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Glenn Beck Wonders Why He's Resented as a Bigot

By Steve Rendall, FAIR. Posted November 21, 2008.


It takes an angry truck driver who threatened the hate-spewing host to wonder, "Is this who we've become?"
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Glenn Beck has been telling a personal story illustrating what he says is a particularly intense level of hatred on the left.

According to the newly signed Fox News host, he was verbally assaulted by a truck driver while standing in line at a Wendy's restaurant at a truck stop. Writing on his blog, Beck says the truck driver called him a "racist bigot," blaming the talk show host and conservatives "for everything." Wrote Beck, "The hatred was palpable." As his security detail stood between him and his assailant, Beck says the truck driver ended his rant by threatening to run him over.

It was ugly stuff, and Beck was shocked by the level of hate: "I wanted to say, I think you have me mistaken for someone else, but I knew he knew who I was and he just hated me for who I was…. Wow. Is this who we've become? Is this who we've become?"

Concluding his appeal to civility, Beck explained that he wouldn't treat his enemies the way the truck driver treated him: "I could stand in line with Michael Moore and I wouldn't say that to him. I would say some things to Michael Moore, but it wouldn't be that. Is this who we've become? I believe there is a cauldron of hatred on both sides, but the left is quite frightening."

Beck might not say such things to Moore in person, but he has expressed a desire to murder Moore to his nationally syndicated radio audience (Glenn Beck Program, 5/18/05):

I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out--is this wrong?

And Beck wasn't exactly the picture of civility two years earlier when he told his listeners that he prayed nightly for anti-war presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich to be consumed by fire (Glenn Beck Program, 3/16/03): "Every night I get down on my knees and pray that Dennis Kucinich will burst into flames."

Beck repeated his Wendy's story on Fox's On the Record (11/17/08)--only in this version, Beck said Fox News was among the targets of the truck driver's vitriol. As he explained to host Greta Van Susteren, the story illustrated that "the left is just unbelievably out of control right now."

Whatever the truth is about Beck's truck driver story, his own record of hatred, including a prediction that in 10 years time "Muslims and Arabs will be looking through a razor wire fence at the West," is not merely a matter of angry words spouted in a fast food shop, but a matter of nationally broadcast hatred.


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nationwide boycott
Posted by: wolfgangmo on Nov 21, 2008 12:24 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I am calling on a nationwide [or international] boycott of fox news and of any company that advertises with them.

They get not one thin dime. Not one. Let them starve shivering in the dark for what they have done to this country.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» RE: nationwide boycott Posted by: Quannah
» RE: nationwide boycott Posted by: yellow
» RE: nationwide boycott Posted by: Quannah
» RE: nationwide boycott Posted by: Lauren
» I am more than willing to stop Posted by: TruthBeTold
» RE: nationwide boycott Posted by: seaoftears
» RE: nationwide boycott Posted by: mnstra
Stunning
Posted by: rdmcgeorge on Nov 21, 2008 12:50 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Maybe the gentleman had heard Beck joke about "Mexinol" - a fuel made out of Mexicans. This guy is terrible.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» Unfrigginbelievable! Posted by: itzamirakul
» The Classic Liberal Mistake Posted by: Ray Duray
» RE: The Classic Liberal Mistake Posted by: itzamirakul
mirrors
Posted by: dj spellchecka on Nov 21, 2008 1:08 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
from his statements, one would think beck doesn't look in the mirror very often..

but then i consider the ego.....

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» RE: mirrors Posted by: racetoinfinity
» What comes around, goes around Posted by: itzamirakul
and yet
Posted by: pacto on Nov 21, 2008 6:42 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
we have to answer ....yes.............the right wing poisens the mind, and if one objects to the tactics, they ridicule and taunt..just like all bullies.The right wingers are basically cowards, people that only want to be a part of the group, afraid to think for themselves. Glen suffers from the ignorance of ignoring.

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» RE: and yet Posted by: peacefullaim
engr
Posted by: bflove on Nov 21, 2008 6:49 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Boycotting FOX News is a good idea. Another best bet is to get our legislators in Washington to restore the Fairness Doctrine which requires equal time for worthy opponents of an opinion. Reagan annulled the fairness doctrine in the 1980s. It was effective before that.

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» RE: engr Posted by: willymack
» RE: engr Posted by: racetoinfinity
» RE: engr Posted by: sjk
» RE: engr Posted by: Lilly
The Palpable Hatred is Understandable
Posted by: cavan on Nov 21, 2008 7:10 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It's not surprising that conservative pot-stirrers are hated by many so-called liberals.

Conservative listeners aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer, so it's easy to convince some slack-jawed lowbrow that the conspiracy du jour is about to manifest itself.

We liberals have to couch our arguments in terms aimed at intelligent, educated, experienced, articulate folks and that's a tough audience. We liberals envy the ease with which conservatives are able to dupe their supporters.

Not only that, but we're transfixed, like deer in the headlights, when those supporters stay duped despite mountains of evidence that we were right and the conservatives were wrong.

We're convinced that conservative supporters aren't voters, but zombies. That's the ursprung of our envy and our hatred.

It's not what the conservatives say; it's their Borg-like adherence to what is so obviously false that infuriates me---and, by me, I mean us.

A truly functioning democracy demands debate, but how can one debate with robots who can vote? Who wouldn't hate such a situation?

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"Is This Who We've Become?"
Posted by: Quannah on Nov 21, 2008 7:45 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Glenn Beck is posing this rhetorical question to "liberals." He isn't including himself in that question... which is exactly where it needs to be directed.

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Stupid wingnuts
Posted by: frank69 on Nov 21, 2008 8:20 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The "fans" of Beck, Limbaugh, et al. are not called "dittoHeads" for nothing. Nonthinking wingnut boobs! See, it's easy to call people names. Just the same as the stupid wingnuts constantly do.

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What you mean, "we" have become?
Posted by: ChasMan on Nov 21, 2008 10:14 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It is what Beck IS... It is time these hateful individuals realize they can be made to suffer consequences for their hatefullness... CHANGE is upon them. All of them!

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He suffers from logorrhea
Posted by: Frish on Nov 21, 2008 11:05 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Glenn Beck is a piece of human garbage, and I've written to him and his producer and to his syndicator to get him off the air.

I have yet to hear anything but wrongheaded-ness from his walnut sized cerebrum.

And, his denial of global warming is astonishing.

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Home is where the heart is
Posted by: Western Sage on Nov 21, 2008 11:06 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I'm glad Mr. Beck has moved from CNN to Fox News. He was giving CNN a bad name, but at Fox News he'll fit right in. One can only hope this is a first step in CNN rebuilding its credibility as a news organization. It has slipped badly over the last decade or so.

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HE'S UN-AMERICAN!
Posted by: kackermann on Nov 21, 2008 11:24 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
HIM AND RUSH ARE COMMIE BASTARDS WHO DO NOT SUPPORT OUR PRESIDENT ELECT.

Sorry. I just wanted to see what it felt like. I don't see what the wing-nuts found so satisfying in that.

Of course, they would rather watch cars go around in a circle than a good hockey game.

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I just puked a little in my mouth
Posted by: kackermann on Nov 21, 2008 11:26 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
AlterNet really should get rid of that ad with Lieberman's face stuck to it.

I'm fine now, but I have to click away. I can't scroll up.

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Looking for a Mormon to "single out?"
Posted by: realmuzik on Nov 22, 2008 1:54 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Him. Period.

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BECK
Posted by: LANCE on Nov 22, 2008 6:23 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
...is the American al Qaeda. An enemy of everything good, progressive and prosperous.

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What A Hypocrite
Posted by: Denver Dem on Nov 22, 2008 6:48 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Keith Olbermann has had him as a "Worst Person" many times for hateful thing he has spewed.

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This Beckerhead is
Posted by: AMERICAN VETERAN on Nov 22, 2008 8:19 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
the little boy who cried fox(wolf) one too many times.

Listening to this imbecile is like taking an EEG of a brain dead person.

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» RE: This Beckerhead is Posted by: ds1st
If Beck Is Shocked
Posted by: Freticat on Nov 22, 2008 11:31 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It's because he's never really listened to himself. Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh, O'Reilley, Savage and their whole ilk haven't seemed to have caught on to the idea that everything they say on their shows is recorded, analyzed, rebroadcast and online for the world to see. When they say anything hateful or really stupid (which is almost everytime they open their mouths) they can't credibly claim they didn't say it or that their words were "taken out of context".

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Poor Glenn Beck (See my teeny tiney violin?)
Posted by: playitsam on Nov 22, 2008 12:25 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
What is impressive to me is that a truck driver would accost him like that! Things are looking good when the working class is finally waking up and realizing that Republicans have NEVER been on their side.If people like Glenn Beck are being confronted, they have only themselves to blame. Hate mongering has become a right wing specialty.

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Glen Beck
Posted by: BurrDeming on Nov 22, 2008 3:16 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
You are actually quite charitable in your evaluation. At our site, we express a bit of skepticism about the entire incident.

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Glenn Beck
Posted by: BurrDeming on Nov 22, 2008 3:51 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
You are actually quite charitable in your evaluation. At our site, we express a bit more skepticism about the entire incident.

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I like Beck!
Posted by: ds1st on Nov 22, 2008 4:23 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Are you trying to say the Truck Driver was justified, he is not?

No-way boycott Fox News, the greatest TV channel.

I like Beck. He has an opinion and is honest in his reporting.

This contrasts Beck with MS NBC, CBS, and CNN … These network commentators are uninformed, goofy, and I think lack understanding of man. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Castro, and Mao Se Tung are out and out murders. MS NBC, CBS, and CNN would talk about these scum-suckers and their healthcare program for the children. They (NBC…) are fools!

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» RE: I like Beck! Posted by: blackie4aces
» RE: I like Beck! Posted by: yooper61
» RE: I like Beck! Posted by: motamanx6
Liam on the Left
Posted by: Liam on Nov 22, 2008 9:55 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Only a few times have I let the channel settle on this little pile of crap. It is like watching a smart ass 13 year old 8th grader who has been given his own TV show. That in and of itself is unbelievable but equally so are the morons who apparently watch this jerk. The truck driver (who obviously has more brains than Beck does) should have run him down. As my little Irish grandmother used to say about people like Beck - "It would be good of God to take him."

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Anonymous quote
Posted by: meadowlake59 on Nov 23, 2008 9:59 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
"Never argue with an idiot. They bring you down to their level and beat you with experience."

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allen
Posted by: pursah on Nov 23, 2008 10:54 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Read history. This sort of hate speech, speech calling for members of the opposition to be killed, was the norm in the press in pre-Nazi Germany during the years leading up to the Hitler's takeover. Is this what Americans want America to become?

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» RE: allen Posted by: blackie4aces
» RE: allen Posted by: tweedster
Glenn Beck and Implied Violence
Posted by: blackie4aces on Nov 23, 2008 11:47 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Beck comes off as an outraged, angry man, his broadcast persona. His character is riddled with frustration and resentment very much akin to his audience. Though most of his viewers have been raised on lies and absurd notions, usually voting against their own economic self-interest, Beck makes millions catering to their powerless frustrations and serving as a public outlet for their anger. He is a liar and, like all of his ilk, a total phony. While quite willing to create an atmophere of war love and a veneraton of violence which will consume many, though certainly not himself, he also, apparently by his own admission, is a wimp.

The so-called "family values crowd" rales against sex and the deteriorating "morality" of America and exalts in violence. Sex has the effect of mellowing folks out. Not a good thing for the agenda of the Right and particularly the Religious Right. Mellow, satisfied people are far more difficult to manipulate.

Inuration of a population to violence is a key component for empire, and especially by disingenuously blending violence with unreality and fantasy--video games, movies, Tee Vee, etc.--the population is saturated with an atmosphere of violence that is easily and mistakenly believed by its consumers to have no direct effects. Thus, the mayhem in Iraq by contrast is perceived as somewhat of a bore. And associating violence with a supposedly noble cause--Soldiers for Jesus or Super Patriotism--provides added appeal and justification.

Turn on a Tee Vee and there is almost a constant stream of cop shows, gunfights, fist fights, car chases, more guns, often fantastical weapons that do not even exist, and sanitized death. Yet still to this day, there are the seven words you can't say on television.

You have to wonder how many of these young Muslim teenagers, those other fundamentalists, would be buying into the deal for seventy virgins if they were getting laid regularly?

Killing is okay, death not so bad, and sex verboten--unless it is used to sell a truck or a soft drink.

Satan's Neutral Corner
satansneutralcorner@yahoo.com

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and he's from Seattle!!! (my hometown)
Posted by: Dickinseattl on Nov 23, 2008 6:40 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Glen is an example of what happens when neo-cons take over our media. They give us morons with their bigoted, ignorant, dishonest, exploitive (hateful) editorial "insights". They then appeal to their large audience with their lowest common denominator emotional self interest appeals as a hook for their exploitive anti-social agenda. This is why we need a strong FCC inforcement of the '34 FCC Act.

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Oscar Wilde
Posted by: davidg on Nov 24, 2008 5:15 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
said: "There is only one thing worse than being talked about...not being talked about." Glen is winning. We're talking.

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Alan Colmes is Leaving Hannity?
Posted by: Lilly on Nov 25, 2008 8:06 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Just before reading this thread, which mentions that Beck has gone from CNN to FOX, which I did not know because I cannot stand to look at Beck and never watch him, because he makes me sick, I read in my morning paper that Alan Colmes is leaving the Sean Hannity Show. Presumably Colmes' therapy has finally kicked in. Are these two changes in some way connected? Is FOX undergoing some kind of adjustment?

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Notorious
Posted by: Notorius on Nov 26, 2008 8:42 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Fox News is an oxymoron. Fox Network, maybe; news, never!

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Glen Beck is the worst person in the TV world
Posted by: urinmymachine on Nov 26, 2008 10:21 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
There is nothing good I can say about Beck, who is one of the nastiest, puppet of the failed right wing world. The day he compared Al Gore to Hitler was probably the bottom and the lowest of the lowest. He is not just a problem, he needs to be removed from TV. I would continue to fight Fox, now that he has moved over to their den of thieves. We, as a group complained to CNN over and over, and they finally listened, when Keith Oberman announced that he had trounced Beck in the ratings. The people have spoken and they don't want Beck on the air. He is a menace, mean and has a personal political right wing agenda. Let's hope he ends up out of work and back to that "hitleresqe" bar tool he came from. The man stated that he was once a drunk, an addict and his life was saved. Saved for what purpose, other than to ruin our lives and country with his christian, pro-life, reagan trickle down misguided personal beliefs. This is the kind of person, if he gets a following, can lead people to no good end. Send piles of garbage to Fox, until they remove his stench from their channel.

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Beck doesn't know he's a hater?
Posted by: luzmejor on Nov 29, 2008 9:44 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
What is wrong with the angry right-wingers?

Are they zombies who don't realize they are being openly hateful where everyone can see and hear them? It is more than clear they wish everyone not in their own circle of friends would just drop dead.

Enlightening these shock jocks would be quite a job for strong psychiatrists!

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You are who you resemble.
Posted by: monkeywrench on Nov 29, 2008 10:47 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Glenn Beck was shocked at the level of hatred from the truck-driving verbal assailant? Is that why Glenn takes a security team with him wherever he goes?

Don't be fooled, kids: Beck knows who he is, and he knows that his words can result in violence and even death; but what he knows most of all is that his brand of hate speech makes him a lot of money–which also makes him – and Shaun and Rush and Bill-o, et al. – members of a cynical class of people who will do anything for money; you know, like thieves, pimps, hookers, con artists, etc. Nice company, Glenn ...

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» RE: You are who you resemble. Posted by: yooper61