Glenn Beck is not only leaving Fox News, he’s also leaving the New York area. He made the statement after wrapping up a week of road shows last night in Albany. “The last thing I will be doing,” said Beck to the Albany crowd, “I will be leaving New York City. Beck says he’s sold his Connecticut mansion, which had been listed for more than a year and ready to move on. Well then, let me just echo the sentiments of millions of New Yorkers Mr. Beck as I take out my bullhorn and say “good riddance!”
Glenn Beck was undoubtedly the most controversial right-wing ideologue to ever hit television and radio. Although not verified, it appears his television show on Fox was cancelled after ratings dropped precipitously, from 2.9 million viewers in January 2010 to 1.8 million in January 2001. In addition, after Beck called President Barack Obama a racist, ColorofChange.org urged consumers to boycott Beck’s advertisers, ultimately resulting in more than 400 Fox advertisers saying they didn’t want their commercials on Beck’s show, according to Forbes. That cost Fox News owner News Corp. a cool $600,000 a week.
It was during a guest appearance on the "Fox & Friends" morning show the Beck made the absurd statement that President Obama had exposed himself as a person with "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture." That statement was just one of many absurd and baseless statements that he spewed on his Fox News show on a daily basis. You would have to be a deluded right-wing ideologue, a complete idiot,or a loyal fox news viewer to believe any of the baseless nonsense including but not limited to: Obama’s a "racist."; Obama didn't have a chance to actually think anything but radical thoughts because of his parents and grandparents; falsely claimed the president’s health care proposal would put "everything you do into a computer database for the federal government; falsely claimed that "there will be jail time" for not buying health insurance;falsely claimed survey found that 46% of doctors would leave medicine if health care reform passed; he claimed there's been "zero warming for over a decade."; falsely claimed proposed capital gains tax increase "affects every single" investor; an absurd claim that the president wants to ban fishing; falsely smeared net neutrality as a Marxist plot to take over the Internet.
This writer is all for the first amendment but cannot support a one-man propaganda machine that dealt in outright smears, lies, obfuscations, and half-truths. At the end of the day, one could argue that it was all a shtick and Beck is a man who embraced conservatism and the tea party movement as a means to further his fame and fortune. Ruse or not, millions of people bought into the extreme routine on a daily basis. I would also venture a guess that Beck's audience was mostly composed of white conservative Christians who prided themselves on taking certain things on faith and unfortunately were easily manipulated by this showman. He would present them with a barrage of ridiculous unsubstantiated apocalyptic nonsense on a chalkboard as "fact" – and they would take it in like drug addicts who needed a fix. What they didn’t realize was that they were acting against their own best social and financial interests in the name of what they perceived to be patriotic cheerleading.
So why should we care? After all, all Americans are free to listen to whatever radio or television news outlets or “opinion journalists” that they want to. The reason for the concern is that an element of potential danger exists when someone like Beck can potentially incite an easily- manipulated audience particularly in today’s extreme climate of political polarization. Amplifying the danger component is that a segment of Beck’s audience was one that embraced gun ownership and tended to be more reactionary and militaristic. Does that mean that Beck's deception, race-baiting, and fear mongering would have eventually taken a tragic turn? Good chance it might have but good thing we’ll never know - for now. So I'll say it again - hey Glenn, good riddance.
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