{"id":20850,"date":"2010-01-06T10:11:02","date_gmt":"2010-01-06T15:11:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=20850"},"modified":"2010-01-06T14:15:28","modified_gmt":"2010-01-06T19:15:28","slug":"glenn-beck-more-popular-than-pope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/glenn-beck-more-popular-than-pope\/","title":{"rendered":"Useful Idiots"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note:<\/strong> Eric Francis will be back later in the day. This column is by Fe Bongolan. Additional astrology blogging is happening at the Cosmic Confidential Diary<\/a>, part of the 2010 annual edition of Planet Waves. Cosmic Confidential offers excellent affordable year-ahead reports by Eric Francis, prepared for all the signs. Visit Cosmic Confidential here<\/a>.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Dear Friend and Reader:<\/p>\n

I am concerned. It may not be a surprise in this day and age of\u00a0our country’s\u00a0polarized\u00a0political discourse\u00a0that in this Washington Post article,<\/a> it was reported\u00a0that a\u00a0Gallup Poll found Glenn Beck one of the ten most admired people in America. Even more\u00a0admired than the Pope.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

For those of you unfamiliar with Mr. Beck, he hosts a nightly news-opinion show, The Glenn Beck Program<\/a> on the Fox News network,\u00a0where he rants against Democrats in Congress (he\u2019s a self-proclaimed libertarian), promulgates theories\u00a0that the Obama administration is fascist AND Marxist (two ideologically opposed ends of the political spectrum), and the federal government in general\u00a0is out to\u00a0take\u00a0your dollars\u00a0and your gun. Beck is the spark behind the national Teabagger Protest Movemment<\/a> and the 9-12 movement.<\/a> He could be described as\u00a0the network pitchman for alleged left-wing conspiracy theories.<\/p>\n

With an audience share of three million a night, no amount of sponsor pressure by the group Color of Change<\/a> to take\u00a0ads off Beck’s show for racist remarks — could make Beck or his network stand down. Beck’s over-the-top rants, devoid of any rationale based on fact,\u00a0promote violent\u00a0revolt\u00a0that leaks dangerously into the public discourse. He gives permission to people to react without thought to consequences or conscience. He is a useful idiot for his network and their agenda, which isn’t focused on news as reality, but opinion. Beck\u00a0is a conspiracy theorist “entertainer,” making an influential impact on American culture and politics, and could\u00a0be in line to become the next “Oprah.”<\/p>\n

But we aren’t shocked we have come to this point. The key sentence in the Post’s article was:\u00a0“Is Glenn Beck bad for America?”…or “Is Glenn Beck America?” <\/em>In a word, yes — to the latter.<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0a recent\u00a0article titled \u00a0“Addicted to Nonsense”<\/a> by Chris Hedges, the bigger the problems and sense of impotence in a society, the greater the need for celebrity as a distraction\u00a0from responsibility for those\u00a0problems. With our current\u00a0national\u00a0status: a near decade of job loss institutionalized into the economy\u00a0and two wars further bankrupting us — the need for distraction is greater than ever.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We tend to worship our celebrities — people who provide voice to our greatest fears and desires. This\u00a0has been hard-wired into our national consciousness.\u00a0 Look at the\u00a0popularity of Oprah,\u00a0Jerry Springer, Sarah Palin, and now Glenn Beck.\u00a0 However, Beck and his network take\u00a0his\u00a0celebrity\u00a0perilously to the next step. He\u00a0talks openly about calling for armed and violent revolt in a country already prone to violence. This\u00a0dangerously skirts the edges of a cliff that would be hard for any\u00a0society to recover from. This makes celebrity as a political tool through a useful idiot like Beck a very volatile mix.\u00a0 It also makes him a lot like Sarah Palin, both of them sharing\u00a0the same\u00a0sign with Beck born a day before her.\u00a0 So their rise in popularity is parallel.<\/p>\n

The admiration of\u00a0Beck and other useful idiots who sell bad products or bad ideas\u00a0signals our\u00a0neglect to take responsibility for our own behavior: our own over-consumption and greed.\u00a0We’ve\u00a0chosen through distraction\u00a0to avoid dealing with the real and root causes and individuals responsible for our current situation. Glenn Beck\u2019s\u00a0upward status as one of our most admired\u00a0persons is the face and symptom of our national denial. That makes him useful to more than his network.<\/p>\n

The Gallup poll is an alarm on the temperature of the national psyche. The problems the country faces after decades of denial and roll back of protective laws are huge.\u00a0 But the problem also goes deeper than our denial. We were brought to this place of needing celebrity\u00a0because we’re made to feel inadequate to\u00a0a\u00a0picture of what our lives should be like<\/em> versus\u00a0what they really are. That’s been the problem in the first place, and\u00a0exactly the hole we need to climb out of.<\/p>\n

With\u00a0more of us dealing with the reality of\u00a0our challenges instead of denying them — the challenges\u00a0that are\u00a0climatic, economic and spiritual,\u00a0there\u00a0may be\u00a0a chance to surpass the need for a political celebrity such as a Glenn Beck\u00a0to be\u00a0our conduit to false political empowerment. \u00a0We hope.<\/p>\n

Watching useful idiots such as Palin and Beck\u00a0climb, we\u00a0always, inevitably\u00a0watch their fall, which will come.\u00a0But some damage may ensue in the meantime.\u00a0Maybe we could mitigate that,\u00a0\u00a0starting\u00a0with being our own heroes.\u00a0 Perhaps if we gave ourselves the chance, we could render the useful idiots of our culture\u00a0useless. Focus on solutions instead of divisive reaction. However, in the short term, in order to turn our personal power “on”, we need to begin by putting our finger on the remote button to power\u00a0“off.” All we have to do is look around. There really are better things to do with our time.<\/p>\n

Yours & truly,<\/p>\n

Fe Bongolan
\nSan Francisco<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note: Eric Francis will be back later in the day. This column is by Fe Bongolan. Additional astrology blogging is happening at the Cosmic Confidential Diary, part of the 2010 annual edition of Planet Waves. Cosmic Confidential offers excellent affordable year-ahead reports by Eric Francis, prepared for all the signs. Visit Cosmic Confidential here. Dear … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,1788,1630,271,52,1054,516,1629],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20850"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20850\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}