printA good few posts ago, I observed that “in his groundbreaking series on the American Progressive Movement, Fox News personality Glenn Beck, previously an unambiguously pro-war military-booster, was inching towards examining his support for the kind of state expansion (via warfare) the founders would have abhorred.
Glenn made the final leap today to a non-interventionist foreign policy emphasizing American interests and self-defense and no nation building. He said the words, “I am with Ron Paul.” This could be good for the country—unless Beck is forced by his backers (FoxNews) to back down.
For example, this reasonable remark of Obama’s is drawing FoxNews ire:
“It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them. And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure.”
I will post the Beck YouTube feature as soon as it’s up (readers are welcome to beat me to it).
Update: “America Is a Republic, Not an Empire” by Glenn Beck:
“The example we set now is what pisses everyone off: We say we’re going to spread democracy, but we bed dictators, we bow to Saudi princes, when it’s to our advantage. George Washington wanted us to be like the Swiss: Enemy of none, friend to all. Places like Germany — hey, we’re glad you are all straightened out, but we’re pulling out, you’re on your own. We’re not staying. We need to get out of the Korean Peninsula and Japan. No longer will we be the world’s loiterers.
The United States spends approximately $102 billion annually to maintain troops, equipment, fleets and bases overseas — if you count Iraq and Afghanistan it jumps to $250 billion. Well, I’m tired of being the world’s policeman. And in many cases we are the world’s loiterers. We need to have a “no loitering” policy.
That policy comes from the progressives. The Republicans say we’ll send in the “green helmets” and just nation build our way to global security. The liberals want to do it through the United Nations; they want to send in the “blue helmets” — which we pay for.
This doesn’t work. I don’t want to nation build. I don’t want a global government or military force.
And for all the Don Rumsfelds out there watching who are cursing me out right now because they think no time is a good time to cut defense spending. Well, maybe this will help. This chart shows who accounts for all military spending in the world.
Almost half of all military spending in the world — 47 percent — is America. The next biggest spender is Europe — that’s not even a country, they spent $289 billion on military-related expenses. We almost spent that much outside our country for our own defense!
So don’t tell me we can’t afford to cut back. Clearly we can.
And when we are in a situation like Afghanistan, we fight to win it. With all of our technology today, why can’t we get in and out of Afghanistan in a couple of years? Because the politicians have their grimy little fingers on everything. Take the military off the leash; if you decide to go to war, unhook those dogs and get the hell out of the way.”
Update II (April 16): Together with the Cato Institute, the author of the blog Downsizing the Federal Government in particular, Beck has been running pragmatic, hour-long workshops on where and how much to slash. Pretty much everything. The man is a force of nature.
Back to the matter of Beck’s “I’m with Ron Paul on foreign policy” statement: This too is a very important development. Beck is pulling away from the neoconservative pack at Fox. By declaring war on their gratuitous wars he has driven a wedge between himself and the likes of Hannity, O’Reilly, Krauthammer, Kristol, and all the followers (I don’t know a Republican ditto head who doesn’t go along with the war-all-the-time = a strong national defense formula). The unity of the ditto heads on war policy was unshakable.
Again: By denouncing the war talisman, Beck, a major star on the Right, has created oscillation in the ossifying GOP. He has broken a united front which—thanks to the likes of Hannity, Coulter, Malkin, O’Reilly; National Review, Weekly Standards—seemed unchallenged.
I am certainly glad to hear Beck say this. But I don’t know what to make of this guy. After I decided to vote for Ron Paul in 2008, Beck said Paul was closest to the founding fathers but that he was wrong on many issues. That statement didn’t make a lot of sense to me. I am still not sure if he is a RINO or not. Time will tell.
Beck was no Hannity, O’Reilly or Limbaugh when it came to Ron Paul even during the presidential election once he saw the grassroots support Ron Paul has. Limbaugh and to a greater extent Hannity and O’Reilly are clearly tied in to the fauxnews mantra. O’Reilly admits going to AIPAC fundraisers. And the AIPAC leader campaigns against Ron Paul.
It’s possible that Beck is backing off on support for the war because of pressure from Fox News. A few months ago Diana West blew the lid off the fact that News Corps (Fox’s parent company) second-largest shareholder is Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.
http://tinyurl.com/yyfkprm
In my view, this is probably closer to the truth. I simply don’t trust Beck to take a principled stand on anything.
No doubt this will garner attention to Ron Paul and his position on issues, and that cannot be a bad thing. I see Glenn Beck as putting a damp finger to the wind.
Greg – even saying Paul is the closest to the founding fathers, doesn’t mean Paul’s viewpoints are all correct. I agree that our abysmal choices for “other than Democrat” were no where near the founders (even less so with BHO), I still have some issues with Paul. Also, I’m not surprised there is a Saudi behind the curtain – we’ve given way too much of our tresure to them, with our government’s lack of leadership in maximizing our domestic oil exploration and production.
Some thoughts:
(1) Perhaps Glenn Beck is SLOWLY learning – good! Still, the “Afghanistan, we fight to win it.” is naive – WIN WHAT?? Al Queda is long gone and Afghanistan has always been a tribal mess. But then he does recognize: “We’re coming home — and we won’t waste our time rebuilding your country either. You messed with us? Your bad”
(2) Diana West is also an Afghanistan skeptic.
(3) I often wonder how it is that people like retiring Justice Stevens will writhe in agony about giving out the death penalty to a convicted sadistic-rapist-torturer of a 6 year old girl after a well defended trial and appeals …. BUT … will have no problem about some hot-rod corporal in Nevada pushing a button to have a Reaper drone drop a 500 lb bomb on an 80 person wedding party because some “bad guy” tribesmen may be in attendance. The rationale is that ” ‘THEY’ attacked us on 9/11″ which is nonsense. Subsequently, America creates 300 new “enemies” in the process. Both left and right think that such killings is justified.
(4) Is there hope that Sarah and Michele and other “conservatives” start thinking outside the Wilsonian neocon box some day???
I have bad news, Ilana. You did NOT make the honor roll of people denounced by the Southern Poverty Law Center:
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/publications/the-patriots
although Michele Bachmann, Glenn Beck, Joseph Farah, Chuck Baldwin, Andrew Napolitano, and Ron Paul did. They have “anti-government” views which (dot dot dot ….) gets tied to McVeigh, every racist in history, (dot dot dot ….). Interesting reading.
I was completely surprised to see this episode of Beck. Perhaps he really is learning. His trek of following the evidence to inescapable conclusions seems to be mirroring my own, more than 20 years ago. I must confess, up until a few years ago, I never thought I would see these concepts on national TV. Ever.
We need to thank the Tax Pigs and Obama for pushing their agenda too fast, thereby awakening the people. If enough people wake up in time, perhaps we can prevent the implementation of ‘welcome to the next level’.