Saturday, May 30, 2009

How crazy is Fox News going to let Glenn Beck get?



Ok, I understand that Fox News is a Republican propaganda operation disguised as a news network, but I still would think there's got to be some line of decency and sanity that the executives would not be willing to cross. But as Glenn Beck continues to spiral further and farther into the fevered world of his own demented imagination, I'm starting to conclude that there is no such line. As Matt Taibbi observed

It’s not often that we get to watch someone go insane on national television; trapped in an echo chamber of his own spiraling egomania, with apparently no one at his network willing to pull the plug and put him out of his misery, Beck has lately gone from being a mildly annoying media dingbat to a self-imagined messiah who looks like he’s shouldering more and more of the burdens of Christ with each passing day.

That video above is just unbelievable, unbelievable that it was broadcast on what is supposed to be a mainstream tv network. It could just as easily fit in here, with these other fringe/lunatic conspiracy theories (Someone left that link in response to a Ron Paul post I wrote.) Really, let's think about this: Beck is floating the idea that the economic meltdown was manufactured by ACORN as part of a 40+ year plot to usher in a socialist government and that Obama is ACORN's Manchurian frontman of the conspiracy.

That's just as crazy as any other conspiracy about sinister forces secretly working behind the scenes to control the fate of the world. ACORN plays the role in Beck's conspiracy that Jews, Illuminati, Masons, or the Bilderbergs play in other paranoid, New World Order type conspiracies. One can't help but recall Richard Hofstadter

The enemy is clearly delineated: he is a perfect model of malice, a kind of amoral superman—sinister, ubiquitous, powerful, cruel, sensual, luxury-loving. Unlike the rest of us, the enemy is not caught in the toils of the vast mechanism of history, himself a victim of his past, his desires, his limitations. He wills, indeed he manufactures, the mechanism of history, or tries to deflect the normal course of history in an evil way. He makes crises, starts runs on banks, causes depressions, manufactures disasters, and then enjoys and profits from the misery he has produced. The paranoid’s interpretation of history is distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone’s will.
If Fox News was even remotely interested in being an actual news network they would not let Beck go on the air and promote this nonsense. There are multiple reasons behind the nation's economic woes, but a deliberate plot to crash the economy to secretly take over the country and install a "liberal fascist" regime is not one of them.

While Glenn Beck imagines that ACORN magically crashed the economy, actual news organization The Center for Public Integrity has released a report on actual reasons for the meltdown. (h/t Lippard blog)

3 comments:

harmfulguy said...

Any chance Beck's Fox health coverage hasn't kicked in yet, and once it does he'll be able to afford his medication again?

Left-wing Wacko said...

Hah,
That segment is so funny in that it tries to connect so many dots that really don't connect.

I love the part about Fox-Piven writing that article in the Nation in the 60's. And then there is some secret significance to her showing up at the signing of welfare reform by Clinton (passed by Repub congress and senate), which really did gut previous welfare provisions. So how does that fit into the plan to get more people on welfare?

FYI Beck has the agenda of the radical left all wrong.

Left-wing Wacko said...

oh yeah, should have mentioned that Beck picked this up from Rush who has been saying that the goal is more unemployment and more people on welfare. Its just nutty!

And think about it. Many on the right have been saying that GM and the rest of the auto industry should be allowed to fail completely and get no govt. assistance to stay affloat. i.e. creative destruction. But if GM were to go completely under, including with its many suppliers, then this would create a fucking huge wave of new unemployment. Its actully scary to think what would actually happen it would be so big. That they are trying to prevent a total collapse of GM etc. pretty much bebunks this idea that they want more unemployment.