Glenn Beck and the Fox Puppets Want to Repeal the 20th Century

Newsweek ^ | February 22, 2010 | Jonathan Alter

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Glenn Beck has now supplanted Rush Limbaugh as the most influential broadcaster in America. He's the one the tea-party movement looks to. Beck wowed the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) crowd Feb 20 with his attack on progressivism, which he said must be "eradicated." "Progressivism is the cancer in America and it's eating our Constitution," Beck told the crowd.

Now that Beck has given his marching orders, expect to hear all the Fox Puppets echoing him. The goal is to discredit "progressivism" as they did "liberalism."

Beck fancies himself a historian; his patter is full of historical references that seem to have convinced his audience that he knows what he's talking about. Historians like Beck know that when they offer provocative ideas, they bear responsibility for what those ideas actually mean.

So let's look at what would happen if the "cancer" had been cut out when it first appeared, as Beck recommends. A world without the Progressive Era would be a world with:

• Only men voting: The 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote was the product of progressivisim. Beck thinks women are second-class citizens.

• No cell phone or low-cost long-distance telephone service: It was the breakup of AT&T in the 1970s under the progressive antitrust laws that allowed for today's telecommunications (and computer) systems. Beck thinks corporations should have no restraints at all.

• State legislatures electing U.S. senators: The 17th Amendment, part of the progressive movement, allowed for the direct election of senators. If you think the Senate is bad now, imagine what it was like when state legislators were the only voters. (They defeated Abraham Lincoln in Illinois in 1858 even though he won the popular vote for Senate). Beck likes hacks.

[DManA]

They have never been able to knock out Rush so they try to artificially elevate someone they think they can destroy.

I have heard Beck warn that a character assassination attempt on him is imminent. I would take this article as support for that idea.

[Bitsy]

Nothing like half-arsed hitpiece “journalism.”

Another liberal rag. To think my father used to read it. Maybe in his day, the writers still had character and values - boy would he be surprised today - but, my canary still loves it:)

[chris_bdba]

"However, it would have been better if they had kept the vote limited to landowners"

Amen!

[CIB-173RDABN]

State legislatures electing U.S. senators: The 17th Amendment, part of the progressive movement, allowed for the direct election of senators. If you think the Senate is bad now, imagine what it was like when state legislators were the only voters. (They defeated Abraham Lincoln in Illinois in 1858 even though he won the popular vote for Senate). Beck likes hacks.,/b>

---

I believe one reason we are in the condition we are in today is because of this amendment.

The founding fathers created the HOUSE to represent the people. The SENATE was meant to represent the STATES.

I do not believe we would have life long Senators if the states controlled who served.

[cranked]

Probably, lulz. Hell, I can’t remember the last time I picked up an issue of Newsweek, let alone read it.

I seriously thought this libtard rag outlet was defunct and heading to the grave yard with the rest of the other dead libtard rags. Go figure.

[mnehring]

Let's attack these:

A world without the Progressive Era would be a world with:

• Only men voting: The 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote was the product of progressivisim. Beck thinks women are second-class citizens.No, Conservatism is all about individual rights. The 19th Amendment is not a "Progressive" (ie Liberal) item. Just like Conservatives (Republicans) fought against slavery and racial discrimination, this is another right we would have fought for. In addition, as this was done as a Constitutional amendment, it followed the Conservative path of respecting the Constitutional process.

• No cell phone or low-cost long-distance telephone service: It was the breakup of AT&T in the 1970s under the progressive antitrust laws that allowed for today's telecommunications (and computer) systems. Beck thinks corporations should have no restraints at all. Again, they don't understand Conservatives at all. Anti-trust laws ensure a free market, something that Conservatives fight for. Liberals are the ones who seek to over-regulate the market to the point there is a monopoly based on Government interventionism in the markets. A freer market may have resulted in more competition without the need for this particular anti-trust action, but is in no way implying that this was a "progressive" action. Progressives would have the fedgov take over said industry.

• State legislatures electing U.S. senators: The 17th Amendment, part of the progressive movement, allowed for the direct election of senators. Again, this followed the Constitutional process thus, is Conservative by the very act of creation. This isn't a "progressive" law in the least.

  The author seems to be under the false belief that just because something is new or changes the status quo, it must be "progressive".

[Cheesel]

Wouldn’t it actually be Socialism?

[mnehring]

...so they try to artificially elevate someone they think they can destroy.

Beck is also a clown in his approach so they would rather paint Conservatives along that line.

[Nervous Tick]

>> Newsweak... average of of it’s subscribers has to be 68?

Age, or IQ? :-)

[GonzoGOP]

Glenn Beck and the Fox Puppets Want to Repeal the 20th Century

My God we might have to go back to being a self sufficient, optimistic, export financed country with a rapidly expanding standard of living, trade and budget surpluses, low taxes, a small government that while it didn't do much did what tasks it was constitutionally assigned well. Oh the horror of going back to a time when people were actually expected to work, and where everybody knew that their kids would do better than they did, as long as they were willing to work for it. How could anyone imagine going back to a time when immigration was controlled on Eilis Island and where once admitted those immigrants were proud of their new country. /sarc

[Mamzelle]

re: Sounds like something from high school:)))

You've got that right. Beck focuses on the creation of the Fed, income taxes, etc., but the oh-so-bright Alter thinks that means he's against women's suffrage. That's where I stopped reading. Stupid article.

[BookmanTheJanitor]

Liberal weenie alert.

[avacado]

"No cell phone or low-cost long-distance telephone service: It was the breakup of AT&T in the 1970s under the progressive antitrust laws that allowed for today's telecommunications (and computer) systems. Beck thinks corporations should have no restraints at all."

What a MORON! Sheeze do some research assjack!

In 1982 the Reagan administration used the Sherman Act to 
break up AT&T into one long-distance company and seven 
regional "Baby Bells", arguing that competition should 
replace monopoly for the benefit of consumers and the 
economy as a whole. 

[Boonie]

A lot of liberal leaning people believe that “progressives” and “progressivism” means “progress”....It could not be further from the truth...

Progressivism actually means “change” or “reform”...It doesn’t say forward...It doesn’t have anything to do with progress which means “moving FORWARD”...

[libertarian27]

I can’t remember the last time I picked up an issue of Newsweek, let alone read it.

That's a tell-tale sign that you need to call the Dentist and get your teeth cleaned.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

I wouldn’t be surprised if a PHYSICAL assassination attempt on him was imminent. He says he has bodyguards, and people like Andy Stern believe in using The Persuasion of Power (TM, ­ ®, ©, etc.).

[pabianice]

Biography - Jonathan Alter For a decade in the 1980s, Alter was Newsweek's media critic, where he was among the first in the mainstream media to break tradition and hold other news organizations accountable for their coverage[citation needed], a precursor to the role later played by blogs. When Newsweek launched his wide-ranging column in 1991, it was the first time the magazine allowed regular political commentary in the magazine, other than on the back page. After the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, during which Alter was a consultant to MTV, he was among a small group of reporters and columnists who had regular access to Clinton, though he was far from a reliable supporter, particularly during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. "Alter bites me in the ass sometimes, but at least he knows what we're trying to do," Clinton was quoted as saying in the book Media Circus by The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz.

In late 2001, in the wake of 9/11, Alter wrote a column backing certain kinds of torture[3], arguing for the implementation of a psychological torture program in the U.S., as well as having prisoners in American custody shipped oversees to be tortured more severely elsewhere. Alter later regretted the column. "There is one column I'd very much like to have back--a column that to this day makes me wince at the thought of it. This column was not technically inaccurate, but it was still a mistake--a big mistake--to write it."[4]

Alter became a sometimes fierce critic of President Bush[citation needed], with a particular emphasis on what Alter considered his lack of accountability and his position on embryonic stem cell research. Alter, who is a cancer survivor, has written and spoken occasionally about his own bout with lymphoma and experience with an adult stem-cell transplant. The Defining Moment, which was reviewed respectfully, surprised some critics with its depiction of how close the United States came to dictatorship before Franklin Roosevelt became president in 1933, painting him as the savior of American democracy and capitalism. During an interview with 60 Minutes on November 14, 2008, then-President-elect Barack Obama said he had recently been reading The Defining Moment and hoped to apply some of Roosevelt's strategies that were outlined in the book into his own administration.[5]

Alter

[DManA]

I don’t consider the 17th necessarily a completely good thing.

[ilgipper]

Alter is a ‘tard, to put it in Rahm-like liberaleze.

By his logic, Beck dislikes FDR, and therefore was rooting for the Nazis in WWII.

[Boonie]

If anything means progress...”moving FORWARD”, it is capitalism...moving forward to stay ahead of competition...which is the lifeblood of America...