I used to just ignore Glenn Beck. When he was on CNN I found him to be a little annoying but mostly so negative about the future I
just didn’t bother to tune into his program. Now, unfortunately, I CAN’T ignore him. Since he moved to Fox News and has become the new televangelist for the far right, he has become the leader (or at least the mouthpiece) of the conservative movement. He is a radio-show, talk-show actor turned political agitator who has the gift of a really great salesman and many people who are discouraged at what has been happening in America….are buying what he is selling…….. the fear of any American or world future NOT based on a far right Christian conservative ideology.
Even though his antics on screen and on the radio turn off most rational individuals, many of my family members believe Beck is God’s (literally) gift to America and the only person in the media who knows about the evil destroying our country……namely (and this list is probably too short)…Obama, liberals, professors, atheists, Democrats, anti-war activists, anti-gun activists, James Cameron (seriously?), Muslims (or anyone really who is not Christian or Jewish….note: Christians and especially Mormons feel Jews are really Christians who haven’t yet found Christ), illegal immigrants (specifically from South America and especially from Mexico), Palestinians and or anyone pro-Palestinian and or anyone who feels Israel is being a prick, so to speak), socialists (or anyone who wants a fairer distribution of resources or even a fair chance at succeeding), environmentalists, community organizers, anyone pro-choice, Planned Parenthood, the gay community, anyone who excepts a government handout like welfare UNLESS they are a Christian conservative and watch his show OR they are a Mormon who takes welfare from the church OR is on unemployment because Obama made them lose their job………well, you get my point here.
ANYONE and EVERYONE who disagrees with a Christian conservative extreme right point of view and specifically Beck’s point of view is a communist, socialist, or Marxist out to destroy America.
Why does he scare me? Because he is great at what he does which is whipping up the conservative far right base into a frenzy and creating a cult like mob mentality. Beck uses his platform on a constant bases to outline a movement that has begun to repulse so many Americans….even Americans who have been fiscally conservative Republicans for many years……like me.
Sadly Beck has managed to revive a part of America’s shameful political past when Sen. Joe McCarthy through fear mongering and unfounded baseless accusations, ruined the lives of so many patriotic Americans. He dredged up past statements (often taken out of context) and their associations, past and present to accused them of being disloyal and even traitors. This same thing is happening today and Beck appears to be milking the fear of the times for all it’s worth. His “Six Degrees of Kevin bacon” approach to connecting those he brands as “Progressives” would be funny and amusing if so many people id not buy into it completely. If you take anyone’s casual thoughts, meanderings, school papers, or even think tank ideas and discount the context in which it was given ALL of us would look like subversives or just plain assholes. The book “What’s Your Dangerous Idea? – Today’s Leading Thinkers on the Unthinkable” edited by John Brockman, is a perfect example (and a great book) These ideas are often radical and or unthinkable and even impossible but given in the context of this book….they are interesting and well thought and not all are necessarily appropriate or even supposed to be mainstream. If you took one of these ideas and or statements out of that context and dredged it up later and used it as evidence for subversion….. people would think “Wow…..this guy is dangerous.”
Actually we ALL have dangerous thoughts and ideas. For example…..I have often said (in jest but I still think it is a great idea) that “If I was president I would put all of the pedophiles in lock up in a medical facility and use them over and over as organ donors.” I have even said….again partly in jest, that ” we should sterilize all idiots and not allow them to add to the universal gene pool”……… Now…..if I run for office someday, which I am not BUT…..if I did, someone like Beck could bring up these statements and say “Look how dangerous she is. She is a Nazi who wants to sterilize people she thinks are stupid (Beck would top my list) and use prisoners for organ donors.” Context makes all of the difference.
Beck has also come up with a great shtick where is uses his blackboard (no doubt to make unsuspecting watchers feel he really IS a historian or a great thinker and that he needs to teach them) so he connects the dots in again, a “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” type show. For example it could go like this: “Cindy was Mormon and grew up in Utah…..when she was a teenager she had a 6th grade teacher named Mrs. Beck……..Mrs. beck seemed like an ordinary 6th grade teacher but was actually quite subversive and belonged to the Mormon Underground (a group in the 70′s dedicated to outing the truth about Mormon history)…….Glenn Beck also has relatives in Utah who are Mormon named Beck……..one of his distant relatives was also a teacher…….(hummmmm is this starting to look like a connection?)……..Cindy later became an atheist and has watched the Glenn beck show…….so….does that mean that Beck could also be a secret atheist who wants to destroy the Mormon Church and who belongs to the Mormon Underground? Wow! I guess it seems innocent….or is it? (Keep in mind the above example was a sarcastic joke and NOT my belief) This is what Beck is really so good at doing………. he connects the dots as HE feels they should be connected. Are there people out there in politics who are connected, have their cronies watch their backs, and hand feed them opportunities? You bet. Are their political machines either liberal of conservative who are all tangled together and connected….sure. If you want to see some real dot connecting on the conservative side, read the book “The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the heart of American Power by Jeff Sharlet . You can connect a lot of conservative dots too and if you try hard enough…….you can connect them in ways you never dreamed of…..even incorrectly.
My point? Anyone can take the dots and connect them and assign the meaning they want but Beck does such a good job at holding his audience captive…..they believe he actually knows everything and every reason behind each 
coincidence, person or event. He does the same thing with the history of our nation and specifically the founding fathers that he constantly refers to like he knew them personally. He wants to portray them like the Texans want to in their new whitewashed textbooks….as Christian conservatives with an ideologically based government based on Judeo Christian values when in fact…..they were for a complete separation of church and state. Some were religious and some weren’t BUT they wanted everyone in this nation to be able to practice the religion of choice (or not). Beck has twisted history and the intent of the founders (which only he apparently has knowledge of) to mean that this was supposed to be a Christian nation and NOT a nation with churches separate from the government.
Instead of civil dialogue we have gun-brandishers and pitch fork carriers demanding the physical annihilation of everyone they disagree with particularly progressives who value “community.” What is the difference between Beck’s call to arms and the “eradication of progressives” and a fatwa? They may have different ideologies and methods but both call for the elimination of a group of people and ideas. The “Lock and Load” mantra of his crowd is encouraged 
by his call for an armed militia and when he throws out the terms Marxist and Socialist like he does on a daily basis, it is not hard see that some will take this to the extreme and pursue more violent means of “taking their country back.”
In his address to the Conservative Political Action Conference he called the concept of “community” a “cancer that is not our founder’s idea of America.” (I guess he has never lived in Utah where I grew up because you can’t escape the “community” no matter how hard you try.) Wasn’t one of the notions of community inherent in the founder’s motto “Join or Die?”
His comical antics, whining, crying, and general demeanor are still very annoying to me and to some, he may seem like a funny uncle who just wants what is best for us all and although is calls himself a “rodeo clown” he in more like the clown in the Stephen King book “It.” A menacing trickster intent on his own agenda…….he may be a clown but he is the only one laughing, all the way to the bank.
