• About
  • The Poetry of Protest

Show Me Progress

~ covering government and politics in Missouri – since 2007

Show Me Progress

Tag Archives: Glenn Beck

Wrong question, putz

09 Wednesday Feb 2011

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Fire Fiaghetrs, Glenn Beck, IAFF, John Stossel, Paramedics

[What they want you to believe about Fire Fighters…]

Pontificating cable gasbag: Police and fire are not in the top dozen dangerous jobs. Most of the time they do, don’t have very much to do.

John Stossel: It’s like you unions are robbing our future.

Glenn Beck: How many fire fighters do you need, America?

[We risk our lives to save yours. Support your Fire Fighters and Paramedics.]

“…How many fire fighters do you need, America…?”

This, from a cable television grifter and poppinjay. Asshole.

The real question is, how many pinheads can you stuff into a Faux News Channel? Evidently it approaches infinity.

Just who are “We the people”?

03 Friday Sep 2010

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

9.12 project, Glenn Beck, missouri, tea party, We the people

One of the side-effects of right wing rhetorical excess is the debasement of political language. During the past two years, as the political and media arms of the right wing have attempted to whip up the base, we have seen concepts such as “socialism” and “facism” used in such twisted ways that they no longer have meaning outside the community of political scholars who still share common definitions. Other words, like “racism,” are becoming sadly chipped away as they are up-ended by the right wing effort to feed white racial resentment. Particularly galling is the usurpation of the refrain, “We the people,” once an evocation of our pluralistic democracy, but now devolving into code for Tea Partiers and their sympathizers.

Glenn Beck’s black magic can perhaps be held responsible for helping to spread this aberration although it cropped up earlier among right-wing libertarians. Locally there is now a “We the People” group in Chesterfield, presumably a group organized in response to Glenn Beck’s 9/12 Project, that  pushes Tea Party events and organizes “We the People” meet-ups and discussion groups with the goal of training “citizen leaders.”

If you search the term on google, you will find a myriad of examples that show that Tea Partiers rarely speak of themselves collectively in the first person plural, but with growing frequency as “we the people.” Just a couple of examples: a tea party member from Branson, Missouri talks about attendance at Tea Parties as “When we the people gather together … .” In their Mission statement, the Eureka Tea Party  purports to speak for “we, the people of Eureka, Missouri and citizens of the United States.”

Which leaves the rest of “we the people,” the majority that voted for Barack Obama, with our mouths gaping in amazement. How dare they speak for us! A recent CBS poll finds that:

… 29 percent of those asked considered themselves Tea Party supporters and 54 percent did not. Fully 17 percent had no opinion either way.

“We the people” is 29 percent of the people?

It’s the same tactic used by GOP obstructionist pols who claim to be speaking for “the American people” –  who, incidentally, voted their party out of the legislative majority in 2006. It reminds me of the way that back country hikers are often told never to run from predators like bears and cougars, but stand their ground and try look bigger than they are. Sometimes, I’m told it actually works. In this case, however, the strategy has had the effect of rendering a venerable phrase risible.

 

Just who are “We the people”?

02 Thursday Sep 2010

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

9.12 project, Glenn Beck, missouri, tea party, We the people

One of the side-effects of right wing rhetorical excess is the debasement of political language. During the past two years, as the political and media arms of the right wing have attempted to whip up the base, we have seen concepts such as “socialism” and “facism” used in such twisted ways that they no longer have meaning outside the community of political scholars who still share common definitions. Other words, like “racism,” are becoming sadly chipped away as they are up-ended by the right wing effort to feed white racial resentment. Particularly galling is the usurpation of the refrain, “We the people,” once an evocation of our pluralistic democracy, but now devolving into code for Tea Partiers and their sympathizers.

Glenn Beck’s black magic can perhaps be held responsible for helping to spread this aberration although it cropped up earlier among right-wing libertarians. Locally there is now a “We the People” group in Chesterfield, presumably a group organized in response to Glenn Beck’s 9/12 Project, that  pushes Tea Party events and organizes “We the People” meet-ups and discussion groups with the goal of training “citizen leaders.”

If you search the term on google, you will find a myriad of examples that show that Tea Partiers rarely speak of themselves collectively in the first person plural, but with growing frequency as “we the people.” Just a couple of examples: a tea party member from Branson, Missouri talks about attendance at Tea Parties as “When we the people gather together … .” In their Mission statement, the Eureka Tea Party  purports to speak for “we, the people of Eureka, Missouri and citizens of the United States.”

Which leaves the rest of “we the people,” the majority that voted for Barack Obama, with our mouths gaping in amazement. How dare they speak for us! A recent CBS poll finds that:

… 29 percent of those asked considered themselves Tea Party supporters and 54 percent did not. Fully 17 percent had no opinion either way.

“We the people” is 29 percent of the people?

It’s the same tactic used by GOP obstructionist pols who claim to be speaking for “the American people” –  who, incidentally, voted their party out of the legislative majority in 2006. It reminds me of the way that back country hikers are often told never to run from predators like bears and cougars, but stand their ground and try look bigger than they are. Sometimes, I’m told it actually works. In this case, however, the strategy has had the effect of rendering a venerable phrase risible.

 

St. Louisians at Beckapalooza: Much ado about something very vague, but very, very scary

30 Monday Aug 2010

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Father Coughlin, Glenn Beck, missouri, Restoring Honor Rally, Sarah Palin, tea party

Steve Benen, in an excellent analysis of the sloganeering that characterized Glenn Beck’s Besmirch MLK Rally yesterday, exposes the lack of substance behind the boiling Tea Party paranoia. Benen’s post, definitely worth reading in it its entirety, concludes:

The folks who gathered in D.C. today were awfully excited about something. The fact that it’s not altogether obvious what that might be probably isn’t a good sign.

According to Bill Lambrecht at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s “Political Fix,” St. Louisians who traveled to Washington D.C. to bask in the light of Beck, the self-anointed prophet, and his acolyte, Saint Palin, are equally worked up and just as vague about what it is that’s got them twitching.

One gentleman whom Lambrecht quotes melodramatically declares that “This is to wake up the people. The politicians don’t listen.” We should doubtless overlook the tang of sour grapes in this cri d’coeur – the outraged tone of those who thought that the Bush years, with their indulgence of the full range of right wing fanasy, would truly go on forever. That particular speaker though does seem to have awakened – albeit a few years too late.  He is concerned, Lambrecht reports, because he has “never seen the economy so bad”:

It’s time to stop Congress from all this overspending and these frivolous earmarks. I think we’re headed for a collapse of the economy if it doesn’t stop

Similarly, an equally clueless St. Louisian is quoted as saying:

I’m scared that where we’re going is not a good place,” … There is no good ending to this story unless we make a U-turn,” he added.

The fact that the economy collapsed some time ago – two years ago to be exact – due to the ministrations of those applying just the panacea of deregulation and tax cuts that folks like these gentlemen advocate, doesn’t seem to have much penetration among this segment of the population. Instead they seem to derive intense, almost palpable satisfaction out of railing against the very measures that have kept us from the deepest and darkest of economic pits. How could any thinking person want to make a U-turn right back to the Bush policies that put us in the very bad place we were in at the end of 2008?

What is really going on when you have a wildly energized group whose raison d’etre dissolves when examined closely? Several observers noted that the tone of the Beck rally was essentially religious. However, the St. Louis  attendees who were quoted in the Lambrecht article almost all seemed to locate their worries in the political sphere, And, although they might justify themselves by reference to religious beliefs, I strongly suspect that most of those attending expect to find solutions to their complaints in retrograde political action.

Am I the only person who finds this blending worrisome? On the one hand, you have easily led, poorly informed people, seething with discontent, expressing real fear and anxiety about something that doesn’t ever seem to quite materialize in an intellectually viable form. On the other hand, you have numerous interested parties feeding the group’s sense of self-importance with visions of super-patriotism, heroic defiance, and now, with the Glenn Beck crusade, a sense of religious mission. Am I the only one reminded of Father Coughlin’s incendiary radio broadcasts and his depression era Christian Front brown shirt wannabes?  

NAACP in Kansas City: Rev. Al Sharpton – "There clearly is some racial leaves in their tea bag…"

15 Thursday Jul 2010

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Al Sharpton, Clayola Brown, Glenn Beck, Kansas City, missouri, NAACP, national convention, Teabaggers

Reverend Al Sharpton was the first of three speakers (after being introduced by NAACP National Board Member Clayola Brown) at this afternoon’s press conference at the NAACP National Convention in Kansas City.

Clayola Brown: Good afternoon everyone. Good afternoon everyone. [voices: “Good afternoon.”] We wanted to take this opportunity to address the media before the economic justice forum to talk with you a little bit about the One Nation movement. On October the second, the ten-two-ten, we will be marching on Washington with some of the leaders you see here, Reverend Sharpton, Reverend Jackson, as well as other leaders throughout labor, civil rights and the community to demand the changes that we voted for. Civil rights are under attack in this country and even Glenn Beck is holding a rally on eight twenty-eight, which is the anniversary date of Dr. Martin Luther King’s historic March on Washington. And this is certainly not what this country needs right now. It is my pleasure this afternoon to introduce to the mic first, Reverend Al Sharpton, a renowned leader across this country who really needs no introduction whatsoever. Reverend Sharpton…

Reverend Al Sharpton and Clayola Brown.

….Reverend Al Sharpton: Thank you Miss Brown. I come as President of the National Action Network to join others in pledging our support for the march of labor and others joining us on the second of October in Washington. And also there’ll be a big gathering on the twenty-eighth of August, the date that Miss Brown just referred to. Uh, forty-seven years ago there was a march in Washington for jobs and justice, and which Martin Luther King made one of the addresses that became known as the famous “I Have a Dream” speech. It is an absolute outrage that Glenn Beck and the tea parties are coming to Washington on that day, claiming to restore dignity. It is not about race. It is about their belief in government that is so [inaudible].  The idea of the civil rights movement is to get a strong federal government to protect the people against state’s rights that has been those that kept people down based on going by state to state laws. The tea partiers are a state’s rights philosophical group. The cannot march in the name of Dr. King’s dream, which was totally antithetical to their idea of government. So Martin Luther King the third and Marc Morial of the National Urban League and [inaudible] and others will be joining us on the twenty-eighth in Washington. We will not be marching were Beck is. We will be at Dunbar High School and go to the site where Dr. Martin Luther King monument will be unveiled next year, the last monument on the Potomac. We’re not going to react to Beck. We’re going to raise what the real dream was on the anniversary of the dream. The dream was about jobs, the dream was about economic justice, the dream was about making sure that states could not interfere with the rights of labor, the rights of women and the rights of people. You cannot have people who are now trying to have tea party for state’s rights coming and celebrating the day that asked the federal government to overrule where states were segregating and allowing segregation to go forward. There clearly is some racial leaves in their tea bag, but this is not just about race. This is about how you see government. And those of us that see government the way that Dr. King and Roy Wilkins and Dorothy Height saw it will be in Washington to raise the right banner on the twenty-eighth of August and be there in mass with everyone, One Nation, on the second of October. I close by reminding you, if you read the whole speech of Dr. King, Dr. King said that America had given the negro a check that had bounced in the bank and it was returned insufficient funds. Uh, I submit that that check has been written again with an African-American president, this time the bank bounced, ’cause there’s no money. So we really need to press for jobs, we need to press for jobs, economic equity and we cannot return back to states deciding on immigration, states deciding on labor. That’s why we’re going to Washington on twenty-eight, that’s why we’ll be there in mass on the second. We see from Arizona, we see from the tea parties, they’re trying to bring us back to pre King days. While they talk about restoring dignity they’re really talking about restoring a time before the federal government intervened and protected the rights of people. Again, this is not about race, this is about how you see the role of government and how Beck and that crowd sees it is the opposite of why they marched in nineteen sixty-three….

Previously:

The 101st NAACP National Convention in Kansas City

NAACP in Kansas City: Benjamin Todd Jealous at the opening press conference

NAACP in Kansas City: EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson at the opening press conference

NAACP in Kansas City: Sunday – photos

NAACP in Kansas City: Michelle Obama – photos

NAACP in Kansas City: Representative Sheila Jackson Lee on the tea party and human rights

NAACP in Kansas City: Senator Claire McCaskill (D) – “Now is no time to quit.”

NAACP in Kansas City: Representative Emanuel Cleaver – “Don’t you forget it!”

NAACP in Kansas City: Wednesday afternoon press conference – photos

Media Matters: Beck's Attacks are Journalistic Malpractice

16 Wednesday Sep 2009

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Acorn, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Media Matters

“This is journalistic malpractice, plain and simple.  A reporter right out of J-school would have taken the two minutes necessary to call the San Bernardino Police Department and verify Ms. Kaelke’s statements. But that never occurred to anyone at Fox News before the network ran with the story. This kind of shameful work raises serious questions about the legitimacy of the entire campaign currently being waged against ACORN.”

-Eric Burns, president of Media Matters

As Beck crusade against ACORN continues, regardless of truth or accuracy, Media Matters for America is thankfully trying to hold Beck and his Fox News comrades accountable.

On September 15, Fox News’ Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity both broadcast Tresa Kaelke’s assertion, recorded on a hidden camera, that she had killed a former husband.

Both made a point of highlighting the statement. On the September 15 edition of his show, Beck played the clip and then said, “She never spanked her kids, but she did shoot her husband dead.” Later that night, Hannity played the same clip before adding, “Specifically, now, she goes into this scenario about her husband and the killing of him.”

The following morning, on September 16, Fox News’ Gretchen Carlson repeated the allegation, saying, “She killed somebody? Despite this, some lawmakers want to keep funding the group.” She later claimed that the husband was still alive, “according to ACORN.”

However, the San Bernardino Police Department itself has now confirmed that Kaelke’s claim was untrue. A department statement released on September 15 reads:

“The San Bernardino Police Department is investigating the claims made regarding the homicide. From the initial investigation conducted, the claims do not appear to be factual. Investigators have been in contact with the involved party’s known former husbands, who are alive and well.”

Furthermore, Kaelke has said that when she made the claim, she was seeking to deliberately mislead the undercover videographers, Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe, of whom she was suspicious.

“They were not believable,” Kaelke is quoted as saying in an ACORN press release. “Somewhat entertaining, but they weren’t even good actors. I didn’t know what to make of them. They were clearly playing with me. I decided to shock them as much as they were shocking me.”

The Media Matters video is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

Glenn Beck: Sacha Baron Cohen without the subtlety

06 Sunday Sep 2009

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Balloon Juice, Glenn Beck, Sacha Baron Cohen, satire

Irrefutable photographic proof that Glenn Beck is a brilliant performance artist really adept at taking money from rubes:

This post has no title

…It’s over, people. We had a lot of good years. I hope my wireless reaches to the make-shift bomb shelter I built this evening.

Or, Beck could just be psychotic.

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007

Categories

  • campaign finance
  • Claire McCaskill
  • Democratic Party News
  • Healthcare
  • Hillary Clinton
  • Interview
  • Josh Hawley
  • media criticism
  • meta
  • Missouri General Assembly
  • Missouri Governor
  • Missouri House
  • Missouri Senate
  • Resist
  • Roy Blunt
  • social media
  • Standing Rock
  • Town Hall
  • Uncategorized
  • US Senate

Meta

  • Log in

Blogroll

  • Balloon Juice
  • Crooks and Liars
  • Digby
  • I Spy With My Little Eye
  • Lawyers, Guns, and Money
  • No More Mister Nice Blog
  • The Great Orange Satan
  • Washington Monthly
  • Yael Abouhalkah

Donate to Show Me Progress via PayPal

Your modest support helps keep the lights on. Click on the button:

Blog Stats

  • 638,593 hits

Powered by WordPress.com.

 

Loading Comments...