"Beck says 'Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini' were all progressives like Van Jones"
(Media Matters)
When I say that I love Glenn Beck, I'm not lying. I feel giddy when I think about the delicious stew of heartwarming idiocy that he is always on the verge of vomiting up. He makes me feel young again!
Where do you even start with this? First off, I disagree with Media Matters that the main thing about this video is where he says Van Jones is basically equivalent to Hitler. I feel that Glenn Beck saying Van Jones is a communazi fascist progressive is about as predictable as the sun rising in the east and not half as surprising. I wish I could say I was most surprised by his shameless and wide-reaching historical revisionism, but his 'Revolutionary Holocaust' special really set a high bar for mendacity. There is so much in this video that I don't even know where to begin! So let's start (logically!) at the beginning.
Wait! Wha... What is this?
SPECIAL BULLETIN TO COMRADES IN ALL SECTORS: Comrade Beck has, in his infinite wisdom, corrected several errors prevalent in the progressive-dominated field of history. It shall now be written that progressives started World War One, and no mention shall be made of the Kaiser, unrestricted submarine warfare, the Zimmerman Telegram, or whatever else bullshit communist ideas those college eggheads have about why America entered the war.
...Okay. I'm back. That was strange. Anyway, it explains why President Wilson's name will never outlive the shame of being the instigator of the Great War. Also: since when was the League of Nations a bid for totalitarian one-world government? But one can't get bogged down with 'details' or 'facts' when dealing with Glenn 'A Beautiful Mind' Beck.
I have to express my love for something that Glenn does here. He produces a metaphor for the situation, then explains that situation clearly and decisively in terms of that metaphor. You then try to figure out if what he said was true in light of reality. You then quickly realize that this a fruitless enterprise because no part of his metaphor actually corresponds to things in the real world. It's not really a lie, because a function of this behavior is that suddenly everything he says is a series of parables, above the vulgar falsifiability of regular statements. An example: his whole thing about small-government-minded folks not having a 'seat' at the 'table', a 'table' where the 'Founders' had (have?) a 'seat', and the nebulous, sinister 'progressives' 'take' (where to?) the 'chairs' from the 'table', etc. What is the table, in real life? What is the chair? Who is 'you', or 'us', or 'them'?* He's spouting koans! A wonderful side-effect of this is that he can make delightfully libelous statements and get away with it: namely, his statement that the 'progressives' 'took away' small-government types, presumably to some sort of FEMA concentration camp.
I find even more fine and delightsome his implication that the Nolan chart was the genesis of the modern libertarian movement. (Fuck you, Hayek! Shove it up your wrinkled old ass, von Mises!) I suppose that fits better into his overarching narrative** about American ingenuity*** or whatever. The Nolan chart is such a flawed and retarded way to divide political space that my mind is actually pained by the idea that anyone would think such a thing was a reliable way to meaningfully categorize our beliefs. Add to that Glenn Beck's tremendous stupidity, and what we get is a chart where evidently one axis of the chart is abortions and the other is wanting to force everyone to go to church.
Glenn Beck is a wonder, and I am thankful that I lived to see a man so skilled in the subtle arts of fraud and provocation. I am humbled by the immense talents this man clearly has. May he live for another thousand years!
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*Also note his use of the active where the passive would be more appropriate: "progressives changed the [meaning] of the word 'liberal'" should, logically, be "the meaning of the word liberal changed". But his way, it implies a conspiracy on the part of evil progressives to take up the mantle of a distinguished, existing ideology for a sort of wolf-in-sheep's-clothing effect.
** And this is what it's all about. This man is a modern day shaman and myth-maker, giving us straightforward narratives, animating myths, and simple explanations (hence his appeal).
*** Thus, now David Nolan 'invented' libertarianism(!).
