{"id":36689,"date":"2011-04-07T12:22:09","date_gmt":"2011-04-07T17:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=36689"},"modified":"2011-04-07T12:46:16","modified_gmt":"2011-04-07T17:46:16","slug":"goodnight-glenn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/goodnight-glenn\/","title":{"rendered":"Goodnight Glenn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear me. Nowadays in this economy where unemployment is high and the economic ground is shaky even dangerous demagogues are not immune. Sagging ratings and loss of critical commercial sponsorship have forced Fox Network and news pundit Glenn Beck to come to an agreement for Glenn to “transition off” the news channel and pursue other “creative avenues” at the network. For clarification, the English translation for the media-speak term “transition off”<\/a> is plain old fired<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Glenn is a special case. At the height of his popularity in the aftermath of the 2008 election, Beck was a rare bird of roughly the same species as Sarah Palin. We can never seem to bring ourselves to look away from them, no matter what they’re doing. Nor can the media or the pundits. To this day, both Mrs. Palin and Mr. Beck have this magical ability to make utter nonsense plausible; attractive, even. Look at his tears, look at the writing on her hand. Listen to the kind of words that come out of their mouths: race-baiting, incendiary, divisive, violent and untrue. They are both a kind of dangerous mind candy. You know they’re bad for you, but you can’t get enough, even when you can’t stand them.<\/p>\n

I remember\u00a0Beck’s famous blackboard lectures that Jon Stewart satirized brilliantly — they looked a lot like a diagram for Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride; perhaps the blueprint for Mr. Beck’s mind. Beck used arcane history,\u00a0exaggerations and fill-in-the-blank theory that often\u00a0demonized President Obama as a Nazi and his health care reform proposals as Socialist, stirred up suspicion against Muslims and brought the Tea Bag Party enthusiasts to their feet. His specialty was conspiracy — mostly anti left-wing and anti-government, with a heightened paranoia about how FEMA camps were part of a\u00a0government plot\u00a0to subvert America into a totalitarian regime.<\/p>\n

Beck has the soft look of a seemingly bright man in trouble.\u00a0His vocal conviction conveyed intelligence and authority. Glenn was often so\u00a0convincing in the hogwash he spurted that I think some people wanted to believe him, even when he would change his position or wild conspiracy theory days or weeks later. He was a consummate actor, even when\u00a0using glycerin tears to make him appear like he was weeping for America. How could he not be a star on Fox News?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But all things end.\u00a0 Yesterday morning, the day of the Sun-Jupiter conjunction in Aries, Glenn Beck announced his “transition from” Fox News at the end of the year.<\/p>\n

But this column is really not all about Glenn Beck. It’s about why he is in the process of evolving to his ‘non-job’ on Fox. It all started in July\u00a0of 2009, when the political action group Color of Change<\/a> vigorously circulated a petition to the public, which was then sent to all network sponsors of the Glenn Beck show to urge them to stop buying air time there. During the summer of the health care reform debate,\u00a0Beck was again in the process of wildly accusing the President, that time for harboring hatred against all white people. One by one, big name commercial sponsors dropped away, until all that were left were C-level marketing shares in gold and silver futures and seeds for “survival gardens”<\/a> in the event of a holocaust. By the end of last year, The Glenn Beck Show had become a checkbook millstone around the neck of Rupert Murdoch, billionaire owner of Newscorp and Fox news. If you know me, you can probably tell I’m not unhappy about this news.<\/p>\n

But there’s a deeper joy I feel, and it’s not just at the expense of Mr. Beck, though he is a part of it. It’s because this is a huge victory for the people who refused to get sucked into the soul vortex that has been the Fox News Network and all the networks that have tried to mimic them for profit for the last twelve years. It’s a victory for the active rebellion taking place on the ground against forces that have a lot more public exposure, control over opinion, power and money than we will ever have as individuals.<\/p>\n

It’s a victory because those with this power have been hurt by it enough that they need to euphemize Mr. Beck’s Fox network demise to make it appear like it’s a normal transition when it’s actually a career execution. I’m sure there will be other Glenn Becks on other networks to fill that void when it comes. Nature and ratings seem to abhor vacuums. And Glenn Beck himself will probably continue in another iteration on TV or radio on the same network. But the Glenn Beck Show is soon to be no more.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Please remember this: we won. We won\u00a0because we used the very thing all television networks crave — commercial dollar profit — against them. That is their weak spot. Mr. Beck and Fox News Network were squeezed at the pili breves. <\/em>And that, my loves, is how we’re going to win this revolution: one day at a time, one demagogue at a time.<\/p>\n

So please — let’s pause, take a moment\u00a0and say this with glee, because I know you want to\u00a0— goodnight, Glenn. Don’t let it hit ya where the Good Lord split ya’!<\/p>\n

Yours & truly,<\/p>\n

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

Dear me. Nowadays in this economy where unemployment is high and the economic ground is shaky even dangerous demagogues are not immune. Sagging ratings and loss of critical commercial sponsorship have forced Fox Network and news pundit Glenn Beck to come to an agreement for Glenn to “transition off” the news channel and pursue other … 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":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36689"}],"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=36689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36689\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}