Monday, December 13, 2010

What we have here is a failure to communicate

I just saw a post from a friend on Facebook asking what we all think of Glenn Beck, so I thought I'd post my thoughts here.  He seems to be a very popular entertainer.  He makes outrageous statements with very flimsy connections to reality and people love it, or at least some do.  What do I think?
I'd rather have a good solid debate grounded in reality any day.  I 'll be honest I don't care for Beck, Limbaugh, Palin or their fellow travelers.  My major issue is two fold - one, they deal primarily in fabrication, in rumors or outright lies.   Obama's birth certificate, the cost of a trip to India, etc. all get headline status in their world.  Imagine if every time you picked up the newspaper you had to wade through ten pages of Elvis's alien love child stories, it's the same thing in that crazy mixed up world they seem to inhabit.  It's not a matter of conservative versus liberal.  There are plenty of conservative writers who will go to bat to defend "Trickle down economics" and that's fine, you can debate that, but you can't debate an alternate universe.  Secondly, I can't connect with their disdain for education or thinking in general.  Sarah Palin seems to be the master of this bit - that common sense trumps knowledge at every turn and of course common sense is based on her definition.  I don't believe that when someone calls her on her lack of knowledge that they're being "uppity" or "elite".  By the way, when did "elite" become a bad word? doesn't it mean the best? the cream of the crop? the toppermost of the poppermost?
I'll throw in a third reason - from my view point as someone following the teaching of Jesus, they seem to be mostly about hate - that's all I hear, hate for the President, hate for most of America, hate for the rest of the world.  That crew is about as far away from the spiritual teachings I believe in as can be.    So this week I see that Sarah Palin is against caring about children's health ( she spoke out against the recent work to improve the quality of school lunches) and Glenn Beck has come out against food safety (Of course he's against the current legislation to improve food quality standards- it's government intrusion!)
What do I think? The style of entertainment that Palin, Beck and Limbaugh are selling is not for me.   If someone wants to talk, to debate, to deal in real issues and think together, I'm all for that.

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