Glen Beck Claimed to be the modern Thomas Paine on his program of February 18, 2010

I really hate to post about politics. I am not a pundit. I am a citizen. And the focus of this blog is creativity and innovation. Still, I’ve got something to say. Glenn Beck is Not Thomas Paine. Nor is he an innovator. Nor is he a conservative.

While visiting the holocaust museum in Berlin my big takeaway from the experience was simply that when lies are allowed to stand unchallenged, very bad things happen. Let me state for the record here, Glenn Beck is a dangerous man. He is an insidious liar, and, he is not at all like Thomas Paine. Last evening he claimed to be the Thomas Paine of our time. The fact that he is an egomanic is not the key thing. He is, but the more important bit is why he’s not at all like Thomas Paine. This is one lie I cannot let go past without saying, No!

I really shouldn’t ever turn on Fox News. It’s so full of distortions, lies, and skewed reporting that five minutes can’t go by without my being shocked. I made the mistake of tuning in last night and caught Glenn Beck at “the blackboard”.  For those of you who never watched the Beckster, this has become one of his signature bits. He gives pseudo-erudite lectures on American history, “teaching” with chalk in hand. Generally, his point is that “progressives” are an evil lower and more insidious than the devil.  He traces the history of the progressive movement and makes, in his inaccurate and skewed way, distinctions about what the founders (of the USA) truly intended — and it ain’t about Progressive!  He’s savaged great Americans like Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and of course Barack Obama (he’s openly called Obama a racist). I’ve seen this blackboard act before and I’m impressed by his persistence.  This is honest-to-God propaganda, not a one-off remark. He intends, and he says this outloud, to educate Americans, and in that process help Save The Country.

I’m going to have to start taking Beck seriously. He’s such a thorough, and to be fair, engaging liar, it’s clear to me that he is doing great harm with his message. Harm along the same order as Joseph McCarthy. It’s not too late to stop Beck from becoming as powerful, and as harmful, as McCarthy. America does not need another blacklist era. Why is he so dangerous? Because he presents a convincing case to the under-educated, and what he’s convincing them of is a lie. He, like Paine, is a propagandist — and that’s where the similarity ends. Progressives are not evil, they are not un-American, and they revere the founders, and the constitution, as much, or more, than anyone.

7 Reasons Glenn Beck is Not the Modern Thomas Paine:

1. He’s not an intellectual. He is pretending to be and to some people he might be convincing. However, if you examine what he says you’ll find that he’s very shallow, and flat out wrong. His books (I’ve read one) are self-serving promotional vehicles that rehash a lot of old school libertarian ideas. His attempts at humor are forced and unfunny.

2. He’s not an inventor. Paine designed bridges. This was a man with a lot of talent. Beck has some talent as a showman, and that is all. He’s not an innovator, nor an inventor, at best, he’s a high adaptor.

3. He’s not much of a writer.  Paine wrote the most popular book of his time, it was influential in the USA and in Europe. It was not only popular, it was dead serious literature. It set the stage for the American Revolution. The USA never had a king in large part due to Thomas Paine. Beck has his books ghost written by a huge staff. At best, he touches up a manuscript prepared by others.

4. Paine was a radical and a revolutionary. Beck is a reactionary. There is a big difference. Beck wants to go back to the future. Paine wanted to create a new, different, and better future. The founders were rebels, innovators, fighters. Beck is a pudgy huckster who wants to preserve the status quo of the Reagan era. Again Paine was out of the box, Beck is about getting back in the box.

5. Unlike what Beck would have you believe, Paine was indeed a progressive. He believed in appropriate taxation, free schools, and government programs to help the poor. Beck is essentially a libertarian, beyond the military there would be very little role for the government in anything he envisions. I respect the belief, but it’s not what Paine would have wanted. Conservatives would do well to distance themselves from Beck as I believe in time he will become infamous.

6. Paine donated the profits from his famous pamphlet Common Sense to George Washington’s Army.  Beck undoubtedly makes a ton of money — I’ve not heard about him donating anything to anything. He might be a generous guy — but somehow I doubt it. After his blackboard lecture last night he barely took a deep breath before promoting his new lecture tour, “tickets available at Ticketmaster, or on Glenn Beck dotcom”. If he was such a patriot, why doesn’t he do it free?

7. Paine was a propagandist. Beck is as well, fair enough. It’s just that Paine was a giant thinker with a noble purpose, Beck is a whack job who doesn’t know the harm he does.

The way to stop Beck is to follow the money. Don’t buy his books, don’t attend his talks, don’t buy any product that sponsors him. Actively challenge his assertions, and don’t accept his history lessons as facts, he mixes facts and lies very carefully to promote his agenda.