Glenn Beck-The new prophet?

[Øther]

Have any of you people heard what Glenn Beck is doing? Apparently, God is speaking to GLenn Beck, and he is making a book telling people in America what to do for the next 100 years to help with its "refounding". He is going to release the book at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, the same day Martin Luther King gave his famous speech. Now more then ever, I doubt Glenn Beck's sanity. What do you think about what he is doing?

[The Mystic]

Can you say, "publicity stunt"? Every time I hear about someone claiming to receive the direct word of God, it always turns out to be some raving lunatic crying out for attention.

[lampshade]

I don't care about anything anymore, since there are actually people out there who take Glenn Beck seriously.

[Ephesos]

Originally Posted By: The Mystic

Can you say, "publicity stunt"? Every time I hear about someone claiming to receive the direct word of God, it always turns out to be some raving lunatic crying out for attention.

See: G.W. Bush

Every time a thread like this is made in ironic protest, Glenn Beck gains more followers. So, to wit:

[Enraged Slith]

I would bet at least half of Beck's audience is people who think he's a raving lunatic. This kind of stuff draws the attention of the hordes of people who love things that piss them off.

[lampshade]

Has Glenn Beck done anything significantly dangerous with his fame-induced high?

[Dantius]

I find the best way to deal with Beck is Black. I give you the Lewis Black video on Glenn beck. Funniest thing I saw all week.

 

Originally Posted By: Lewis Black

It's like six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, except there's just one degree, and Kevin Bacon is Hitler!

[Kelandon]

Or Jon Stewart's famous parody (Huffington Post? I don't know, it was just the first place I found it), for that matter.

 

Glenn Beck is an entertainer, not a news reporter, by trade and by training. The fact that he's presented as if he were an analyst is shocking, but his statements aren't once you recognize what he actually is.

[Acky]

He isn't any more of a radical then George Carlin was.

[Øther]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Lewis Black video

Originally Posted By: Kelandon

Jon Stewart's famous parody

I would have liked to watch these, but for some reason, neither of them loaded on my browser. I'll try again later, but could someone direct me to a different site showing these?

[SkeleTony]

How does what Glenn does = entertainment though? That seems a lot like saying "Fred Phelps is an entertainer, not a Christian preacher.". Not really disagreeing with the gist of what you are saying(that he is no journalist and ideally should not be given the credence of such) except to say that I think it is imperative that people debunk, ridicule and expose such people whenever they open their mouths. Will rational minds be swayed by Beck or our criticisms of Beck? No. They already know he is an imbecile.

 

But the general public is another matter. When the average person is surrounded by Glenn Beck fans and he or she is not exposed to John Stewert, Lewis Black, etc. then they are likely to become activists for Beck's causes. This is because when people fail to reason to a conclusion they are apt to follow the trends they perceive. When the trend they perceive is that Beck is a moron saying insane things then they will be on that bandwagon. But if the trend they perceive is that Beck is a crusader for our civil liberties against a Nazi-like Liberal attack then they will be on THAT bandwagon.

[SkeleTony]

Originally Posted By: Master Ackrovan

He isn't any more of a radical then George Carlin was.

Woah. I guess that depends on what you mean by "radical"?

The extent to which Carlin stretched the truth was that he was a stand up comedian and that is their JOB. It is a necessary component of comedy.

Beck is acting as a serious analyst of politics & the news and he is saying things WAYYYYYYYYYY more untruthful than anything Carlin could have imagined! He is not just exaggerating for comedic purposes(as John Stewert or Stephen Colbert might). He is literally asserting that Obama(and pretty much every other Liberal) is trying to MURDER all good Americans through a variety of impossible conspiracy schemes.

[Nioca]

Originally Posted By: SkeleTony

How does what Glenn does = entertainment though?

Probably the same reason people look at Timecube or tend to be fascinated by atrocities. It's not so much "entertainment" per say as much as just fascination at just how badly something can go wrong.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: SkeleTony

"Fred Phelps is an entertainer, not a Christian preacher."

Well, there is a sort of perverse fascination you get out of wondering what exactly goes through his head. But honestly, I don't think I want to know.

[Øther]

It seems to me that Glenn Beck is doing all he possibly can to try to make the Democrats sound like horrible, corrupt people that will try to kill and enslave everyone. I don't watch him at all, and this is the image I get from the Colbert Report and the Daily Show. I guess there is more to what he does, but I really don't care. Mostly I just wonder how Glenn Beck managed to get his job and why he isn't fired yet.

[Triumph]

I would say I'm rather a conservative in most of my political views, but even I think Beck sounds like a wacko. I don't get the sense, in what I've heard of him, that he is trying to be an entertainer at all (unlike some conservative talk radio figures). He seems to be a very, very sincere wacko...but sincerity does not negate bizarreness. Some of the things I've heard him predict... * shakes head in puzzlement * I do wonder how he's taken seriously, and become so popular. On the other hand, he is neither the first nor the only popular wacko in world, and we've survived to this point, so I try not to let him get to me. Mostly that means ignoring him, and occasionally discouraging others from listening to him.

[Acky]

Originally Posted By: SkeleTony

Originally Posted By: Master Ackrovan

He isn't any more of a radical then George Carlin was.

Woah. I guess that depends on what you mean by "radical"?

The extent to which Carlin stretched the truth was that he was a stand up comedian and that is their JOB. It is a necessary component of comedy.

Beck is acting as a serious analyst of politics & the news and he is saying things WAYYYYYYYYYY more untruthful than anything Carlin could have imagined! He is not just exaggerating for comedic purposes(as John Stewert or Stephen Colbert might). He is literally asserting that Obama(and pretty much every other Liberal) is trying to MURDER all good Americans through a variety of impossible conspiracy schemes.

That was point I was getting at. Glen Beck is stretching the truth and facts to an irrational extreme, like George Carlin did. Also like George Carlin, he shouldn't be taken seriously, because like previous posters have suggested, the only reason Fox is keeping him on the air is the plublicity he's getting.

I also reject that Beck is going farther then Carlin did. Carlin completely uprooted the possibility of a supreme power and declared that the unalienable rights most people enjoy are nothing more then privileges, that an. Beck is stating that Obama is some sort of secret Marxist leader that is attempting to overthrow the current ultimate power of the world and replace it with a Soviet-esque regime.

I know that sounds like I'm being self-defeating wording it like that. The way I see it though, Carlin was saying every citizen of America is really completely out of control of their government (which has happened to past nations), and Beck is asserting that our government and economy are intentionally being forced into collapse.

The thing that connects them is both are too opinionated and shouldn't be taken seriously. Sure, Glen Beck is on a "serious" news station instead of HBO, but the best stars are the ones that stand out. He never cites his sources or explains where he gets his upsurd accusations, so he isn't a real news anchor, and therefore should not be treated as such.

[Rowen]

He is aired on the Fox Entertainment News Channel. This is series business people. I don't get how people came make light of the Armageddon/Apocalyptic messages of god that he blesses us with being able to hear. The end of all human kind is coming in a wave of Nazi plans and plots that degrade us into little pumpkin patches where we are forced to wait every halloween for the Great Pumpkin to arrive and lift us up over the face of the earth...

 

 

 

Oh god, writing this made me vomit inside my mouth.

[Jerakeen]

If they played Beck's show with a laugh track, I'd have no problem with it.

 

Whether he should be taken seriously or not, he is taken seriously by a small but significantly crazy segment of the population.

 

Yes, there have always been lunatics, but they haven't always had national platforms from which to spew their lunacy onto the gullible and under-informed.

[Acky]

Its up to people to believe. Just because he's on a "serious" station doesn't change the message.

[Monroe]

Originally Posted By: The Turtle Moves

Yes, there have always been lunatics, but they haven't always had national platforms from which to spew their lunacy onto the gullible and under-informed.

For a guy that compares so many people to Nazis, Beck certainly has taken that page of their handbook to the letter, hasn't he?

Beck annoys me mostly because for every one of him that exists, real prophets will be taken that much less seriously when they arrive. They better be able to do magic like Jesus so we can tell if they're the real thing, or we're all doomed.

[Kelandon]

The comparison that followed my post killed the point of my post. Let me say more explicitly what I meant. Unlike some of the other personalities on Fox News (notably Bill O'Reilly, who, whatever else you may say about him, has a degree from the JFK School of Government at Harvard and is a smart guy), Glenn Beck has no education or training in politics. He started as a sort of radio shock jock with no more than a high school education, and worked his way up the entertainment ladder until someone completely missed the boat and gave him the job of being a news analyst on a "real" news station (though that characterization of Fox News might be overly generous).

 

The fact that he's got the job that he does is shocking. Fox News has proven (yet again) that it cares more about ratings than about being taken seriously since it keeps him on the air, being who he is. That's shocking, and appalling, and embarrassing. What he says, given who he is, is not. It's the entirely predictable result of giving that person that job.

 

So as long as Glenn Beck is on Fox News, I'll enjoy Jon Stewart and the like making fun of him, but I can't get too riled up about what he says, because I expect no more of him. It's when Bill O'Reilly says awful things that I'm really disappointed, because he ought to know better (and usually does).

[Randomizer]

Originally Posted By: The Turtle Moves

Yes, there have always been lunatics, but they haven't always had national platforms from which to spew their lunacy onto the gullible and under-informed.

Sure we have, we had them before World War II on the radio stirring up the masses against Roosevelt. We have them now on radio, TV, and the internet. We will have them in the future on whatever comes next to allow mass communication.

[SkeleTony]

I think we are mostly all in agreement here so I will try to keep this short. Master Ackrovar above tried to make the case for Beck being just as radical as Carlin(or vice versa really) by citing Carlin's denial of a supreme being/God.

 

Maybe I am not reading you right here but if I am then...REALLY?! THAT is now a "radical"/extremist assertion? I will stop there because I don't want to drum up the theism vs. atheism thing here but that is quite a stretch. There is no such thing as being "too opinionated" in stand up COMEDY. And I cannot see any problem with a commentator being too opinionated(or not) in his own show.

 

My issue with Beck is that there is "too opinionated" and then there is "shouting crazy [censored]!". If you are saying something on par with 'The Earth is flat' and blaming the political Right/left for the rest of the world not agreeing with you, then it is not that you are too opinionated that is the problem. it is that you are saying bat-[censored] crazy things and the sorts of followers you are trying to rile up are exactly the sorts of insane bastards that will create atrocities.

Everyone watching Carlin do his comedy either laughed or did not laugh but they all recognized he was doing comedy and he spoke truth(as comics are prone to do), exaggerated at times for the purpose of making it funny. That was what Carlin intended.

 

Beck is an altogether different beast.

[SkeleTony]

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

Originally Posted By: The Turtle Moves

Yes, there have always been lunatics, but they haven't always had national platforms from which to spew their lunacy onto the gullible and under-informed.

Sure we have, we had them before World War II on the radio stirring up the masses against Roosevelt. We have them now on radio, TV, and the internet. We will have them in the future on whatever comes next to allow mass communication.

While this is true, I think the point here is that since the removal of the Fairness Doctrine by Reagan(a payback to the Christian Right as he was leaving office), we see more and more of this sort of irresponsible behavior from "News media". It used to be that as a matter of principle, Newscasters and reporters kept political views out of their reports but if someone DID decide to feature an editorial from the Right or the Left then they would follow that with the counter-point. And even when they did this they were not trying to trick people into thinking the editorials were just NEWS reporting.

Fox takes things to such an absurd extreme of distortion, lies and 'stealth Conservatism'(that is not so stealthy except that it apparently fools a bunch of rednecks). There is really nothing comparable to them in America.

[Rowen]

I would like to present evidence exhibit A for examination. They stand out because they are (or were) the worst at it to start with.

 

Another point were new changes its course forever is the Iraq war and the 24 hr coverage. After the first few weeks they ran out of air-able tape but didn't want to loose their new watchers and started filling time with "entertainers."