Someone Elite Who Thinks As I Do...


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Someone Elite Who Thinks As I Do...

How odd to find someone who thinks as I do about Glenn Beck in the elite part of the conservative mainstream media. Usually, people are in a love him or hate him all-or-nothing fight mode.

Check this article out (and if you go there, be advised there are a couple of irritating pop-ups, but at least they don't come back after you close them).

Two Cheers For Glenn Beck, With Some Reservations

by Jerry Bowyer

April 14, 2012

Townhall Finance

I want to quote the whole article because it's that good. But here are a few excerpts:

There is a lot to appreciate in Beck’s work, and I do not share the tendency among some in the conservative institutional elite to deride him. When someone like a Peggy Noonan at the Wall Street Journal describes Beck as ‘insane’, she may well be responding more to the social pressures of the Manhattan cocktail party circuit than to anything Beck has actually said. Frankly, I’m tired of conservatives, such as David Frum and others, who have made a career out of appearing in liberal media venues to ritually denounce Beck or Palin or whoever is the liberal hate icon of the month, as beyond the pale.

In fact, I share Beck’s association of Obama with the Fabian socialist movement, and did so very early, perhaps earlier even than Beck did.

. . .

... do I agree completely with Beck? No, I do not. I’ve found myself talking with investors often over the last couple of years who need to be coaxed down off the ledge of despair over alleged imminent depressions, hyperinflations, and dollar collapses.

. . .

What I think Beck is missing is a sense of depth perception.

He sees a danger ahead, but, can’t seem to focus his eyes in order to see how far ahead it is. Taking what he no doubt believes is the safest approach, and one that accords with the emotional intensity of broadcasting, he pronounces the danger to be imminent. Beck’s shows are anxiety-inducing; they’re meant to be. In fact, a colleague of mine was advised by his psychiatrist to stop watching the shows because they were triggering unhealthy anxiety episodes in him. The psychiatrist is an evangelical Christian who is not by nature inclined to be unsympathetic to Beck’s worldview.

. . .

Beck is right and his critics are wrong about a number of things:

The progressive movement is totalitarian at its core. Whenever it has been allowed free reign, it has become highly repressive, and in some cases, genocidal. Large swaths of the liberal coalition are, in fact, progressivists, especially those in the emotion-forming industries such as film, TV and music.

. . .

... disaster is much less inevitable than we often feel it must be after our well-intended harbingers of warning have delivered their messages. This perspective is something which concerned investors who are Beck viewers need to add to the daily dose of dread.

About Beck's depth perception, this is something he freely owns up to and he is even quoted in the article saying this. But Bowyer is spot on about Beck's delivery often inducing anxiety. Periodically I have to take time off from watching him and this is the reason why. I just get too wound up and can't concentrate on my projects.

But knowing this, I do take time off and can appreciate Beck's dot-connecting. He is one hell of a dot-connector on modern social movements and it is gratifying to see someone from the hardcore conservative end recognizing this in public.

I'm going to check this guy Jerry Bowyer out. Going on his article, I really like what I read. So will I like the rest? I don't know... We'll see.

I just checked out his Wikipedia entry, Jerry Bowyer, and I don't like some of the things I saw, but I do like others.

Boywer says this article is the first part of a series. I will definitely keep an eye out for the continuation.

Michael

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