Thank the FSM it is September!
The intense stupid of August will soon begin to fade like a bad Boone’s Farm Apple Wine hangover. And it may have one bottle of Boone’s Farm too many that destroyed the brain cells of the cavalcade of fools marching to the dog-whistles of Beck, Palin and the other sirens of wingnutopia.
Of course the stupid of August will leave a residue. One clear sign is the “thoughtful” conversation about the Beck Scamfest of last weekend. There have been endless idiotic (and yet serious) words written about this sideshow, but one of the silliest was the column by Reihan Salam that E.D. had some fun with yesterday. In it, the very “serious” conservative-up-and-comer compared Beck to Malcolm X. That is just stupider than bathing in pig shit.
Still, the roots of the Beck rally go deep. There is a very long American tradition to wrap a movement dedicated to limiting the Liberty and Rights of others in patriotism and old time Christianesque rhetoric. There are many examples one could turn to, but Beck reminds me most of the Time Magazine cover boy from June 1924, Hiram Evans:
Or maybe he is just D.C. Stephens…
In 1922 Hiram Evans became the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. He led a movement that would see more than 6 million Americans join the KKK. In August (of course) of 1925 more than 40,000 Klansmen marched through the streets of Washington DC. While hatred of black folks was (and is) a strong motivator for the Klan and other neo-Confederate movements (like the Teabaggers) that is not a very great organizing tool. What worked for the Klan in the Twenties was fear of foreigners, immigrants and their weird Religions that were out to conquer and subjugate the United States.
Back then the main threat was from Catholics, then Jews, foreigners and (as always) African Americans. This passage from Wikipedia describing the 1920’s Klan could be about the Teabaggers, Fox, Beck and most of the current GOP if you replaced Catholic with Islamic:
The
Klan’sTeabagger’s primary enemies wereCatholicsMuslims who theKlanTeabaggers feared were behind secret plots to overthrow the government and exterminate Protestants. Another important enemy was people of foreign birth, especially those fromCatholicIslamic countries. A third, and lesser enemy, were blacks.
It was Evans who hit upon the bright idea to wrap the Klan in the American Flag and Jesus and market the group as a grassroots movement firmly rooted in traditional American values. Mobilizing around hate and efforts to restrict liberty are always easier when you evoke the blessings of a divine power and magical ancestors like Founding Fathers. It worked for the Confederacy, it worked for the Klan and it works for Beck.
Of course the comparison of Beck to Evans isn’t really fair–to Evans. Beck is really just a common grifter. A better comparison from the second Klan era to the Teabagger era might be between Beck and D.C. Stephens, who–back in the day–was the Grand Dragon of the Indiana KKK. Stephens was a real grifter. He backed Evans in a power play to take control of the Klan and was rewarded with contol of Indiana and 22 other states. It was a money making operation. Stephens took a cut of every dollar paid for hoods, robes and other tools of the Klan trade. In no time at all he was a millionaire and he used his influence with the gullible rubes flocking to join the KKK fad to elect certain candidates to office–candidates who would do his bidding. By the mid-Twenties almost all of the elected officials in Indiana owed their office to Stephens and the Klan.
Like Beck, D.C. Stephens was very powerful with the wingnuts of his era. And then he fell. Turns out that Stephens kidnapped and repeatedly rape a young women who then ate (or was fed) poison. As she got sick, Stephens refused to release her. After a few days he finally sent her home, but by then she only had days to live. Before she died she told her story and Stephens was arrested for murder. He thought his political pals would get his back, but instead they let him go down. Once in prison, Stephens spilled the beans on the grifters he helped to elect and they followed him to ruin. On the way down, he also helped to end the KKK fad of the Twenties. So at least he did some good.
Beck being compare to Malcolm X is just stupid. OTOH comparing Beck to an opportunistic grifters like Evans and Stephens seems just about right. The thing about Beck is that you know he is going to crash and burn, the entertainment factor is when and how. I think a goat, a penthouse and latex will be involve in his downfall. Time will tell, but if there is a FSM with a sense of justice (or humor) it will happen in August.
Now, I am certain that there will be some who think that comparing Beck to leaders of the Klan is “over the top”. Perhaps, but the tagline of the official website of “The Knights Party, USA” (a KKK effort) is “Bringing a Message of Hope and Deliverance to White Christian America!”
And that tag line could also have been the tag line for Beck’s rally.
Cheers
Yutsano
And the wheel still turns slowly but inexorably towards justice.
asiangrrlMN
Chilling recounting of Evans, dengre. I did not know much about this person before, and now, I wish I had never heard of him. I despair for our country, I really do. The more things change, the more they stay the fucking same.
Ecks
with a lengthy stop off in the scary land of world-class-shitstorm along the way.
Violet
I’m not so sure he will. He did a whole load of dumb stuff when he was younger. But he sobered up, married an LDS woman, had some kids, and is pretty much on the straight and narrow. I think his star will fade, but I’m not sure if he’ll crash and burn in a popcorn-worthy manner. It might, but I’m not convinced.
Now Sarah Palin, there’s another grifter. And she will crash and burn in a really fun to watch style. She hasn’t faced any demons like Beck has (he’s quit the booze and pills). She’s just a mean girl who is used to getting her way and punishing anyone who gets in her way. Problem is, she’s playing in the big leagues now and she can’t shut everyone up. The Vanity Fair article today is a good start. I’m sure she’s livid. She’s got a temper and it’s going to be her downfall.
stickler
To call what D.C. Stephenson did “rape,” is to lowball it. The girl was underage, and she suffered some horrible injuries. Including serious bites.
Ah, Wikipedia.
All around a miserable excuse for a human being.
Cat Lady
This is like playing Clue. I say Beck in the poolroom, with an illegal underage Mexican girl and K-Y.
ETA: Deliverance – Do. Not. Want.
General Stuck
The Idiots of August – I nominate my own brain fart for a tag. Of course, it would be another year before it could be used. I can wait but won’t hold my breath.
And Dennis, not long ago I was watching I think was a History Channel doc about the Klan and that march, and it was eery seeing all those white robes and dunce hats marching in formation down Penn ave, i think it was Penn avenue.
Folks who want to downplay this synergy of racial politics, hypernationalism, and religion need to study the power of the Klan in those days, and the survival seeds that germinate later when growing conditions for hate returns. It is part of the American psyche that only hibernates, and never dies.
Lev
@Violet: This is true, but he could always get back on the white lady again, no?
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
What I genuinely cannot figure out is how the dude’s Mormonism has not yet gotten in his way.
If you’re an fundamentalist, that shit is a train straight to hell. If you’re a more moderate but still Bible-based, believing, mainline Christian, it’s at the very least weird and not terribly Christian. I heard a guy from the Southern Baptist Conference on NPR yesterday saying that the most charitable reading an evangelical could give Mormonism is to say it’s a fourth Abrahamic faith. His interviewer said: “Not Christianity?” He said “Not Christianity.”
How is that this hasn’t tripped Beck up — apparently at all — yet? Palin is a fucking speaking-in-tongues Pentecostal, for God’s sake! She should be casting out his demons!
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
Also, too:
The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party.
asiangrrlMN
@asiangrrlMN: Sorry. I meant Stephens. He’s the chilling one, really.
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: In a world of us or them, apparently Mormonism is a tolerable us as long as it’s not mentioned.
@stickler: Holy shit. That’s just disgusting and foul. Poor child.
MikeJ
OT, but thanks for the pointer to the civil war class from yale. Enjoying it immensely (even as I learn yet another thing to hate about apple (level correction is ignored when output through the ipod port instead of the headphone jack(cue fanboy to tell me that this is the proper behavior.)))
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@asiangrrlMN: I guess, man, but I really don’t get it. Because these views (as I know you know…) are not held lightly!
I mean, if Palin is the manner of Christian she says she is, she genuinely believes that her pal Beck is going to hell for all eternity. Like, for real.
I would really like to be a fly on the wall in some of the conservative churches around this country when his name comes up.
John Bird
First off, great piece and fun to read.
. . . but everytime someone breathes new life into the FSM fad, it makes me :( inside. Atheists have to fight hard enough as it is to prove that they are not, by definition, snide nerds obsessed with poking fun at the religious. Just let it die.
Violet
@Lev:
He could, and maybe his crazy schedule and popularity will propel him in that direction. But unlike Palin, he’s actually faced some demons and triumphed over them. I think as a result he’s the less likely of the two to implode dramaticlaly.
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
I heard the same thing on NPR yesterday. Very interesting. If it’s making NPR, it’s not just fringe stuff.
I caught about 10-15 minutes of Beck’s show today. He was whining about how Mormons are the most persecuted religion in US history. I think all this talk about his religion is getting to him. I also think he could be laying the groundwork for the mainstreaming of Romney.
John Bird
Also, perhaps we need a “A third, and lesser enemy, were blacks” tag. Because you’re right, unmodified, that applies to all American right-wing movements straight up to the current day.
I don’t know. I think your average NPR listener is probably more likely to already know the difference between a Mormon and an evangelical than your average Beck supporter.
anna missed
Here’s an interesting quote from Evans circa 1927:
“We in the lead found ourselves with a following inspired in many ways beyond our understanding, with beliefs and purposes which they themselves only vaguely understood and could not express, but for the fulfillment of which they depended on us. We found ourselves, too, at the head of an army with an unguessable influence to produce results for which the responsibility would rest on us — the leaders — but which we had not foreseen and for which we were not prepared. As the solemn responsibility to give right leadership to these millions, and to make right use of this influence, was brought home to us, we were compelled to analyze, put into definite words, and give purpose to these half conscious impulses.”
This is exactly what Beck is doing.
Amanda in the South Bay
I think there is a good case to be made that Mormonism, at least on paper, is not Christianity. I mean, even the Pope and the Patriarch of Moscow will recognise fundygelical Protestants as being Christian, albeit some degree of heretical, schismatic or deluded.
One well known writer on Eastern Christianity compared it to Islam-Islam is to Eastern Christianity what Mormonism is to Western Christianity.
wmd
It’s really dissonant to realize that the Klan’s chosen political party was the Democratic party. Also the party that was passing laws against the teaching of evolution, and whose standard bearer Bryan prosecuted Scopes.
Parties certainly changed over the next generation.
Most of my life I lived in Indiana. I found it really strange that the state could produce Eugene Debs at the same time as DC Stevens. What a contrast in character.
John Bird
@anna missed:
Yeah, but can you imagine Beck writing something that literate and challenging? Glenn Beck: officially less intelligent than a 1920s Klansman.
Jrod the Cookie Thief
@Lev: I’ll bet standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial while a throng of adoring fans cheer and applaud your every word is a rush that makes cocaine seem like Pixie Stix.
If Beck goes out like that, it won’t be until after the teahadists have found themselves a new mullah.
General Stuck
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
Republicans as a group are quite disparate and very protective of their boundaries with each other. Much more so than liberals. The seeming intractable elements of differences large and small, ordinarily keeps them from bonding together long enough to elect national leaders that are generally acceptable to all those factions.
They have elected a fair number of wingnut presnits, but for the past sixty or so years have not come together long enough to capture the all important House of Reps (other than for 12 years recently), that controls the initiative completely on Tax code changes, and largely on entitlement spending and programs. Which of course is the holy grail for manipulating the social fabric in this country in a fundamental way. By money.
Before 1994, they had not held the House for something like forty years, and it took that long without that institutions constitutional prerogatives needed to social engineer to the degree they really crave, and political engineer in the direction of Oligarchy. Not until GWB did they seize control of all three branches and could then rob the national treasury and transfer the booty for safe keeping of the wealthy Plutocrats, with the help of a few hapless dems, which is a two fer in that they steal the money, and at the same time put us in debt to demagogue that debt, so liberals won’t be able to spend money to help the poor and middle classes.
But Obama didn’t play along and passed The Stimulus, or the largest discretionary spending bill in history that was not so much stimulus, as funding for a rather large wish list of long term prog causes, which the Plutocrats and their wingnut lackeys hated with a passion, then came HCR, etc…..
So it didn’t take 40 years this time from being out of power to spur wingers to get off their couches and gather in the streets, and it won’t take long for the wingnut protestants to swallow their religious rivalry to stop the commie Obama from empowering the lower classes with tax dollars. Add on to that, or maybe add on the other stuff Obama has passed into law, to his blackness, and the wingnuts see red and seem willing to bury all the fractional hatchetts to stop him.
And that is why I think the tea baggers are getting their power, that and cold cash from the moneychanger class.
TuiMel
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
He spouts the crap they need to hear. He invokes god and feigns piety. He takes them on a mystical journey of “revelation” using his magical blackboard. He justifies their bigotry and the fears that spring from that bigotry. He places them and their insatiable sense of grievance in a false but comforting historical context. He fills their political cravings. BUT, he doesn’t want to marry their daughters or run for president. For fundie Christians, he is like Israel: a useful tool to advance their dearest fantasies – but not to be recognized beyond as anything beyond his utility as ego balm and a tool.
anna missed
Here’s a blog post I did back in April on the KKK – teabag confluence.
morzer
I suggest that the reason Palin and Beck haven’t yet fallen is simple: their followers aren’t interested in truth, much less the human beings beneath the legend. What Palin and Beck provide is access to a drama, in which their followers get to play an exciting role – heroic, persecuted white Americans, standing up against sinister tyranny for their beloved country. I’d bet that most of them live lives of quiet boredom, feel insignificant and left behind, and resent the experts who show up their emptiness. They are getting what they want most – a role on stage which doesn’t require knowledge, appeals to the old nostrums that they were brought up to believe, and which enables them to feel significant.
You can’t argue with them, because reason doesn’t do anything to give them the same happy feeling of excitement and belonging. The only chance you have with the devoted followers of this world is to give them a more dramatic narrative and more time onstage. The Democrats haven’t done that, and nor, by and large, has Obama since his election.
This isn’t to say I endorse the teabaggers and their ideas. I am a long way removed from them politically, I dislike the racism that they pretend to not be involved with, and I suspect they are heading for grief for everyone. But, I do recognize that we can throw history, facts, even the obvious realities at them – and it doesn’t matter worth a damn, because we aren’t giving them what they want most, which is excitement, meaning, a place where they belong.
(Before anyone mentions that the economy is bad – yes, but the typical teabagger profile isn’t one of a person badly hurt by the economy. If anything, they’ve probably weathered the storm quite well. They tend to be well-off, not poor, have degrees, etc etc. )
Martin
@MikeJ: No, that’s a bug.
Violet
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
According to the Vanity Fair article, she’s not that kind of Christian.
El Cruzado
These Klan guys sure give D&D players everywhere a bad name…
NobodySpecial
I’m not sure either Palin or Beck survive actual celebrity type public scrutiny. Palin is already a joke to everyone not among the 27%, and Beck has only survived so far by being under the radar. Now that he’s ‘head of a movement’, though, he’s gonna get a LOT more investigation, and I doubt the ex-DJ has a clean enough closet to survive the paparazzi.
Lev
@wmd: The Democratic Party has changed a lot since it was created. Initially it was the Party of Jackson, one that was contemptuous of banks (and especially national banks) and elites in general, supported slavery and opposed any sort of national infrastructure improvements. Even through the Civil War the Democratic Party often presented itself as the party of white people and the Republicans as the party of blacks. After the Civil War the party became the party of political reform since Republicans usually held power, and eventually urbanization strengthened the progressive side of the party and helped it win out. But seriously, looking at the two parties side-by-side, the GOP was easily the more palatable alternative until after Teddy Roosevelt left office.
asiangrrlMN
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: I was been half-flippant, but I honestly think most of the ‘baggers are garden variety Christians who don’t really give a flip if Beck is a Mormon. He allows them to let their hate flow freely, and that’s all they really want. As for Palin, she is not a true believer by far. She’ll do whatever and whomever to get what she wants.
morzer
@NobodySpecial:
Beck’s hardly under the radar. He’s been on magazine covers, had books written about him, gets parodied by Jon Stewart etc. Whatever the reason for his continued success, it ain’t obscurity.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Kind of on topic: Did anyone else watch Donald Trump and David Letterman debate the “Ground Zero mosque”? I had to hit the mute button a few times, myself, because I couldn’t watch/listen to that vulgar huckster, but he was falling all over himself explaining why the mosque is “insensitive” (for which he got depressingly hearty applause), and how of course Muslims have equal rights, but people are just so darn angry, they should move it. Letterman tried to be both polite to his guest (and even this aside, why does he have this tiresome and profoundly uninteresting, publicity whoring boor on about once a month?) and point out the grotesque unfairness that obviously bothers him. Gah. Maybe somebody with a stronger stomach than I will discuss the whole thing.
Andy K
@General Stuck:
So close, but yet so far. I’m disappointed.
FIFY
morzer
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Well, with Donald Trump as your interlocutor, you are simultaneously the nicest, smartest, funniest and best looking person in the room. These are not small things to ageing comedians.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
Has anyone seen this yet?:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/magazine/05hacking-t.html
I have no love for the British Royals, but if I were the Queen I’d be pretty pissed at Cameron. And it’s just further proof that Murdoch is the devil.
arguingwithsignposts
I will just post the same link from an earlier thread: Hawt Matt Yglesias on Reihan Salam action.
anna missed
@morzer:
This is no doubt a big part of the appeal, or a 5 minutes of fame through affiliation for an otherwise loosing proposition. It’s a call back to tribal/clan affirmation of re-stacking the deck with preferential treatment for white people. They can feel the demographic favoritism slipping away in both numbers and cultural influence, and that dread is amplified by the likes of Beck and Palin into a some kind of show of force.
As DennidG’s story indicates, the KKK was very popular during the 20’s. So popular in fact that the Democratic Party, in their 1924 convention had to take a vote on whether to disavow a major Klan plank in the party platform. Fortunately, the Klan sympathizers couldn’t muster the super majority needed to keep it in, and thus, the KKK began a 6 year decline in influence.
Dennis G.
@wmd:
And yet, as an early outlier, Stephens registered as a Republican. I think it was just because Indiana was a Republican State and he was following power. That is the way of the grifter.
Violet
@Dennis G.:
Which is why Sarah Palin goes to a Pentacostal church and is seen praying, etc. That sort of religion leads to the power.
Allan
@Cat Lady: I used to think Beck would pull a Budd Dwyer, but I’m increasingly doubtful that he has the guts to pull the trigger.
NobodySpecial
@morzer: No offense, but Jon Stewart’s audience is really really small compared to the kind of media attention most celebrities get.
No, I’m talking what happens when he starts having to deal with the press in the way Hollywood celebrities do. When folks start poring through his trash and chasing down long lost ‘friends’ from his demon days.
Dennis G.
@John Bird:
But I’m not an Atheist. I believe there is something out there/ in there, but I can’t buy into organized religious belief systems. It is mostly a private matter for me.
The innate silliness of the FSM works as a shorthand for my audience of one belief system. By invoking it, I mean no offense to Atheists anywhere. It just makes me smile like the FSM billboard/sculpture on Falls Road makes me smile whenever I pass it.
Cheers
Ailuridae
I think there is a tendency for those on the left to believe everyone on the right is a true believer. You hear a number like 25% of Americans believe the rapture will come this year (it polls pretty high every year) or that X% think Obama is a Muslim or is not a citizen and you assume they are all answering honestly. I’m starting to think that’s not the case and some not insignificant percentage of those people are knowingly being dishonest with pollsters to cover for the real loonies in the GOP base.
I read a piece a long time ago about someone trying to piece together whether Stephenson (am I missing something with the use of Stephens?) was a serial killer using old police reports and the like. Trying to find it now to link it.
Violet
@NobodySpecial:
Jon Stewart hosted the Oscars, so he’s not small potatoes as a celebrity goes, despite the size of his audience.
Speaking of audience sizes, on his radio show today Beck was saying that he’s got a small audience because he’s on cable. If a network would give him a daily primetime show, he’d show them what real ratings are like! He’d increase the network’s ratings singlehandedly. I couldn’t decide if he was just blathering or actually angling for a 5-7 days a week primetime network show. Would a network really do that? I’m sure someone has looked into it and the show would tank in the ratings.
Monday on his radio show Beck said that he’s not ashamed of anything he’s done in the last 10-15 years. Before that he’d done lots of things he was ashamed of now, and he talked about those willingly, but in the last decade or so he hadn’t done anything he was ashamed of.
So if a reporter is looking to dig up dirt, the last decade or so is where to look. Finding the stuff he’s already admitted, unless it involves something really awful, is old news. Finding something during the time he swears he’s got nothing to hide is where the juicy stories lie.
Yutsano
@Violet:
Am I wrong for wanting to see Glenn Beck try to take on Rachael Ray head to head? Not only would that be the abject humiliation I’ve been dying for, she could show him how to work up a loyal audience to a frenzy without pretending she knows it all.
anna missed
Some amazing photos of KKK activity from the 20’s in Washington State</a.
Ailuridae
@Violet:
I couldn’t decide if he was just blathering or actually angling for a 5-7 days a week primetime network show. Would a network really do that? I’m sure someone has looked into it and the show would tank in the ratings.
What is strange is that Fox (the network) only does two hours of primetime so that if Rupert thought it was plausible he could easily run Beck five days a week on networks while only displacing his local news broadcast (at least here in Chicago).
Without looking, though, I have to imagine that Fox News @ 9 pummels Beck in the ratings especially amongst “desirables” (non-Seniors)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ailuridae: Yeah, I’m always dubious about church attendance and Biblical literalism. I think in the former case, people would also say they eat their veggies, floss and exercise; the latter, they don’t give it much thought, “Yeah, the Bible? Sure. Why not?”
@NobodySpecial: I suspect Stewart and Beck have pretty similar numbers. FoxNews brags when they hit 3 million viewers. Rachel Maddow did a great rundown of shows that get more viewers that Bill O’Reilly, FN’s top rated show (Deadliest Catch, Pro Wrestling, Jon and Kate Plus 8, SpongeBob and Nick @ Nite). Fox’s influence is with other media types, not the broad electorate.
jharp
I have no idea if it has been posted but before I forget this is an old bookmark of mine.
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/45070,in-pictures,news-in-pictures,picture-past-august-18-1925-ku-klux-klan-in-washington
I live in greater Indianapolis. Probably the most racist area in the five county area. Though it’s close.
Martin
@Violet: Leno’s ratings are for shit. Give Beck the Tonight Show. I welcome the extra attention he’d bring.
I’ve got faith in my fellow citizen.
mnpundit
I think it has to do with heat. I’ve always wonder why it’s always countries that are cooler that are dominant. Recent studies have produced a theory:
Now we know it’s easier for diseases in hotter locations. So maybe that’s what happens in August. Remember, despite teh snow we get, the northern border of the US is at the same latitude as central France. Miami is at the same latitude for instance, as Cairo. We are a warmer place than Europe and the south is one of the warmest, wettest areas of all.
Now obviously there are issues with this theory as any others, but geographic determinism is an extremely robust concept as Jared Diamond shows.
cmorenc
Mormons definitely ARE Christians (the formal title of the religion is “The Church of Jesus Chris of Latter-Day Saints”), but with some hyperbolically extreme, substantial additions and variations grafted onto it. Specifically, in a hyper-condensed nutshell they believe:
1) Sometime not long after Christ’s death on the cross and resurrection, he reappeared to the natives of the New World (at a time before the Europeans had “discovered” it).
2) An Angel named Moroni, who was guardian of some golden plates, buried them somewhere in upstate New York , where in the early 1820s, he chose young (twenty-ish) Joseph Smith to appear before and reveal the existence and location of these golden plates, which contained the text of the Book of Mormon.
3) The Book of Mormon is the true latest manifestation revealing Jesus as Christ, the eternal God, and tracks in g a great many ways similarly (though certainly not identically) with the conventional Bible, which they regard as valid, but less so than the Book of Mormon because the latter was received “pure” from the golden tablets by Joseph Smith, whereas the Bible text has been more vulnerable to human error by going through so many historical translation steps.
Certainly there are quite a few doctrinal departures from conventional Protestant or Catholic Christian orthodoxies, and the Mormons superimpose entirely new, unique substantial layers upon standard Christian beliefs. Nevertheless core belief in Christ and salvation through him as the foundation of the religion (albeit with some additional significant figures not found elsewhere in Christianity such as the Angel Moroni) makes the religion inarguably Christian, even if bizzare on many counts by conventional Christian standards.
Mark S.
I finally got around to reading the Vanity Fair piece on Palin. Almost everyone in Wasilla seems terrified of her, and Sarah herself is too afraid to go to Target lest someone might make a joke about her, but the real question is why the fuck is she still living there? She’s got a job at Fox; why not move to New York, DC, or LA? Why torture these poor people with her stupidity and vindictiveness?
This part made me crack up:
Yeah, I wonder how, Todd, I wonder how.
cmorenc
BTW, I am NOT Mormon myself, nor is it likely at all I ever will be. I do take an annual pilgrimage to Salt Lake City, but for the purpose of skiing at Alta and Park City etc. While there, however I always do spend a few hours one evening taking a tour of the Temple Square complex that is the home of the Mormon religion, preferably on a night when the magnificent Mormon Tabernacle Choir is holding one of its rehearsals open free to the public. I always let the cheerfully sincere, wholesome, lovely twenty-ish Mormon girls take me on a “tour” of the complex, where the tenets and history of the religion are presented, and (of course) they’re proselytizing you, but in a way I find very welcoming and unthreatening, unlike with the proselytizing of many conventional Christian evangelicals. I find the presentation fascinating, even though utterly unconvincing to my rational or religious tastes.
I’m of course quite aware of the underbelly of Mormonism and its history from reading Krakauer’s “Under the Banner of Heaven”, and it’s fascinating to see the Mormon’s video idyllically presenting the life of Joseph Smith in a little over 20 minutes and compare it with the actual history of the man.
It’s true the Mormons are a rather bizzare offshoot of Christianity, with both a wholesome, admirable side and a dark underbelly they’d prefer you not to see or to acknowledge even to themselves. However, they ARE nevertheless a Christian sect, and it’s simply a false bigotry to claim they are otherwise.
Anne Laurie
@Violet:
Except that I seriously believe Beck’s bipolar, and the one thing you can count on with a bipolar individual is their unerring gift for the Big Dramatic Moment. Right now he’s getting that rush from playing Elmer Gantry to his adoring fans, but as soon as “everyone’s” attention starts to drift to the next flavor-of-the-week, he’ll have to find something newer and more exotic to reclaim the spotlight. Aimee Semple McPherson had her ‘kidnapping’, but that pretty well backfired; I don’t know how her modern equivalent could draw the same amount of attention, but then, I’m not bipolar!
MikeJ
@cmorenc: While I don’t really care who calls themselves a christian and who doesn’t, I can see how some Christians would think Mormons have deviated too much. You could call mainstream christians followers of the jewish faith as easily as you could call mormons christians. And frankly, I’d be ok with that. I doubt that any actual christians or any actual jews would.
Batocchio
I never thought Beck would get big after hearing his hate-fest for 9/11 widows, but he was small enough when it happened it didn’t really damage him – it certainly didn’t finish him. As usual, only the liberals noticed or called him out…
bob h
We used to have shark attacks in August; now we have Republican freak shows.
Xenos
@cmorenc: Along the same lines, Muslims accept a non-trinitarian version of Christianity, including a reverence for Mary and the belief that Jesus will return in judgment at the end of the world. When Mohammad and his followers conquered Mecca they destroyed all the holy statues at the Kabaa, but spared a Byzantine Theotokos (icon of Mary with infant Jesus), as they did not consider it to be idolotrous, and because they considered Jesus to be a legitimate prophet from the line of Abraham.
But in demoting Jesus to a mere prophet, and probably more of an angel than God incarnate, Muslims are not Christians. This is pretty much the same thing as in Mormonism, where Jesus is not so much the son of God but is more of an angel, one with older and younger brothers, and is the ‘god’ of this planet and not of all creation. It is a level of heterodoxy that seems just too far off from the established dogma to be considered, truly, Christianity.
morzer
@NobodySpecial:
They’ve already done so: e.g. Alexander Zaitchik wrote a series of fascinating articles, and then a book about Beck, which revealed a good deal to his discredit. But that doesn’t matter – what does matter is the narrative Palin and Beck create for their followers.
Plus, the point with Jon Stewart is not that HE gets a huge audience, but that he has to target people who are somewhat familiar as the objects of his satire. He’s another marker of Glenn Beck’s arrival on center stage.
cmorenc
@Xenos:
Um…this is simply incorrect. Mormons do believe as a central foundational tenet that Jesus was the son of God, the messiah, and in the cruxifixion/ressurection/salvation through Jesus sacrifice etc., which is the core of Christianity itself, and not doctrinal details such as the trinity etc. That’s not to say that the Mormons haven’t grafted onto Christianity some large, rather bizzare additions, beginning with Joseph Smith finding golden plates in upstate New York containing a key additional canon (Book of Mormon) buried in the ground.
IF we’re discussing whether Mormon GOP candidates for national office (e.g. Mitt Romney) can gain sufficient acceptance and support from the Evangelical (Protestant) Christian right, THEN the issue of whether THEY (the Evangelicals) can be persuaded to sufficiently regard Mormons as sufficiently valid Christians (or close enough for practical political purposes to be worth ignoring the differences)…becomes important. However, for progressives to get caught up in attempting to pejoratively judge Mormons bona fides as Christians vs not is to indulge in the sort of petty, intolerantly dismissive religious bigotry we accuse the Evangelical right and GOP of getting bogged down in. MOST of the comments here in BJ about Mormons have been outright contemptuous, not merely of individuals such as Beck who richly deserve contempt, but in terms of broadsides against their religion, which is wholly undeserved. Which isn’t of course to say that any of us has ANY need to contemplate ever becoming a Mormon ourselves (as opposed to whatever we are now). I’ll never be one, neither will most of you.
Don’t criticize the mote in someone else’s eye when there’s a log in your own. Although it’s true that there’s a whole Redwood Forest stuck in Glenn Beck’s eye, and coming out his butt as well.
Linda Featheringill
@Xenos:
I read in some Jehovah’s Witness literature that they consider Jesus to be a human incarnation of the archangel Michael.
debbie
If you’re going to compare grifters to grifters, I think Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker would be more appropriate, even down to the tears.
aimai
@cmorenc:
I don’t get what the complaint is. Its not criticizing Mormonism unfairly to say that it is a bizarre, modern offshoot of a late iron age offshoot of an early bronze age religion. Where the Jewish religion predates literacy, written history, and proof the Christian religion appears at an early stage of recordkeeping and the Mormon sect comes along at precisely the moment that we can know that almost every single thing they claim as historically true is, historically and literally false. This is *the* central problem for Mormonism–a problem which exists currently for only the most biblically literal/inerrant Christian sects.
Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and their followers made literal, historic claims about specific countries and peoples that we know absolutely, from the archaeological record, simply can’t be true. And they began making them at a time when their own followers couldn’t know them to be false (totally normal for most religions) but they have continued to the present day long after this has ceased to be the case.
In her book “Leaving the Saints” Martha Beck, admittedly a pretty strange person herself, describes in excruciating detail how her father’s important career as an interpreter of lost Mormon/Egyptian texts foundered when the actual “lost” Mormon documents turned up in the NYPL, complete with Joseph Smith’s doodles, and turned out not to be what the Mormons had been claiming at all. It turns out that Smith had a copy of a then untranslatable papyrus of The Book of the Dead. Not some angelic charter. But up until the rediscovery of the document, and modern translations of hieroglyphs, the Mormon church was free to invent whatever it wanted about the content and meaning of this text.
I think there are a lot of nice things about Mormonism. But unlike pre-modern religions they are really caught in a logical cleft stick with their insistence on literally believing the obviously made up lies of a modern con man. New religions spring up all the time–witness the Scientologists–and new followers will always be gullible enough to join. But we aren’t obligated to pay them the courtesy of pretending to believe their really obvious nonsense.
aimai
morzer
@aimai:
Mormon archaeology is a fascinating, and frequently quite amusing field. The search for evidence sends young Mormons wandering down into Latin America every year, and every year they return empty-handed. Strangely enough.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Cat Lady:
Sorry, but it’s just better that way, no?
Iowa Housewife
Very interesting.
I think anyone who listens to and likes Beck and Palin is stupid. I don’t care if they have 5 Phds. They are plain stupid.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)
@cmorenc:
I believe, in this context, that you are referring to the angel Morani.
Mike in NC
Sort of like a certain Texas governor who admitted to having done some foolish things as a young man. Funny how the media treated that as a taboo subject. Nobody seemed to think his history of alcoholism or cocaine use was any big impediment to higher office. How did that work out for you, America?
Sanka
Brilliant!
Except for the fact that…er, it wasn’t.
Morons.
cyd
Which makes the analogy to Glenn Beck even more apt.
John M
The Stephenson/Oberholzer rape/torture incident occurred (or began, at least) in the neighborhood where I now live. It gives me great pleasure that the neighborhood now is an economically and racially mixed neighborhood with plenty of gays, liberals, and Catholics.
aimai
@Mark S.:
That Palin piece actually made me sad for Palin. She’s essentially a fish out of water, and always will be. The scene described where she shrieks “we’re not good enough for America” is awful, because its true. She catapulted from a small stage to a large one and was instantly in a crowd of people who variously worshipped her (without knowing her) and despised her (because they understood her and were revolted by her.) That has to have been exhilerating and devastating at the same time. The fact that they are building a “chateau” in a town that she no longer feels comfortable and safe even shopping in, or going to a coffee shop in, is pretty understandable, actually. She’s not at home in the wide world–she’s not even a celebrity of real interest everywhere–and she would have to make a very deliberate choice to uproot the kids and set down roots in a new place. They can’t figure out where that place would be, and they are worried about losing the little bit of privacy and control they have over their marketable image if they did move somewhere were they could always been seen, and known, by new neighbors or school friends.
As a public person, and a person marketing herself as down home and approachable, she can’t be caught out on camera or in any description as hostile and with her hair in curlers. This is a totally common problem for celebreties, especially those whose main claim to fame is being famous. Dolly Parton said she never went out, *ever* without full makeup because her fans expected to see the Dolly Parton they knew, all the time.
They’ve jumped up in class status and wealth, but they aren’t “clubbable” to old time Republican/wealthy families and they really can’t fit in with anyone even slightly educated or left of center. So where are they supposed to go? Into what celebrity enclave? Nothing left but Dubai, I suppose.
aimai
doctorpsycho1960
As regards the leadership of the Kompany of Kowards in Knightgowns as grifters, I am reminded of the statement attributed to Harry Truman, that the Klan must have been founded by a Jew because who else could get a man to pay $25 for a $1.98 nightshirt?
Truman was, of course, a haberdasher himself by trade….
Mnemosyne
@cmorenc:
LDS is to Christianity what Buddhism is to Hinduism — an offshoot that shares some of the same core beliefs (reincarnation, etc.) but has some beliefs that are so different that they can’t be called the same religion. Similarly, Bah’ai is derived from Islam, but it is a distinct religion of its own.
Most other Christian sects don’t accept Mormons as real Christians. Weird as it may sound, there’s been a long struggle between the LDS and the Catholic Church because, if you want to convert to Catholicism, they will accept baptisms from other Christian churches as valid, but someone who’s trying to convert from LDS to Catholicism is treated as a non-Christian because their baptism is not accepted as valid by the Catholic Church.
So it comes down to, who decides? Can anyone graft whatever beliefs they want onto a religion and declare themselves part of it even if the other sects disagree?
joeyess
Something tells me that there is going to be a new BJ tag. Something along the lines of “Well, apparently Teh Stupid of August is Apparently a Year-round Affair”.
doctorpsycho1960
@cmorenc: “Don’t criticize the mote in someone else’s eye when there’s a log in your own. Although it’s true that there’s a whole Redwood Forest stuck in Glenn Beck’s eye, and coming out his butt as well.”
You make the grown-up public speaking Jesus cry by saying that.
joeyess
Here’s the rub: Beck has “god” and the wing-nut wurlitzer to profess his faith in forgiveness, if and when he does go down.
The nastiest bit about christian demagogues is that they have their religion’s tenet of “forgiveness” to fall back on. Regardless of how heinous their deeds. All they need to do is shed a few tears, say their sorry and all is forgiven and forgotten and the checks keep rolling in.
4jkb4ia
This post relates to my husband’s technical critique of Julian Comstock for those interested. He objected that it was impossible to believe that there would be no biofuels in 2172 under any circumstances and in any event there is a coal derivative you can use to fly aircraft. To suspend disbelief in this book you have to believe that the United States will regress to a sort of mean of Beckism. You also have to believe that the indenture system could take over in Iowa and Nebraska where even if agriculture depends on oil, you have a long tradition of independent farmers. As the average farm gets larger and larger, maybe that isn’t so farfetched.
(I came to formally note that the FCIC has heard its last word of testimony and banged its last gavel. Phil Angelides noted that wherever he goes, he sees someone who has watched him on C-SPAN because of “the hunger to know what has happened to our country”)
4jkb4ia
But for a nice mimicry of an old-time novel, Julian Comstock is quite good, and the paperback proudly displays the lavish Cory Doctorow blurb it got.
David Brooks (not that one)
Can IT happen here? Ah, let’s draw comparisons to Buzz Windrip. I was surprised to find that “It Can’t Happen Here” was written in 1935, so it wasn’t as prescient as it seems: I guess Sinclair Lewis had a few models to draw on.
The “wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross” bit is a misattribution. But a useful one.
Nutella
@anna missed:
We often think of the Klan as a southern thing and forget their takeover of Indiana and their presence in a lot of northern states like Washington.
This book about ethnic cleansing in the northern and western US is fascinating and depressing.
ghost of xmas past
when i see someone as full of shit and batshit crazy as beck on tv, i watch and think, nobody could possibly be buying any of this. then i change the channell in disgust. but i’m wrong – millions of people, including some of my relatives, think he is a genius and hero. i really don’t get it.
Jay
What a hack! Stop the blatant hatred! You don’t get it because you envision a America where freedom is no longer available to anyone. We are all oppressed. That’s why you HATE Beck so much. He wishes all to be free. Free from government control and coercion. Free from crushing government debt. Free from someones false sense of entitlement. As a liberal, you are incapable of understanding and believing in freedom. Therefore you are unable to understand what Beck is all about. Get over yourself and your hate! The world would be a lot better if people like you didn’t spread such hate…but alas…you are a liberal and that’s all you have…
dopey-o
@Amanda in the South Bay:
several years ago, out in odgen utah, i came across a pair of books by two born-again Mormons, who preached that Mormonism was a satanic religion. it is a very strange creed, in that a husband and wife’s reward for a life of faith and devotion is to become deities, presiding over their own planet, being parents to millions of ‘spiritual babies’. gay couples probably need not apply….
the books are “The God Makers”, and they are an example of the worst reformed-sinner-preaches-hellfire. I don’t recommend them to anyone with a single valued brain cell left. it is a sheer, right-wing fundamentalist hatefest from the very first page.
my old gnarly, WWII pacific war veteran neighbor who’s as bitter as vinegar answered me that Mormonism can’t be an evil religion, because it produces millions of very good, very moral people. he’s probably right.
so i don’t actually condone slandering Mormons, but it would make a great wedge issue come 2012. if we can’t draft St. Sarah of Wassilla to run on the GOP ticket, we might still convince the fundies to stay home, rather than voting for Mittens the AntiChrist.
Who’s in?