.
Anyone who has watched ten minutes of Glenn Beck’s show is aware that he keeps a red phone on his desk. The never-ringing phone supposedly symbolizes the left’s inability to respond to Beck’s ‘brilliant’ revelations of Marxist, Socialist evil-doers in the White House.
Thomas Frank comments on Glenn Beck’s “panic-peddling’ nonsense replacing rational fact-based thought.
These are postulates that it is only possible to believe after you have utterly closed yourself off to conventional ways of knowing, after you have decided that the reporting and analysis and scholarship on these subjects are not worth reading, and that you will choose ideological fairy tales over reality until the day a magical phone call comes from on high.
What Mr. Beck’s silent phone really symbolizes is a new kind of ignorance, a coming high-tech dark age in which people can choose to blow off professional standards of inquiry; in which they can wall themselves off with cable TV and friendly Web sites, dismiss what displeases as liberal bias, and demand that any contrary view be transmitted to them via telephone call from the president himself.
Perfect.
___
To receive email notifications of new posts from MarioPiperniDotCom, click on Subscribe.
.
 |
Thomas Frank makes a very astute observation. Cable television and the Internet in theory should expand horizons and introduce other cultures and new ideas. Yet, the Glenn Beck Believers have used it to isolate, immerse, and drug themselves with a never ending, 24/7, 360 degree, surround sound wave of propaganda.
Bascom – Liberals do it too. No one is innocent here.
@Pane Well of course there are probably a few liberals who do the same thing. However, we are not talking about liberals.
RED HERRING
There are probably only a few right wingers who do it also. Understanding balance is the key to moving forward.
“Mr. Beck, who now attracts 9 million weekly listeners on radio and 2.7 million daily viewers on television. . .”
(begin snark) Yeah only a few right wingers. Not a lot of people at all, so what are we doing talking about a tiny group with hardly any influence at all? It’s a non-issue. (end snark)
Source, Glenn Beck the New Oprah?
Well, there’s obviously a whole lot more ignorant people willing to be led around by the nose by Beck, O’Reilly, et. al.? Right??
Maybe instead of simply calling them all stupid, you people should figure out what the draw is.
Meanwhile, the country is beginning to reject your liberal misgivings and embrace a conservative approach.
You guys pee all over yourselves every time some group of morally deprived whack jobs force same sex marriage through the courts or through the legislative bodies.
What is the deafening silence from you guys over the votes in Maine and Washington concerning same sex marriages?
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/11/03/2009-11-03_gay_marriage_is_put_to_a_vote_in_maine_.html
“Gay marriage has now lost in every single state — 31 in all — in which it has been put to a popular vote. Gay-rights activists had hoped to buck that trend in Maine — known for its moderate, independent-minded electorate — and mounted an energetic, well-financed campaign.”
I avoid Fox News for the same reason that I avoid any extremist web sites. Their information is not always factual and is way outside of my way of thinking. We cannot mold facts into our way of thinking, but our way of thinking can be influenced by facts. That’s why it is important to me that things that are presented as facts be actually true. It is important to understand the difference between facts, theories, and opinions. Theories and opinions are debatable. Facts must be a benchmark on which theories and opinions are based.
People believe what they want to believe, whether it is something to keep a fire of discontent in their bellies or to comfort themselves. But facts are facts. There is no such thing as an untrue fact, but there are people who will present things as fact that have not been verified or that aren’t facts at all. Don’t assume that just because your flavor of political media source tells you something that it is true. You don’t have to be a cynic to be a well-informed skeptic.
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by CoolRaven: Glenn Beck’s Red Phone: http://bit.ly/3V24hN #p2…
TN, my grandfather once said on the lecture circuit, that Americans have a thirst for gross and violent stimulous. That was in 1975. He was comparing what used to be entertainment in the home – family members gathering around, story telling, reading, playing music and singing – to what it was at the time and still is – television and radio. The arousal threshold of many Americans has gradually been amped up until what is stimulating has become more and more outrageous. Perhaps that is the draw of the Fox News Network and people like Rush Limbaugh.
Fox News and conservative talk radio isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but some can consume it by the gallon. I personally find it to be disturbing.
“You guys pee all over yourselves every time some group of morally deprived whack jobs force same sex marriage through the courts or through the legislative bodies.”
Just as you say, so shall you be.
The reason Beck’s red phone never rings is that he has never plugged it in.
Anonymous….Huh?
The red phone is simply a visual aid to a point. Everyone keeps telling him everything he says is wrong and is a lie. Symbolically, the phone represents an invitation to any credible source, particularly in the White House, to contact him and prove where he is in error.
Glenn Beck is an entertainer, an author and a showman. And from all indications, a pretty successful one.
And by the way, his book, “A Christmas Sweater” is a moving story and a really good read. Also apolitical. It would make a very good holiday read for anyone. My significant other, who is rampantly liberal (I forgive her) gave a copy to all her children last year at the holidays.
Now, all you little liberals say a short prayer for him. It’s my understanding he underwent an emergency appendectomy today and is in the hospital.
TN, that was me by accident. I had rebooted my computer and didn’t realize it wiped out my info.