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Glenn Beck calls almost anyone a progressive. AP Photo Evan Agostini
Glenn Beck's term of choice in describing his opponents has evolved into "the progressives." According to Beck it is "the progressives" who are determined to destroy the Constitution, redistribute wealth through any means, and generally takeover the lives of everyday Americans. On his show today Beck has promised to reveal the truth behind "the progressives" with shocking footage of atrocities and such. The special is suppose to address the truth behind Chairman Mao, Stalin, and Che among others.
Of course Beck skips over one crucial assumption in his attacks. Most every credible historian does not consider Chairman Mao, Stalin, and Che part of "the progressive" movement at all. In lumping these individuals as part of "the progressives" Beck makes a huge jump in logic with no real support. I might as well say I will "reveal the truth" behind "the conservative" movement by showing clips of Hitler without ever justifying how Hitler was a conservative
In reality Hitler was not a conservative and he was not progressive. He was an evil, racist, socialist dictator. He believed in a strong military among other things but that does not mean that other conservatives who believe in a strong military (including Beck) are to be lumped together with him. Hitler believed in building a strong infrastructure but this does not mean everyone who believes in good highways deserves to be grouped with Hitler.
In the same way Beck tremendously distorts the progressive movement by lumping it together with people like Mao and Stalin. There is a tremendous difference between someone like Teddy Roosevelt, a true progressive who tried to help the poor through anti-trust actions and a progressive income tax, and someone like Chairman Mao, who tried to help the poor through mass killing squads and reeducation camps. Not acknowledging these significant differences simply confuses the debate. The progressives attempted, and still attempt, to change things through democracy not in spite of it. In contrast Marxists like Stalin, Mao, and Che attempted to achieve goals through violence and state power without the sanction of the public. You can say that Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, and President Obama were unwise in their progressive goals (a debatable point) but they never tried to achieve those goals through mass killings like Mao and Stalin. None of them setup collective farms or took away property rights to the degree of a truly socialist regime.
Beck says that the progressive want to redistribute wealth just like the Mao and Stalin. However this comparison oversimplifies the progressive movement as well. Progressives are about much more than simple wealth redistribution (if you call it that). Besides the progressive tax the progressive movement also brought us women's suffrage (19th amendment) and the direct election of Senators (17th amendment). Without the progressive movement Scott Brown would have never been elected a U.S. Senator as the Massachusetts state legislature (dominated by Democrats) would have elected the new Senator rather than the people. Progressives also pushed for other measures giving the people more power like referendums and intitiatives. How "anti-democracy" was the progressive movement when it actually gave more power to the people?
Beck also frequently quotes former White House adviser Anita Dunn who said that one of her "favorite philosophers" was Chairman Mao. First Dunn said she was joking, a fact Beck refuses to accept despite his own tendency to make off-handed remarks only to later claim he was "joking." Just yesterday Beck claimed that President Obama may have made "sweet love" to his wife. Was he being literal or joking at the time? Secondly numerous Republicans (including George W. Bush and Newt Gingrich) have also quoted Mao, yet Beck never attacked these gentlemen so vehemently.
Perhaps we can agree on a more reasonable viewpoint. That viewpoint being that just because someone quotes a political figure it does not mean they agree with that all of that person's actions or the viewpoints. Perhaps we can take the reasoned view that conservatives and Hitler are not comparable just because they both agree that the sky is blue. Perhaps we can stop lumping people together (like Marxist and progressives) for the purpose of scoring some cheap political points and instead address each person's argument as their own. You may call me a dreamer, but I know I am not the only one.
Comments
No he doesn't! He has it right on!
The big thing your LSD types have in common with Hitler is you hate the Jews. Then it was kill them and now its WE HATE the BIG CORPORATIONS! Rich people are bad. The LSD movement has many many similarities to fascism as well. Read it here.
www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Fascism.html
Especially about Il Duce and his financial programs. Obama cloned it.
Reasonable? Ryan, This is your moment. You could not be more wrong. I told you this was coming. Up until now your reports have been accurate, but not today. You argue but you prove to be an unreliable witness. Glenn Beck skipped nothing. Compared to the other progressive greats of the 20th century Hitler was not as efficient. Had he lived longer he would have marveled at the killing efficiency of his bretheren. GB addressed your obstructionist arguments. But for that one peice of paper, The Constitution, it has protected us from progressive tyranny. Progressives lie, cheat, steal, smear, obfuscate, harass, extort, deceive. The greatest progressives like Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Paul Pot, are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions. Others are just tyrants, TR, Chamberlain, Wilson, FDR, Johnson, Bush, Carter, Bush and even lesser ones McCain, Pelosi, Reid, they have not been kind to your liberty. They are tyrants that take without asking. Their greed is power
Ryan, you said "I could make just as much of a case that Hitler was a conservative as you could make that he was a progressive." (Jan 7, 2010) So the difference with a progressive is not that they won't take your property but the amount of killing it takes to acheive their ends.
Your words: "You can say that Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, and President Obama were unwise in their progressive goals (a debatable point) but they never tried to achieve those goals through mass killings like Mao and Stalin"
Klatoo: Please define progressive for me and then we can have a reasonable debate from there. Right now I think we are working from different definitions and it is impossible to have a reasoned debate from that starting point.
Progressives do not believe they are limited by any constitutional authority. They believe the greater good trumps all. They believe in big government. That the individual can not be trusted to do the right thing. They take without asking. They are ungratefull for what they have received. Progressives believe in INalienable rights and not UNalienable rights; life liberty and the pursuit of happiness is all fungible to a progressive. Progressives would force us to believe that inalienable rights come from government. I believe unalienable rights come from God. That because those rights are unalienable it is the proper role for government to secure those rights, because when progressive government grants those rights only the favored few benefit. This is not a small interpretational difference. Democrats and republicans should be talking things out openly in a republic but progressives have destroyed both parties and openess is no longer an option.
Klatoo, Thank you! You nailed it right on the head. About the Glenn Beck special, was anyone creeped out with the George Bernard Shaw thoughts? That to me is the true face of Progressives. The ones with power & money, (Soro's, Progressive Insurance magnate Peter B. Lewis), may mot want us killed with a soothing gas while classical music plays like Shaw dreamed of, but like Shaw these Progressives think so little of us they think we're too "inferior" to think & take care of ourselves so we need to sit down, shut up, while the "superior" Progressives take care of us from cradle to grave. Suprise! We can takecare of ourselves just find and we don't you the government in every part of our lives. We grew lazy & let this get out of hand, but by God we're going to fix this and I think everyone is going to be suprised at how fast we clean house. Just think. Did you ever in your life think that you would see a Republican in Ted Kennedy's former seat? We're coming Progressives. And we're angry!
Sorry about the typo's everyone. For some reason I have trouble seeing what I type once I go past a few lines in the "comments" section on here. Anyone else have this problem? I only have it on this site.
If you can't draw a 'connection' between progressives and socialists/communists, it's because you simply don't want to.
Obama wrote of 'choosing his friends carefully, so he wouldn't be considered a sell-out, included in this group of 'friends' were his MARXIST professors'.
He wrote of his childhood mentor-Frank Marshall Davis (COMMUNIST).
He chooses to surround himself with people like Anita Dunn, who claim to be fans of COMMUNISTS (MAO)....anybody who heard the clip knows she wasn't 'joking'. She explained in too much detail why she was a fan of his to be 'joking'. Besides she was speaking to impressionable young people and didn't tell THEM she was 'joking'. She just said she was 'joking' when Glenn Beck made an issue of it.
Obama fooled alot of people with the help of the 'progressives' in the media, but anyone who paid attention to his background could not have been surprised by the way he has governed so far. It is exactly what should have been expected!
Absolutely WWGBD..! I tried in an earlier post to edumacate Ryan as to Il Duce and his earlyn Corporatist agenda.
Actually though, Ryan says he could make just as much a case that Hitler was a Conservative.
Ryan,
I would like to see your arguments for such.
Everyone is aware that there was a MAO ornament on the White House Christmas tree this year right..???
Great posts Klatoo and Luckyjoe,
As Always Gigi...Well well said....and played.
Luckyjoe,
I have the same problem with the comments cutting off being able to see past a certain sentence.
Course with my inability to spell consistantly, it don't mattttter much anywayyyy.
Klatoo: With all due respect that is a bunch of accusations not a definition. What is more all of those accusations have about as much support as Olbermann's recent attacks on Scott Brown. If you really accept that as a "definition" then there is really nothing to debate. I could just "define" conservatives as "backward thinking people who oppose diversity, support the rich at all costs even they gain their riches through unjust means, and who only support the protection of individual rights they believe (right to bear assault rifles) and not the rights they oppose (abortion, etc). Let us be more sensible than that Klatoo.
OK Wikipedia's definition of progressive. Here goes:
Progressivism is a political and social term for ideologies and movements favoring or advocating changes or reform, usually in an egalitarian direction for economic policies (public management) and liberal direction for social policies. Progressivism is often viewed in opposition to conservative ideologies.
Despite being associated with left-wing politics, the term "progressive" has also been used by groups not particularly left-wing. The Progressive Democrats in the Republic of Ireland took the name "progressivism" despite being considered centre-right, or classical liberal. The European Progressive Democrats was a mainly heterogeneous political group in the European Union. For most of the period from 1942-2003, the largest conservative party in Canada was the Progressive Conservative Party.
... All that post was from wikipedia. I added nothing.
By the way abortion rights is one of those fungible inalienable rights. They are not unalienable rights and be negotiated away by the government It has nothing to do with the proper role of government being to secure those rights. The ten amendments to the constitution are there to secure those rights.
So if the Wikipedia definition then is something you and I can agree upon, Marxists like Mao, Stalin, and Nazis like Hitler, it is arguable for me to say they fit this progressive definition at least at the beginning of their movements yes? They turned into horrible tragedies. When progressives favor a "living constitution" of the United States how can it be any different here. With Power so highly concentrated these things always finish badly.
Let's say that the U.S. somehow manages to avoid these horrific crimes. I don't see mass murder in our immediate future, do you?. If progressives succeed and unalienable rights are no longer secured tyrany will result.
I want my liberty unencumbered and secure.
Only to someone completely uninformed (like Beck), could Che ---(a man who fought in Africa with an all black army against white South African mercenaries of Apartheid)--- be seen as "racist" for a diary passage he wrote as a youth 15 years earlier.
Marcos: That's fantastic! Keep wearing that che T-shirt man. We know where your head is at. By the way have you killed any innocents lately?
In your article you state "The progressives attempted, and still attempt, to change things through democracy not in spite of it. In contrast Marxists like Stalin, Mao, and Che attempted to achieve goals through violence and state power without the sanction of the public." You should read Cloward and Piven and Rules for Radicals. Then look at the current administration, it is step by step how to bring the republic to ineffectiveness so it can be replaced by a marxist style government.
aw c'mon robothead - Che wasn't racist; he killed people of all colors and ethnicity.
Hitler was actually a progressive, he believed in change. he wanted to change the system get rid of all the people who he believed would hurt the system. Now, to be fair Glenn Beck never says that progressive leaders of today would do the things he has done. he is simply saying that there are signs of this sort that should be brought to our attention.
To all the "progressives" out there:
Everyone knows you have Marxist sympathies. It is obvious.
LOL!!
What the author wants to entirely divert attention from is that Beck has specifically spelled out the commonalities Mao, Hitler, et al, and the American 'progressive' movement...
First their are many progressive moments that are labeled that because the word progressive in a political context is to advocate change.
And to the point that Mr Beck gloss over is that the early 20th century progressive movement was foremost about giving the power back to the people. Meaning that that they were AGAINST the political corruption at the time that took power away from the people.
They were also about INDIVIDUAL rights like:
-Getting paid at a minimum to afford to LIVE.
-Preventing employers from forcing a six day a week, sunrise to sunset work schedule.
-Children should have the right to go to school and get an education.
-Setting minimum work conditions for Blue collar jobs.
This list goes on with POSITIVE benefits of the progressive movement.
Some of you people are acting like a bunch of children.
You condemn things that increased your standard of living, and increased your individual rights. Then confuse socialism with progressivism.
Glenn Beck once again makes the Orwellian Doublespeak LIE that Hitler was on the political left.
John Bryans Fontaine is a moron.
Hitler was certainly on the left.
Hitler publicly thanked Marx as his inspiration for his 'National Socialist party (NAZI)
You leftist twits really ought to spend some time reading the other side so you can get some air and sunlight to you heads.
ALL you who are brave enough for a few minutes of truth
..SEE LINK: copyandpaste- is.gd/anKme
I just love it when apologists for the left use phrases like "actually this oversimplifies..."
In other words, "Yes the claim is true but I want you to let me blather until you are so confused you think I have disproved it".
And I really love the leftard comments that show they never even watched the Beck show!! LOL! ESP?
Author displays typical leftist drivel where he fails to address the abundant proofs that progressives and commies have identical goals. Only their use of force differs.
Many of the progressives saw socialism as a problem produced by the dislocations of industrial society. Their reforms were designed to turn workers away from socialism.
Mitch: "Hitler publicly thanked Marx as his inspiration for his 'National Socialist party (NAZI)."
Do you have a direct quote on this. Hitler regarded Marxism as a insidious Jewish plot. As he said in Mein Kampf, "Marxism itself systematically plans to hand the world over to the Jews."
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