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washingtonpost.com
Great piece on Beck and how he's giving voice and legitimacy to the violent fringe.
It's sad how some people can view a show that is obviously fear-mongoring, race-baiting, and hyper-partisan propaganda as some sort of truth expose.
I wonder how much personal investigation these people actually do. When we confront a Beck fan on DP with facts that contradict something he said on his show, they fight tooth and nail to hold on to their distorted reality.
Maybe someone should do a study on mental illness and Beck fandom.
What do we know:
1) Everything Williams knows about Tides Foundation is from Beck's show.
2) Since Beck's show premiered, Tides has been mentioned on 31 editions of Fox News programs, 29 of which were editions of Beck's show.
3) During the same time, Tides was not mentioned on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, or PBS.
Beck characterized Tides as a "mass organizations to seize power." A secret conspiracy to infiltrate capitalism and cause it to fail. All the language Beck uses to describe Tides, you'd think he was talking about a James Bond villain and George Soros was Goldfinger. Infiltration, indoctrination, take-over... nothing with any basis in reality. Yet Beck irresponsibly puts it out there as fact, then unstable, angry people hear this nonsense, and get all worked up.
And, in this case, act out.
The piece goes into some more detail of how Williams would 'verify' what Beck was telling him by using the internet. But if you start with the assumption that anyone calling Beck a liar or less-than-credible is a leftist not to be trusted, how do Beck fans ever expect to get the truth? They cling to fear and paranoia.
Great piece on Beck and how he's giving voice and legitimacy to the violent fringe.
Conspiracy theorists find validation from Glenn Beck
By Dana Milbank
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Glenn Beck has a friend in California.
"I would've never started watching Fox News if it wasn't for the fact that Beck was on there," says this friend, Byron Williams. "And it was the things he did, it was the things he exposed, that blew my mind."
It's sad how some people can view a show that is obviously fear-mongoring, race-baiting, and hyper-partisan propaganda as some sort of truth expose.
"I do enjoy Glenn Beck," Williams also says, "and the reason why I enjoy that is because... no other channel will speak about the same things that he's talking about, and if you go and investigate those things you'll find out that they're true."
I wonder how much personal investigation these people actually do. When we confront a Beck fan on DP with facts that contradict something he said on his show, they fight tooth and nail to hold on to their distorted reality.
Maybe someone should do a study on mental illness and Beck fandom.
Unfortunately for Beck, this satisfied viewer currently resides at the Santa Rita Jail near Oakland and stands accused of a freeway shootout with police. Williams pleaded not guilty to four counts of attempted murder of a police officer. But according to court documents, he said he had been on a mission to kill people at the liberal Tides Foundation, which happens to be a favorite Beck target.
What do we know:
1) Everything Williams knows about Tides Foundation is from Beck's show.
2) Since Beck's show premiered, Tides has been mentioned on 31 editions of Fox News programs, 29 of which were editions of Beck's show.
3) During the same time, Tides was not mentioned on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, or PBS.
Beck characterized Tides as a "mass organizations to seize power." A secret conspiracy to infiltrate capitalism and cause it to fail. All the language Beck uses to describe Tides, you'd think he was talking about a James Bond villain and George Soros was Goldfinger. Infiltration, indoctrination, take-over... nothing with any basis in reality. Yet Beck irresponsibly puts it out there as fact, then unstable, angry people hear this nonsense, and get all worked up.
And, in this case, act out.
The piece goes into some more detail of how Williams would 'verify' what Beck was telling him by using the internet. But if you start with the assumption that anyone calling Beck a liar or less-than-credible is a leftist not to be trusted, how do Beck fans ever expect to get the truth? They cling to fear and paranoia.