Glenn Beck's original shtick was fairly ordinary for the talk-radio/cable-news formats: a regular-guy everyman, Joe Six-Pack, if you will, thoroughly unendowed with rhetorical gifts, genially befuddled by the actions of The Government. Gee whiz things just weren't the way they usedta be, etc. But somewhere along the way, the fillings in his molars began picking up transmissions from Betelgeuse, and now he spends most of his time explaining how the Messcans are attempting to immanentize the Eschaton and that the Baby Jesus inscribed the Constitution on seven tablets of gold and buried them on Mt. Vernon where Joseph Smith discovered them in the year 1492.
Playing a developmentally disabled Howard Beale, oddly enough, has not improved Beck's ratings, but it has attracted some amusing hold-out, hold-on fans, like Professor of Victory Studies, Donald Douglas, who prophesies:
I mentioned what I saw as frightening left-wing craziness and moral breakdown across the land, and I said off-hand that we needed to dig in our heels and fight the Obama hordes who are nationalizing everything. I suggested that we could have Democrats in power for two terms or more, and the total breakdown of society wasn't that far-fetched. Oh sure, we'd still have constitutional democracy, but America would be different.Different meaning abortions and gays, needless to say. There is, however, a charming, Weekly-World-News quality of the Apocalypse receding endlessly at fixed distance from the observer. TOTAL COLLAPSE OF CIVILIZATION! But "still a constitutional democracy," of course. Perhaps "partial breakdown of circumscribed portions of society" might be more appropriate, even if it does lack that certain Revelatory je ne sais quoi.
It occurs to me that the survivalist fantasias of today's lazy suburban conservatives are the contemporary counterpart to Leary's old adage: turn on, tune in, drop out--far more so than any attribute of the hipster assumed-inheritors of the counterculture. A few really will arm up and make for the deep woods to await to coming anarchy. The rest, the equivalent of concert-and-weekend acid dosers, will buy a handgun and put a couple hundred bucks worth of canned goods in the basement beside the Nordic Track.
29 comments:
Glenn Beck. "Listen to your gut." Insert punchline here.
Y2K! Y2K!
i see the end of society as we know it around every corner just as much as the next guy. i'm glad to finally see my point of view being taken seriously on television.
I actually pity these nuts more than anything else. They have no idea whats about to hit them. They will find themsevles in a world were nothing works like it used to, and the old rules no longer apply.
The empty jobs like "regional excecutive manager" will disappear along with the ego-boosting paychecks. Expect large amounts of suicides amongst white middle class men. The best we can do is hope most will do so in the privacy of their own homes rather than after a 20 person shooting rampage.
Fledermaus---
Thanks to your prescient comments I finally understand the revulsion for "black middle-classness" expressed so fervently by Reverend Wright and other proponents of the Dr. Manford Byrd's "Black Value System". On the surface, a burgeoning non-white middle class might seem a desirable goal, one which, to the uninitiated, President Obama himself appears to support. But your summation of the true dynamics at work quickly returns the "middle class" and the current economic malaise to their proper racialist context.
Yea, the mass hysteria and violence is upon us, as you and the hapless Dr. Beck have foreseen, and as you predicted, it shall be the Whites who reap the whirlwind. The signs and portents are upon us---all that remains is Chalie Manson's next parole hearing....
For the record, "shall" is, in contemporary usage, really only appropriate in the first person.
Otherwise, I fully support any conceivable apocalypse.
Please don't belittle the "lazy suburban conservatives". They will perform a valuable service during the collapse. While my colleagues and I secure our redoubts in the deep woods, they with their handguns and canned goods will be the public face of resistance to the Obamist fascicrats. While some might see them as mere cannon fodder, we consider them canaries in the mine. When the government, or more likely, its ACORN paramilitary auxiliaries, feels free to take action against these, we will know the time for own action is near.
That linked article is a gem:
"[Doomsday scenario where] 50 million people are unemployed worldwide"
50,000,000 / 6,000,000,000 = 0.83%
"civil-union smorgasbord"
What's that, two guys fucking on a pile of swedish meatballs? Sounds kinky.
professor of victory studies....classic.
uh ioz maybe it's only the jack t. ripper types w/the total commitment to hole up in burpleson, but there seem to be quite a few of them commenting on that site. "my bullets are MINE dammit!" "city ordinance requires you to be a heat-packing dead eye to live here, so we are all set."
But your summation of the true dynamics at work quickly returns the "middle class" and the current economic malaise to their proper racialist context.
Inkberrow, it is not actually just a racial issue more an issue of who's got further to fall. The underclass has not had consistant access to the priviledges that whites take for granted. Of course all that is going to change IMHO so having to fend for one's self changes from a disadvantage to an advantage during a collapse. They are going to have a rude awakening as they learn that we're all niggers now - pardon my French - and the police and military are most definately NOT going to be on their side.
The key is the underclass (both black and white) has little stake in the continuation in the status quo and also is not as dependent on it for survival. When the USSR fell it wasn't the out of work factory workers that blew their brains out but the mid-level aparatchiks who actually did reasonably well under the Soviet system. They just couldn't cope with the unavoidable changes.
But at least the grand tradition of Russian black humor provided some psychic shielding and they could look at the "success" of the US as a ray of hope. Americans have no such advantages.
Different meaning abortions and gays, needless to say.
in the good professor's other words,
"the destruction of the moral fabric of this country"
this isn't 'nam. this is bowling. there are rules.
Only Jack Mormons can be Joe Sixpacks.
"make for the deep woods to await to coming anarchy." Doubt that, until they make a mile's long extension cord to power the microwave.
I'm going to try to move past the deep desire to hit such an easy, easy target as the pinhead Glenn Beck.
I usually wonder if his viewers (or what remains of them) really do have deep misgivings about the march of state power. Of course, I doubt this, given that Beck's a complete statist when it serves his interests. I want to see that fringe as amenable to my own fringe interests. But I think that I'm probably just indulging some basic bleeding heart sentimentality. Ah well. He really is an imbecile, isn't he?
my gut told me it would like some more fiber in my diet.
Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there.
Fledermaus---
I agree that adjusting to the Recession should not at first (or second) blush be a race-driven concern, which is why your seemingly gratuitous Damn Whitey rhetoric stood out. There is, I realize, a time-honored American tradition of redirecting inchoate fears and resentments at immigrants and/or members of discrete racial and social demographics. Between you, me, Beck, and Professor Douglas, we should be able to muster a sufficiently diverse response.
Do y'all think he's named after McDonnell Douglas? It would be pretty appropriate - mindless pro-war (excuse me - pro-victory) "milblogger" named after soulless pro-war defense contractor.
Inkberrow,
I think you might have misread. I don't harbor any ill-will against Beck or the lazy suburban conservatives who spend their spare time war gaming the collapse. In fact I usually just ignore the screechers. It's just interesting to see them endorsing themsevles as strong, rugged individualists cheering on the breakdown because they're certain they'll emerge on top at the end. Who knows, maybe some will. I'm hoping that most of them can adapt instead of lashing out against themselves or others. Of course this all assumes the theory about about the US going the way of the USSR is correct - which I've shamelessly and without atribution cribbed from Dmitri Orlov.
Studies have shown that conservatives (original definition) struggle when confronted with ambiguity and uncertanty more than others. And if there is one thing there's going to be plenty of in the coming years it's ambiguity and uncertanty.
my gut still evacuates manually.
Fledermaus---
As a white male conservative, I'm quite certain I did not misread your unambiguous remarks. And I take comfort in the certainty of change.
Inkberrow,
If you wish. As a white male nihlist i tend to be rather flippant in a way that could be interpreted as shadenfreude. But way down deep in that part of me that i don't talk about at parties i actually buy into that old Tibetan dude who's always droning on and on about compassion
Cheers!
Mormons like Beck are by turn statists and conspiracy theorists, seeing no contradiction between the two positions.
His spiel on how God lends us the laws could have come straight from any sacrament meeting or priesthood session in any Utah wardhouse. He should tithe an extra percent or two for all the testimony meetings he plagiarizes on his show.
Also, observant Mormons are supposed to keep a one-year supply of food and water in their homes for the coming apocalypse. There are so many LDS in the CIA and foreign service that the government has arranged a special procedure for vacuum sealing the supply and shipping it to each new post. Swear to god.
"Mormons like Beck"....
That explains a ton.
Thanks Ioz for the grammar lesson.
I did not know that about "shall".
Puts me in mind of Mr. Bob, and the greatest backup band in the brief history of R&R.
Mike
Jesus Christ Inkberrow, you are the most tiresome bore to ever grace the hallowed halls of IOZ's comments sections. You're worse than Mr. Fun, for Christ's sake!
Anon 1:05---
I prefer "J.C. Inkberrow", if you don't mind---it's less pretentious. Yeah, Tiresome Bores are the WORST! For what it's worth, I'm endeavoring to become a Enthralling Bore.
I'm just bored. that I manage to convey this fact so thoroughly for you anon@1:05, only brings me joy.
Next!
"will buy a handgun and put a couple hundred bucks worth of canned goods in the basement beside the Nordic Track."
Well, you just described me. I'm such an Apocalypse poser.
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