print“IS GLENN BECK Bad for America?”, asks TIME, in what is clearly a rhetorical question for the Magazine. Better Beck’s “pox-on-both-parties populism” than nothing (or than TIME), is my reply.
“I don’t trust a single weasel in Washington. I don’t care what party they’re from. But unless we trust each other, we’re not going to make it.” This last bit of standard Beck fare is, of course, nonsense, to which TIME, not unreasonably, responds thus:
“How can we trust each other, though, when the integrated economy of ranters and their delighted-to-be-outraged critics are such a model of profitability?”
“Extreme talk, especially as practiced by a genuine talent like Beck, squeezes maximum profit from a relatively small, deeply invested audience, selling essentially the same product in multiple forms. The more the host is criticized, the more committed the original audience becomes. And the more committed the audience, the bigger target it presents to the rant industry on the other side of the spectrum. A liberal group called Color of Change has organized an advertiser boycott of Beck’s TV show — great publicity for the group and a boon to Beck’s ratings.”
“If it’s E pluribus unum you’re looking for, try American Idol.”
[SNIP]
The most disturbing thing about the “rant-racket” is in this snippet:
“Beck recently entered into a partnership with Simon & Schuster … to create a range of books for every audience, from children to teens to adults.”
…This as writers like myself struggle to find publishers for their books.
“If you get your information from liberal sources, the crowd numbered about 70,000, many of them greedy racists.” Time Magazine
Greedy? Surely this is a 180 degree reversal since how can one wanting to keep one’s own property be called “greedy”? “Selfish” maybe but “greedy”, no.
But there is truth here too, unfortunately. America has become a nation of looters since 1913. On one side we have the well known socialists who loot via taxes on the more affluent. And we resent them. But not so fast! The well-to-do loot via the government backed banking cartel which besides stealing purchasing from all dollar holders, including the poor, for the benefit of banks and borrowers also wrecks the economy recurrently.
So, in the US today, “greedy” refers to those who loot too much. It is a given that looting is normal. How sad!
The Time piece was very well written, albeit cynical and condescending. $23 million / year for ranting – I’m definitely in the wrong racket!
Certainly anger and paranoia seem to sell better than some low key philosophy these days.
Concerning the movie NETWORK – the prophetic Paddy Chayefsky
was on the mark not only about TV news being a bastard child of real news (“mad as hell…”) but that terrorism is fundamentally about ratings (The Mao Zedong hour). Think if “Abdul” killed 8 people:
(a) as a drunk driver, (b) with a suicide vest in a McDonalds in Omaha, (c) in Union Station Washington with a poison-gas bomb – same 8 victims – but which gets the headlines??