Thread: My name is Glenn Beck, and I need help

My name is Glenn Beck, and I need help

By Kathleen Parker
September 1, 2010

Despite all the words spilled in evaluating Glenn Beck's tent-less revival last weekend, the real meaning may have been hiding in plain sight.

Beck's "Restoring Honor" gathering on the Mall was right out of the Alcoholics Anonymous playbook. It was a 12-step program distilled to a few key words, all lifted from a prayer delivered from the Lincoln Memorial: healing, recovery and restoration.

Saturday's Beckapalooza was yet another step in Beck's own personal journey of recovery. He may as well have greeted the crowd of his fellow disaffected with:

"Hi. My name is Glenn, and I'm messed up."

Beck's history of alcoholism and addiction is familiar to any who follow him. He has made no secret of his past and is quick to make fun of himself. As he once said: "You can get rich making fun of me. I know. I've made a lot of money making fun of me."

Self-mockery -- and cash -- seems to come easily to him.

Any cursory search of Beck quotes also reveals the language of the addict:

-- "It is still morning in America. It just happens to be kind of a head-pounding, hung-over, vomiting-for-four-hours kind of morning in America."

-- "I have not heard people in the Republican Party yet admit that they have a problem."

-- "You know, we all have our inner demons. I, for one -- I can't speak for you, but I'm on the verge of moral collapse at any time. It can happen by the end of the show."

Indeed. After the hangover comes admission of the addiction, followed by surrender to a higher power and acknowledgment that one is always fallen.

These may be random quotes, but they can't be considered isolated or out of context. For Beck, addiction has been a defining part of his life, and recovery is a process inseparable from the Glenn Beck Program. His emotional, public breakdowns are replicated in AA meetings in towns and cities every day. king others along for the ride, a.k.a. evangelism, is also part of the cure.

The healed often cannot remain healed without helping others find their way. Beck, who vaulted from radio host to political-televangelist, now has taken another step in his ascendancy -- to national crusader for faith, hope and charity.

It's an easy sell. Meanwhile, Beck has built a movement framed by two ideas that are unassailable: God and country. Throw in some Mom and apple pie, and you've got a picnic of patriotism and worship.

Wait, did somebody say . . . Mom???

Sister Sarah, come on down!

Yes, Mother Superior made an appearance. Sarah Palin, whom Beck sainted a few months ago during an interview in which he declared her one of the few people who can save America, came to the Mall not to praise politics but to honor our troops.

Palin is the mother of a soldier, after all, and God bless her, and him, and all those who have served. Unassailable. As Palin said, whatever else you might say about her, she did raise a combat soldier. "You can't take that away from me."

Who you? Oh, that's right, The Media. Never mind that Beck is one of the richest members of the media. Or that Palin has banked millions primarily because The Media can't get enough of her. But what's an exorcism without a demon? And who better to cast into the nether regions than the guys lugging camera lights?

Covering all his bases, Beck invoked the ghost of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who stood in the same spot 47 years ago to deliver his most famous speech. Where King had a dream, Beck has a nightmare: "It seems as darkness begins to grow again, faith is in short supply."

Really? When did that happen? Because it seems that people talk about God all the time these days. Even during the heyday of Billy Graham, most Americans could get through 16 or so waking hours without feeling compelled to declare where they stood on the deity.

And the darkness? Creeping communism brought to us by President you-know-who. Conspiracy theories and paranoia are not unfamiliar to those who have wrestled the demon alcohol.

Like other successful revivalists -- and giving the devil his due -- Beck is right about many things. Tens of thousands joined him in Washington and watch him each night on television for a reason. But he also is messianic and betrays the grandiosity of the addict.

Let's hope Glenn gets well soon.

kathleenparker@washpost.com

For more about the Glenn Beck rally, visit this page of archived coverage.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... inionsbox1

You know what I realized last night? Glenn Beck is "Squealor" from Animal Farm. Did you guys read that book?

From Wiki:

Allegory

Squealer, a persuasive pig, uses propaganda throughout the novel, and he displays it to all of the animals and to comrade Napoleon.

In Animal Farm, the pigs could be identified with Soviet leaders of the time. Napoleon symbolizes Stalin and Snowball may symbolize Trotsky. Squealer's human counterpart may be obscure. Squealer may represent propaganda overall, as he was the key spokesman for the pigs. His persuasive language and demeanor and re-interpretations of facts illustrates the power of propaganda to control under- and un-educated people. Squealer may specifically represent the state-run newspaper Pravda. This interpretation fails to associate Squealer with a specific figure in Stalin's inner circle.

He could represent Molotov, fitting with Orwell's description of and central role given to Squealer.[citation needed] Squealer is a close companion and protégé of Napoleon; Molotov was a close companion and protégé of Stalin. Squealer serves mainly as Napoleon's "propaganda minister"; Molotov was Stalin's Prime Minister (1930-1939) and Foreign Minister (1939-1949) and frequent spokesman. When the animals suspect the pigs are breaking the Seven Commandments, Squealer justifies their actions. For instance, when the other animals question the pigs' taking the milk and apples, Squealer reassures them that milk and apples are vital to pigs' health, that the pigs are not acting out of selfishness, and that Mr. Jones may return if the pigs didn't hog the milk and apples. In a similar vein, Molotov was an apologist for Stalin, rationalizing Stalin's tyranny as being in the best interests of the people.

Squealer's arguments

Throughout the book, Squealer justifies his arguments using his great powers of persuasion, his eloquent words, and his charismatic intellect. His foundation for many of his arguments is that the animals do not want Mr. Jones back in power in the farm, and therefore must support Napoleon. He devises various other reasons to convince the other animals of the farm to believe him, backing them up with claims of scientific evidence (for example, apples and milk), recently discovered "documentary evidence" (proving the complicity of Snowball in working with the enemy) and using difficult reasoning, which confused the other animals.

Squealer takes the central role in making announcements to the animals, as Napoleon appears less and less often as the book progresses.

Breaking of the Seven Commandments

Throughout the book, Napoleon and Squealer break the Seven Commandments, the tenets on which governance of the farm is based. To prevent the animals from suspecting them, Squealer preys on the animals' stupidity and alters the Commandments from time to time as the need arises. This is proven on page 73 of the British version when Squealer falls off the ladder while trying to change the commandments in the night. A few days later it is discovered that Squealer was altering the commandment regarding alcohol which suggests the reason he fell off the ladder was because he was drunk at the time. Orwell uses Squealer to mainly show how some governments and politicians use propaganda to get their ideas accepted and implemented by the people. In the end, Squealer reduces the Seven Commandments into one commandment, that "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".

FOX and Beck fully know what they are doing, but the farm is none the wiser.