Glenn Beck and the Fox Puppets Want to Repeal the 20th Century

Newsweek ^ | February 22, 2010 | Jonathan Alter

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Glenn Beck has now supplanted Rush Limbaugh as the most influential broadcaster in America. He's the one the tea-party movement looks to. Beck wowed the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) crowd Feb 20 with his attack on progressivism, which he said must be "eradicated." "Progressivism is the cancer in America and it's eating our Constitution," Beck told the crowd.

Now that Beck has given his marching orders, expect to hear all the Fox Puppets echoing him. The goal is to discredit "progressivism" as they did "liberalism."

Beck fancies himself a historian; his patter is full of historical references that seem to have convinced his audience that he knows what he's talking about. Historians like Beck know that when they offer provocative ideas, they bear responsibility for what those ideas actually mean.

So let's look at what would happen if the "cancer" had been cut out when it first appeared, as Beck recommends. A world without the Progressive Era would be a world with:

• Only men voting: The 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote was the product of progressivisim. Beck thinks women are second-class citizens.

• No cell phone or low-cost long-distance telephone service: It was the breakup of AT&T in the 1970s under the progressive antitrust laws that allowed for today's telecommunications (and computer) systems. Beck thinks corporations should have no restraints at all.

• State legislatures electing U.S. senators: The 17th Amendment, part of the progressive movement, allowed for the direct election of senators. If you think the Senate is bad now, imagine what it was like when state legislators were the only voters. (They defeated Abraham Lincoln in Illinois in 1858 even though he won the popular vote for Senate). Beck likes hacks.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Etc., etc.

Sounds like something from high school:

Beck likes hacks, neener-neener-neener...

[screaminsunshine]

Communist idiot from Newsweak.

[Nat Turner]

NewsWEAK is still around??

[mnehring]

Glenn Beck has now supplanted Rush Limbaugh as the most influential broadcaster in America.

Says who? They serve different roles. Rush is an educator, Beck is more of an entertainer. It is like comparing your professor (Rush) to a motivational speaker (Beck).

[RockinRight]

Only men voting: The 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote was the product of progressivisim. Beck thinks women are second-class citizens.

OK, show me a quote where Beck said that. Wait, you can't? Facts are stubborn things, aren't they?

[the long march]

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

L is for LOSER.

[cranked]

Newsweek who again?

[Puppage]

with his attack on progressivism

Progressivism is what they call it when they're afraid to call it what it REALLY is: liberalism.

[Army Air Corps]

Beck thinks women are second-class citizens.

Of course, the author has proof to support this statement. Right? Right?

Nothing like half-arsed hitpiece "journalism."

[mylife]

Glenn Beck has now supplanted Rush Limbaugh as the most influential broadcaster in America.

Lol!!!

[chris_bdba]

Duh! Beck is not talking about wiping out technonly just the progressiveism in Federal government. I guess Jonathan Alter “fancies” himself as a writer?

[Nervous Tick]

Personally, I don’t think Glenn Beck is worthy to tie Rush Limbaugh’s shoes.

But if he’s pi$$ing Jonathan Alter off, he’s certainly doing SOMETHING right!

Go get ‘em, Glenn boy!

[Tarpon]

Rick Santelli spawned the Tea Party on Feb 19, 2009 while ranting away on CNBC.

Got that wrong, probably the rest of the article is "WE SURE WOULD LIKE YOU TO BELIEVE THIS", so we can start a fight.

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

Progressivism gave us cell phones.

But wait... don’t cell phones cause cancer?

Progressivism really does cause cancer! Beck was more right than he ever knew!

[Mengerian]

No surprise.

I hate Wikipedia, but that’s where I sourced this gem:

“During an interview with 60 Minutes on November 14, 2008, then-President-elect Barack Obama said he had recently been reading The Defining Moment (authored by Alter) and hoped to apply some of Roosevelt’s strategies that were outlined in the book into his own administration.”

That’s nice. Obama governs from books he reads by liberal columnists.

[Pravious]

“Says who? They serve different roles. Rush is an educator, Beck is more of an entertainer”

Not even much of THAT, IMHO. Granted, I’ve only heard his radio program, but I find that sounds more like a politically tinged Howard Stern show than anything else.

Sorry... if I want to hear annoying people I’ll listen to liberals.

[ez]

Alter gets most of it wrong. It actually would be better if state legislatures still elected Senators. Cell phone would have been invented with or without deregulation. And women would eventually got the vote with or without progressives. However, it would have been better if they had kept the vote limited to landowners...the serfs just vote to spread their property around.

[chris_bdba]

Newsweak...isn’t that that old magazine that publishes week old news and tries to be relevant even though the average of of it’s subscribers has to be 68?

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

There’s nothing “liberal” about what these statists believe. It’s just totalitarian collectivism, plain and simple.

[kcvl]

NewsWEAK is still around??

All eight pages of it. I saw one in the trash at a doctor's office. Don't know how it got there either.