Glenn Beck's Warped Hijacking of "9/12 America"

We came together. We promised ourselves that we would never forget. On September 12th, and for a short time after that, we really promised ourselves that we would focus on the things that were important -- our family, our friends, the eternal principles that allowed America to become the world's beacon of freedom.

-- Glenn Beck, in announcing "The 9/12 Project" on Fox News Channel, March 13, 2009.

Surely, you remember Sept. 12, 2001, and the days that immediately followed, those rough weeks immediately after the worst terror attack ever on U.S. soil. Don't you? It was a frightening time but also a rare moment of spiritual renewal and a sense of shared national purpose, when all Americans, liberal and conservative, without regard to race, creed or color, came together...to denounce the president of the United States as a socialist and a dictator and even question his citizenship and thus his very legitimacy to serve as commander-in-chief.

What? That's not how you remember those highly charged days right after the 9/11 attacks? Then clearly you are not caught up in the spirit of Glenn Beck's 9/12 Project, which the increasingly highly rated FNC host unveiled with great fanfare in the early days of Barack Obama's presidency, which is apparently when it dawned on Beck for the first time that America's sense of purpose had gone AWOL. Since then, Beck has talked frequently of the project -- which has spawned chapters around the country, driven by Beck's growing influence -- without ever really offering a coherent explanation of what exactly The 9/12 Project is, let alone what it's supposed to accomplish. The site's home page does offer a nod to the real "9/12" period back in 2001:

"The 9/12 Project is designed to bring us all back to the place we were on September 12, 2001. The day after America was attacked we were not obsessed with Red States, Blue States or political parties. We were united as Americans, standing together to protect the values and the principles of the greatest nation ever created."

Hey, so far, so good -- that does indeed sound like that brief and now-distant era when you saw those magnetically attached American flags on every car in every section of town and when both parties sincerely applauded George W. Bush's speech to a joint session of Congress, the time that liberal icon Frank Rich of the New York Times recalled in this poignant column as an "outpouring of affection and unity that swelled against all odds in the wake of Al Qaeda's act of mass murder."

But so how does Beck's project carry on that spirit today, nearly eight years later?

Well, it starts by giving visitors a dose of news headlines -- headlines like this one: "President Obama Gets Booed at AMA Speech." Doesn't that remind you of President Bush's "bullhorn moment" right after 9/11, when the nation rallied behind the president at a tough time? Me neither. The other headlines are in the same vein: "Access to White House Vistor List DENIED. Why?" or a video, "Wondering If We Are a Christian Nation or a Muslim Nation: WATCH THIS."

Other sections of the 9/12 Project are devoted to the voices of the everyday citizens who come there and who, in the words of the project credo, "stand united as Americans," although mainly united in their opposition to Democrats. One user-generated area of the site is simply called "Stand Up and Lead," which visitors do by writing comments like "jburdett", who was reluctant to sign up for the site because "I was afraid they (sic) "government" would remove me from my job in some way, or some brown shirt ACORN folks would single me for a good pushing around." "spec4pat" writes in to say "I'm ashamed that the tyranny we fight is growing on native soil." "acharlie2005" chimes in that "What Osama can not do; Obama and his lap-dogs are doing!" -- if that doesn't capture the spirit of 9/12, I'm not sure what does! Poster "dsame" gets to the point succinctly: "Obama Is Satan I now believe it."

Of course, the real passion is saved for a different part of the site called simply "Vent." This is where people make ugly jokes about Nancy Pelosi and where "JoJo54" writes: "It was just reported that ACORN goons were in the NY state capitol building knocking GOP senators and their aides to the floor. IS THIS THE SPARK THAT STARTS IT ALL??????????Are we stepping into a violent phase?" I don't know, but the tone there seems almost hopeful, doesn't it? The "Vent" section is different from "News From You," where readers post items like "Why Obama Wants To Hide Birth Certificate."

There's also an entire section of the 9/12 Project web site called "2nd Amendment," since nothing captures the spirit of charity and solidarity of than weeks after the 9/11 attacks than the basic American right to carry around a fully loaded AK-47 around.

I think you get the general idea -- there is nothing here that would remind you of the real September 2001, when Americans gave pints of blood and millions of dollars for victim relief. And here's the thing: I honestly have no problem with Glenn Beck using his TV- and radio-generated clout to set up a highly politicalized Web site, one where people can criticize the president and leaders of a certain political party. In fact, I'm not sure if I buy into the supposed premise of the site credo that 9/12 was so great because there was a lack of "political parties"; I happen to think political parties and debate are exactly part of what makes America great, even -- and maybe especially on 9/12, when the political parties forgot to debate -- or even read -- the USA Patriot Act.

What's is highly troublesome is this: The way that Beck once again so casually uses the tragedy of 9/11, and the slaughter of nearly 3,000 Americans, as a simple prop, as a tool to gain new followers who will watch Glenn Beck's show and buy Glenn Beck's books and accumulate more of this kind of warped politcal influence for Glenn Beck in 2009. Because Beck wants nothing to do with the actual reality of 9/11 or 9/12; in fact, he is the only major American media figure to admit that he hates the survivors of the 9/11 victims, stating from a radio studio in my hometown of Philadelphia in September 2005 that "when I see a 9-11 victim family on television, or whatever, I'm just like, "Oh shut up!" I'm so sick of them because they're always complaining. And we did our best for them." (I'm proud to say I was the blogger who first exposed this sick diatribe.)

Rather than atone for that outrageous comment, Beck now compounds it by creating an entire project that uses the memory of 9/11 -- and by extension the people who died that day -- as the foundation for a site largely given over to hatred and bogus claims about the current president of the very nation, our nation, that was attacked eight years ago. How pathetic. Beck promised a project that would be dedicated to America's "eternal principles" -- but the only eternal principle that Glenn Beck really holds is "Glenn Beck."

 

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Comments

[RobRokoli]

......principles that allowed America to become the world's beacon of freedom." Glen Beck

How ironic that Glen Beck speaks of America as the beacon of freedom, when he forms part of the vanguard of a movement that shredded civil rights, trampled on the rule of Law and imprinted much of the world, traditional allies included, with the conviction that America was a beacon of hard line nationalism, whose misguided leadership was prepared to tear up international law, practically at whim, and to invoke tyranny over its own people. Men such as he are the antithesis of "freedom loving."

Here is only part of the evidence that Glen Beck does not possess even a mediocre intellect His interviews reveal a lack of the critical thinking demanded even of a journeyman journalist. His responses either are credulous or ad hominem. His words expose a failure of abstract thinking and the ability to establish connections so that it appears he would be incapable of contributing to a lively after dinner conversation. His commentaries show him as a panderer who, typical of his ilk, blows hard in complete disregard that what he says, often has no sound basis in reason. Beck’s handlers surely know this, They surely have cast Beck in a role is in which he is the clown. We can dismiss Glen as no more than the organ grinder’s monkey, sent out to perform pathetic stunts, to amuse groundlings, even at the cost of outraging common sense.

[fastronaut]

There's really nothing funny about this psychosis. Over the past year I've watched my 70+ year-old parents turn into raving lunatics--and one of them even used to be a tolerant Democrat.

A friend of mine, a nurse on a psych ward, puts it best. "Fox is my patients' favorite channel. It's on in the rec room all day."

[TheBlackCat]

Republicans like Sarah Palin and John McCain, the running mates, along with virtually every high profile Republican pundit, are fond of reminding us that only small town, Christian Republicans are REAL Americans. They claim that big city liberals are the cause of every problem in America today.

Yet they have no problem then capitalizing on the tragedy which affected those big liberal cities NYC and D.C. and invoking the memory of that day to their own advantage at every possible opportunity to gain political momentum.

It just makes me sick when I hear people like Beck who use 9/11 as a way to motivate his base against the very kinds of people who were the actual victims of it.

[TheBlackCat]

I should specify I don't think all REPUBLICANS think like this. I lived in the South during most of the Bush Administration and while I knew many hateful Republicans, I also have Republican friends who don't think that liberals are evil and hate America, or that Republicans are somehow "more American" just because we have different political views.

Unfortunately the most prominant spokespeople of their party do. I suppose that's because the rational ones simply don't get the press coverage.

[joyce2]

I agree with you I have a lot of republican friends and some of them even agree with me because aI am an independe3nt and have voted for both in the past.Somestimes just because of it being the least of two evils except once when I voted 3rd party even though I knew he would not win

[MajorKong]

All I saw was "Glenn Beck...................Warped"

[pynecastle]

Everybody has one...Beck IS one.

[ShinjiIkari]

Bad enough that Beck, like Limbaugh and O'Reilly, is a gibbering white supremacist lackey to the NeoCons who screwed up this country by trying militarily to secure access to somebody else's oil. But he's been drifting more and more into Howard Beale territory lately. He'll find some way to blame others for his own pathology (and we all know who the Usual Suspects are). He may well bring about the Dark Side of 9/12: racist anti-Islamic bigotry, xenophobia, and an over-reliance on military solutions to non-military problems.

I don't want my country to remember its lust for blood and revenge.

[furey]

"Beck wants nothing to do with the actual reality of 9/11"

Not many "journalists" do, Mr. Bunch.

"'when I see a 9-11 victim family on television, or whatever, I'm just like, 'Oh shut up!'"

Now Mr. Beck is smearing these victims' family members:

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2009/06/01/make-it-happen/

[LeeroyFDermit]

So the problem is that the little people are angry about being exploited by a hypocritical political class?

Isn't that blaming the victim? Isn't that elitist?

If these are the worst posts out of tens of thousands ...

[kdlaiusa]

Beck cares about what? His show's ratings, his money, his book deal, his radio show, his followers, it's all about HIMSELF.

He cares about us? Not when he's still alive.

[sc300nc]

That can be said about any of the political commentators, Beck, Hannity, Oberman, Matthews, et al. It's all about egos, ratings, money, not neccesarily in that order. For someone to take the time to write this column about them brings more attention to them. I'm sure they all love it.

[tfoley]

Beck says some wacky stuff, but I read his new book common sense, and found it very interesting. Just my two cents

[PhilTListener]

Interesting is much too ambiguous for me. In what way? With conspiracy theories?
With clever, insightful takes on current events?

Beck was complaining the other day about the negative take on Zicam and how the zinc it contains could cause loss of one's sense of smell. But he doesn't care. it works so he'll keep using it.

The next day the company pulled it from shelves. Beck is a clown.

[Pippen]

Suggesting an interest in Beck's written word is like announcing you find Barney Rubble a fascinating read on Economics.

[phylliscooper1]

If it is a good book and Beck,s name is on it as author, it's my best guess that he didn't write it himself. He is just not that smart of a guy. What I do know is that he is making the money for it, because he is hawking it at all times, home and away.

One little tidbit on elitists, while we're on the subject of Beck. He's the guy who is just like us, touchy feely, a clown, aw shucks mam kinda guy, right? Then why does he travel everywhere with a security detail. He's unapproachable unless it's a paid venue?

[marignymitch]

If fear, unhinged paranoia and hate are hallmarks of America's eternal values, then Beck's doing a bang-up job.

[Guitanguran]

Wow, since my first post never showed up. I'll try again.

What Mr. Bunch left out of his tour was the most important part, the "9/12"

How 'bout somebody swinging by there to actually read it? Out of the nine principals, which one(s) do you object to? What, number 2? Toss it. Anything else you're against?

Out of the 12 values, anything there we need to eradicate?

To the degree that individual posts among the 1,000s on the site have wingnuts, you see it here too.

Pesky First Amendment, eh?

As to the news coverage, lets face it, who's in control and driving the agenda? Mr. Beck is no friend to George Bush or Republicans in general if they're simply using an "R" to cover for the same type of behavior.

What IS missing from the principals and values is a mention of Democrats or Republicans.
It really is bigger than all that. Whether its portions of the Patriot Act or expanding the power of the Fed, our freedoms are being taken away. If you want government to force you live like you're still in your parents' basement("Turn that rap stuff down Billy! No, your friends can't come over after midnight. No, you can't borrow the car.") then the current direction and speed of change should suit you fine.

On the other hand, if you don't like being told what to do, maybe YOU need to speak up and tell them.

[myzenthing]

Beck is a sick, sick man. Like most wingnuts, he is projecting his own mental pathology onto the population at large. And the scary part is that some people are actually responding...

[DWF62]

You can only think to call him names and label people as wingnuts. Why don't you make your own opinion and not rely on what you have been told to think by others? I'm just sayin'.

[thebirdstheword]

um, there is this thing called an article above these posts. it includes information about beck. people read it, and form opinions based on the words included within the article. it's how most humans form their own thought processes.

but, dwf, you must be too smart for the rest of us. do your opinions come to you through divine intervention. must be nice to be so much smarter than the rest of us.

[myzenthing]

As a matter of fact, that is my considered opinion after closely studying Beck, Limbaugh and the rest of the right-wing echo chamber for the past eight years.

BTW, your second sentence is an excellent example of the projection that I was referring to in my original post.

[gallimaufry03]

This is a VERY GOOD article. Thank you Will!

[VengeanceIsMine]

Beck is not trying to bring unity to the country. Unlike our president, he does not have delusions of grandeur. He is only trying to coordinate the conservative base in opposition to the big government policies of this administration. He is slightly overweight, loves candy, a recovering alcoholic and a Mormon. Don’t forget Alinsky rule # 5 people, make sure to take cheap shots at all of those. What you call hate is merely the opposing political view. He is not a newsperson, he is a commentator. The more you bring him up, the more his popularity increases. Keep it up libs. Keep thinking of all those millions he is making. Don't worry, I'm sure this administration will audit his taxes every year until he dies. Think of all the liberal programs all that money can fund.

[workingliberal]

LOL!

[PresidentRobertBooth]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf33g9ep4YU