Chasing Glenn Beck
Michael Charney
Author Bio
Michael Charney is awriter and publisher with an interest in narrative non-fiction, politics, music and reading. He counts among his friends several people who can quote whole passages from Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Red Dwarf, and spends a great deal of time outdoors with his wife and two dogs. A graduate of the University of California, he has, in addition to his book-length work, also published award-winning short stories, essays and business articles.
Mr. Charney lives in rural New Hampshire (after more than 20 years in New Jersey), with his wife and rescued mutt, Zoe. He has a tendency to obsess, and once watched 90+ hours of Doctor Who over a two-week period. He has also read at least one book by anyone who has ever one the Nobel Prize in Literature, and longs to become independently wealthy so that he can afford to run for office.
Description
Is Glenn Beck a liberal?
Perhaps not, but when Michael Charney decides to plant that idea out in the “Twitterverse” some interesting conversations begin. People shout at him (MORON!), block him (SCUMSUCKER!), and belittle him (WAKE UP, IDIOT!). Eventually, though, some people start to listen.
Today’s political dialogue has been stolen, hijacked from us by those with the loudest voices. Until we begin to take that conversation back for ourselves, we remain at the mercy of those with the most radical agendas, the most extreme visions, for our country. The risk is great: a country run by a vociferous minority that just happens to scream louder than the rest of us is NOT what democracy is supposed to be about.
With discussions about politics, education, national security, manifestos, the Pledge of Allegiance, the Flag Code–and the Senate Candy Desk–Charney cuts a wide swath through the issues facing our country, a country he claims has a serious case of “Electile Dysfunction.”
Book excerpt
I’m not a nice person. I know this because Glenn Beck told me so.
Okay, perhaps he didn’t tell me directly. What actually happened was this: in early March our resident emperor-pundit (and self-described rodeo clown) suggested that if we hadn’t gone and screwed up the whole following-the-Commandments thing, then perhaps our angry and vengeful God wouldn’t have slaughtered the innocents in Japan, where a recent tsunami had devastated large stretches of seacoast.
Yep. You heard right. Beck was suggesting that God passes His verdicts on the world in the form of earthquakes and tidal waves. “Hey, you know that stuff we’re doing?” Beck asked his listeners. “Not really working out real well.” He then went on to add that “What God does is God’s business. But I’ll tell you this…there’s a message being sent.”
I know he’s not the first to render such opinions; people like Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart and Pat Robertson have all said similar things in the past. Falwell, for example, informed his faithful that “AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals” and Pat Robertson once drooled that the floods in New Orleans were “a sign that God is tired of seeing his creation mocked by the Mardi Gras and its perverted display of debauchery and exposed breasts.” If statements like Beck’s aren’t that unusual, then why then should he, in particular, piss me off so much?
It’s because Glenn Beck is an entertainer. While the others said things that were abhorrent and stupid, they were at least speaking within the sincerity of their own beliefs. But Beck isn’t. He’s shtick. He’s pomp. He said as much back in the April 26, 2010 issue of Forbes Magazine. “’I could give a flying crap about the political process,” he told the reporter. “Making money, on the other hand, is to be taken very seriously, and controversy is its own coinage.” He went on to acknowledge that he’s running “an entertainment company.”
When I think of Glenn Beck I get an image of Uriah Heep but with Bozo’s big red clown nose. Imagine it: Dickensian sleeze with an overpowering aura of farce. On the one hand he claims to be “just so ‘umble” while at the same time you can sense the devious machinery clicking away behind those eyes. It’s hard to look away, mostly because you never know what he’s going to do next.
Author Website
http://www.chasingglennbeck.com