re: Glenn Beck is one of "them."
Norman, you bring up a couple of interesting points
with your comment about Glenn Beck.
One is what I call the "Messiah Syndrome."
It's a mind-game that people play with themselves.
Here's how it works...
Instead of using issues raised by someone as a stepping stone
for doing their own research and fact checking... or instead
of taking what's valid on a particular issue, and acting upon
that information - they do nothing.
And they rationalize their apathy and inaction by finding
something, anything, some small imperfection, or point of
contention that they can use as an excuse to dismiss
everything that follows, in order to rationalize,
continuing to do nothing.
They look for the "Perfect Messiah."
They look for someone who agrees with them on every issue,
someone who tells them only what they want to hear,
but never what they need to hear.
They look for someone with whom they are in perfect
agreement with, on every issue.
And of course, that someone, that "Perfect Messiah,"
doesn't exist. And thus they can continue to rationalize
their apathy, and not getting involved, or taking action.
To your point on Glenn Beck being "one of them."
I've mentioned many times that personally, I don't "like"
Glenn Beck. And I've pointed out that Beck went out of
his way to bash Ron Paul and his supporters at a key
point in Ron Paul's campaign. As well as the reason
behind Beck being brought over from CNN to FOX, and
that was to manage the "912 Movement" which was scripted
and handed to him, to circumvent and co-opt the 911 Truth
movement. And I hammered Beck for what I thought was his
off-the-wall proposal to "fix Social Security."
But with Lou Dobbs being driven off the air at CNN, and with
Sean Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly being nothing but partisan
wind bags who do no real investigative reporting...
there's really no one left in the mainstream media who is
doing any real investigative reporting into the Obama
administration, or asking the hard, tough, questions that
need to be asked.
Beck and his research staff have pushed some incredibly
important stories to the front page, that otherwise would
have wilted away into the blogosphere, and never saw the
light of day in the mainstream press.
ACORN, and Van Jones would still be firing on all cylinders,
if not for Beck. Andrew Breitbart alone, wasn't going to
be able to push the ACORN story to the front page and to
the dinner table discussion of middle America, but Glenn Beck
did.
Should you take everything that Glenn Beck says as the gospel
without doing some of your own follow up fact checking and
research?
No.
Should you ever forget what Beck did to Ron Paul and his
supporters?
No.
Should you forever tune out every investigative story that
Beck and his staff break, or stories from the blogosphere
that he uses the power of his microphone and the size of
his audience to push to the front page?
No.
People need to separate Beck's fact based investigative
reports, from his personal opinion and editorializing.
And they need to take personal responsibility to use
the stories they see broken by Beck, or anyone else
in the media, as "stepping stones" to continue on with
their own research and fact checking, and opinion
formation.
In our lifestyles today, especially for those married
with kids, people spend very little time thinking.
We spend a lot of time "downloading" information
in carefully scripted spoon-sized sound bytes from
the propaganda press, but very little time thinking,
or doing our own follow up research.
People don't read books and newspapers cover to cover
any more, they read headlines, skim through the paper,
and scan blog posts.
When Aldous Huxley said that "one day people would be
completely incapable of thinking for themselves,"
what he was describing is today's carefully scripted,
sound byte and talking points environment, where people
are so overwhelmed and manipulated by media...
that they merely download politically correct sound bytes
from which ever side of the left-right paradigm they've
chosen to align themselves with.
I wish there were 3,4, or 5 other people in the
mainstream media who were breaking the stories that
Glenn Beck is breaking, and covering the issues that
he's covering, but there's not.
If there was, I'd be the first one to change the channel,
never to return again.
I understand where people are coming from about Beck.
I wish Sean Hannity wasn't a complete and total partisan hack.
I wish Bill O'Reilly wasn't a pompous wind bag.
I wish Rush would dig a little deeper, and not be afraid
of pissing off his mainstream, partisan Republican audience,
and friends.
I can still listen to Rush, and Rush is slowly starting
to wake up and break out of the partisan mold a bit, but
he really threw me with his defense of Goldman Sachs.
Bottomline...
Take personal responsibility for seeking out the truth,
and the answers to issues you find important. Understand
that you're not going to find all the answers from any one
media pundit, or any one book. Take what's useful, and
toss away what's not, but keep an open mind. I probably
disagree with Rachel Maddow, Keith Olberman, and Chris
Matthews on 90% of the major issues, but that doesn't
mean that they don't have valid points on some issues,
or break stories that are backed by indisputable facts.
The same goes for Glenn Beck.
SOTB |
