lightning strike or a kid playing with matches or someone burning their trash in the backyard despite a statewide fire advisory (and let me say, this is the first I’ve heard there is a statewide fire advisory. The governor’s office might need to do a better job of getting the word out.)
Sure, if the family were indigent and couldn't afford the $75 fee then that would reveal yet another flaw in the county services. But really to say "he's a freeloader and loser trying to get something for nothing" the way Glenn Beck and a few anonymous folks over here did is just another way of piling on someone who obviously made a mistake.
What, you people never made a mistake? Ever? You’re the only ones, then. It's safe to say Mr. Cranick has learned his lesson the hard way, and has paid a terrible price for it. So shut your yaps.
On second thought, don’t shut your yaps. The Glenn Becks of the world who sanctimoniously (though accurately) claim that Mr. Cranick should have known better and whatnot prove the point we Dirty Hippies have always made: yes. There will always be people who don’t do what they’re supposed to do. That’s correct. Thank you for admitting that. Now the question is, what do we do about it?
Is it best for the community as a whole to let the man’s house burn down, possibly spreading the fire to the homes of neighbors who did do what they were supposed to do? And add a homeless family to the community’s burdens? I mean yeah you can feel all self-righteous that you were right and they were wrong and perhaps that makes you feel better but then what? Does you feeling better benefit the community more than making sure everyone has a home?
And we can take this example across a wide array of social problems. Food stamps, education, you name it. Yes it annoys the hell out of me when people come over here and blithely say “those people should just get a job!” when in case you haven’t noticed, there are no jobs. But that’s really irrelevant. There will always be people who don’t work, even as there are people who can’t. It doesn’t matter, because it’s still an issue we need to deal with.
One of my more clueless commenters claimed that, “there was a time when if you were hungry, you went out and worked to get food. Fish, plant, forage. If you didn't, you starved.” Actually, as any student of anthropology knows, that’s utter bullshit. Every culture around the globe, modern to prehistoric, has developed a way of dealing with those in the community who aren’t doing their fair share. Even those people who inhabit harsh environments -- the Inuit and the !Kung bushmen, for example -- do not let their people starve. They deal with their freeloaders in other ways: public shaming, for example. And perhaps our right-wing commenters like Glenn Beck are serving a valuable community role in this respect as being the public voice of scorn. They sure seem to have that shaming thing down. So, there's that.
Tough noogies might make some people feel better and it might have a role to play in keeping a big chunk of the population in line but it’s not the basis for an effective social policy nor does it build community. There needs to be something else in place, too.
The silver lining in all of this is that we are at least having a national debate about an issue that gets at the heart of what ails America today. Taxes, infrastructure, the role of government, privatized services, etc. I had hoped we could talk about this a little more but our media appears happy to just hit the highlights. Oh well, it seems the conversation has continued on blogs and in other media. This is a good thing.
I'm actually feeling pretty positive about all of this. And I'd like to thank Gene Cranick for -- no pun intended -- sparking a serious conversation about an important issue.
For those of you who don’t lack a cooperative gene a fund has been set up for the Cranicks. Keith Olbermann spread the word about it here.
For those of you who lack that cooperative gene, you can feel all warm and toasty that you did the right thing by paying your bills (you have, right?) and the Cranicks did not and nyah nyah nyah.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
The Liberal Media’s Guide To Covering A Tea Party
1- Shamelessly promote the event for days in advance, including repeating event organizer’s wildly inflated claims about expected attendance and completely unsubstantiated claims that any unsavory elements at previous rallies is the doing of dastardly “Democrat” activists.
2- Use the event to again ponder “who is the Tea Party?” while observing that despite organizers’ claim for racial diversity, those in attendance are “overwhelmingly white.” (Extra points for ignoring irony of main speaker’s claim that nation has “walked in darkness for too long.”)
3- Cover every possible aspect of the rally, including the media’s coverage of the rally.
4- Finally report actual attendance, without noting it is far less than organizers’ claims.
5- Continue to discuss, ad nauseum, the rally’s impact on upcoming elections, including lame online survey.
6- Rinse. Repeat.
Look, I don’t want to get into the particulars of Whitestock or the ridiculous carnival it represents or how offensive it is that a bunch of white people would gather to reclaim some civil rights they never lost. What I want people to remember is that hundreds of thousands of people marched against the Iraq War in 2003--part of a global action I might add--and it got barely a passing mention by the mainstream press. There were no days of coverage leading up to the event, all-day coverage during the event, interviews of people at the event, followed days of analysis post-event. Not even a lame online survey asking your opinion of the event. There was nothing.
For this I will never, ever forgive the national news media nor will I ever again trust it. My message to the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, CNN and the rest is this: At a time when the nation needed you people to do your job, when it really mattered, when peoples’ lives were at stake, you guys bailed on us. And now, in some kind of pathetic attempt to appear “not liberal” you cover every fart and burp issuing forth from conservative partisans, when it’s completely irrelevant to the grand scheme of things. We are not talking life and death here. We are not sending hundreds of thousands of our kids into battle. We’re talking some whiny-assed titty babies pissed they lost an election to a black man.
Shame on you.
2- Use the event to again ponder “who is the Tea Party?” while observing that despite organizers’ claim for racial diversity, those in attendance are “overwhelmingly white.” (Extra points for ignoring irony of main speaker’s claim that nation has “walked in darkness for too long.”)
3- Cover every possible aspect of the rally, including the media’s coverage of the rally.
4- Finally report actual attendance, without noting it is far less than organizers’ claims.
5- Continue to discuss, ad nauseum, the rally’s impact on upcoming elections, including lame online survey.
6- Rinse. Repeat.
Look, I don’t want to get into the particulars of Whitestock or the ridiculous carnival it represents or how offensive it is that a bunch of white people would gather to reclaim some civil rights they never lost. What I want people to remember is that hundreds of thousands of people marched against the Iraq War in 2003--part of a global action I might add--and it got barely a passing mention by the mainstream press. There were no days of coverage leading up to the event, all-day coverage during the event, interviews of people at the event, followed days of analysis post-event. Not even a lame online survey asking your opinion of the event. There was nothing.
For this I will never, ever forgive the national news media nor will I ever again trust it. My message to the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, CNN and the rest is this: At a time when the nation needed you people to do your job, when it really mattered, when peoples’ lives were at stake, you guys bailed on us. And now, in some kind of pathetic attempt to appear “not liberal” you cover every fart and burp issuing forth from conservative partisans, when it’s completely irrelevant to the grand scheme of things. We are not talking life and death here. We are not sending hundreds of thousands of our kids into battle. We’re talking some whiny-assed titty babies pissed they lost an election to a black man.
Shame on you.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Weird Crap I Read
I think listening to Karl Lagerfeld on climate science must be akin to listening to Glenn Beck on theological matters.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Glenn Beck: Parody, Or Insane?
Once again we must ask the question.
HuffPo’s Jason Linkins was tasked with determining whether Glenn Beck has a Twitter account and sadly, he has discovered that yes, Glenn Beck has a Twitter account.
It appears the man doesn’t have much to say:
HuffPo’s Jason Linkins was tasked with determining whether Glenn Beck has a Twitter account and sadly, he has discovered that yes, Glenn Beck has a Twitter account.
It appears the man doesn’t have much to say:
I like fish
about 6 hours ago from web
And then:
I’ve been thinking about it more, so I wanted to clarify. I don’t LOVE fish, I just like it.
about 4 hours ago from web
Okie dokie. I happened to remember that Beck announced a comedy tour back in April, so I suspect his Tweets are a lame attempt at showcasing his comedic skills.
Well, let’s hope that’s what this is.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Is Glenn Beck Insane Or Just Hungry For Lunch?
Glenn Beck ranted on about fried chicken and hamburgers yesterday and we’re having a good time trying to make sense of it.
Here, give it a try:
Here, give it a try:
And this is the argument that we have. We have two choices between Kentucky Fried Chicken and Popeye's. What a lot of Americans want is a hamburger. Kentucky Fried Chicken, if you will, took the hamburger choice away. They started calling themselves Kentucky Fried Hamburgers and so now people are saying, you want a hamburger? Well, you should be over here having chicken. No, no, no, you're eating chicken, too. "No, I'm not. I'm eating a hamburger, and we make the best hamburgers ever." And then pretty soon Popeye says, "We're making hamburgers as well." No, that's chicken, too. That's just called a chicken tender. "Nope, it's a hamburger and ours is flame broiled." No, it's not. You put it in oil. This is clearly fried. "No, that's Kentucky Fried Chicken." No. Neither of you guys are serving hamburgers! I just want a hamburger, please. This is what's happening. We're arguing about chicken places. When the real moment of revelation is when America steps back and goes, "Wait a minute. My gosh, it is chicken. Soylent Green! It's chicken!
As soon as somebody stands at the counter and says, "Where's the beef!" Then we'll be able to have an honest conversation in America about Arlen Specter.
Huh? Was Beck channeling Lyle Lovett?
Glenn Beck: ANALOGY FAIL.
(h/t, tiimbitz4786 at Kos.)
Sunday, April 12, 2009
The Glenn Beck Comedy Show
Apparently, this is not a joke:
Glenn Beck, Fox News Channel's latest sensation, is taking a comedy show on the road for six live performances over six days during the first week of June.
Beck calls his act a "poor man's Seinfeld" and intends to mix topical humor with his modern-day reimagining of Thomas Paine's 1776 pamphlet "Common Sense."
I’m starting to wonder if Glenn Beck isn’t one giant performance-art experiment along the lines of Andy Kaufman.
Maybe Glenn Beck is Andy Kaufman.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Glenn Beck's Latest Brain Fart
I've been known to have my fair share of dumb moments but good Lord, this is the most stunning example cluelessness I've ever seen:
Please, people, do not tell Glenn Beck that the swastika symbol predates the Nazis by a few thousand years and is common in Native American, Buddhist, pagan, Hindu, and ancient Greek symbology. In fact, it's the most ubiquitous symbol in cultures all around the world. I fear if Glenn knew that, he'd decide the entire world is Nazi.
Please, people, do not tell Glenn Beck that the swastika symbol predates the Nazis by a few thousand years and is common in Native American, Buddhist, pagan, Hindu, and ancient Greek symbology. In fact, it's the most ubiquitous symbol in cultures all around the world. I fear if Glenn knew that, he'd decide the entire world is Nazi.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Evil
Via Andrew Sullivan, we learn that Glenn Beck thinks changes to the charitable contribution deduction affecting only 5% of taxpayers and returning the tax deduction to where it was during the Reagan Administration is more evil than this.
There simply are no words for this kind of stupidity. Never forget, this assclown was on CNN's payroll for years.
There simply are no words for this kind of stupidity. Never forget, this assclown was on CNN's payroll for years.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Right Where He Belongs
Glenn Back is finally going where he belongs: to Fox News.
“Beginning next spring, Beck will host FOX News Channel’s (FNC) 5 PM/ET weekday program as well as a weekend show on the network,” a Fox News statement says. Fox News’s Roger Ailes remarked, “As we embark on a new political landscape, Glenn’s thought provoking commentary will complement an already stellar line-up of stars at FOX News.”
The only question is what took so long. CNN made a huge judgment error in hiring Beck to begin with; guess that was back when they thought they could score a ratings winner by emulating Fox in the nutty conservative GOP hack category. Little did they know the mood of the country has been swinging left, not right, for the past two years. So MSNBC scores a ratings win with Rachel Maddow while Glenn Beck has been in the ratings toilet since he joined Headline News.
I was wondering how long it would take CNN to wake up.
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