Glenn Beck's Messiah Complex

[Joanne98]

Rupert Murdoch's community organizer says that God speaks through him. Does Beck think he's the Second Coming? (His followers just may think so.)

August 28, 2010


The record for self-appointed messiahs isn't good. (Kool-Aid anyone?) But that appears to be the path Glenn Beck is headed down -- not that he'd ask his followers to die for him; he just wants them, for a handful of self-righteous feel-good, to sell their grandchildren's future well-being into the coffers of billionaires David Koch and Rupert Murdoch.

In the months since his February appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, Beck has added a new element to his customary line of wild-eyed, secular political conspiracy theories: his implied anointment as God's messenger, ordained to save the country and "restore honor" to its culture.

This month, he added a morning prayer segment to his daily radio program, and has described as "divine providence" his purportedly accidental selection of the date for the rally he will lead tomorrow on both the anniversary of and at the same site as Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. He has told his followers to expect a "miracle" on the day of the rally. And tonight, Beck's production company, Mercury Radio Arts, will produce a pre-game event at the (cough) Kennedy Center, modestly titled "Glenn Beck's Divine Destiny" (until it was apparently renamed "America's Divine Destiny" this morning, per the flyers handed ticket-seekers who were turned away).

http://www.alternet.org/news/148005/glenn_beck%27s_messiah_complex/

[GoldenOldie]

1. More like Beck conjuring up Joseph Smith!

[KatyaR]

2. or Jim Jones....

nt

[Moostache]

3. I think Beck's already drunk the Kool-Aid....

what we are witnessing is the slow effects of the potion on a once semi-sane brain...

[TheMuse]

4. This "movement" is getting scarier

Before it was some anti-Obama, anti-government (except what they like government to do), political, and redneck party. Now I think Beck is trying to turn it in a more theocratical direction. That is truly scary.

[Octafish]

5. ''I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!'' -- Howard Beale

"I'm as evil as hell and I'm going to take everybody with me!" -- Glenn Bekkk

[ThomThom]

6. What does "restore honor" mean? Do we lose honor when we

over throw governments we disagree with? Do we lose honor when ignore the Constitution? Is it honorable to sell people's jobs out for profit? Is it honorable to attack an entire religion because of the actions of a handful. What honor would he restore? If he wants to restore honor he should call on the people to reach out a helping hand to another, show tolerance for others' beliefs and bring peace to the world through understanding. There can be no honor when we occupy foreign countries and kill innocent people. There can be no honor when people don't have enough to eat or a place to live. There is no honor when we turn our backs on the sick and elderly. There can be no honor when people hate because of the color of skin, or religion or place of birth. Just what does he mean 'restore honor"?

[bemildred]

7. Well, apparently God likes money, great big piles of it. nt