Monday, March 15, 2010

In Further FACE~! News...

Apparently Glenn Beck has finally gone far enough with this "Leave any church that discusses 'social or economic justice'" drivel to piss off Roger Ebert, of all people. How angry is world-class movie taste-maker and all-around good guy Mr. Ebert, you ask?
What Beck has demonstrated, in a singularly inelegant way, is an increasing tendency of the extreme right to automatically describe its opponents in negative buzz words. You would think that if it's possible to be a conservative it's also possible to be a liberal. Not so. In the Beckian theology, a conservative is merely a conservative. Liberals are socialists, community organizers, Marxists, traitors, communists, haters, Nazis, elitists and, in general, liars. Conservatives, on the other hand, are moderates, patriots, reasonable, pro-American, and stand for family values.
...and:
Another quote from Beck. The Communists and Nazis "talked about economic justice, rights of the workers, redistribution of wealth, and surprisingly, democracy." Why, that proves it! Those are the very same things Christians talk about. And Democrats. And liberals. And find me, please, one single genuine Republican who doesn't also talk about them. We can gather that Beck disagrees with all of them. Even -- given his maladroit syntax -- surprisingly, democracy.
...and, beautifully:
I am told repeatedly that Fox News is fair and balanced, that it has the largest share of the (actually rather small) cable news audience, and that it speaks for ordinary Americans. To the degree that this is true, Beck has left them all behind, watching his figure shrink on the far horizon of fanaticism. He has finally, definitively, said something that is completely Wrong from every viewpoint.
As much as I wonder at Ebert's decision to train his powers of humor and insight on someone with the intellectual maturity of of sixth grader, this makes for good reading. And now, more than ever, it's nice (though not surprising) to see Ebert staying sharp between the ears.

Full piece at Ebert's blog HERE.

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