Glenn Beck’s theatre of the absurd

Written By: - Date published: 4:53 pm, March 12th, 2010 - 35 comments
Categories: International, Media - Tags: , ,

Check out this video of Fox News talk host Glenn Beck. It’s a compilation of his week-long series on how “America is burning to the ground”.

I think he’s trying to argue that Barack Obama is plotting some sort of communist-inspired coup, but it’s hard to know what he’s on about between his confused rants about “THE MACHINE” and the paranoid blackboard scrawlings.

Just watch it, and remind yourself that Fox News is the highest rating cable news service in the US and this guy is broadcast into the living rooms of millions.

Possibly more worrying is that according to the Daily Kos Beck’s paranoid fantasies are starting to make inroads into the highest levels of Fox News managament. Here’s Beck:

I was in this meeting and I pulled one of the guys out, he’s a vice president of Fox. And I said, “When I first started working with you — let’s have a frank conversation here — you thought I was nuts.”

And he smiled and he said, “No, I would say I just thought you were on the cutting edge.”

And I said, “okay, alright, sure.” I said.

“Now?” he said, “Glenn, everything you’re talking about is coming. Everything you’re talking about — everything you’ve been talking about for the last year and a half. It’s all here now. And what you’re saying is coming, I don’t see any other way.

Beck went on to say that the executive told him “we have to convince the audience that this is really truly true.”

I sometimes think that Glenn Beck is what it would be like if Whaleoil and Paul Henry got their own TV show together.

35 comments on “Glenn Beck’s theatre of the absurd ”

  1. freedom 1

    beck is a talking head full of disinformation. His job is to only highlight anything that will steer attention away from what is actually going on. watch any interview discussing the war on terror and its origins. any video on banking, any video on 911 truth.
    he is the disinformation machine

  2. Wow, scary.

    Beck makes Anne Tolley look measured and competent. He is in need of professional assistance.

    Although I did agree with his comment about the rush of bills through the legislature and how it should be slowed down. New Auckland Council reform anyone?

  3. Bill 3

    Here’s a strange wee piece from the US on the state of things called The Second Revolutionary War

    What I found bizarre was that they had footage of an interview with Chris Hedges cut through it which seemed to reinforce and inform the right wing nonsense that was the main focus of the docu. In other words, the narrative was all messed up. Very odd. I don’t know if it was deliberate or what the fuck.

    Part of me wondered if maybe the lens of race is used so much to bring things into focus in the US, that people have lost sight of class and left and right altogether and so things get really messed up and incoherent real easy.

  4. PK 4

    This clown recently smeared Geert Wilders too.

    • Pascal's bookie 4.1

      ohmigod.

      True, but who cares?

      I mean. Pammy Atlas cares, but she’s a nuttier piece than Beck. Obama really is the secret love child of Malcolm X. Explains everything.

      And when I say ‘true’ I mean, he said something. Smear? meh. You’re not getting him.

      For folks wondering about this discourse re Beck going gaga agin the sainted Wilder:

      http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/29073.html

      should give about as sane a take as anyone need ever need.

      As for the Beck?

      The title of the post is close, theatre of the absurd. Or something like it. Anti news. Beyond infotainment.

      It’s not like what whale would do. It’s like what the ultimate warrior did.

      Or. They are beyond caring about ‘facts’.

      the right wing ate postmodernism a long time ago. They are well into the dessert.

      • Lew 4.1.1

        Primitive: Trout
        Classical: Cronkite
        Revisionist: Rather
        Parodic: Beck

        L

        • Pascal's bookie 4.1.1.1

          There’s a parable my aging imac, with it’s short inter crash window, won’t let me relate,

          precis:

          Andy Kaufman, as zombie nihilist, walks in to a news room,

          Eric Blair rises from the dead, saying only, “It’s not a text” and goes on to burn every existing copy of his most famous book singing a bastardised radiohead number, “they did to themselves, they do, and that’s what really hurts…”

  5. How can anyone take Glenn Beck seriously???

    Hes losing advertising from his show, hes a way over the top clown.

    He cant even sell his act.

    I cant beleive some of his fans think he believes what he says.

    Hes getting 18 million a year also, the guy has no credibility.

    He makes Cameron slater look like Keith Locke.

    • He is one of your lot.

      I cannot think of an equivalent leftie who I should feel equally ashamed about …

      • TightyRighty 5.1.1

        trevor mallard?

      • Brett Dale 5.1.2

        mickey savage:

        No he is not one of my my lot.

        Im a Obama supporter and a supporter of the democrats.

        Im dont support Labour in New Zealand, because they behave like the republicans here, and this website is our version of Faux News, except for the left.

  6. trademark 6

    Fox News appropriately categorizes Beck as Politics, Entertainment and Opinion.

  7. Cnr Joe 7

    I…can’t..watch…the…whole…12…mins…please don’t make me go back in there…..

  8. felix 8

    I almost watched this but then I decided to attach razor blades to my genitals and run naked through the blackberry patch instead.

  9. Roger 9

    Wow, I managed to get through 8 minutes of this rant before my head started to hurt. I’m amazed this nutter is allowed out in public unsupervised let alone given the opportunity to talk nonsense in front of expensive tv camera equipment.

  10. Jewish Kiwi 10

    The quote of the Fox executive is almost certainly a fabrication.

    He has a penchant for retelling events with embellishment. An instance of one of Beck’s employers ‘humouring the talent’ has become “Glenn, everything you’re talking about is coming.”

    Watch Beck appear on the TV show ‘The View’ and watch Whoopi Goldberg and Barbara Walters call him out on this. It is funny to watch him squirm as Goldberg calls him a lying sack of shit to his face. Got to love that woman.

  11. Lew 11

    Harden up, you nancies. You need to be able to stare this shit in the face, and laugh. Or the terrorists win.

    L

  12. bobo 12

    Becks OTT languange is straight out of the 1960s Batman tv series. I always watch a few minutes of beck for a laugh.

  13. TightyRighty 13

    amazing. not only do you know everything that’s right in new zealand, you’ve expanded you’re superiority complex to the USA. amazing that you can be so arrogant and condescending from so far away

    • Lew 13.1

      Go on, TR. Tell us you think Beck’s got it right, and his form and tenor are appropriate and reasonable given the circumstances.

      L

      • TightyRighty 13.1.1

        no i think he is a tool. fox news annoys the shit out of me. but i tolerate because it has little, if any bearing on my life. if americans want to watch it, let them and care nothing, they know what is right for them.

        • Lew 13.1.1.1

          Who’s suggesting it be banned? I think the point is that it should be the subject of both ridicule and warning by those who disagree with it — not only the specifics, but the whole premise.

          L

          • TightyRighty 13.1.1.1.1

            who is suggesting it be banned?

            we could probably say the same thing about bomber bradbury’s whole premise.

          • Michael Over Here 13.1.1.1.2

            Exactly. I hate it when people criticize someone for having an opinion on something (especially something as obviously terrible as Beck) and then jump to the “you’re trying to ban it!” canard. Don’t try to ban my criticism TightyRighty!

            Plus Beck gives us a warning of the direction media and punditry can head so that New Zealanders can make sure we never travel down that path.

            • A Nonny Moose 13.1.1.1.2.1

              Watch Paul Henry and Micael Lhaws get a show together, and we’ll be right on that track.

  14. toad 14

    Christian urged to boycott Glenn Beck“; Rev. Jim Wallis, evangelical leader.

  15. Rich 15

    Whaleoil and Paul Henry got their own TV show together

    I think that’s what the new look fully-commercial TV1 will be like, with the news outsourced to Fox.

    But don’t worry, you’ll be able to watch public service TV on TV7. On Youtube. With a million dollar budget.

    On the subject of Fox, is it still available on Sky and if so, how does that square with NZ broadcasting rules?

  16. Pascal's bookie 16

    heh

  17. My god, the continuous cuts and changing of suits is just adding to his confusing retoric.

    “There are… there are… there are anti-capitalist in the white house…”

    Basically he’s just a libbo nutcase.

  18. A Nonny Moose 19

    I can’t do more than 10 seconds of this guy. It’s all gibberish, very Orwellian.

The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.