“Unleash the kraken !”
I rarely agree with her views, but Anna Belle’s post on the Glen Beck rally, posted at Peacocks and lilies, is cogent and hits some good points.
She writes at: http://peacocksandlilies.com/2010/08/28/media-madness-the-glenn-beck-rally/
Someone really dear to me used to love Glen Beck, in between watching re-runs of Mystery Science theater and listening to old Dead Kennedys CD’s, we would argue over Glen Beck up to 4A.M. Since she’s passed away, I’ve found myself oddly nostalgic for Beck.
That said, I do not like Glen Beck very much, I find him to be a demagogue, an ideologue, and a blow-hard. Sort of like a White Al Sharpton.
But increasingly I respect him.
Where Al Sharpton can be an inchoate idiot, Beck displays an intelligent understanding of his image, audience, and message. Between Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, and Glen Beck – I’m impressed with, and respect, Beck the most.
Savage is a bloody twit and like certain other Krakens who shan’t be named, but rose to prominence in conservative circles after 2000, is an opportunist who simply knows which side of the bread his butter lies in today’s political discourse.
Now, on the controversy over Beck’s rally – look, the man is clearly within his rights to assemble and the fact that his voice echoes so often means that he’s saying something that should probably be listened to by his political enemies
I see him much as the Minister Farrakhan of populist white America. And like Farrakhan, Beck is increasingly a political voice to be contended with and commanding respect.
One doesn’t have to agree with a man’s politics or even like him very much to respect some aspects of his person. I think that, tactically, the outcry against the Beck rally has been mistaken shrill hysterics on the part of progressives, and most especially on the part of Black leadership.
Just as with Farrakhan’s march and rally, Glen Beck is proving himself to be a political voice of consequence, able to mobilize large numbers of people who find resonance in his message. I respect this in both men’s cases.
That book on the “Head Negro in Charge Syndrome” had it right, the sooner Black America [a complex and nuanced ethnic community not easily reducible to stereotypes] leaves behind an old generation of shrill, demagogic, and increasingly senile in extreme dotage, self-appointed “leaders” who have monopolized the discourse for decades, often times articulating social and economic views in complete opposition to what a substantial portion of black America actually advocates or believes in, the better.
No other ethnic group tolerates the buffoonery that my fellow African Americans tolerate from our public “leadership”
Glen Beck is a voice of consequence, and he is a shaper and influencer of opinion. Oppose him or not, one is best actually listening to what he is saying, as well as paying attention to the symbolic of his performance, before opening one’s mouth.
Again, I’m no fan of the man, but I recognize this; belittle him or minimize his role and you end up ignoring and entirely missing the groundswell of support he enjoys. You should try to understand why his voice resonates.
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Glenn Beck is not taken seriously anywhere outside of the United States. Everyone from Canadians to Germans to Nepalese eo New Guineans are laughing at Americans for even allowing this buffoon a platform.
America doesn’t do news. It does entertainment.
Of course he’s not taken seriously outside of the USA.
But within the USA he is, and this is a matter of crucial importance to people in America who either disagree with, or agree with, his politics and those of his supporters.
Not taking him seriously here risks missing some things of real importance, the degree to which Glen Beck is popular, and molds, influences, and informs millions of people in certain parts of the country (I live in the mid-west, and can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s immensely popular here) should not be underestimated.
In reacting to his March and rally in washington, his political opposition played the wrong cards and utterly failed to respect the degree of his influence, and hence came out looking like more of an Ass than one could say Beck resembles.
Like most pundits Glen beck is a demagogue and entertainer. The rest of the world simply is affected when figures in America marshal popular sentiment and opinion along certain lines, if an when American policy follows. For this reason, self protection if nothing else, the rest of the world may find it wiser to not simply laugh at entertainers in a country that has the ability to project force in ways that are highly detrimental to the interests of others.
I’m no fan of the rodeo side-show that is American politics, and most educated and thoughtful persons find a good deal of American politics to be a demotic and pedestrian joke, the figures and themes within however are worth watching and paying attention to because as they marshal public opinion, such public opinion thus manipulated and channeled can prove highly detrimental to my own interests and desires.
Snobbery and ignoring a man like Beck and his impressive ability to play pied piper to a substantial portion of the public can become a foolish mistake. Thus even his enemies are best taking him seriously at a certain point. The point at which one could have simply dismissed him is long gone.
As for the Canadians, having spent considerable time in Canada, by in large they are even more sheepish than Americans, when it comes to politics and trusting their governing figures. The Canadians are the last to laugh at anyone in North America, I’ve found the average Canadian to be as apathetic and clueless about the inner going ons of their government as any American. In Alberta and British Columbia in particular.
German politics are not without their loon like figures and tensions. There are many countries whose political entertainment is as absurd as America’s.
Italy is a good example of such a one.