Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Mammon on the Mount



Or would "Stations of the Crass" be more apt?

Or perhaps "Old Whine in New Skins"?

Hard to say.

Maybe all of them, because when America's favorite sociopathic grifter starts making headlines by taking his patent med'cine freakshow to the Holy Lands to relieve a small group of pilgrimaging goobers of their extra cash, there is really no hammer big enough to adequately compass 'round my simultaneous contempt for Beck's grotesque perversion of Christianity and my profound embarrassment that I live in a country where millions of my fellow citizens actually take this fucknozzle's words as solid gold gospel.

From the Daily Beast:

What’s Beck Doing in Israel?

Michelle Goldberg

Aug 24, 2011

At the first of three rallies he is holding in Israel, Glenn Beck preached to his followers like a pastor. Michelle Goldberg reports on Beck’s ridiculous attempt to become a religious leader.

...
On Monday, in the first of three rallies he’s holding in Israel, a mostly American audience gathered in the ancient Roman amphitheater in the northern seaside town of Caesarea to hear from Beck and leading end-times preachers like John Hagee and Mike Evans. “I have spent the last few years trying to find a solution to what’s going on [in] the world,” said Beck, standing on a floodlit stage at the pit of the open-air structure, Roman columns behind him and the scent of the ocean in the air. “Anybody who’s listened to me or watched me for the last few years, you know about five years ago I said, ‘We’ve got to get off the exits. We’ve got to get off the exits. We’re passing the exits!'”

His voice grew more and more urgent, sounding rather like Gene Wilder’s Willy Wonka narrating the Wondrous Boat Ride: “There’s going to come a time when there’s nothing but freeway and a cliff!” Then, suddenly oddly calm, he said, “We’re there.” From the crowd, there were scattered assents. “While there may not be a political solution, the good news is, the God of Abraham ain’t running for office!” The cheering crowd leapt to its feet. “Be not afraid! Know who he is! Know his face! Know that he is a God of covenants and a God of miracles! We are leaving the age of man-made miracles of spaceflight, and we are reentering the age of miracles of God.”
...

Beck is working closely with David Barton, the GOP operative and conservative revisionist historian, on “Restoring Courage.” The two acted as cohosts on Sunday night, and donations to the event are being channeled through Barton’s Wallbuilders organization. Barton’s record on Jewish issues is no better than Beck’s. He built his career by arguing, via a selective reading of documents from the Founding Fathers, that the Constitution is rooted in biblical values and that the founders never intended to separate church and state. And early on, he found an eager audience for his dubious history lessons on the right-wing fringe.
...

Prepare Ye, the Way of the Fraud.

14 comments:

Tild said...

Ooh. That's lovely.

"Prepare Ye, The Way Of The Fraud" ...isn't that from the Glenn Beck musical "Goldspell" ?

RobSPL said...

If corruption, nuclear war, and global warming don't wipe out this country I hope Glenn Beck lives till he's 100 never seeing his oft fantasized doomsday, and but watching his audience (already gray haired) die off, while he drifts off into irrelevance.

John said...

I assume Beck's bank account was handsomely "restored."

Any word on courage?

John Puma

Kevin Holsinger said...

Good morning, Mr. Glass.

Well let's see...

"Father Goldie Calf"

"The False Profit"

"Reverend Chicken Little"

Thing I found interesting about Mr. Beck was that he seemed to share W. Bush's trajectory. First, you nearly destroy yourself with drugs. Then you save yourself. Then you go on a hopeless crusade to save everyone else, selling terror while you do it.

Anonymous said...

A photoshop for the ages!

Anonymous said...

Do they know he's a Mormon?

Mister Roboto said...

Yeah, one would pretty much have to be functioning on a six-year-old mental level to take this guy at all seriously. Both sad and funny.

@Anon: Good point. There's an awful lot in Mormonism that isn't easy to square with traditional mainstream Christianity.

brettvk said...

I saw a little of this on a friend's TV last night, and my impression was that Beck is positioning himself for a new career as a televangelist -- except that a Mormon televangelist can't develop a national following, and Utah/Nevada aren't lucrative enough by themselves. A puzzle. Maybe he's just flailing.

prof_fate said...

"Mr. Beck was last seen slouching towards Bethlehem ...."

Anonymous said...

i bet one of beck's biggest regrets in life was pretending he was a mormon instead of pretending he was a christian. so many puppet strings were cut that day.

Kathy said...

Likely Beck will "See the Light" and renounce Mormonism...thars good money to be made that way.

John said...

Well, then it's "Morman on the Mount."

John Puma

Anonymous said...

KWillow said:
"Likely Beck will "See the Light" and renounce Mormonism...thars good money to be made that way."

Yes,+Christian fundie groups love their converts. It lets them pretend they are right.

You may or may not remember the Love Won Out ex-gay poster child who was photographed in a gay bar a few years ago. His wife was also supposedly ex-gay, but no one could ever find a woman she ever dated or proof she was ever a lesbian. At that point there was talk of some of the ex-gay being straight people in it for the money, because... the Christian fundies love their converts.

Mike.K.

Winski said...

Hey Drift...hope you and BG are good...

IF, you ever consider having a 'guest' caster on your Friday gig, Michele Goldberg would be GREAT choice... You, she and BG think a lot alike... AND, seeing commander-of-lunacy, Beeeck, doing this mass circle jerk off in Israel was a clown show of massive proportion.... Are we sure David Brooks wasn't stage managing this project? It was truly a spectacle of group psychosis on a scale not seen very often... Staggering.

Keep Rockin....