Pipe tip to Miss Mary Prankster for turning me on to Dave Neiwert’s “The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right”. This morning synchronicity mingled with spring pollen as my cyber surf board splashed up against Hullabaloo’s review. Tristero: “It has often been noted that to the Right, 9/11 provided an opportunity to “get” Vietnam “right” by invading Iraq and “winning” rather than ignominiously withdrawing. Despite the fact that by any rational metric, the Bush/Iraq war was an unmitigated disaster and the situation today is slightly less anarchic than a Hobbesian State of Nature, it is a given among movement conservatives -- and their enablers in the press -- that the “surge” worked and “we” are winning in Iraq”.
To think otherwise would be French.
_______________
A comrade e-mailed me this question: How long can Glenn Beck keep it up?
Assuming that she meant his teevee antics, I replied: As long as Murdock is making money.
Cable infotainment is, after all, only concerned with converting ratings into pricey advertising fees; major dittos for talk radio. Because corporations feed Glenn’s plastic rocking pony, he plays the “rodeo clown” for fun and profit. Yes, that’s how the genius who can’t decide if the president is a socialist, communist or fascist describes himself. He might as well pretend Obama embodies all three of Old Europe’s ideological flings into one kitschy grotesquerie. Too bad C-movie director Ed Wood is fly fishing with Jesus. I’m sure Ed could have spliced together an appropriately bizarre film clip of goose-stepping vampire/ballerinas from outer space to augment the “rodeo clown’s” apocalypse-tinged performance art. Actually, Ronald McDonald is damn scary and would make me think twice about embracing The One World Order. But I imagine the bulk of Glenn’s admirers eat their fair share of Happy Meals and wouldn’t take kindly to their freaky icon being unfairly attached to Barney Frank‘s perverse fanny pack.
At this point, Glenn is hard-pressed to keep the nightly histrionics fresh. His weepy Chicken Little act is in danger of becoming another over played YouTube curiosity. If he backs off his over-the-top displays of gut-wrenching, patriotic angst, the audience tuning in just for grins (which is undoubtedly a thick slice) would muff another link and replace him with Rob Zombie’s latest DVD release. Barring an actual alien invasion, I give Glenn a month before his ratings are on par with what Greta Van Susteren’s pap generates.
It would be delightful if Glenn opted for a killer finale, complete with burly psychiatric nurses chasing him about the studio with hypodermic needles -- not that such ineradicable inanity would dampen local interest in attending another “We Surround…Them” hootenanny.
Until our tea bags dip again,
Juan Don
No comments:
Post a Comment