Amidst the current debate on "our caustic political rhetoric", Fox News Babbler Glenn Beck has gently cautioned Former Alaska Governor Palin to take security precautions Quote:
"But please look into protection for your family. An attempt on you could bring the republic down." Unquote.
I wasn't aware that the survival of my rights and obligations as a citizen of this republic depended on Sarah Palin's very life.
Don't recall any armed revolution breaking out when Bobby Kennedy got measured for his harp, but then I was five years old when it happened and a notoriously unobservant child.
***
Now, the normal liberal response to all this rubbish is the assertion that Glenn Beck is "crazy".
I say he is not, a truly crazy person (a Jared Loughner for example) would be "bad television" in extremis.
But what Glenn Beck is good at, is fanning the fears of his audience until it's a very paranoid conflagration indeed.
After that, and only after that is it relatively easy to maintain the vital artificial sense of persecution that gets people buying books, videos, sandbags and pistols.
Quite literally, Glenn Beck is making his audience crazy.
Why?
Because it is profitable for News Corp.
Which is why a situation like this is money in the bank for Beck and Rupert Murdoch and News Corp's shareholders.
It has all the violent earmarks and dramatic twists that'll make Glenn's viewership hide under the bed, TV tuned to Fox News with the volume up full blast.
How do we address any of this?
Dunno.
How do you intellectually engage with a malign revenue stream?
It's like challenging the oxycontin trade to a debate....
No comments :
Post a Comment