My goodness! This Glenn Beck guy

[Nordic]

I am sometimes partial to psychological explanations for social isues. Part of me wonders if a big chunk of the appeal of the the new right wing pundits is that there are a lot of people out there who just want to be mean...

You know, I think you really may be onto something with that .....

Very much so .....

I think there's a basic, innate desire in many humans to punish opposing and competing tribes. I think it's a produce of evolution. And if you can convince a group of people that they are a "tribe" and that another "tribe" wants their stuff and wants to mess with their "way of life" and all of that, then yes, it's very very easy to stir that pot, to the point where the tribe you're manipulating will very much want to be extremely mean to the other.

Again, this is something that has been exploited by those in power quite masterfully, at least on the side of the more easily manipulated and authoritarian.

I can't tell you how disturbed I was by the first "Pep Rally" I was ever forced to attend in High School. A perfect case of this thing.

[compared2what?]

Jon Stewart responds.

[Simulist]

Jon Stewart, how I love thee.

(Well, not that way...)

[Nordic]

Okay, a friend of mine just turned me on to this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zack-exle ... 05020.html

Glenn Beck is Heath Ledger's Joker. I'm serious: same intonation, same delivery. It's terrifying because the guy actually exists in real life, and has millions of followers. Listen to the clips below and make your own comparison.

Americans are freaking out, as they should be, as their society and economy crumbles down around them. If you don't know that's what's happening, then you're not paying attention. Glenn Beck is one of the few prominent voices who's connecting full-on with that very appropriate anxiety.

But he's using a classic, uncreative stunt to do it: demonizing a false enemy --- in this case "communists," a category that includes for Beck everyone from Woodrow Wilson to Obama to Wallis and even to little old me.

But over the past few months he's gone beyond political attack to almost sexualized sadism ("pounding" the Reverend Jim Wallis "all night long"???). He has been taunting and threatening his targets in breathless whispers and hysterical screams, separated with dramatic pauses and prolonged evil villain cackles. Listen for yourself.

[82_28]

That is seriously uncanny nordic. Suspiciously uncanny. Who knows which way though. . .

Great Stewart clip too. Thanks for that.