Glenn Beck "The Nation's Spiritual Leader"

[norvech]

Glenn Beck and the God Squad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2LIC305GQ4


"Glenn Beck and the God Squad" is a Critical Remix Video that pokes a little fun at Glenn Beck and the judgmental attitudes that accompany so much of religious thinking within the current political arena.

Beck's got a good little slogan there until things get deeper than the all-inclusive "let's all just return to God" meme.

Picture, for example, a conversation between Martin Buber (A Jew who did not believe Christ was the savior of the world), Deitrich Bonhoeffer (a Christian who did), and Malcolm X (a convert from Christianity to Sunni Islam, a belief system that rejects the divinity of Christ and holds that Allāh has one true prophet in Mohammad, the founder of Islam).

The meme Beck is using to collect attention and momentum to himself would work with these 3 for only a brief time, and what of the devotees to nontheistic religions?

He's sort of a spiritual McDonald's if you ask me.

[Vickers]

1. I want to see that pasty fuck raise someone from the dead. n/t

[MadMaddie]

4. He reminds me of Jim Jones

Why do I say that?

People are following every word that he says without asking critical questions.

Jim Jones became more paranoid as time went by and Beck is displaying the same characteristics.

I think the more pressure that is put on him the closer he gets to cracking.

[norvech]

6. Right, then there's that whole thing of

religions updating themselves to stay relevant, but not offering any good reasons to believe these updates.

Look at the advent of Islam suggesting that the Archangel Gabriel gave the revelation that eventually became the Quran.

Gabriel comes out of Judeo-Christian belief systems. But why should someone switch from Christianity to Islam? Just because Mohammad said so? Hmmm.

Beck is a Mormon which comes from Christian updates by Smith.

After a while, as you suggest, it sure would be nice to see some major miracles that help to crystallize which of all these different faiths has any reason for us to pay attention to them. Demanding that one just take the word of someone like Beck is an example of preying on the listener who is for whatever reason willing to be manipulated.

[RainDog]

2. His belief in Mormonism makes him unacceptable to many on the religious right

as does Palin's belief in exorcism and speaking in tongues.

I would love to see Mike Huckabee debate the two of them about the nature of Christianity and what is currently acceptable as Christian theology from the perspective of his belief system because Southern Baptists hold that both of their belief systems are apostasy.

In addition, the belief in the divinity of Mary and the position of the Pope is apostasy to the Southern Baptists and other Protestants.

In other words, the religious right is more factional than the secular left.

The only way in which they are united is in their hatred for secular government.

[Andy823]

7. I agree, but..

he is peeling away at the dimwits who forget what his religion is all about. Those who follow him are brainwashed into thinking that he is "one of them", and once he got his hooks in them, he started talking about how they should "leave" their church if it taught about "social justice"! I have seen people who would never in their life let a mormon in their door to try and covert them, defend Beck and his insane ideas! He is trying to start his own little cult, and like most cults he cons them into thinking he is speaking for God, and that they need to follow him in order to be on the right path. It's all BS, but he has found a lot of morons who will follow him no matter what, and that is what he wants!

[RainDog]

12. his attack on social justice is an attack on liberal Catholicism

you don't ever hear right wing protestant leaders talk about social justice.

on the other hand, social justice was behind the ideas that spurred Romero, for instance to use his position as a bishop to support liberation theology - and this is also what got him assassinated by the forces in El Salavador that Reagan and Carter, before him, supported.

Beckkkerhead's call out aligns him with support for the right wingers that Reagan supported who also raped and murdered nuns, as well.

Beginning with the Carter Administration and continued by the Reagan and Bush administrations, the U.S. sent seven billion dollars of foreign and military aid to El Salvador in ten years. The silent-partner-role of the United States in the Salvadoran Civil War became public when a National Guard death squad raped and murdered four American nuns and a laywoman on December 2, 1980; Maryknoll missionary nuns Maura Clarke, Ita Ford, and Ursuline nun Dorothy Kazel, and laywoman Jean Donovan were on a Catholic relief mission providing food, shelter, transport, medical care, and burial to death squad victims. After the murders of the churchwomen, President Carter suspended all aid to El Salvador, but domestic U.S. right-wing political pressure forced him to reinstate it.

Unlike President Carter, President Reagan favoured the Salvadoran military régime, and increased military aid and sent more U.S. military advisors. In El Salvador's Decade of Terror: Human Rights Since the Assassination of Archbishop Romero, Human Rights Watch reported: "During the Reagan years, in particular, not only did the United States fail to press for improvements . . . but, in an effort to maintain backing for U.S. policy, it misrepresented the record of the Salvadoran government, and smeared critics who challenged that record. In so doing, the Administration needlessly polarized the debate in the United States, and did a grave injustice to the thousands of civilian victims of Government terror in El Salvador." <25> Despite the El Mozote Massacre that year, Reagan continued certifying (per the 1974 amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act) that the Salvadoran government was progressing in respecting and guaranteeing the human rights of its people, and in reducing National Guard abuses against them.


In other words, Beck's statement indicates he is aligned with those who would torture, rape and murder people who think they have the right to expect reasonable governance.

He has demonstrated repeatedly that he is nothing but a fucking fascist - so this is not anything surprising.

Anyone that he might draw to him with his religious arguments are people who are already willing to accept fascist arguments themselves.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

3. In the same way that half-baked sci-fi writer L Ron Hubbard was a "Spiritual Leader"

The entire book "A Piece Of Blue Sky: Scientology, Dianetics and L Ron Hubbard Exposed" can be read online at the Operation Clambake Website:

http://www.clambake.org/archive/books/apobs/contents.htm

It chronicles how a ruthless hack can manipulate the masses into believing that he is a "messiah." I do not believe for a single moment that Beck has NOT studied Hubbard with an eye toward incorporating his scam into his own. It's like following a trail of breadcrumbs.

[norvech]

8. Deplorable. How does this possibly work on people? N/T.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

9. Intro to the book (same URL as above):

It was 1950, in the early, heady days of Dianetics, soon after L. Ron Hubbard opened the doors of his first organization to the clamoring crowd. Up until then, Hubbard was known only to readers of pulp fiction, but now he had an instant best-seller with a book that promised to solve every problem of the human mind, and the cash was pouring in. Hubbard found it easy to create schemes to part his new following from their money. One of the first tasks was to arrange "grades" of membership, offering supposedly greater rewards, at increasingly higher prices. Over thirty years later. an associate wryly remembered Hubbard turning to him and confiding, no doubt with a smile, "Let's sell these people a piece of blue sky."

So really, this is all Beck is doing. He is exploiting forms of behavior / weakness that are already present. There is a constant message being reinforced daily that America has "lost its way," both spiritually and as a nation, and Beck is positioning himself as the remedy.

In short, he learned from the Master.

[norvech]

10. Yes. It is absolutely absurd.

We've seen this before. It's a trick that through its own ridiculousness should not have the ability to re-emerge.

[Dappleganger]

5. As Bill Press said last week...

"I don't need a Mormon telling me how to be a better Christian."

[gulliver]

11. Did they include his endorsement of legalized marijuana?

I haven't seen that turn up lately. We should be hitching some of our marijuana legalization effort to Beck's star.

[Angry Dragon]

13. Magic underwear is the ticket to salvation

Just look how well it worked for the Ghost Dancers............