Friday, November 26, 2010

Research notes: Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck

Notable public disputes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Beck#Notable_public_disputes

Interview:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/business/media/30beck.html?_r=1

Mr. Beck says he believes every word he says on his TV show, and the radio show that he still hosts from 9 a.m. to noon each weekday.

At the same time, though, he says he is an entertainer. “I’m a rodeo clown,” he said in an interview, adding with a coy smile, “It takes great skill.”

He added later: “I say on the air all time, ‘if you take what I say as gospel, you’re an idiot.’ ”

Wiki page with ref. links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Beck

is an American paleoconservative radio and television host, political commentator, author, and entrepreneur. He is the host of The Glenn Beck Program, a nationally syndicated talk-radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks; he is also the host of an eponymous cable news show on Fox News Channel.

Ideological influences

An author with ideological influence on Beck is W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006), a prolific conservative political writer, American Constitutionalist and faith-based political theorist.
As an anti-communist supporter of the John Birch Society, and limited-government activist, Skousen, who was Mormon, wrote on a wide range of subjects: the Six-Day War, Mormon eschatology, New World Order conspiracies, even parenting. Skousen believed that American political, social, and economic elites were working with Communists to foist a world government on the United States. Beck praised Skousen's "words of wisdom" as "divinely inspired", referencing Skousen's The Naked Communist and especially The 5,000 Year Leap (originally published in 1981), which Beck said in 2007 had "changed his life".

Quotes:

"This president I think has exposed himself over and over again as a guy who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture....I'm not saying he doesn't like white people, I'm saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist." –on President Obama, sparking an advertiser exodus from his FOX News show, July 28, 2009 -

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/29/politics/main5195604.shtml

"I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. ... No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out. Is this wrong? I stopped wearing my What Would Jesus -- band -- Do, and I've lost all sense of right and wrong now. I used to be able to say, 'Yeah, I'd kill Michael Moore,' and then I'd see the little band: What Would Jesus Do? And then I'd realize, 'Oh, you wouldn't kill Michael Moore. Or at least you wouldn't choke him to death.' And you know, well, I'm not sure." –responding to the question "What would people do for $50 million?", "The Glenn Beck Program," May 17, 2005 - http://mediamatters.org/research/200505180008

"When I see a 9/11 victim family on television, or whatever, I'm just like, 'Oh shut up' I'm so sick of them because they're always complaining." –"The Glenn Beck Program," Sept. 9, 2005

"The only [Katrina victims] we're seeing on television are the scumbags." –"The Glenn Beck Program," Sept. 9, 2005

"I think there is a handful of people who hate America. Unfortunately for them, a lot of them are losing their homes in a forest fire today." –on why people who lost their homes in forest fires in California had it coming, "The Glenn Beck Program," Oct. 22, 2007

"I have been nervous about this interview with you because what I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies. ... And I know you're not. I'm not accusing you of being an enemy, but that's the way I feel, and I think a lot of Americans will feel that way." –interviewing Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim U.S. congressman, Glen Beck's show on CNN's Headline News, Nov. 14, 2006

"Al Gore's not going to be rounding up Jews and exterminating them. It is the same tactic, however. The goal is different. The goal is globalization...And you must silence all dissenting voices. That's what Hitler did. That's what Al Gore, the U.N., and everybody on the global warming bandwagon [are doing]." –"The Glenn Beck Program," May 1, 2007

"So here you have Barack Obama going in and spending the money on embryonic stem cell research. ... Eugenics. In case you don't know what Eugenics led us to: the Final Solution. A master race! A perfect person. ... The stuff that we are facing is absolutely frightening." –"The Glenn Beck Program," March 9, 2009

"You have the artwork of Mussolini there, here in New York at Rockefeller Plaza." –analyzing the artwork decorating Rockefeller Plaza, which he said contained a hammer and sickle, Glenn Beck show on FOX News Channel, Sept. 2, 2009

"O-L-I-G-A-R-H-Y." –misspelling "oligarchy" on his chalk board while claiming he had deciphered a secret code that he said was proof President Obama was trying to create an "Oligarhy," Aug. 27, 2009, Glenn Beck show on FOX News Channel

"You know, we all have our inner demons. I, for one – I can't speak for you, but I'm on the verge of moral collapse at any time. It can happen by the end of the show." –"The Glenn Beck Program," Nov. 6, 2006