The following is an article I came across somewhere in a twitter feed. I found the content both curious and refreshing; and of course, I felt compelled to reply.
My Secret Addiction to Glenn Beck
My obsession with Glenn Beck dates back over a year.
We've heard a lot this week about Glenn Beck, thanks to his "Restoring Honor" rally on Saturday on the National Mall. But it was the summer of 2009 when I became truly addicted to his antics. It was the summer of the health care reform town hall meetings. On the Internet, shaky footage of elected representatives being jeered at and shouted down begat clips of right-wing provocatuers egging the mobs on, and he was leading the charge. By this spring, I was spending enough time at Media Matters for America, the self-described "Web-based watchdog of conservative misinformation," I might as well have worked there. Some days it flagged as many as a dozen different incitements from Beck's radio and television programs, intermixed with his fellow travelers.
Andrew Park
Of course, it's not just on the Internet that I can get my outrage on. Alone in a hotel room, I'll turn on Fox News and let its bilious blather wash over me. In the car, I'll switch the radio to AM and find the closest talk radio station, then change it back to NPR lest my wife suspect I've lost my marbles. My political views fall solidly left-of-center, so why can't I get enough of the right's rants? I'm sure if I went looking, I could find a counterpart on the right documenting the over-the-top liberal rhetoric of Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann to the delight of masochistic conservatives. Read entire article HERE.
My Secret Addiction to Glenn Beck
We've heard a lot this week about Glenn Beck, thanks to his "Restoring Honor" rally on Saturday on the National Mall. But it was the summer of 2009 when I became truly addicted to his antics. It was the summer of the health care reform town hall meetings. On the Internet, shaky footage of elected representatives being jeered at and shouted down begat clips of right-wing provocatuers egging the mobs on, and he was leading the charge. By this spring, I was spending enough time at Media Matters for America, the self-described "Web-based watchdog of conservative misinformation," I might as well have worked there. Some days it flagged as many as a dozen different incitements from Beck's radio and television programs, intermixed with his fellow travelers. |
| Andrew Park |
MY REPLY
Informed Obsessions
Submitted by Lori on September 6, 2010 - 10:55pm.
Curiosity got the best of me with your clever title and then led to this late-night read and reply.
How refrehsing you admit that you listen to Glenn Beck and Fox News. So many people, including the majority of the MSM journo-reporters, are so quick to criticize yet admittedly haven't spent more than a moment or two watching or listening to Glenn Beck or Fox News.
This isn't the point of my response to your article, but I'm going to share it anyway. I have been listening to Glenn Beck on the radio for the better part of 6 years. He isn't the only opinion I solicit when it comes to conservatism in the present political climate, but he is one of those I've consistently listened to for that length of time, and now watch in his 4th year of television commentary (His first two were at CNNHN). One benefit of having listened to Beck for so long, and for the fact that he is literally a peer of mine as we are virtually the same age, is that I have grown with him along the way. I know I'm not the only Glenn Beck "addict" that has experienced the current parallel political evolutions along side him, but there are a good many of us who right around 2004-05 started wondering where everything was going so haywire. We were slowly watching the world, and more specifically watch our country, begin to flip toward the upside-down. Then, in the election cycle that began in mid 2007, the inversion toward chaos started gain tremendous speed, and now it has momentum.
(Incidentally, this cycle I'm describing is something that any Libertarian will say started long before the dates I've provided -- I am half way there myself. As in, I'm well more than half Libertarian.)
The rest of the Conservative Movement has been playing catch up since the start of the Tea Parties back in February of 2009. Along my own political journey, I've watched people in their varying stages of "What the heck is happening to our country?" and waited for them to catch up, and honestly most of it has been with or without Beck or even Fox News, really. These people began to take in whatever information they were getting, and made informed decisions and opinions. When they were really scrutinizing what the role of the Federal Government was supposed to be, they didn't like what they were seeing. Assuming of course that they moved beyond getting their actual news from say, Jon Stewart or Media Matters for America.
Anyway, my point here, dear author, is twofold: as I stated at first I read your article because you admitted you watched the "Right Wing" TV; and because you come across as having made an informed opinion based on said watching. I have read many issues of Psychology Today, over the years and admittedly still pick up an issue now and then. I had concluded many years back during my own Conservative Conversion that your magazine is overwhelmingly liberal in the majority of its views and publishings. But I too have made an informed opinion then haven't I? Therein lies the near miracle result. The amazing result to what both of our admittances lead to is a wonderful thing called DIALOG.
So is there any wonder then, why there is so much lack of it out there in this upside-down country everywhere political?
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