President Obama Calls Limbaugh & Beck Rhetoric: ‘Troublesome‘

Posted by: Audiegrl

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Progressive Groups Mock Glenn Beck For Mocking Progressives (VIDEO)

Posted by: Audiegrl

HP~A trio of progressive groups is releasing an interactive video that mocks Glenn Beck for, well, mocking progressives.

MoveOn.org, in conjunction with SEIU and Brave New Films has put out a fake newscast (on the fake network CNNBC) in which the Fox News host goes through his usual moments of pique and emotional duress. Only this time, the subject of his conspiracy theories is the person signed in to watch the made-up video

An official with MoveOn says there is no fundraising pitch behind the effort. Generally, the groups are fed up with him demonizing progressives and want to start organizing a bit of pushback.

To customize the Beck outrage for you or a friend click here.

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The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart To Glenn Beck: “You’re A Communist!” (VIDEO)

Fresh from the week off, Jon Stewart jumped right in Monday night and took on one of his favorite targets, Glenn Beck, who used his appearance at CPAC as a chance to alert the crowd of the dangers of Progressivism.

At the conference, Beck compared Progressivism to Communism, and cited previous progressives such as Woodrow Wilson and FDR, who pushed for the income tax and universal health care, respectively. Despite the former being used by elected officials to create things for the common good, Beck stressed that these were the first steps on the road to ruin.

Upon hearing Glenn Beck announce that he learned this by reading books at the library, Stewart had a field day and hi-jixed ensued.

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The Good Wife: Tattoo You

Posted by: Audiegrl

I’ve been wanting to write about The Good Wife for a while, but must confess that I’m a few episodes behind, due to the holidays. Thank God for DVR’s. 🙂 But this article caught my eye…and might interest you. Spoilers alert.

LATimes/Meredith Blake~~For political junkies, especially those with a liberal streak, there’s probably not a better show on TV than “The Good Wife.” The series was back with a vengeance last night, introducing the loathsome Duke Roscoe (Craig Bierko), host of a charming TV show called “Gimme Truth” and a commentator who combines the relentless bullying of Bill O’Reilly with the paranoid histrionics of Glenn Beck. It’s truly an inimitable combination, folks! As ridiculous as Duke is — and as cheesy as his flag-waving, dangling noose graphics are — he’s only slightly less so than his real-life counterparts. Don’t believe me? Just watch this. Or this.

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Want to see the character Duke Roscoe in action?..Go to the 1:58 mark in the clip

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Palin/Beck 2012 You were warned….

She’s literally CLUELESS, he’s, well, just plain CRAZY

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While we’re on the subject:

Beck announces voter-education events

Popular media personality Glenn Beck says he’ll sponsor a series of voter-education conventions around the country starting next year, part of his 100-year plan for America.

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Internal Dialogues

Palin: “He (Beck) probably thought it was just a hoot too. I don’t know, we’ll see.” Palin told Newsmax she could “envision a couple of different combinations, if ever I were to be in a position to really even seriously consider running for anything in the future, and I’m not there yet.” She added: “But Glenn Beck I have great respect for. He’s a hoot.”

It looks like the respect might not be mutual. From the morning’s radio show:

BECK: I don’t think things are hoots. I don’t. I don’t think it’s a hoot. I would never use the word hoot, and I respectfully ask that every time my name is brought up she would stop using the word ‘hoot.’ […]

No, no I’m just saying — Beck-Palin, I’ll consider. But Palin-Beck — can you imagine, can you imagine what an administration with the two of us would be like? What? Come on! She’d be yapping or something, and I’d say, “I’m sorry, why am I hearing your voice? I’m not in the kitchen.”

source:

Gap’s Christmas Cheer Makes A Boycott Backfire

Posted by Audiegrl

The American Family Association attacked Gap for not using the word ‘Christmas‘ in its advertising — but in fact it does, and in a big way too

Los Angeles Times/Dan Neil—The Mississippi-based American Family Assn. last week issued a fatwa against Gap Inc. — the retailing giant whose brands include Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic — calling for a “two-month boycott over the company’s failure to use the word ‘Christmas’ in its advertising to Christmas shoppers.”

The War on Christmas season has officially begun.

Gap “does not use the word ‘Christmas’ to avoid offending those who don’t embrace its meaning,” writes Buddy Smith, executive assistant to the president of the AFA, on the organization’s website. “Christmas has historically been very good for commerce. But now Gap wants the commerce but no Christmas.”

“I interpret Gap’s decision as a warning sign to Christians to get out there and tell people about Jesus Christ,” writes Smith.

And they say nobody likes fruitcake.

It would be easy to get sidetracked into debating the merits of the War on Christmas. Why, for example, is the phrase “Happy holidays” so insufferable to Christian fundamentalists, but not the vulgar, surfeiting exploitation of Christ’s name to sell smokeless ashtrays, dessert toppings, Droid phones and trampolines? I’m not a theologian but I think the Gospels are pretty clear that Jesus was no fan of merchants.

And since China is in the news this week: Why not go after Gap and other retailers for trading in Chinese-made goods, since the Chinese government actively oppresses the Christian faith? Seems like building a case on religious tolerance would have more resonance. Oh, wait. Never mind.

But here’s the real question: Why attack Gap for not using the word “Christmas” in its advertising when in fact it does, and in a big way too?

Surf on over to YouTube and watch Gap’s latest 30-second spot, titled “Go Ho Ho” (Crispin Porter + Bogusky). The spot — which is in heavy rotation on network and cable TV — features a group of insanely athletic dancers leaping and twirling and stomp-cheering around a white log-cabin set. They chant, “Go Christmas, go Hanukkah, go Kwanzaa, go Solstice. . . . Do whatever you wannukkah and to all a cheery night.”

There it is, right up front, enjoying pride of place: the C-word.

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In one of the first lines of Gap’s new holiday ad, the dancers yell, “Go Christmas! Go Hanukkah! Go Kwanzaa! Go Solstice!” Check it out, its got great dancing too!

Get Ready For Holiday Cheer – visit cheerfactory.com to send some personalized digi-cheer to your friends.

IMHO, this entire drama could be avoided by simply educating people on the origins of what we know today as “Christmas“.

Several years ago a family member gave me the DVD “Christmas unWrapped- The History of Christmas“. It examines each of our holiday traditions and explains where they came from. Many people who believe we should “keep Christ in Christmas“, will be surprised to learn the historical facts. Its a very interesting documentary, that I highly recommend.

Click here to purchase

People all over the world celebrate the birth of Christ on December 25th. But why is the Nativity marked by gift giving, and was He really born on that day? And just where did the Christmas tree come from? Take an enchanting tour through the history of this beloved holiday and trace the origins of its enduring traditions. Journey back to the earliest celebrations when the infant religion embraced pagan solstice festivals like the Roman Saturnalia and turned them into a commemoration of Jesus’ birth. Learn how Prince Albert introduced the Christmas tree to the English-speaking world in 1841, and discover how British settlers in the New World transformed the patron saint of children into jolly old St. Nick.

This documentary explores the origin of Christmas and how it came to be the way we know it today. The documentary also incites the thought as to how Christmas is on one hand a result of social, cultural, and political influences (hence somewhat obscuring the apparent purpose of the festival: Christ’s Mass), and on the other hand a influence over people’s lives (particularly consumerism). Youtube links to the first three parts of the show are below.

I highly recommend purchasing this DVD. 🙂

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

“South Park” Takes On Glenn Beck: Cartman Leads Campaign Against “Communist” President

Posted by TheLCster

Eric Cartman is the new Glenn Beck. Last night on “South Park” the chubby youngster took over morning announcements and turned them from standard bullet points into long screeds about the student class president. Turns out Eric hates her and as a result devotes all his time to creating and promoting crazy conspiracy theories about her time in office. Sound familiar?

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Glenn Beck’s Radio Webcam Reaction To South Park’s Cartman Turning Into Him

Is Glenn Beck the Reincarnation of Cleon from Ancient Greece?

Posted by Audiegrl

Perfecting the Paranoid Style in 500 BC and 2009 by Peter Struck

Socrates

From Buckley to Beck

by Peter Struck Back in 1996, I had a correspondence with William F. Buckley, Jr., who, like many of those on the Right at the time, had a habit of claiming ownership over the ideas and spirit of the classical past. So it wasn’t altogether surprising to see him on television aligning himself with Socrates and pressing for the triumph of absolutes over relativism. What did catch my ear was that Buckley was arguing in favor of the death penalty, and was using Socrates to make his case. I couldn’t resist writing the man about the cruel irony of holding up as a poster boy for the death penalty the Western Tradition’s most famous victim of it. Buckley responded promptly, but never really engaged the most challenging issue: that Socrates, the paragon of classical rationalism, was deeply suspicious of that other signature legacy of his countrymen, democracy. He saw it as a system of government whose weakness was precisely that it rewarded those who could most artfully whip up a bunch of hot-headed boobs with the power to kill whoever displeased them. At its worst, it was rule by mob.

It Was Cleon Who Shouted the Loudest

The 2,400-year-old temple of Ifestos, which sits in the ancient Agora of Athens, where ancient Athenian statesman Cleon placed shields captured in a victory over Sparta

The archetype for Glenn Beck is a fifth century B.C. Athenian figure named Cleon, our first well-documented populist. Cleon represented a new class, made possible for the first time in democratic Athens. The notion that the whole people of Athens should participate in decisions collectively allowed for the rise of figures who presumed to speak for them. Cleon became wildly famous and successful not by coming from a powerful family, or by serving in regular office, but by delivering fiery speeches to thousands of Athenians in public. The Greek sources leave behind an unsparing portrait of an impulsive, histrionic bully. Aristotle tells us that “he was the first to use unseemly shouting and abusive language in the public assembly; and while it was customary to speak politely, he addressed the assembly with his cloak lifted up.” In Thucydides’ version, Cleon’s own lack of a pedigree provided him a plentiful source of resentment against those that had one, and he cast every self-aggrandizing gesture as a motivated by a love of the people over the aristocrats. He flattered his audience as being more capable of governing than the supposed experts in power. He personalized politics and under his influence those who disagreed with the state were referred to, for the first time in ancient Greece, as “haters of the people.” The comic playwright Aristophanes vividly portrayed him on stage as a man in a constant state of anger, his voice resembling the squeal of a scalded pig.

From Beck to Buckley

William F. Buckley, Jr. and Glenn Beck

In the line from Cleon to Beck there is hardly a wiggle. Less obvious but telling is the connection between both these figures and Buckley. Driven by an unyielding sense of their own correctness, all three are experts in the trade of absolutes, always pressing toward a higher-contrast world of black and white. While it has become utterly common to see people in the public sphere assume such a posture, it does not stand to reason that they must. Among Republicans, for example, one used to see a strain based on intellectual modesty, of resistance to grand theories and attempts to explain everything. Eisenhower built a coalition around such principles that held up for decades. Obama may well be up to doing the same. In order to get on with fixing what it was possible to fix, they recognized the usefulness of an ability to live with a degree of uncertainty, a quality that Goldwater, and later George Bush and Karl Rove, vanquished from the Republican Party.

Tea Party Protesters in Washington,DC

This Republicanism of certainty has had a good run, but it has likely reached the end of its appeal. David Brooks, whose sympathies attune with refinement to Eisenhower Republicanism, sounded its death knell in a recent column in the New York Times. If Beck’s days as the center of attention are numbered, as Brooks claims they are, it will not be because of his coarseness or his rejectionism, but because of his imperviousness to doubt. Intellectual hubris is tiresome in any case, but it is an especially odd standard to use to rally people who understand themselves as conservatives. Certainties are what one needs to upend things, and at a some point conservatives grow uncomfortable with that sort of thing. Cleon, that ancient voice of certainty, was not among the conservative lot at all, but a radical through-and-through.

While Buckley was of course right to point to Socrates as someone who endorsed the idea that there are absolutes, he missed the most important part of the story. The Greek philosopher was equally convinced that only a fool and a demagogue would claim to know them. If only Buckley were around to teach this lesson too.

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Founded and edited by Lewis H. Lapham, Lapham’s Quarterly is a New York-based journal of history that seeks to revitalize both our excitement and familiarity with the past. History, as Mark Twain supposedly said, may not repeat itself—but it does rhyme.

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Mocking Politicians Has An Ancient History

Jon Stewart Channels His Inner Glenn Beck

Posted by Audiegrl

The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart discovers the sinister (socialist, marxist, communist, government) plot to steal Glenn Beck’s precious bodily organs. Seriously, Jon fears for Beck’s digestive and immune systems!

Warning NSFW: This will have you laughing so damn loud your boss will fire you… 😉

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The G.O.P. Stalinist’s Invade Upstate New York by Frank Rich

Op-ed by Frank Rich

Frank Rich/The New York Times

New York Times/Frank Rich—Barack Obama’s most devilish political move since the 2008 campaign was to appoint a Republican congressman from upstate New York as secretary of the Army. This week’s election to fill that vacant seat has set off nothing less than a riotous and bloody national G.O.P. civil war. No matter what the results in that race on Tuesday, the Republicans are the sure losers. This could be a gift that keeps on giving to the Democrats through 2010, and perhaps beyond.

The governors’ races in New Jersey and Virginia were once billed as the marquee events of Election Day 2009 — a referendum on the Obama presidency and a possible Republican “comeback.” But preposterous as it sounds, the real action migrated to New York’s 23rd, a rural Congressional district abutting Canada. That this pastoral setting could become a G.O.P. killing field, attracting an all-star cast of combatants led by Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, William Kristol and Newt Gingrich, is a premise out of a Depression-era screwball comedy. But such farces have become the norm for the conservative movement — whether the participants are dressing up in full “tea party” drag or not.

The battle for upstate New York confirms just how swiftly the right has devolved into a wacky, paranoid cult that is as eager to eat its own as it is to destroy Obama. The movement’s undisputed leaders, Palin and Beck, neither of whom have what Palin once called the “actual responsibilities” of public office, would gladly see the Republican Party die on the cross of right-wing ideological purity. Over the short term, at least, their wish could come true.

The New York fracas was ignited by the routine decision of 11 local Republican county chairmen to anoint an assemblywoman, Dede Scozzafava, as their party’s nominee for the vacant seat. The 23rd is in safe Republican territory that hasn’t sent a Democrat to Congress in decades. And Scozzafava is a mainstream conservative by New York standards; one statistical measure found her voting record slightly to the right of her fellow Republicans in the Assembly. But she has occasionally strayed from orthodoxy on social issues (abortion, same-sex marriage) and endorsed the Obama stimulus package. To the right’s Jacobins, that’s cause to send her to the guillotine.

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