The sinister side to the Beck rally's feel-good rhetoric.

[pnwmom]

http://ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/glenn-becks-rally-banality-goodness

SNIP

Who doesn’t honor our troops? Who doesn’t admire Albert Pujols and his work with Down Syndrome children? Who doesn’t think honor is better than dishonor? Who doesn’t think family is important? Who is opposed to charity? The only thing missing as far as I can tell is the tribute to apple pie.

There is, of course, a sinister side to the rhetoric. The invocations to a golden age of Americanism implies that the current age is somehow un-American. If we have lost our sense of honor, is it not possible that someone has taken it? For all the inspiring rhetoric that “We are Americans,” to which the virtually all-white crowd applauds, there is the counter-picture that some people, those not present, are not Americans. There is nothing explicitly anti-Obama or anti-Democrat, but there doesn’t have to be. The language is not exactly in code, but everyone understands the inferences perfectly well. There is a reason Gov. Palin was invited to address the crowd, just back from her defense of Dr. Laura’s right to use the “n” word. The references to Jesus Christ are heartfelt, no doubt, but the Master is presented exclusively as a prop for Americanism and not as the Savior of the World.

Mr. Beck himself is the star attraction and it is difficult not to conclude that the whole purpose of the rally was to boost his star appeal. All the speeches praise him. The mere mention of his name elicits applause from the crowd. His voice narrates the videotaped interludes which resemble nothing so much as those insipid, framed pictures one finds on office walls, the ones that show eagles in flight over mountains with an accompanying quote about “Success” or “Opportunity.” They are meant to be inspirational but they are merely motivational, in the most vulgar sense of that word.

SNIP

Finally, there is something creepy in the cult worship of Mr. Beck. I half expected him to give a five hour speech announcing a new five-year plan for the economy. His simplistic, self-contained understanding of history, and especially of the Founding of the American Republic, is but a hop, skip and jump from the simplistic, self-contained understanding a Marxist would espouse: The premises and the conclusions are different, but the style and the invitation to group-think are astonishingly, and frighteningly, similar. Watching it, I felt a sense of deju vu, recalling the time I went with a Russian friend to attend a Communist Party rally at the entrance to Gorki Park in Moscow. One of the speakers said, “Let Marilyn Monroe drown in her capitalist perfume; her beauty is as nothing to that of the beauty of the Soviet woman.” You don’t forget a line like that. Today, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, similar nonsense is being spewed. There is no patriotism like American patriotism, no soldiers like our soldiers, no apple pie like our apple pie.

[opihimoimoi]

1. The man is Hitler reborn....same Gobbell shit but in our time frame...divide and conquer

Of course it still works but this time...we got Obama to save us

[Windy]

3. You are 100% correct! Dont take Beck and his loon followers for granted like the Good Germans did

while Hitler was coming to power...

[pnwmom]

8. Feels that way to me, too. n/t

[KG]

2. the death spasms of the dying white male protestant hegemony.

[alfredo]

4. Maybe he will end up like Yukio Mishima

[jmowreader]

6. Seppuku is too good for Glenn Beck

What I would truly like to see is this:

1. We get ourselves about ten more Democrats in the Senate.
2. We go to the local cattle ranch, buy a set of bull nuts, and sew them onto President Obama.
3. We watch as the newly masculinized President Obama and his filibuster-proof majority run taxes on the rich up to about 50 percent and spend the money.
4. The money rolls over in the economy seven times, as government spending does, creating jobs and prosperity. The recession ends shortly thereafter.

And then...

5. The Fox News talking heads, plus Pigboy and his radio ilk, PLUS Arthur Laffer, are subpoenaed to appear before Congress to answer one simple question: How in hell could you people have done what you did to America?

See, if it weren't for people like Reagan, Limbaugh and Beck convincing Mr. and Mrs. America that taxes and government investments were bad, we wouldn't be in the situation we are in now.

Seppuku is too good for Glenn Beck. I want him to starve to death.

[alfredo]

10. I think the top tax rate should be returned to the rate under Ike.

[Anakin Skywalker]

14. Glenn Beck Will Drink Himself to Death, Maybe?

[pnorman]

7. Filtering out my intense dislike for that POS,

I still don't believe that Beck would have the GUTS to emulate Mishima!

Look at that crowd of Teabaggers! Almost ALL Chickenhawks! How many would be there, had there been the SLIGHTEST possibility of getting maced, tazed, battered by billy clubs, attacked by snarling police dogs, hosed by water cannons, herded into "Free Speech Zones", shoved into paddywagons, or placed on the No Fly List??? What would the "crowd size" be then? My guess is that two paddy wagons could EASILY have handled the lot! And Gwen Beck? Nowhere to be found

[alfredo]

11. Some day Beck will have that moment when he realizes that his followers do not have the same level

of revolutionary zeal he has. How he will react is anyone's guess.

Mishima did what he felt was the honorable thing to do. Beck speaks of honor, but will he do the honorable thing when reality invades his world.

Middle America doesn't have the stomach for the type of action he desires. Looking at them it appears they have the stomach for comfort.

[saltpoint]

13. They could arrange it for, say, Sweeps Week, over at FOX.

[alfredo]

15. They'd blame Michelle and claim they were secret lovers.

[PinkFloyd]

5. Personally speaking, Beck didn't surprise me one bit.

Given Beck's history of every other rally and every media appearance he's ever done, did you really think he was there for a non-political unity rally, or anything constructive or beneficial for the country as a whole? It was one big teabagger rally held in bad taste much like the armed rally in DC on the anniversary of Oklahoma City.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

9. Beck is a master huckster

This thing yesterday was an attempt to "mainstream" himself. Make no mistake, he's a dangerous man, but for his own purposes, he's out to make money.

[saltpoint]

12. Agree.

Good post.

For Beck and others to insist that America be "reclaimed" or that honor be "restored" cynically requires that someone has stolen them in the first place, which in Beck's worldview must mean people with darker skin than Beck's and voters whose candidates are bluer than Beck's.

Also, on a personal note, Glenn Beck just flat-out creeps me out.

[pnwmom]

16. Healthy people usually are creeped out by malignant narcissists. n/t