Media Matters: Glenn Beck's Alternate History of the Statue of Liberty

[CherylK]

Run time: 04:50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuH17y7A2eo   Posted on YouTube: November 22, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: November 22, 2009 By DU Member: CherylK Views on DU: 3946

 
http://mediamatters.org/

[baldguy]

1. Pardon me. My brain has melted & dribbled out onto the floor after listening to that.

[underpants]

2. Wow does he really need all that visible security?

reminds me of the normal depiction of Neo-Nazi speeches

[no_hypocrisy]

3. I liked it better when Robert Preston did rabble-rousing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI_Oe-jtgdI

[baldguy]

5. "River City ain't in any trouble." "Then I'll have to create some."

Perfect.

[Warpy]

4. He's got the wingnut preacher delivery down pat

It's really too bad he's nuts, but I'm sure there's a megachurch waiting for him when Pox News has had enough of him.

He's right about one thing, Emma Lazarus's poem was a poke in the eye of the remaining crowned heads of Europe. However, the French didn't contribute that part, it was added to the base after the statue was installed, and there was no manipulation of any type on the part of the French. It was a gift to mark the centennial of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the hundred years of friendship with France that followed.

Unfortunately, his addlepated followers don't know that part and he won't tell them. Hell, I doubt he knows it.

[MiniMe]

6. Teh stupid, it hurts

[Mugsy]

7. Huh?

That made absolutely no sense.

I *suppose* if you looked at the gift of the statue through the prism of 2009 politics, one *could* see the statue as a "prank" that we should have rejected...

But in the reality-based community that knows the political climate was VERY different in 1876 when the statue was given (not only before WWI, but even before the Spanish/American war), Beck (as usual) is doing his level-best to make it seem like Joe McCarthy wasn't paranoid enough.

[CAG]

8. OMG, Get ready for the RWnutjob email transcript of this revisionist

conspiracy crap to be sent out. The wingnuts will believe any crap this idiot spews.

[Bucky]

9. "The tablets that look a little bit like the 10 Commandments"

:rofl:

He is right about the anti-aristocratic temperament of France in the 1870s. They'd just got rid of their third monarchy in three generations and been humiliated by Germany in a war. But much of the honoring of American ideas of liberty came from the intellectuals of Paris Commune--early Marxists. They loathed the charlatans, like Glenn Beck, who talk like they support the common people, but really serve the economic interests of the tiny elite.

[madamesilverspurs]

10. Please, what did he say?

I'm on dialup, and I know Beck's local fan club will be spewing his stuff and I'd like to be ready for it. So if someone could convey the gist of his remarks...please and thanks!



--

[me b zola]

13. I'll try to help:

The statue of liberty does not wear a crown, she has light beams shooting from her head.Check.


The book of law that she is holding resembles the ten commandments. Huh?

Beck reads from the inscription on the SoL, then beck creates some paranoid conspiracy theory that states the SoL was actually France's plan to get rid of their unwanted and have them come to the US. WTF?




None of his ramblings made sense. I think maybe he wants us to hate the statue of liberty. :shrug:

[madamesilverspurs]

16. Thanks. And ewwww.

[Grassy Knoll]

11. Hey Beckkk, Manson called, he want's his personality back !!

[nytemare]

12. How can someone so anti-immigration speak about the Statue of Liberty like this?

:shrug:

[me b zola]

14. I thought he wants us to hate the statue of liberty

Perhaps my translation was not very good. :shrug:

[12string]

15. beck's followers

what can I say except these fuckers are easily amused.these are the same folks that bought the wonder tonic sold by second rate snake oil salesman through the ages.small wonder palin is doing so well.scary.

[Quixote1818]

17. At the end I thought that was Rev. Wright

nt

[Enthusiast]

18. Joseph Goebbels wannabe.

Not that America shouldn't take the threat of Glenn Beck seriously.

[Hamlette]

19. the original drawings of the statue were destroyed in a fire at the turn of the 20th century

http://www.ascemetsection.org/content/view/336/869/

so it is all myth

not that ppl on the right care about that!

[LynnTheDem]

20. Yeah, he sure "loves his country".

:eyes:

Doesn't know the first thing about it. Like most republicans.

Stupidest MFers on the planet.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

21. Even if this guy agreed with me, I'd hate him

I've never seen anyone talk down to their audience to this extent.

His followers must have some serious esteem issues, to want a guy to employ this b-movie level acting and address them like they were eight years old.

[JDPriestly]

22. What nonsense!

The Statue of Liberty was a gift to commemorate the American revolutionary movement which preceded the French Revolution. The friendship between France and the U.S. is as enduring as the very independent, essentially practical and rational natures of our peoples. The French enlightenment inspired our Founding Fathers, and our revolution inspired the founding fathers of France's modern age.

Here is Beck's bio with regard to education:

After his mother's death, Beck and his older sister moved to their father’s home in Bellingham,<6> where Beck graduated from Sehome High School in 1982.<8> In the aftermath of his mother's death and subsequent suicide of his stepbrother, Beck has said he used "Dr. Jack Daniel's" to cope.<9>

At 18, following high-school graduation, Beck relocated to Provo, Utah and worked at radio station KAYK. Feeling he "didn't fit in", Beck left Utah after six months,<10> taking a job at Washington D.C.'s WPGC in February, 1983.<11>

It was while working at WPGC that Beck met his first wife, Claire.<12> The couple married and had two daughters, Mary and Hannah; Mary was born in 1988 with cerebral palsy, the result of a series of strokes at birth.<12> The couple divorced in 1994 amid Beck's struggles with substance abuse. Along with being a recovering alcoholic and drug addict<13>, Beck has been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.<14> He cites the help of Alcoholics Anonymous in his sobriety and attended his first AA meeting in November 1994, the month he states he stopped drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana.<15>

In 1996, while working for a New Haven-area radio station, Beck was admitted to Yale University through a special program for non-traditional students. One of his recommendations for admittance came from Senator Joe Lieberman. Beck took one theology class, "Early Christology," and then dropped out.<15><16>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Beck

Mind you, lots of people don't graduate from college but educate themselves by reading and seeking out knowledgeable people. Beck, however, is proudly ignorant. A chance to attend Yale, and Beck dropped out. He is overly dramatic -- histrionic. What a clown. It is so sad that people are so gullible as to see him as a hero.