Glenn Beck: Who? Me? Spread baseless FEMA concentration camp conspiracy theories?
By David Neiwert Saturday Jun 13, 2009 1:00pm
Glenn Beck went on Bill O'Reilly's program last night, protesting his innocence after Paul Krugman ably limned the culpability that people like Beck, Bill O'Reilly, and other right-wing yammerers have in raising the temperature of the national discourse to the level that now violent right-wing nutcases are popping off like so much popcorn.
It was, of course, an extended exercise in frantic obfuscation, like a cat trying to cover its dung:
Beck: Well, first of all, the only people responsible for anybody's death are the people --
O'Reilly: Are the murderers.
Beck: Are the murderers.
Ah yes, the nonexistent "lone wolf" defense. Gee, I guess this means that those suicide bombers in Baghdad and Jerusalem are just "isolated incidents" too, and no one but the bombers themselves are responsible. At least in Beck's and O'Reilly's world.
O'Reilly: Well, now, Paul Krugman doesn't feel that way.
Beck: Oh, no. No. But you know what I found? Paul Krugman -- he's of course blaming you as -- well, you're the baby killer ... killer -- whatever --
O'Reilly: The assassin enabler.
Beck: Yeah. And I am, uh, I am responsible for all kinds of conspiracy theories, I think I'm also responsible for the Holocaust shooter --
O'Reilly: Well, lemme, lemme, lemme quote -- here's what Krugman said about you today. He's criticizing Fox News:
Exhibit A for the mainstreaming of right-wing extremism is Fox News’s new star, Glenn Beck. Here we have a network where, like it or not, millions of Americans get their news — and it gives daily airtime to a commentator who, among other things, warned viewers that the Federal Emergency Management Agency might be building concentration camps as part of the Obama administration’s “totalitarian” agenda ... .
Beck: Never said that. Never said that.
O'Reilly: But Krugman doesn't care whether you said it or not. It sounds good.
Beck: Oh, I know. Never said that. You know, the reason I did that concentration camp thing or that FEMA story was because I snapped on the air one day.
O'Reilly: No! You?
Beck: Somebody called me on the radio and I said, 'Can we stop with the FEMA camps? Can we stop with the FEMA camps? I want, one way or another, I want it yes or no.' So I went to my staff and I said, 'I want proof that these don't exist, please?' A couple -- oh, maybe about a week later they came to me and said, 'Well, we don't really have proof' -- I said, 'You've gotta be kidding me. What do you mean, we don't really have proof.' We contracted with Popular Mechanics. It took us, ah, four weeks -- the reason why it took us four weeks is because I said, 'See this video on television? I want you to find that prison, go there, and tell everybody what it is so we can A-B compare.'
O'Reilly: And they couldn't find it.
Beck: No, we found what's called the 'prison'. It's an abandoned train depot.
O'Reilly: But it wasn't a prison.
Beck: It's not a prison.
O'Reilly: But it doesn't matter what you say, or what I say. They're going to take it and -- what Krugman wanted to do was he wanted to tell is readers -- who never watch you, by the way, they never watch Fox News either -- that you are accusing Obama of building concentration camps.
Well, Beck did indeed run a noteworthy segment that actually debunked the FEMA concentration-camp theories. But it was something akin to running a single correction on A23 for a series of sensationally bannered stories on A1.
Just as important, Beck has continually charged that the Obama administration is leading us, as Krugman charged, down the path to totalitarianism. That has, in fact, been the entire theme of his show for several months now.
You see, what's missing from Beck's account is the fact that he broadcast to the world, on numerous occasions, the fact that "he couldn't disprove" the concentration-camps story. First there was his March 3 appearance on Fox and Friends:
Beck: We don't even understand freedom anymore. We are a country that is headed toward socialism, totalitarianism, beyond your wildest imagination.
I have to tell you, I am doing a story tonight, that I wanted to debunk these FEMA camps. I'm tired of hearing about them -- you know about them? I'm tired of hearing about them. I wanted to debunk them.
We'll we've now for several days been doing research on them -- I can't debunk them! And we're going to carry the story tonight.
...It is our government -- if you trust our government, it's fine. If you have any kind of fear that we might be headed toward a totalitarian state, there is something going on in our country that it's -- it ain't good.
Beck tried a month later to portray himself as fundamentally skeptical of the claims -- but he sure had a funny way of showing it a few weeks before.
He also reported it credibly, twice, on his own Fox News program. As he promised on Fox and Friends, he announced on the air that night that "we can't disprove" the FEMA concentration camps story.
Now, that's modern media ethics for ya: Broadcast to the world that "you can't disprove" a cockamamie, half-baked and wild-sounding theory, do it several times, and then quietly run a story in fact disproving the theory four weeks later.
So, I keep hearing that Glenn Beck fellates Bill O'Reilly under the anchor desk each week just prior to his regular appearance on The O'Reilly Factor (why do you think they call it "At Your Beck and Call"?). And you know what, I've set my staff about finding out the truth, and they can't disprove it!
We'll get back to you in about four weeks with the real scoop on that one. Have lots of brain bleach handy. In the meantime, we'll repeat this several times: We hear Beck fellates BillO, and we can't disprove it!
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"We hear Beck fellates BillO, and we can't disprove it!"
Really, you heard that? I heard the entire staff at FOX, including Beck and O'Reilly, take a bus trip out to the country once a month to have sex with barn animals. Some guy told me.
Don't get upset with me that I'm simply asking if this is the case, though, Glenn... I mean, unless you hate people who are simply interested in getting to the bottom of things they hear. Is that what it is, that you hate people who want to confirm facts?
How very American of you!
to once a week, but they're not really the best at keeping time. The cows, who are excellent timekeepers, remember getting their udders pulled every morning, but remember how often they get something small like a Beck or O'Really penis inserted, not so much. And every morning, the roosters crow that they're the only cocks still there when the sun comes up, so I dunno...
"Beck and O'railly lovers of bestiality?"
or "Beck is a batshit insane clown?"
The secret is in the question mark, you can say all sorts of false things and yet claim plausible deniability.
"As you know, some people say Beck and O'Reilly screw barn-yard animals... tell me why you don't think they do."
...he's a bigger CLOWN than the Falafel Man.
Tax Day Tea Party St. Louis on Glenn Beck | 4-1-2009 | Fox News
→ → →[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8FCeu5MnaU ]
Amended: Mr. Bill... towards the end there. It's not that difficult to predict the future when you know the facts!
I am just not that comfortable watching a circle jerk, the only thing missing was them tea-bagging each other
more of a rim-fest than anything.
It's like advertising for chocolate chip cookies with the slogan "Contains no shoe polish!"
Dim wit consumer thinks, "Hey. Is there shoe polish in these cookies? I better go get some of those, polish-free cookies!"
"I can't disprove the FEMA camps exist! And I can't disprove that there are NAZIS on the moon!"
that most Republicans have Nazi sympathies.
oh shit. You can't. Really. YOU CAN'T
WTF?!
Beck: Well, first of all, the only people responsible for anybody's death are the people --
O'Reilly: Are the murderers.
Beck: Are the murderers.
Which is why Hitler,who didn't physically harm a single person during WW2,is by this logic,completely innocent.
is gonna have to get Frank Luntz on the wording of that talking point before the next right-wing shooting occurs.
The optics of it just don't work with most people's common sense.
He didn't physically harm anyone at the Tate or La Bianca residences.
community now, and he wouldn't last one night under a bridge with the rest of the homeless and disturbed people. He's lived far longer and better in prison, at taxpayer expense, than he'd ever do in the real world.
He claims to have a wife? I doubt it. Not a live one, anyway. Why do O'Reilly and Beck keep stammering. Is the teleprompter with Murdoch's daily talking points on it going too fast? I can't finish watching the video. I can feel the heat creeping up my neck to my cheeks, and I have to shut it down. Like I said, just a fool. He is an insult to the intelligence of anyone who has any.
And, unfortunately, an idol to many who have none.
I'd bet he doesn't even care how stupid he looks, how many of his absurd theories get exposed for the trash they are, how many of his fake-crying spells get exposed for the phony opportunist stunts they are, etc.
He cares about one thing... and one thing only: the balance of his bank account. If that's healthy, I'm sure he'd gladly continue to be the official clown of Fox News channel for as long as they'll take him.
republicanism is a mental illness!
i honestly would like to see a pay-for-view
knockdown of beck and another bully his size.
it would feed great to see and hear a KO of
beck falling to the mat on his lying face.
any takers?
but we all know he would whine w/fake tears
back to the locker room and look for some
comfort from larry craig in stall #2
I mean, really. He has nothing to recommend him; starting with being a mouth-piece for the Mormon church to 'dog-piling' and regurgitating every scrap of right-wing dogma which comes his way). I absolute vomit every time I see him sucking up to Palin, Coultergeist, MM, Bachman, etc. He just fawns all over them. then goes for the Viagra. I have learned to ignore every C&L story with him in it. Surely, John can find better 'fill' for the site.
But you know what they say?
your enemies closer?
...
nuff said
People might not be able to tell the difference.
The average IQ of their audience is about 40.
why are all Muslims bad because 19 of them flew planes into some buildings? I mean according to these disingenuous Pieces of Shit, the entire Muslim World preaches hate and is therefore responsible for 9/11. Hell none of them were Afghani of Iraqi, but we went after them because they were guilty by association.
And these two assclowns were all for the indiscriminate killing imprisonment and torture of random Muslims for the 19 dead guys who did the deed.
That's a good point.
Also, if media has no capacity to affect an audience, why do they complain about the "liberal media"?
are you familiar with norman mineta's testimony to the 9/11 commission?
it's worth googling... it's a real good starting point.
These guys are saying that their own hate talk causes nothing bad, while saying for the last 8 years that fundamentalist Muslims' hate talk causes everything bad.
These guys just lie their asses off to protect themselves. Beck just annoys the hell out of me....I cannot stand looking at the guy and his creepy looks, much less listen to him lie about not spreading the FEMA concentration camp thing, before he finally debunked it. Why even bring up crap like that, even if you eventually debunk it after weeks? He did so in order to rouse his troops and stir more fear about the government.
Idiot dunce Beck.
David Neiwert can't disprove that Beck blows O'Mousedick! News at eleven.
Two well-paid salesmen, both agreeing that their product is great. Could it be any more phony?
... so it must be true.
I am so tired of Glenb Beck on all the sites. I see and hear a very sick twisted mind with a dangerously high profile platform. That's all. I just can't stomach looking or listening to him even for another minute...just cannot do it.
if not fema camps, where will everyone be sent in the event the rex 84 drills become reality?
REX 84
Yeah, the Fox shmucks seem to forget that the 'concentration camps' were originally Ray-gun's idea, and that the supposed sightings of them originated during the Bush reign. The first time I ever heard them mentioned was in reference to GWB using them to house dissenters.
...that Halliburton was awarded a multi-million dollar contract by the Bush Administration to build detention camps in the United States? They were purported to be used in case of some ill-defined "immigration emergency," which seemed phony on the face of it.
http://gnn.tv/headlines/7254/Homeland_Securit...
http://www.truthout.org/article/haliburton-aw...
http://www.democrats.com/node/7681
Just the other day, Paul Craig Roberts posted a column on COUNTERPUNCH in which he described the location of an empty, never-used camp built in recent years in Carrabelle, Florida. I found an aerial photo on Google Earth at the location he described that looks like some sort of camp.
I don't know what Beck said or didn't say about Fema prison camps, but there is ample evidence to suggest that such camps were planned and at least one has been built. Of course, this was the Bush Administration who initiated the project, but as we have seen, Obama's administration has eagerly pursued and even expanded upon many of Bush's claims to imperial, unchecked power.
It's easy to mock the dunderheaded Beck for his lies, fear-mongering, and paranoid fantasies, but given the subversion of so many of our laws and freedoms under the Bush administration that we know about, and given the reporting on these proposed camps, I think we laugh away talk of them at our peril.
I'm curious about whom, precisely, the "concentration camps" are for.
Have you a theory?
The theory I heard from my uncle-in-law was that they were for dissenters against Bush policies. Never got any more specific than that. But apparently the idea originated with Ray-gun.
Of course, FEMA can't give a Katrina victim a livable trailer, so I don't feel too concerned about any kind of detainment center they could build.
I don't have any theories about who these facilities might be for, and I'm not even sure the government had (or has) any clear purposes in mind. I don't even know how many of these camps--for which millions were reportedly paid to Halliburton to construct--have actually been built. There does appear to be a camp at the location in Carrabelle, Florida that is deserted and has never been used, but I don't know for sure if that's even one of the camps that Halliburton was hired to build. But it is there.
I don't mean to suggest that Beck's fear-mongering is credible, or that the government is about to swoop down and initiate mass arrests of American citizens. However, we cannot simply dismiss talk of such camps as fantasy, as having no basis in reported fact. It's ominous enough that our goverment would build or would make plans to build such camps "just in case."
If nothing else, when money is denied for public works that can benefit our citizens, why were millions of tax dollars paid to Halliburton to build these vaguely explained facilities? If Halliburton never built any camps, there's all the more reason to ask for an accounting of monies paid to them for such purpose.
I know allot, great deal, quite a bit and most often everything about anything, on the other hand I left school in the tenth (10th) grade, so there maybe topics, subjects, issues or things, I may not be able to answer with certainty just yet... but thing(s) take time.
I enjoyed reading about gerbils, rats and hamsters as a child, as well as sports, my favorite being [Brian's song]... Based on the real-life relationship between teammates Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers and the bond established when Piccolo discovers that he is dying.
→ → → Another book I purchased during that time was [Nice Guys Finish Last], by Leo Durocher, though for some reason, I failed to read the whole book like I did the afformentioned. I'm not sure, but who knows, maybe I was attracted to the book cover more then the content?
It maybe a lazy approach, but I believe I've learned more by watching and listening as apposed to physically reading, evident by my preference for books on CD's. I don't know where I was going with this spiel, but maybe for the fact that I just wanted to give an opinion. I'd guess you could call it a preface to all I realy wanted to say was...
"A lie is a lie no matter how many people believe it. Truth is the truth even if no one believes it." concurrently,"Truth can always withstand questioning" It's the facts that count!
Thanks 4 your time, Bdee,Bdee,Bdee...That's all folks! :)
Sigh. [More here.]
Glenn Beck was the kid on the playground with the big head and striped shirt. When confronted with a bully he hit the ground, assumed the fetal position, and was beaten. Remember that guy? He grew up to be crazy famous on Fox News.
Not this nut case again.
I know that he needs to be monitored for outlandish remarks.
But would someone get him some valium or Zanax. Maybe some Thorazine?
At any rate, I don't listen to him. Life's too short.
But thank you David for doing the dirty work. It can't be easy to do.
I've been interested in your book. I've been a little short of cash lately. But I want to buy your book. just so you know. Keep up th great work David. I appreciate your efforts.Ta
Shipping estimate for these items: June 15, 2009
1 "Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left"
Thomas Cushman; Paperback; $17.90
Sold by: Amazon.com, LLC
1 "The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right"
David Neiwert; Paperback; $11.53... FYI
Sold by: Amazon.com, LLC
PS. Picked up Hitch's book to escape s/h charges. As an admirer, I wanted to see what he considers to be "the Left" from a labeling perspective.
I'm interested in DN's book. I'll look for CH's book and borrow it somewhere down the line. Or find it at a used book store. He's too rude for my tastes. Although, I do think the man is intelligent. His perspectives on a number of issues makes me reluctant to go out and buy his book. But, ya never know. It might be a good read. but I have my reservations. know what I mean?
But thank you for doing all that work.:)
as far as finances are concerned, it's not the cost of the book.
It's a priority thing right now.
brought to my attention, my oversight with regard to those quotation marks "" in the Sarah Palin thread awhile back. Your demeanor absent any sarcasm, was not only commendable but obviously cherished.
Not to minimize my intent, I just cut-N-pasted from my email notice. Thank you for teaching me to pay more attention... As much as I'd like to have blamed my screen resolution, lighting, my aging eyes or whatever other excuse us humans might use, I was simply more interested in replying to the comment then the formation of it. :-/ Say La Vee
I've still tripped up since... but as you see, I've not forgot the lesson. As far as the alleged booze guzzling, chain smoking Mr. Hitch I'll agree he is not timid, but some times ya gotta meet fire w/fire, metaphorically speaking that is. With a pun on-top! :) Thanks 4 ya time once again. ♥
Just when you think they can not sink any lower... they prove you wrong.
Nice to see you again.
Half-truths, red herrings, false representations...oh how I wish Classical Logic was a requirement to get a high school diploma. SO MANY are so ill-equipped to think through the tidal wave of fallacies from these guys.
What's really awful is that there is no sign of them stopping. None. No one is holding them accountable that gets past their handlers, and GOD FORBID they have someone on their show that disagrees with them (and God forbid further that they would treat them civilly).
It's all ratcheting up, and though he's gotten on my nerves lately, Bill Maher nailed it when he said that the only difference between P.J. O'Rourke and James Von Brunn is that one was willing to pull a trigger aimed at a liberal, besides that they are no different. O'Reilly and Beck aren't willing to kill, but they know how to get to the people that are.
I hate saying this, but I think the only way they MIGHT shut up is if Obama is assassinated, and Jesus Christ I don't want that. No one who is truly able to stop them from inciting violence through their rhetoric is lifting a finger to do so. I so hope I'm wrong.
hes dumb as hell and i cant take it anymore
Excellent point, David...
The nuts between their legs are smarter than these two ignorant Faux Noise, Relug fools.
When you're looking at Beck ,you're looking at a congenital liar .
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