Beck-Ingraham duet on Fox: Incoherent ideological babble has the ring of Newspeak
By David Neiwert Sunday Feb 08, 2009 6:30am
I dunno about you, but I blame Jonah Goldberg for Friday's exchange between dueling wingnuts Laura Ingraham and Glenn Beck -- in which Ingraham came off looking really sane in comparison:
Beck: We are really, truly, stepping beyond socialism and we're starting to look at fascism. We are putting business and government together!
Ingraham: Glenn, you're throwing a lot of terms around, and I'm going to play devil's advocate, because this is fair and balanced. Now, moving from socialism to communism, that's, that's a pretty big leap -- socialism, obviously, the economic system, communism the political system. How are we right now moving toward state ownership of all, for instance, heavy industry?
Beck: Let me first of all just explain first what happened in Nazi Germany. It was National -- Socialism. We're talking now about nationalizing the banks, and socialized programs. National. Socialism.
At first in Nazi Germany, everybody was so panicked, they were so freaked. Remember -- don't take anytime to think about it, we've just got to do, do, do. At first all the big companies and the big capitalists in Germany said, 'Oh thank goodness there's a savior! OK, great! We'll do that, yes!' It didn't take too long before -- like here in America, now Goldman Sachs. They've started to see the writing on the wall and went, 'Whoa, whoa whoa! You guys are getting out of control here. What are you guys doing?' And they couldn't get out of it fast enough.
Unfortunately, for those in Germany, you could never go back. I don't know if this is the system that we're headed towards or not, where they're not going to let you out, but let me tell you something, I don't want to play this game. This is becoming extraordinarily dangerous.
What a doughy pantload.
Can you tell whether they're talking about fascism, socialism, or communism? Or are these all just basically one big mushy concept to Beck? This kind of incoherence-unto-meaninglessness is indeed the hallmark of Goldberg's work on these subjects. As with Goldberg, it renders all these terms into so much Newspeak.
Beyond just the obvious, comical incoherence of this, Beck is babbling ahistorical nonsense seemingly fabricated from whole cloth. I have no idea where in the world Beck is obtaining his information -- John Wayne WWII movies, perhaps? Sgt. Fury comics? -- but as political history, this is just a smattering of facts mangled into pure gobbledygook.
First, the National Socialists, aka Nazis, were "Socialists" in roughly the same way that the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" was run by Republicans. It was a marketing term that reflected more the fascists' real roots in the radical ferment around socialism, but there is little question (beyond Goldberg's fanboy cult) that fascism generically and Nazism specifically were right-wing phenomena.
The citations available on this subject are numerous, but probably the clearest explanation comes from Robert O. Paxton in The Anatomy of Fascism, who explains that fascism for all its rhetoric was in practice closely aligned with and allied with capitalists and conservatives -- some of whom, years down the road, came to regret the association, but the vast majority of whom approved enthusiastically up through the war years. (Think Krupp.) They were also decidedly -- violently, murderously -- anti-socialist.
Another supposed essential character of fascism is its anticapitalist, antibourgeois animus. Early fascist movements flaunted their contempt for bourgeois values and for those who wanted only "to earn money, money, filthy money." They attacked "international finance capitalism" almost as loudly as they attacked socialists. They even promised to expropriate department-store owners in favor of patriotic artisans, and large landowners in favor of peasants.
Whenever fascist parties acquired power, however, they did nothing to carry out these anticapitalist threats. By contrast, they enforced with the utmost violence and thoroughness their threats against socialism. Street fights over turf with young communists were among their most powerful propaganda images. Once in power, fascist regimes banned strikes, dissolved independent labor unions, lowered wage earners' purchasing power, and showered money on armaments industries, to the immense satisfaction of employers.
The meaning of "National Socialism" was essentially part of the Nazis' vision of Germany under siege from outside forces -- namely, the Jews. They intended to apply the principles of state ownership only to those businesses and industries -- i.e., international banking -- that were not specifically German; meanwhile, German-owned capitalist enterprises were given special preferences. As Paxton explains:
It turned out in practice that fascists' anticapitalism was highly selective. Even at their most radical, the socialism that the fascists wanted was a "national socialism": one that denied only foreign or enemy property rights (including that of internal enemies). They cherished national producers. Above all, it was by offering an effective remedy against socialist revolution that fascism turned out in practice to find a space. If Mussolini retained some lingering hopes in 1919 of founding an alternative socialism rather than an antisocialism, he was soon disabused of those notions by observing what worked and what didn't work in Italian politics. His dismal electoral results with a Left-nationalist program in Milan in November 1919 surely hammered that lesson home.
The pragmatic choices of Mussolini and Hitler were driven by their urge for success and power. Not all fascist leaders had such ambitions. Some of them preferred to keep their movements "pure," even at the cost of remaining marginal.
Finally, a word about being on the track to "socialism": I'm not an expert on the theoretical aspects of all this, but my understanding of America's economic nature is roughly as follows (and I'm sure if I' mistaken I'll be corrected):
The United States has always been an essentially capitalist economic system. However, we have experienced periods in our history where this system has seriously malfunctioned, and we've made adjustments accordingly that have largely worked well making things better.
One of those dysfunctional periods came at about the turn of the last century, when McKinley was president, corrupt robber barons ran Congress, and the latter-day version of "strict constructionists" ruled the courts. "Laissez faire" capitalism ruled, and America was functionally an oligarchy.
Squeezed out were the working people: the average workweek was 80 hours, there were no weekends, no vacation, only a few holidays, and the barest minimum of pay. Benefits and health care were unheard of. Child labor was the rule.
What happened between then and now? "Socialists" began agitating for better working conditions, and began organizing as labor unions. After a long period of violent repression, these reforms gradually became government policy -- especially in the 1930s under FDR. Americans began getting 40-hour work weeks with weekends off, paid vacations and benefits.
Probably the most significant and lasting legacy of this period of "socialist" innovation was the progressive tax code. It has been a feature of the income tax since its institution in 1916. Who was one of its original champions? Theodore Roosevelt.
The fact is that the United States -- like nearly every single Western capitalist democracy -- is a variable blend of socialism and capitalism, free-enterprise economies with regulatory restraints and income redistribution. What right-wingers like Beck and Ingraham hysterically label "going down the road to socialism" sounds a lot like following FDR's path to American prosperity.
The result of those "socialist" reforms was the birth of the great American middle class and the quality of life we have enjoyed so long we've forgotten what it was like not to have it. People like Glenn Beck seem never even to have learned.
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Couldn't finish that one.....phffft!
Sounded like an infomercial......I even dozed off for a moment.
my question is; who would care if they could not string words together...IT IS FOX afterall!
The majority do not even listen to the likes of Beck Hannity et al!
The thing is, most of Fox's viewers don't really know the meanings of the terms nationalism, socialism, and communism, much less the differences between them.
We came pretty close to fascism when Bush was in power. So to say that suddenly we are concerned about that, as Beck says, is just absolutely insane; or he's lying through his teeth.
There is no movement towards any of those things. Ok, maybe a little sprinkle of socialism. But we've had that for quite a while. The thing is, a little socialism is not a bad thing. The right has made it this dirty word, like "liberalism", and it's an inaccurate portrayal of the truth.
In truth, the best government and society is a combination of a capitalist democracy, a republic, and socialism. We've never had a true democracy, yet people throw that term around to describe us. There has never been true socialism or communism in the world, yet people hold up places like the USSR and China as examples. Not true.
The right has always used these terms to scare us and keep us under control, while they do their thing and bring us ever closer to fascism every chance they get.
We have to educate Fox viewers so that they understand. Of course, as soon as they become intelligent, they'll stop watching fox.
He's a corporate tool, a male whore who will say anything so long as the oral pleasuring of his masters ends in a few bucks.
He knows that under Bush, the U.S. was much closer to fascism because the government and the corporations had a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" system in place, to the exclusion of the public's best interest (which is why we're in this mess).
He knows. And today, he'll wipe off his chin, go home and somehow sleep. Tomorrow, he'll be back to close his eyes and open up his mouth as wide as he can.
I don't get it.
A bill laced with wingnut impurities cannot make it a better bill.
Passing this bill, with the embedded wingnuts still manning the works is sure to be a trainwreck.
Get it
rightcorrect, or as near as can be without compromising the purpose, then implement the hell out of it.Either way Beck, Ingram, Shitbaw and Faux News are gonna wail, keen, moan, piss and complain. Fuggem!
"Steady losing means you ain't using what you really think is
rightcorrect."Once we clear out Gitmo, we should ship Beck, Limbaugh, O'Reilly and Hannity all there to "debate" socialism. That might make for an interesting "reality" show.
AND, it can be broadcast on Fox Reality Television (TM)!! Put it on just after American I-dull.
In another episode, with guest prisoner Dick Cheney, they could test waterboarding on each other and discuss if it is truly torture.
America's Got Terrists? Hmmmm....trying hard to find catchy name for new show...America's Least Wanted?
BoilThemInTheirOil and CC, that made me laugh out loud! You guys have some great ideas!
We need a new term to describe the level of stupidity that comes out of Beck's mouth. Bush was fascism! This idiot doesn't even know the definition of the word, and yet he is on t.v.
What the hell is wrong with this country anymore?
Beck is a moron. But he reminded me of something I've been thinking about lately. Am I the only one who notices that what's been happening the last few years looks an awful like what Karl Marx predicted? More and larger economic catastrophes leading to more and more consolidation (bigger companies absorbing the smaller) and eventually leading to the government having to get more and more involved in running the economy? Perhaps its time to rethink how relevant Marx might be to the 21st century. I never formally studied Marx, I'm curios if we have any Marxists out there who could comment.
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside, it's too dark to read."
completely obvious that Beck has no idea what happened in Germany after the first World War. He has no idea what any of these terms mean at all.
What does that even mean? This guy is such a fucktard it's amazing that his head doesn't just explode from so many stupid thoughts trying to occupy the same space at the same time.
It bugs me that these people (Fox News) don't know the difference between National Socialism and International Socialism. National Socialism = Nazi Germany and anti Socialist/Communist. International Socialism = Soviet Union/Communism and are against anything fascist. You don't go from socialism to fascism peacefully - it doesn't happen. For an example of these differences see World War II.
I'm not a socialist or a fascist, but Glenn Beck insults me. If he can't even understand the basics of why so many Americans died in the second world war, maybe he should just shut up.
point, and well put. He is just throwing these terms around without even an iota of understanding about what these terms mean, or how a country gets to these points.
Ignorance of history and contempt for academia and intellectuals defines the right wing- So Beck's blithering ignorance of European history is no shock. Beck clearly has no idea that the Nazis were not left wing socialists- but rather they were hard right wing fascists- Stalin was hardly left wing communist, he was a far right wing fascist.
...of kapital" are what we are getting an up-close and personal view of, now, as they fatally undermine the public trust in the institutions and finally bring down the whole rotten, corrupt, feculent edifice...
Marx, of course, was right, in the general scheme of things, though of course (also) he couldn't have predicted the singularities which postponed the inevitable, especially the rise of the maass media and the propaganda state...
Or are these all just basically one big mushy concept to Beck?
They are all just one big mushy scare-word for 95 fucking percent of the Murkin lumpen-proles...Kapitalist propaganda has been basically uncontested in the USofA for close to 100 years...OF COURSE the sheeple are not gonna have anything like a sophisticated understanding...
By the way: We Are SOOOOOO Fucked...
Thanks for the info. Based on no classes and just a very casual reading, my opinion on Marx is that he under estimated two critical things: the importance of technology and the importance of democracy. The incredible gains that technology made possible enabled western governments to create a middle class and give them a fairly decent life for about a century. While there continued to be regular crises there were also continuous gains due to technology, in the last 40 years primarily Information Technology.
The other thing he got wrong, and probably the worst mistake, was thinking that democracy was completely optional and that if we established a "dictatorship of the proletariat" somehow people would not lust after power and wealth but would work selflessly for the good of others. While I think you could argue that was at least partly true for people who led the initial revolution like Lenin and Trotsky what inevitably happens is you have ruthless people who are great at manipulating power (Stalin) rise to the top.
If Marx was ever right about anything, then Marxists would have been able to correctly predict the results of our economic policies. Just like Paul Krugman and many other economists did. But the fact is, Marxists couldn't have, because Marxist theories are not scientific in nature. They can only be applied in retrospect by picking and choosing which facts correlate best with Marxist claims. For example, go back and look at Marxist claims in 1996 and then in 2000. Both years, Marxists found reasons why current circumstances were exactly what Marx had predicted. In both years, you'll also find Marxists predicting extremely dire future outcomes that never came into fruition. Now comes 2009 and here we go again.
I don't think there was anything particularly inflamatory in my initial post. I agree that classic Marxism was about as scientific as Freudianism or astrology. The thing is even though Freud was 99% wrong he had some insights that were truly ground breaking, e.g., the whole idea that we have an unconscious that in some ways controls what we think and feel. What I'm saying is maybe its time we re-evaluate Marx and separate what could be useful from the pseudo-science.
"The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of
production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society.
Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first
condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production,
uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation
distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their
train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones
become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is
profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his, real conditions of life, and
his relations with his kind.The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the
entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions
everywhere.
The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan
character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists,
it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All oldestablished
national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are
dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all
civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material
drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but
in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country,
we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In
place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every
direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual
production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National
one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the
numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.
The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the
immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into
civilisation. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down
all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to
capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of
production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become
bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image."
It is hard to believe that Marx published that in 1848...writes Thomas Friedman, the freemarketier and globalist.(The World is Flat).
Marx is Marx and not some unidentified Marxist objects.
As far as prediction: Rutherford, who more than any other man laid bear the internal structure of the atom, frequently made fun of those sensation mongers who predicted that one day would be able to harness the energy locked up in matter. Anyway we keep Rutherford to be a giant of science.
MikeD, where Marx wrote, that "democracy was completely optional"?
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/do...
These people are millionaires.
WOuld they be debating this issue if they had no jobs and no savings and were about to lose everything?
I don't think so.
Whenever these idiots on Fox pontificate just remember what their salaries are. Could they live on what you and I are living are?
Where were these idiots when OUR constitutional rights were being stripped from our laws?
Or is that some how different because it was supposedly done in the name of protecting our freedom? Hitler and Stalin Did that also!!!!
point mgardener, these people are very quick to babble about the shit that they don't like, call it fascism, communism, socialism, and compare it to Nazi Germany or Communist Russia. They are completely oblivious to the similarities between Republican rule and Fascism. Also, let's not forget that the right also has their own group of "brownshirts" in the extreme religious right.
Remember Graeme Frost's family? The father makes about 40k and lives in a 400k home, and he was "attacked" for being rich by many a conservative pundit.
If you're wouldn't trade lives with someone, they're not rich.
let's not forget that the house was worth considerably less when they bought it. The rising value was only due to neighborhood improvements increasing the value of all property in the area. These people were trashed for having an opinion that contradicted the conservative philosophy.
I ALWAYS hear Shithead Hannity crying about how "liberals" want to pass S-CHIP (child health care assistance) to families earning as much as 80000 a year - as if 80K is just SO MUCH MONEY in many areas in the US today.
My wife and I earned 71K in 08 in NY and we can't even THINK about buying a house on that.
earned 80k a
yearmonthweek he'd jump off a building and slit his own throat on the way down.from it's eight year slumber to attack Obama and anything that promises to relieve the besieged and dwindling middle class.
The communistic (hah!) Obama will be a one-term president.
Then the Imperialists will return to finish the job of destroying us.
I've posted several times here some rather negative assessments to the people who said that once Obama was elected all our problems would be solved. I predicted that one week after Obama was inaugurated the media would suddenly wake up and say "what a mess the country is in, its all Obama's fault" I think the hope we may have is that so many people are fed up with the MSM and ignore most of it. Also, there are a couple of left wing voices (Rachel and Keith) who would have been inconceivable on the MSM a few years ago. Anyway, I think the main point is the work is just starting and we on the left need to keep pushing Obama away from the center and keep mocking the morons on the right.
the pukes threw the election to put the Obama & the Dims on the hot seat, with crises NOBODY will be able to solve.
Then in 4 years, or maybe less if the economy tanks much further (which it will), they'll use the "failures" to fix the bushevik fuck-ups to drive Obama &* the Dims from what meager powers they chose to exert, and continue the drive to gut the nation of anything and everything of any value at all, and then discard the husk of the country on the shit-pile of history...
Yup...that's where we're headed, friendz...
Ok, I'm a pessimist and acknowledge that Obama has a big fight on his hands and that Obama himself is too much of a centrist. But what Woody is saying is what I call the Omnipotent Right Fallacy.The right wing never makes a mistake. Every thing that happens they control. What seems like incompetence is all part of some master plan. Katrina, Iraq, the economy. Obama didn't mount a masterful campaign that showed the bankrupcy of the right, they threw the election. And of course on 9/11 the many failures that happened before and on that day are all part of the master plan coordinated by Cheney in his secret underground bunker. Yes, there are major problems (and at times even conspiracies) but these guys aren't all powerful and believing they are just reinforces a feeling of helplessness which is just what they want.
It's the omnipotent MONEY.
Money ALWAYS wins...
When has it not?
Obama poses no threat at all to the proper, prosperous functioning of the oligarchy's designs.
No person who posed such a threat would ever have been permitted within a mile of the presidency. That he's in that position is all the testimony you'd ever need to the fact that he's entirely loyal to and trusted by the hegemons.
Then what do you call this economic disaster?
I really wanted to comment, though, because your post is a wonderful example of begging the question. If you make a concerted attempt at eradicating the logical fallacies in your thought process, then maybe you'll see past this paranoia that you're suffering from.
The 40 hour work week, social security, anytime a union went on strike and won (it used to happen and still does outside the US), Fidel Castro defeating Batista and his mob backers in Cuba, Hugo Chavez defeating the US backed coup... Money doesn't always win. As I said the people with money want you to believe it does but they're wrong.
I am ashamed for our country that such garbage is broadcast.
Good Lord, the stupidity in America is mind boggling.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/183663?from=rss
Yes that was incoherent babble. But one thing he said, actually a couple were valid points.
Business and Government are way too close together, and this started before any talk of nationalization, during good times. This is disadvantageous to say the least, These mega corporations get bailed out and put into positions of policy making, like the president of GE or Carla Fiorina.
Second, who can we trust? talking to my father the staunch conservative, I could not convince him that he shouldn't trust the government no matter who is in charge. He feels republicans in charge, all good, democrats in charge, all bad. But unfortunately, Democratic voters feel the same way. It has become obvious that the Democrat's first priority is LARGE business, much as it was the republicans.
This is a dangerous state of affairs.
I am an enigma. I am liberal moderate politically in that I believe in a strong national defense and can be rather hawkish when it comes to war, but I am tempered when it comes to social issues such a real equality for gays and lesbians.
Economically, I am a socialistic capitalist in that I believe that you can make as much money as you wish, just don't forget to take care of those less fortunate. I believe in a true flat tax of 15% for all persons and entities (including religious institutions) with no deductions, credits or exemptions, while also believing in a social safety net of universal health care and Social Security (with no limits on compensation that can be taxed).
I believe in smart regulation of business without stifling innovation and competition. I firmly believe that our natural and energy resources should be nationalized and that porn should have the full protections of government that are afforded other industries.
I believe in the national legalization, regulation and taxation of drugs and prostitution which will help facilitate the destruction of our prison culture. I believe that our national borders should be secured while providing a sensible path for citizenship of either national service or military service for those currently here illegally.
I believe that the invasion of Iraq was mistake in that we should have taken over the entire Middle East at the same time, including Israel and forced an end to their hundreds of years of violence & dispute.
Mr. Beck and Ms. Ingraham, what would you call me other than enigma, as I don't fit so easily into your voiced labels.
"I believe in a strong national defense and can be rather hawkish when it comes to war..."
I love the might of the US military and its capabilities. I don't like massive defense spending and the industry's cozy relationship with foregin policy decisions. To me, that's a simple concept that recognizes the valor of our troops while criticizing the pols who run the show.
A strong national defense does not require unlimited amounts of tax payer monies being spent on outdated and unneeded weapons. The B2 bomber is an awesome machine of massive destruction, but we have failed to provide proper personal protections to our soldiers on the ground.
The Humvee is an great versatile replacement for the venerable Jeep, but it could never replace the much needed APCs that we seem to lack.
We have allowed cronyism and job protection to replace intelligence at the DoD.
...
is when Ingraham says she's fair and balanced, and Beck laughs into his hands, like they all know the joke about that tagline. Of course, that speaks volumes about their validity. Funny though, to see the right go so crazy so hard so fast, with four years to go.
Where was Crybaby Beck when Christo-fascism was in vogue during the GOP's reign of political terror? Blending church and state and creating a religous based theocracy? Not a problem with these clowns. Obama trying to did us out of the mess they created and it's socialism and fascism!
Beck intones that "I don't know if this is the system that we're headed toward or not..." This type of mindless projection is reminiscent of a most relevant book that I am currently reading which is most apt for these times: A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy by David Oshinsky. McCarthy would also make similar statements which so many gullible Americans were willing to believe in the 1940s and 1950s such as saying that "I do not know if this particular person is a communist but ..." Beck and his cohorts are attempting to induce, like McCarthy did, fear and hysteria into America by throwing around words like socialism, fascism and communism without ever attempting to define their meaning. The irony is that so many on the right accuse Obama of being a socialist while Obama demonstrates with his willingness to rescue Wall Street's institutions from ruin while neglecting to freeze mortgage foreclosures on those people who have become the victims of the rapacious lending industries that Obama is much more of a blatant capitalist then he is while showing little danger of being confused or identified as a 21st century Eugene Debs.
What demagogues like Beck never mention is that there are already forms of socialism in this country such as the post office, public education, the VA., Medicare, Medicaid, all of which benefit the citizens of this country. But it is much easier to claim that socialism is a bugaboo than it is to attempt to intelligently discuss the failings of the capitalistic system.
is tantamount to treason in the UofA, and amounts to apostasy.
God invented kapital, dinch know?
Installed kapitalismus as the Lord's Own Economic System...
I wouldn't go quite that far. Capitalism was originally promoting the small shop keeper, and local industry. What we have now is more Corporatism, and I don't want that.
But to me, the only mean between Corporatism and Socialism is Keynesian Regulationism.
But our present way of funding campaigns screw everything up.
when the idea of a financial industry bailout was proposed? Or, even, the phoney war to benefit the defense industry?
Ah, yes, this is why...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_ODuBdfu8s
is unsustainable.
But the kapitalists are the only group on the planet who can destroy everything ELSE as they go down...
And they will!
cause my ears were bleeding!!
Unbelievable! Glenn thinks that 1+1=2. Nationalism + Socalism = National socailism?!! That's quite a redneck opinion, Glenn.
So what's next? The US doing a final solution on Hispanics?
A friend of mine's father is a rabid right wing zionist. When Obama was elected he sent her some Hebrew CD's because he sincerely believes that with Obama in power there will be a new holocaust against the Jews in America and his (and her) only choice is to move to Israel ASAP. When she first told me I thought it was a joke but the guy is deadly serious.
Not with then-candidate Obama making his obeisance to both AIPAC and the world's Financial Elite. Nah, the folks in Tel Aviv have nothing to worry about. Nor do the folks from Davos. They're both covered, now. Their agendas shall continue, as they have through past Presidential Administrations. "The spice must flow." And so it shall. "Israel, now and forever." And so it shall be...and if that means more American blood is shed in terrorist incidents and undeclared, illegal foreign wars to secure resources companies need, then so mote it be.
Frederick Hayek's "Road to Serfdom". It lays out all too clearly how, once people accept the idea that government can solve their problems, it's an inexorable trip to unpleasantness.
It's a well-sourced book by a prominent economist. Give it a read, and come back and tell us what you think.
Hayek was wrong then and is still wrong...
Hayek is the mentor of Milton Friedman and the Chicago School.
Milton Friedman and the Chicago School = Fail in so many words...
And the Chicago School was where Supply-Side (Trickle-down), economics came from that put us in this hole we now find ourselves.
How would the duet respond if it was pointed out that the terms they are throwing around so freely apply much more directly to the Bush administration than to the Obama Administration? Less than a month into the presidency and Godwin's Law is already in effect.
Kudos to Beck for identifying fascism as the nexus of government and corporations, and I don't like the GE adviser rising to any position of power in the Obama administration either.
But Keeyyyy-rist!? Where was this fucko when Bush/Cheney were meeting with the Oil/Gas/electrical industries behind closed doors to write energy policy? We couldn't even find out who was in the meeting, but that's okay because of "executive privilege" (Musolini loved executive privilege, by the way).
The cognitive dissonance is killing me. I didn't even make it halfway through that clip.
was the financial folks that wrote the bankuptcy policy, that I believe Obama voted for. I was later to the Obama party than most, but once it was between he and Hillary, I threw my hat in his ring. I am a strong supporter of Obama, and voted for him, but John Edwards was my first pick and a progressive I thought could win. (I know, Kucinich was there, but I did want the Dems to win.)
I have a pretty good understanding of Socialism, but it took a move abroad for me to really get it. I would say that I can't believe that some people actually get their information from Glenn Beck, but I've not been out of America for THAT long.
their empty heads would simply explode.
that Beck's show gets cancelled due to the $8.4B Fox lost last quarter. This guy is one ignorant idiot.
We can be scared like Beck wants us to and oppose everything Obama is trying to do and give tax breaks to the rich again, watch the rest of the 98% of the people starve, lose their jobs, and their houses, and this country can turn into Zimbabwe. Or follow Obama's lead and turn this country into Beck's definition of Socialism and Fascism and watch the "people" prosper. Hmmmm...I'm gonna give Obama's ideas a chance.
All three of those terms mean the same thing to Repuke greed heads. "They want to hamper my freedom!"
Yeah, your so called freedom you A-holes, your precious freedom to screw the consumers at every level, the freedom to deny workers the ability to form unions, the ability to run rough shod over safety, health and environmental regulations. The ability to make criminal amounts of profit and the ability to deny the freedoms of the people to marry whom they like, the ability to not live in fear of getting ill, losing every thing they have worked hard for and the freedom to buy our government off.
People like Ingram and Beck and Fox have a purpose in my life .there is nothing more stimulative to my morning bowel movement than to sit, watch and hear turds speak. It makes me race to the toilet every time. They beat ex-lax hands down
What I cannot wrap around my pea brain is how these obstructionists cannot see how we got to where we are. Everything they propose is why we are where we are. It is insane.
Beck is semi retarded. He picks up some words that are inflammatory to his stupid audience and starts throwing them around and putting them together and viola we are in Nazi Germany. Palin did the same thing when she was talking about socialism during the campaign. Meanwhile she was taking money from the oil companies and giving it to the people in her state. Palling around with terrorists, meanwhile Cheney is terrorizing the country with his scare tactics. These people are insane.
A couple of America wrecking Talibanublican enablers.
China is the Republic of China, the former USSR stood for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, so would these yahoos claim that these nations are Republican, or in the case of the latter, Republicanism equates to Socialism, merely on the basis of the presence of these words?
stimpy is so funny
i love this show
"Not that I condone fascism, or any -ism for that matter. -Ism's in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an -ism, he should believe in himself. I quote John Lennon, "I don't believe in Beatles, I just believe in me." Good point there. After all, he was the walrus. I could be the walrus. I'd still have to bum rides off people. "
How stupid is Glenn Beck. To stupid to know Cris Croker the youtube queen was doing this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofyLrdF_Ag4 as a joke! Beck is an idiot ass hat who makes a fool of himself everytime he goes on camera. What a maroon!
Waaaaaaa! Waaaaaaaaaa! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HWKzobeya4
Waaaaaa! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpxMoFFq5aE&fe...
Beck IS stupid (and/or evil, take your pick).
But that "queen" Chris Cocker was genuine and sincere when he put that drama over BS on youtube - it was NO act.
But I am going to write this for the couple of seconds or minutes you will all enjoy this for:
I live in NY. [Deleted-Sitemonitor]
Yeah we don't advocate violence around here blah blah blah - these Faux Noize assholes are single-handedly destroying our country by filling millions of minds with shoot-yourself-in-the-foot propaganda. They are country destroyers - balls and chains on our country's ankles - concrete shoes on our nation's feet. These people [Deleted-Sitemonitor] for what they have done and what they continue to do.
And I'd help pay the person's bail too. Lol.
Some quack fucked up this asshole's asshole and Micheal Jackson's doctor's butchered up Ingraham's face...same thing I guess.
"I'm going to play devil's advocate, because this is fair and balanced."
I just had a great idea. What if Fox put an actual liberal on? One who was free to talk about actual liberal ideas? Then you could be fair and balanced without having to play devil's advocate!
spraying holy water at a vampire convention...
The idea of freedom of speech was not ment for this. I agree with what some of you guys are saying ... Beck and his type need to be eradicated, exterminated, and wiped off this planet for once and for all. He thinks and says the wrong thoughts and is a danger to us all. People who don't agree nor think as they should NEED to have the freedom of speech taken away till they are able to think properly. If that doesn't stop them then there is always the final solution.
My Constitutional right to have my views broadcast to hundreds of thousands of people is under attack! To arms!
There are only a few TV spots. It would be cool if they could go to people who are wrong less than 90% of the time.
Freedom of speech does not necessarily protect false speech. Like in this case, where both commentators were pretty much conducting propaganda.
In any case, it was too much to watch after just a few seconds. It is not only that they were lying their asses off, the fact that the combined IQ of both speakers is still in single figures. The worst thing is not just that Beck and Ingraham are fools of the largest caliber, the worst thing is that both believe they are some kind of luminaries.
Although we don't have the right to lie on government forms, and in courts, pretty much everything else is under the right of speech now. Otherwise, government officials could clamp down on anyone who "didn't know what they're talking about," especially in regards to government.
Funny thing is conservatives always hated Tinker v Des Moines which said there was such a thing as symbolic speech, but they seem to use that argument to support campaign contributions as a form of speech.
However, at one time there was a sub-category called commercial speech. Conservatives used to use that all the time to help state censorship boards operate on what they considered "smutty" books and movies. But since cable is not broadcast it could fall under a new commercial-speech limitation, espcially since cable is not subject to the Fairness Doctrine, as it was last written.
What we need is a national speech tsar. Someone to deem what is proper to say and what is wrong thought. We need to cleanse the air waves of the like of FOX and its ilk.
In all fairness both Sgt. Fury comics and John Wayne movies display a far more more coherent and complex world view than Glenn Beck is capable of. His rise is truly mystifying - as loathsome as they are I can see the connection that Hannity, O'Reilly and Limbaugh have with their audience, but Beck's bufoonery
seems unlikely to generate much outrage from either those that agree or disagree with him - which I thought was the point with most of these wingnut radio and tv shows.
I think our problem is we allow people like Glenn Beck to argue within a vacuum. This is the same tactic used by cults. You can't allow facts and reason to blow a bunch of holes in your sociopathic rhetoric. Bringing back the fairness doctrine would prevent the cult of ignorance from gaining the foothold it has in this country.
Our nation was founded within the Age of Enlightenment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlighten... . We can't achieve enlightenment and social progress again if we allow the dark age tactics of Faux News and Rush Limbaugh to infest, like a disease, parts of our national psyche.
Beck needs to consult a history book. His continual spewing of absolute fact free drivel is quite tiresome.
Read a little Glenn. Germany had a central bank well before Hitler came to power as did every other nation (the Fed, Bank of England) and Hitler's Reichbank printed currency as is required of any nation so, how is this socialism? Many banks in Germany remained in private hands as did it's industries (Thyssen, Krupp, IG Farben, Mercedes-Benz, Dornier, Messerschmidt). Hitler didn't rely on German banks to launder money and move gold preferring, Switzerland and we all know Averill Harriman and his henchman Prescott Bush's role in financing the Third Reich.
http://www.ronaldholland.com/tradingwithenemy...
http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/bankrupt-ge...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/u...
We can not achieve TRUE freedom of speech until the likes of them are silenced once and for all ... till the streets are red with their dead words. Remember ... All speech is equal, but some speech is more equal than others.
I find myself confused, trying to reconcile individual comments. They seem to just reflect a biased basic belief and clouded facts. Though however "right" they may be, can only be confirmed "true" in time.
If anyone here would offer their time, too view this youtube clip and offer an opinion I would be grateful. First, I take the view of the producer of said clip as offering an individual perspective and or theory of "Government(s)" and likewise look for opposing views. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DioQooFIcgE
My main cause of confusion, is my interpretation and exclusion/inclusion of facts and fiction.
I see an interesting blending of both "Democratic and Republic" forms of government. While at the same time, knowing what fuels both.
PS. Regarding Beck, he broke down "big-time" in an interview I stumbled across this morning on TV. Had to do with some guys Daughter getting kidnapped down "allegedly" in Mexico. Beck is killing himself... in more ways then one. I stumbled across it, flipping stations trying to get factual information. The "History" channel has been OK, as of late, then again it's all in the programing! :-)
Basically what the clip is saying is that throughout history people are and have been sheep. If not told what to do nor what to think societies tend to destroy or implode into themselves. The thought of an individual is a very dangerous thing and should be suppressed for the good of the whole.
so simple, yet so profound! Thank you for your time and effort fziii. :-)
Amended: If I could only identify that "Whole", without making an "Ass" of myself... :-P
I'm not quite sure why that was aired on national TV. Neither of these people knew what they were talking about nor did they have any ability to tie their talking points to present day issues.
Goldman Sachs was bailed out by bush. They took the money and never said "Whoa, whoa whoa". They said ho ho ho and went laughing to the bank. If there would have been realistic measures put in place tied to government support, like ceilings on salaries as well as bonus then we would have heard a lot of bitching. These guys took the money and ran. The CEO got $68 million in bonus. That was our money.
There is no need to nationalize the banking industry, yet. There is no reason to take over the brokerage houses. But if they want a bailout, then they should have to pay the piper. That means no bonus, no salary larger than 10X the lowest paid employee. Very simple, you want our money, you play by our rules.
Nobody in the bush administration nor the current administration wants to make things that black and white. It would be too obvious where their true interests lie.
It's been said that Paulson dissolved all interest(s) in Goldman's, prior to his federal appointment? Am I too assume his desire for the bail-out has/had no relationship to the following claim?
"Blankfein earned a $67.9 million bonus in his first year. He chose to receive "some" cash unlike present United States Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson, his predecessor who chose to take his bonus entirely in company stock."
What happens if Goldman Sachs went bankrupt?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_paulson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman_Sachs
I told you this last week - he's there to make the other Fox people look reasonable.
Look! He just made Laura Ingram seem like the sensible one. Come on!
"...doughy pantload." Describes him perfectly.
Ugly propaganda from the wingnut fringe of the GOP, that is all.
he should be Beck's Co-Host and then see how long his Fox show lasts before it just goes Batshi* insane
There were lots of political parties in Germany after World War I, many with the word socialism in its name. In 1919 Hitler, like many other war veterans bitter about Germany's defeat, joined the German Workers Party, which was small enough that he came to dominate it. A year later, with Hitler now in charge, the party called itself the National Socialist Party because it sounded more appealing to new members. The change was not made because Hitler was a socialist - he was not.
Wow, did any news network show the schwasticker when talking about Bush's plan?
Are total idiots.
I'm talkin dumber than a box of stupid.
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