And that includes the song that's become all but a second National Anthem, Springsteen's Born in the USA. It's Anti-American propaganda because it's about the bittersweet truth of growing up in a country that fights wars for war's sake and abandons the worn out warriors to live in the streets; a country that's racist here and abroad, a country where some struggle and never get anywhere but a country we're proud of in spite of itself, like a prodigal child we love even through our despair.
The truth actually is Anti-American and Communist according to Glenn Beck because true Americanism is all about constant rage and hatred toward Americans and the government they choose and the contempt for civilization, the contempt for anyone different than Glenn Beck. In fact the Constitution is anti-American, the law, the truth: history is anti-American and so it's patriotic to lie and patriotic to distort, to defame, to libel and slander and bear false witness while fake tears run down his fat face. To be a "real" American, when Bruce and I were young, used to mean supporting the Vietnam war. Now it means supporting war for war's sake - just to show the world how tough we are. Now it means unalloyed hatred of the Black, Kenyan Muslim secretly in league with atheist communism and theistic radical Islam.
It's patriotic to pretend that we have nothing and never had anything to apologize for, that the age of white male suffrage, Jim Crow, lynchings, segregation and misogyny laws was a golden age. We were better off when half us lived in poverty, most of us died indigent, minorities knew their place, monopolies ripped us off and banks regularly collapsed. It's patriotic to be ignorant.
"It's time for us to wake, wake up, out of our, um, dreamstate." Said Beck, quoting Adolph Hitler's book. "Wake up out of the propaganda. The, you know, this is the thing that, people who come from the Soviet-bloc or Cuba, they're all saying, 'How do you guys not hear this? How do you not see this?' Well, that's 'cause we don't ever expect it."No, it's true, we didn't expect that Bruce Springsteen hated America until you told us and we didn't expect it because it's a God damned lie like every word out of your mouth, you sick, greedy, ignorant treasonous bastard. We didn't expect that someone could make millions by doing what Tokyo Rose and Lord Haw Haw once did. We didn't expect such evil from any American.
"...you sick, greedy, ignorant treasonous bastard. We didn't expect that someone could make millions by doing what Tokyo Rose and Lord Haw Haw once did. We didn't expect such evil from any American."
ReplyDeleteYou're being too nice, too mannerly to Lonesome Rhodes Beck.
Beck is a flawless example of the sort of empty-headed loud-mouth that rises in a culture that glorifies stupidity and promotes fear and loathing of the unknown.
I remember when the asshole was terrorizing his audience with the claim that the government was assembling FEMA trailers for concentration camps. And his audience believe that blatant and monsterous lie.
If we were a sane nation, he would have lost his job then. Instead we live in a country that continues to pay this sludge-maker millions of dollars to spread more of his mind-numbing fatuity and paranoia.
The only satisfaction I hang on to is the fact that he will not be remembered in our history and Barack Hussein Obama will.
I think we need to take Beck at his word and see him as he sees himself--a rodeo clown.
Clowns don't inform anyone on anything--they're supposed to make us laugh.
I laugh at everything that comes out of this clown's very large, very ugly mouth.
I knew by the second sentence that the author was you, Capt. An excellent piece.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to hope that one day the clown will go too far even for Fox, but his ignorance generates so much money from the ignorant that I don't see it happening any tme soon.
But he did manage to anger enough Christian denominations by assailing social justice churches that they are calling for a boycott of his show. Even his own Morman Church has expressed outrage. Pissing off the clergy ain't too bright.
people who come from the Soviet-bloc or Cuba, they're all saying, 'How do you guys not hear this? How do you not see this?' Well, that's 'cause we don't ever expect it."
ReplyDeleteYou know, when Beck says this, he has a point. I, for example, have been saying that very thing for years (23 of them, actually).
But I don't think Beck and I see eye to eye on what those words mean. And, if he heard me say this (doubtful), he certainly would take it the wrong way.
Because, yes, coming from the Soviet Bloc, I am astounded by the pervasiveness and outrageousness of the American propaganda, seeping into people's lives 24/7 from almost every source of (dis)information. I am talking about the capitalist, corporatist and rabid free-marketeering propaganda that you, Captain, so well skewer in your post(s).
But of course this is not what Beck has in mind. He is the loudest and most obnoxious propaganda tool himself, only that he does not see it this way. Yet he kinda explains it himself, saying, Well, that's 'cause we don't ever expect it."
That's correct, Glenn B. (Even a broken clock is right twice a day.)
"calling for a boycott of his show."
ReplyDeleteI hope that catches on. As Roger Ailes said recently, "we're not abut news, we're about ratings"
I wonder how often Beck would be right hanging by his thumbs in some Chechnian dungeon.