Debunking Glenn Beck: How to Save America from Media Pundits and Propagandists

245 Pages·2011·6.036 MB·English

by  Karl Alan Rogers Ph.D.

Debunking Glenn Beck

Debunking
Glenn Beck
How to Save America from Media
Pundits and Propagandists
•
Karl Rogers
Foreword by Harvey Sarles
AN IMPRINT OF ABC-CLIO, LLC
Santa Barbara, California • Denver, Colorado • Oxford, England
Copyright 2011 by Karl Rogers
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in
writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rogers, Karl, 1967–
Debunking Glenn Beck : how to save America from media pundits and propagandists / Karl Rogers ;
foreword by Harvey Sarles.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4408-0029-0 (hbk. : alk.paper) – ISBN 978-1-4408-0030-6 (ebook)
1. United States—Politics and government. 2. Democracy—United States. 3. Beck, Glenn. I. Title.
JK31.R57 2011
320.973–dc23 2011032648
ISBN: 978-1-4408-0029-0
EISBN: 978-1-4408-0030-6
15 14 13 12 11 1 2 3 4 5
This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook.
Visit www.abc-clio.com for details.
Praeger
An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC
ABC-CLIO, LLC
130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911
Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911
This book is printed on acid-free paper 
Manufactured in the United States of America
For My Mother and Father
There is nothing that obtains so general an influence over
the manners and morals of a people as the press; from that
as from a fountain the streams of vice or virtue are poured
forth over a nation.
—Thomas Paine
Contents
Foreword by Harvey Sarles ix
Preface xiii
1. Twistifications and the Constitution 1
2. The Militia Clause 31
3. Public Education 49
4. Beyond Petroleum 69
5. Union Bashing 83
6. Illegal Immigration 99
7. The Nanny State 113
8. Shelter: A Basic Human Right? 127
9. Universal Health Care 137
10. Progressivism 149
11. The Myth of the Free Market 167
12. We, the People 183
Notes 199
Index 215
About the Author 225

Foreword
Glenn Beck is the “star” of this book’s title. But the book itself is more deeply
an analysis and discussion of America: What is democracy and how does it
“work”? Where did it come from? Where is it at right now . . . and why? How
can we—the citizens—extend this land of “We, the People” into a strong and
meaningful future?
Or can we? Beck’s America is quite different—and quite oppositional—to
the actual America, which should include all the people. He is clever, a public
star on television, in his several books, and wherever else he appears. His abil-
ity to use his skills to effectively “redraw” America’s history to suit his wishes,
especially, and to draw or represent the really rich, the corporations, is amaz-
ing, popular, and powerful.
“We, the People” are in the midst of a New Gilded Age in which the very
few, very rich control our economy. This is the third such time in the past cen-
tury—and the temptation for the very rich, as well as their followers and heirs,
is to share in the great riches and accompanying power that the very few con-
trol. We’ve seen most of this before: the “robber barons,” the Great Depression
as the earlier Gilded Ages lost their sheen, and the collapse of our economy a
couple of years ago.
In the oligarchy or plutocracy in which we find ourselves, very few control
the money, politics, and power to promote the ability of the oligarchs to fund
and try to justify their positions. The really rich are extremely powerful and will
use almost any means to keep this all going. And the very idea of the corpora-
tion has been on the rise and has gained power as we all watch . . . and do little.
Just who is Glenn Beck in this situation? Well, he is a “front man”—“star”
or “hottie”—who has very cleverly used the stages or grandstands that the
medium of television has provided. He looks and sounds really “good”—as he