What about Glenn Beck?

I watch his show everyday. Swearing on Television? What EXACTLY did he say. I didn't hear it.
What position of his do you disagree with?

 

Because he makes me laugh with his crying and pouting like a 5 year old.

That chalk board stuff he does is beyond funny.

Listen to a little John Stewart to balance out your brain.

 

I think he's as interesting as the weather channel. All the emotional ramblings are nauseating.

 

Boy, the bleeding hearts such are crying about Beck!!!!! They don't like him because he exposes who they really are and what they really believe. How one can be a Christian and a progressive is beyond me to understand.

 

No, he's not saved. he's a Mormon.

 

Congressman Calls for Investigation into Glenn Beck's Hawking Gold for Shady Company
By Will Bunch, Media Matters for America
Posted on May 19, 2010, Printed on May 19, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/146913/

Throughout Glenn Beck's meteoric rise to become king of all right-wing media, a once-obscure Santa Monica peddler of gold coins called Goldline International has been along for the ride. The support of Beck and other radio hosts -- mainly conservatives like Mark Levin and Fred Thompson -- who spend 55 minutes creating fear of an economic collapse and then five minutes telling you why coins from a company like Goldline are the only safe haven has helped Goldline become a $500 million company.

This, for example, is what 2 million TV viewers who clicked on Beck's nightly Fox News Channel show heard on Oct. 6, 2009:

You don’t have any gold, right? This is you. This is you. This is your savings. How much did you lose if you had any money in your 401k? Did you lose, let’s say, I don’t know, 40 percent of it? So, that’s gone. Now, did you know that the dollar has lost nearly 29 percent of its value in the last seven years? Twenty-nine percent. OK, that’s gone. Just gone.

This isn't an advertisement, although it may sound like one. It's the editorial content of the show, although at some point during the hour viewers are sure to see an ad for Goldline with their "800" number prominently displayed. Meanwhile, visitors to GlennBeck.com see a big ad for Goldline, while visitors to Goldline.com can see testimonials from Beck for Goldline. It's hard to know sometimes where Beck -- who famously told his viewers to get behind "God, gold, and guns" -- ends and Goldline begins.

Never mind that anxiety-drenched radio listeners never got to hear the other side of the gold coin, which is that the industry is plagued by high-pressure sales tactics as well as high commissions which mean that gold -- already at a record high (although not when adjusted for inflation) -- would have to rise well beyond its current highs to see a reasonable return on their investment.

Finally, a grown-up has stepped in to try to clean up this mess -- Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York.

Yesterday, Weiner held a news conference not only call out Goldline as "a company that uses conservative rhetoric, high pressure sales tactics and tall tales about the future of gold to sell over priced coins that can be bought somewhere else for cheaper," but to ask regulators from the Federal Trade Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate its tactics.

Weiner's staff investigated Goldline and found that the coins it sells are not the good investment that its salesmen -- who are not licensed investment advisers -- claim that it is to consumers, because the price of gold would essentially have to double beyond its current high to begin seeing any gains. Specially, the investigators found Goldline coins selling for 90 percent above the melt value of the coin, that is, its value by weight. The largest markup seen on a coin, Weiner said, was 208 percent above the melt value.

"In the past there is always the “product” that is either the next big thing (the dot com boom) or the investment that will never go down in price (the housing market), and in the past much of the media has failed in its duty to conduct due diligence, but never before have they worked so hand in hand to cheat consumers," Weiner said in his prepared report. "Commentators like Glenn Beck who are shilling for Goldline are either the worst financial advisers around or knowingly lying to their loyal viewers."

Adds Weiner:

Goldline’s high pressure sales tactics and fear mongering about big government as well as their ability to hire sales staff and spokespeople who misrepresent their roles are case studies in why entities like the SEC and FTC are necessary.

The Brooklyn congressman sent letters to the heads of the FTC and the SEC requesting that some of Goldline's more questionable tactics be investigated. In addition, he says he will propose legislation requiring full disclosure of hidden fees, the purchase price/Melt value/Resale value, and how much the cost of gold will need to rise in the value for the customers’ investment to be profitable. All common sense ideas.

Look, no one but Beck himself -- whose made a career out of gaining trust from his listeners only to sell them a bad investment that also enriches him through endorsement fees -- and Goldline International are to blame for this mess. But of course, Beck is doing what he does best and blaming the messengers, accusing them of "McCarthyism" by going after his sponsors. That has nothing to do with this -- it's about consumer protection. If Beck endorsed companies that didn't use questionable sales tactics, there would be no story. And frankly, Weiner wouldn't even be involved if the SEC and the FTC had been doing their jobs in the first place.

As I mentioned in a post yesterday about Beck's sponsor LifeLock, I became interested in Beck's relationship with the type of products he endorses when I was researching my pending book, The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, Hi-Def Hucksters and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama. It's not a tangential issue at all; instead, Beck works hand-in-hand with these companies to create a non-stop whirlwind of anxiety, fear and gimmicky solutions that enriches both him and the companies, even though the side effect of all the excess paranoia is quite harmful to American politics.

Funny that Beck would talk so much about Joe McCarthy. When McCarthy-inspired paranoia finally reached the level where the damage to the American body politic was clear, the adults finally stepped in and put an end to the circus. I wonder if the same thing is finally happening here, whether it's finally time to say "good night and good luck" to Glenn Beck's influence.


Will Bunch is a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News and author of the blog Attytood.

 

I'll assume the "bleeding heart" comment isn't talking about me.

I just don't understand why Christians need to be worried about politics so much. We shouldn't need to be made comfortable and happy in order to live out the gospel. Obama may wreck this worldly kingdom, and that may make our lives more difficult, but we serve a higher throne. The U.S. will pass away, but Christ's Kingdom will endure.

 

First of all, I lived in Philly for twenty years and read the PDN faithfully every day because it has one of the finest sports departments in all of newspaperdom. But when it comes to reporting all the news that fits, they're as rabidly and unashamedly leftest as Pravda.

I still get it every now and then, just to read their excellent Phillies coverage and to read Bill Conlon's column, but just like you know when you start seeing junked out cars and boarded up houses that you've wandered into a bad neighborhood, when you start in the back and work your way backward through the sports section, once you start seeing the comics, that tells you that the editorial section is coming up and that you should probably turn around and go home.

Funny that everybody wants to investigate Beck for being involved with what they call a "shady company" (still waiting for the evidence on that one, by the way), but nobody wants to investigate Barney Frank or any of the other Pathetic Potentates of the Patomic for their involvement with Fannie and Freddie or their role in the banking collapse.

 

Congressman Calls for Investigation into Glenn Beck's Hawking Gold for Shady Company


1. Look at where this report is coming from. Media Matters are pawns of the radical left and about as credible as Bill Clinton is.
2. Sounds like some congressman needs to focus on taking care of his district instead of going on trumped up fishing expeditions.

 

For those of you uninterested in all this, I understand why: you definitely won't want to dig into what follows. But for those of who are, here is my argument about Christianity and progressivism in politics.

Conservative Christians' primary argument regarding Jesus and politics is that all he cared about was spiritual matters and an individual's relationship with God. As a result, they say, all those references from Jesus about helping the poor relate only to private charity, not to society as a whole. Their belief is that Jesus, and the New Testament in general, is focused on one thing and one thing only: how do people get into heaven.

The Jesus of the New Testament was of course extremely concerned with spiritual matters: there is no doubt whatsoever about his role or interest in the issues of the day, that the spiritual well-being of his followers was a major interest of his. How much he was involved with or interested in the political situation of the day is a matter of much debate and interpretation. Some say it was a lot and others that it was pretty limited or, as conservatives would say, not at all. However, much of a priority or focus it was, though, if you actually read the Gospels, it is clear that Jesus' main concern in terms of the people whose fates he cared about was for the poor, the oppressed, and the outcast. Comment after comment and story after story in the Gospels about Jesus relates to the treatment of the poor, generosity to those in need, mercy to the outcast, and scorn for the wealthy and powerful. And his philosophy is embedded with the central importance of taking care of others, loving others, treating others as you would want to be treated. There is no virtue of selfishness here, there is no "greed is good," there is no invisible hand of the market or looking out for Number One first. There is nothing about poor people being lazy, nothing about the undeserving poor being leeches on society, nothing about how I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps so everyone else should, too. There is nothing about how in nature, "the lions eat the weak," and therefore we shouldn't help the poor because it weakens them. There is nothing about charity or welfare corrupting a person's spirit.

What there is: quote after quote about compassion for the poor. In Jesus' very first sermon of his ministry, the place where he launched his public career, he stated the reason he had come: to bring good news to the poor, liberty to the captives, to help the oppressed go free, and that he was here to proclaim a year of favor from the Lord -- which in Jewish tradition meant the year that poor debtors were forgiven their debts to bankers and the wealthy. In Luke 6, Jesus says the poor and hungry will be blessed, and the rich will be cursed. He urges his followers to sell all their possessions and give them to the poor. The one time he really focuses on God's judgment and who goes to heaven is in Matthew 25, where he says those who go to heaven will be those who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited those in prison, gave shelter to the hungry, and welcomed the stranger -- and those who don't make it were the ones who refused to help the poor and oppressed.

And he was a really serious class warrior, too -- he wasn't just into helping the poor; he didn't seem to like rich folks very much. In Matthew 6, he focuses on the love of money as a major problem. In Luke 11, he berates a wealthy lawyer for burdening the poor. In Luke 12, he says that the wealthy who store up treasure are cursed by God. In Luke 14, he says if we throw a party, we should invite all poor people and no rich people, and suggests that the wealthy already turned down their invitation to God's feast, and that it is the poor who will get into heaven (a theme repeated multiple times). He says that the rich people will have a harder time getting to heaven than a camel trying to pass through the eye of a needle. He chases the wealthy bankers and merchants from the Temple.

I have never heard a conservative Christian quote any of these verses -- not once, and I have been in a lot of discussions with Christian conservatives, and heard a lot of their speeches and sermons. The one verse they always quote (and I mean always -- I have never talked to a conservative Christian about economics and not heard them quote this verse) is the one time in which Jesus says that "the poor will always be with us." The reason they love this quote so much is that they interpret that line to mean that in spite of everything else Jesus said about the poor, that since the poor will always be with us, we don't need to worry about trying to help them. Apparently since the poor will always be with us, we can go ahead and screw them. But Jesus making a prediction that there will always be oppressive societies doesn't mean he wanted us to join the oppressors. By clinging desperately to that one verse in the Bible, and ignoring all the others about the poor and the rich, Christian conservatives show themselves to be hypocrites, plain and simple.

The Jesus of the New Testament spent his public career preaching about the nature of God and our relationship to God, but also about how we should deal with each other. He repeatedly blessed mercy, gentleness, peacemaking, community, and taking care of each other. He lifted up the poor and oppressed, and spoke poorly of the wealthy and powerful. If anyone in modern society talked like he did, you can bet your bottom dollar that conservatives would condemn that person as a class warrior, a socialist. Jesus may not have been primarily concerned with politics, but for what politics he did have, it is virtually impossible to argue that he was anything but a progressive thinker.

I want to close on one other note here. I focused here on the Jesus of the Gospels (principally Matthew, Mark and Luke -- the Gospel of John is almost all focused on mystical spiritualism), but Jesus is not exactly the only Bible character concerned with issues of social and economic justice. All of the first five books of the Torah (the Old Testament for Christians) talk a lot about justice for the poor; the Psalms are full of verses about the helping poor; every Old Testament prophet castigates the Jewish people (and yes, their governments) for mistreating the poor. And in the New Testament, there are some dynamite passages promoting progressive thinking aside from all of the Jesus quotations I mentioned. Three of my very favorites:

* In Acts 2: 44-45 says: "The faithful all lived together and owned everything in common: they sold their goods and possessions and shared out the proceeds among themselves according to what each are needed." My question: did Karl Marx quote that line directly, or did he come up with his each-according-to-their-own-needs doctrine on his own?
* Jesus' mother Mary says that Jesus will "fill the starving with good things and send the rich away empty" and will "pull the princes from their thrones and raise high the lowly." I guess the big guy came by his politics from his mom.
* Speaking of the big guy's family, in the Book of James, which is purportedly written by Jesus' brother (and scholars think there is a pretty good chance it really was), James really goes heavy into the class warfare stuff. In James 2: 1-13, there is an extended admonishment on respect for the poor and mercy. In 2: 5-8, he says it is the poor whom God chose to be loved, and the rich "who are always against you." In 2: 13, he says that "there will be judgment without mercy for those who have not been merciful themselves, but the merciful need have no fear of judgment."
* And in 5: 16, he condemns the rich again starting out: "Now an answer for the rich. Start crying, weep for the miseries coming to you... Laborers plowed your fields and you cheated them: listen to the wages you kept back, calling out: realize that the cries of the workers have reached the ears of the Lord."

Judeo-Christian scripture is a rich and complicated work of literature. Written over the course of (at least) several hundred years by dozens of different authors, there are a variety of perspectives and many times outright contradictions in the theology and the politics of the writing (if it's all inspired word for word by God, He seems to have changed his mind a lot). But one thing is extremely certain: the poor seem to be who God is most concerned about. Yes, there are a few quotations (four, if I remember right) trashing gay people, along with quite a few more about the right way to do animal sacrifice and to be careful about eating shellfish and hanging out with women who are menstruating. But mercy, kindness, and concern for the poor and the weak and the outcast seems to matter a lot more, with literally several hundred verses referencing those agenda items. If you are a progressive, that is a pretty good ratio.

 

Your argument? Ever heard of plagerism? What does the Progressive Jesus say about theft?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-lux/how-do-christians-become_b_570361.html

 

Please tell us where he is wrong. His critics are quick to bash him but never really deal with what he is saying. Seems to be a pattern.

 

Jesus was not concerned with social justice. He is concerned with those broken enough to come to Him. It is rather inconsistent to act as if we do not need to be concerned with politics but use politics to further Marxist social justice. Christ never suggested that reaching out to the poor should be done through the government. Doing so is the worst of stewardship as it is the most inefficient. But I do not expect any consistency or concern for stewardship from the left.

 

Are you one of those "christians" that sits back while babies are aborted? That's just political right? When the Jews were being put in the furnace was it ok for the Christians to look the other way, that's just political right? We have a moral responsibility not to look the other way when our country is being taken over by liberal atheists. But that's just political, right?

 

Glenn Beck has the platform and the audience to espouse his politicals and I believe his conservative views strike a chord with the heartland of America. Sure he can be a little dramatic and over the top at times, but this is his fifteen minutes of fame and all of his props and gimmicks have not waned on the populace yet. Hold on though, I think they eventually will.

 

Hold on there chief. How in the world can you justify saying that b/c someone doesn't agree with you that they are so wrong that they must be completely apathetic to something like abortion? How can you do that?

That isn't even a good case. Its just a random flame.

This is nothing but empty rhetoric. Do you really want to liken anyone who questions your position to the Nazi's (who's counting here how many posts before Godwin's rule is proven?)

So answer my question: show me where Beck is sticking up for Jesus Christ and not some empty political rhetoric. Show me where.

 

WOW...just ......................WOW !

 

There is not enough bandwidth on BB.net, or time in my day to explain this mixed up Mormon moron to you ....sorry.

:BangHead:

 

Beck is in the entertainment industry, his viewers enjoy his theatrics. Personally I believe he is right on many of the things he says but I do at times question his sincerity versus bringing in a paycheck.
I listen to the show but have been somewhat uncomfortable with the way he distorts certain facts to gain impact. Two weeks ago he was talking about money spent on education he quoted a 1965 figure spent on education versus a 2010 amount spent without saying what the 1965 dollar amount would be in todays numbers. This is just a sample of the dishonestly he employs to gain viewers. I would be very happy if he would use his popularity to bring out plain honest truths. He does not need to compromise his standards if they are his standards. This is why I become very skeptical when he starts using God's name to bolster his credentials.

 

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