Oh Glenn Beck, You Complete Me • Glenn Beck went on an amazing rant last night about Communist symbolism in American architecture (the scourge!), you should really watch it (here). I can't do an effective criticism of all his stupid, but this guy can, and does (via TheAwl). SPOILER ALERT: Glenn Beck is a fucking idiot.
Posted at 1:15 PM in Propaganda
Tags: Art! | Communists | Glenn Beck
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Note the "If you or your wife watch...." when talking about the Today show
Score = 9
And they have "a concert there in the summer."
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I know! I didn't realize women were allowed to watch television yet either!
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Somebody needs to sit him down and tell him that National Treasure is not real life.
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Dumb Vinci Code?
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The Empire State Building is a giant metaphor for a penis!
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Wait, we are still worried about communists?
What???
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i hear they do butt sex
Score = 10
They buttfuck America with their pinko commie skycrapers!!!!!
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Yay, I hope we get some good trolls on this one.
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The fame and notoriety, as well as the profits, from Glen Beck's early career, as the Pillsbury Doughboy, were squandered on the promise of fulfillment at the bottom of a bottle. And now, he has built himself right back up, like a Jenga stack, the spectacular collapse of which is making much of the populace absolutely giddy with anticipation.
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Know who else breathed in oxygen and breathed out carbon dioxide? Lenin, that's who! And also Yoko!
Score = 16
And the Beatles foretold a race war in 1969, and the Hale-Bopp comet will take us to the gates of Heaven. Strap on your Nikes, kids, we're going to Jonesboro.
This isn't about conservatism or liberalism. This is about crazy.
Score = 2
Gentlemen, my tin foil hat please.
I'm starting to think these rants are really just cries for help. The man has clearly gone off the deep end and needs treatment.
A frying pan to the face oughta do just fine.
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I think it's fitting that the clip ends with, "Wow, that seems weird, huh?" Because the whole time I was thinking, "Glenn Beck is the only person who can decipher the meaning of these decades old art pieces? Wow, that seems weird, huh?"
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What irks me the most is "This administration is beginning to use art as propaganda." If he actually knew what he was talking about he would know that Obama has been using art as propaganda from the beginning (e.g. the Shepard Fairey poster) and that this is not unusual for politicians, and has been standard practice in most societies for hundreds and hundreds of years. In fact I find it incredible that he thinks it is suspicious to use art as propaganda, as if it is worse than any other form of propaganda, like network shows that intentionally use scare words to terrify their uninformed audience into a single mass opinion.
What I hate is that by pointing out (wildly inaccurate) observations about art and architecture, Beck's audience will form the opinion that he is intelligent enough to engage in "elitist" topics like fine art, but is "moral" and "grounded" enough to only be suspicious of it and not participate or subscribe to it. He obviously has no grasp of iconography or art history, to say nothing of his total disregard for documented history and correct use of terms. Is this just really elaborate satire, or is he really so dense that he doesn't realize that he is the biggest vehicle of thinly-veiled media propaganda in the country??
Also: "By the way, the President's indoctrination is next week." Whaaaaatttt?????
Score = 16
The best part about that statement is that all of the examples he uses are practically from the gilded age.
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no, carrie, he's just a freedom fighter, trying to get the truth out there on a shoestring budget. he's speaking truth to power, you know? just a single, humble man, raising his small fist in defiance to the leviathan.
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If this was KajusXgum, you would have gotten best comment of the week!
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"I don't know what symbols mean or what words mean or how arguments work or how architecture and art work but I am going to keep saying these things! Things things things! God I love my voice! I am the best! You know what I else I love? COCAINE! Cocaine is the white in the American flag! America America America! I love America because this country is full of shallow-minded, insecure people ready to be scared and bullied into buying my books and watching my show! I am the best! Obama hates honkies! When I can't think of anything to say I just crank out something offensive to fill conversational space! I am the best! If I don't say at least fifty words every ten seconds I die! Or at least my incredibly disproportionate sense of self dies a little! Because I am the best! The best the best the best! Joseph McCarthy was great, wasn't he? I should really shoot myself in the face when I get home."
- Glenn Beck's internal monologue
Score = 19
the vast majority of this comment is awesome. i wish i could upvote it infinite times. however the last line is inaccurate. glenn beck would never, ever shoot himself in the face- he thinks he is way too important for that. really the last line should be something like, "when i get home, i think i'll try to see if i can suck my own cock!" or maybe "when i get home, i'll jerk off to that giant dummy of ayn rand i just built out of papier mache! papier mache that's made out of thousands upon thousands of photographs of my own face!" or something like that. you know. vile.
Score = 6
You're right. I was giving him the benefit of a brief moment of lucidity when I shouldn't have.
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watching glenn beck is exactly like talking to my crazy racist grandfather who has alzheimers. except way worse, because at least my grandpa stays home in his apartment and only exposes family members to the theorizing about the blacks and the jews and the womens, while glenn beck actually has a nationally syndicated television show, radio show, and books in print and gets paid millions upon millions of dollars to say basically the same shit. ugh.
Score = 6
The man is clearly tip toeing the fine line between "right wing nut job" crazy and "locked in a padded room, pulling the wings of flies and asking the guards if they'd like to try one of these tasty, walking raisins" Crazy.
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Correction: Glenn Beck is not an idiot. He is merely a man who gets paid very large sums of money to say outrageous things. Don't confuse the words with the man. Glenn Beck does not believe a single word of what he says. People who take his word as the gospel are idiots. Now there is definitely a case to be made for his being irresponsible and immoral, since his words can have a negative effect on society, but at the end of the day, it is us, the American public, who are stupid.
Glenn Beck would not exist if he was not willed into existence. Our best hope at making him go away is to ignore him. I'm not saying it will work, but feeding the beast will only make it stronger. The more people complain about Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Sarah Palin, the longer they will energize their base. So just ignore them.
Score = 5
as i have said before, glenn beck is nothing more than an actor playing a character for a television show. but that being said, what am i supposed to do when i'm watching him enlighten me on how nbc is communist on my chinese, communist, human rights violating, lead poisoning television. just like all the ones in his studio.
Score = 0
Glenn Beck is like a hellish bizarro Ben Linus. My eyes have never rolled so much. They've become so industrious!
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P.S. Not even knowing anything, if people have seen the films "The Cradle Will Rock" or "Frida" they would know Beck's full of shit, or at the very least, really reaching.
And why does Beck always mix up his s's, f's, and other consonants?! It drives me crazy.
Score = 0
Every week is Sweeps Week for Glenn Beck.
Score = 1
"There was no American architecture in New York or the world" before the Rockefeller Center?
The really story here is how American History has wrong about how people had buildings.
Score = 1