“Here comes the orator! With his flood of words and his drop of reason.” — Benjamin Franklin
Glenn Beck has a new bestselling book entitled “Cowards: What Politicians, Radicals, and the Media Refuse to Say”. While not having yet totally read the book (I am reading on my iPad now) I have, however, listened quite a bit to Glenn on XM radio and heard him talk about what’s in the book. Glenn Beck likes to say that “the truth has no agenda”—but there’s another side to that: people who have agendas rarely care about the truth. And, these days, it seems like everyone has an agenda. The media leads with stories that rate over those that matter. Politicians put lobbyists and electability over honesty. Radicals alter history in order to change the future.
In Cowards, Glenn Beck exposes the truth about thirteen important issues that have been hijacked by deceit. Whether out of spite, greed, or fear, these are the things that no one seems to be willing to have an honest conversation about.
This may be Glenn Beck's best book yet. He tackles the truth that so many of our leaders have chosen to ignore. It has been my experience that too many politicians fit the sad stereotype. All they want is to be reelected. They consider the people to be too ignorant or lazy to notice. Cowards calls them out. This may be Glenn Beck's best book yet. He tackles the truth that so many of our leaders have chosen to ignore. It has been my experience that too many politicians fit the sad stereotype. All they want is to be reelected. They consider the people to be too ignorant or lazy to notice. Cowards calls them out.
One reviewer on Amazon states:
“And he's got good reason. No matter what you think about Glenn Beck's politics, you have to admit that he has a point. The premise of this book is simple: we've gotten to a point in our society where diverging from the status quo is uncouth, socially detrimental, and even dangerous. There is a standard in our culture today, built by politicians, academics, media, and business leaders, and anyone who steps out of line will be instantly questioned, denounced, and perhaps even censored. As a result, we are living in a strict ideological tyranny that allows only the status quo to proliferate, a condition that will end up bringing us to our self-destruction.
Beck would know--he has been defying the status quo for his entire career, and, from personal and tertiary experience, he has seen exactly how detrimental that can be. Just by challenging the standing beliefs of what is necessary in government, he is trashed, called insane, and belittled.
As Beck argues, this is in every way anti-American. Not only is dissent subdued, but the lie that stands as the standard is explicitly opposed to the American ideals of freedom, industry, diversity of thought, and moral duty.
In this scathing diatribe, Beck identifies thirteen major issues that have not been treated justly in the modern debate, and will probably be shunned in the coming election cycle as well. In order to help provide an alternative to this Orwellian dystopia, Beck surveys each of these issues and offers the contra to popular culture's status quo.”
Another writes:
“Mr. Beck nails it again!! With over 50 pages of footnotes he left no stone unturned and left no major issue untouched regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum. This book is sure to make the Liberal-progressive establishment Both LEFT and RIGHT) see red! You would have to be a complete idiot, closed minded ideologue, a political hack or just lying to yourself not to see the truth, reality and facts that have been expertly laid out in this sure to be New York Times #1 best seller. You may not like him but the man sure knows how to present a pretty air tight case. Don't believe him? Just try and refute the documented foot notes. Do your own homework. Are you afraid of having your PC world shattered and your beliefs challenged?”
Before I continue let me make if perfectly clear, I am not attempting to sell Glenn’s book — he doesn’t need me to that. What I am doing, however, is to set some context for my following comments.
The first chapter I read in Glenn’s Book was chapter 9, Change the Media, Change the World. As an avid viewer of news programs I wanted to get Glenn’s take on what I believe to be wrong with today’s broadcast and big print media — Mainstream Media.
After reading the chapter I was more convinced in my belief that the MSM was nothing more than a collection of individuals with a left-wing bias pushing their agenda on the viewers. The first person to approach this subject was Bernie Goldberg in his 2003 book “Bias,” Glen expands where Goldberg left off.
I order to promote their agenda these so-called journalists and their editors in the MSM will go to almost any extent to push their progressive agenda including interviewing friendly like-minded politicians and cutting and editing comments from those with contrary views. Look what they did to Sarah Palin. The New York Times and Washington Post sent nine researchers to Alaska to dig up dirt on Palin and completely ignored Obama’s past. Obama was their candidate and Palin represented a threat.
I am sick and tired of watching so-called “strategists” and politicians, being Democrat or Republican spin answers to legitimate questions to fit their pre-programed agenda. When asked where does it rain in Spain they will launch into a discussion on climate control and not simply reply “the plain.”
Two current examples of this are the comments I have seen regarding the violence in Chicago and President Obama’s comments on business. Let’s begin with the business issue.
Pity the poor small businessman.
Up and at ‘em in the predawn hours, seven days a week, desperately balancing family with work, he pilots his fragile dream through the storm-tossed waters of President Barack Obama’s economy. Competitors try to undercut him. The large competitors often succeed. But he perseveres, making up for the higher prices necessitated by his lower purchasing power with outstanding customer service, personal relationships with his clients, specific items which can’t be found at big-box warehouses or some combination of them all.
Between feeding and clothing his family and fostering inventory and cash flow, his debt load is staggering and he has to put up his home as collateral on bank loans.. But he works hard, harder than so many who have foundered on the rocky shoals of ill-advised concepts, poor performance or plain old shoddy offerings. He has help from family—who often work for free—trusted friends, advisers and a couple of valued employees, whom he treats—and thinks of—as family.
He does his level best by his customers. He does the same by his employees; often, he sacrifices his own paycheck to ensure theirs are covered. He is routinely exhausted by the twin labors of home and work. He goes without a vacation for several years, bolstered by the far-off sight of true success.
His business grows. He expands, adding more items and services. His reputation spreads across town, then across the region. He develops an e-business model, and gains a worldwide customer base. As business flourishes, he maintains a grasp of the values and relationships which he employed during his rise. The atmosphere is contagious; people clamor not only to shop with him, but to work for him.
He is a model of American success.
Then late one day in July 2012—a Friday the 13th, of all things—he checks the news (he didn’t have a chance earlier thanks to his 4 a.m. reveille and grueling workday). And he learns from the President of the United States that all his hard work, all his long hours, all his backbreaking labor, all the sweat of his brow, all the nervous nights wondering if he’d lose everything chasing his dream, all of it… was a waste of time.
He had a business, but he didn’t build it. Obama told him somebody else made it happen.
Obama made a giant mistake with these comments and his minions and supporters with a modicum of intelligence know it. His comments have eclipsed the Bain Capital issue that seemed to be working for him so the arrogant Democrat strategists and politicians have been writing and going on any news show that will have them and spinning Obama’s comments to attempt to pull Obama’s fat out of the fire. Yes, this politics and I understand that. But is it also an example of the cowardice of these strategists and politicians to admit to the truth or any part of it. They know that the only jobs government can create is by using the taxpayer’s money to create government jobs – jobs that add little or nothing to the economy.
Yet they will blatantly face the camera or put pen (word processor) to paper and lie. They lie because their pre-programmed agenda does not permit them to admit to the truth or any part of it as it might affect Obama’s credibility.
A perfect example of this is when Christopher Hahn, a once aide to New York’s liberal Senator Charles Shurmer, appeared on Fox News host Megyn Kelly’s show
According to a report in The Blaze Hahn stated:
“Theoretically, if you succeed, you are using more of government services. You are benefiting more from government services. What separates us from Uganda is we have a functioning government that provides for its citizens, specifically, stability. And I’ve heard conservatives crying for three years now about stability in this country, about the President is not leading to stabilitizing (sic) the tax rates, and certainty, what we have with our government is certainty.”
Now, notice those first two sentences. “If you succeed, you are using more of government services.” How on earth does this follow? It seems to us that successful people pay more to prop up the government, not the other way round, or is Hahn assuming every business works like Solyndra? Moreover, the argument that if you are successful, you are benefiting more from government services strikes us as rather similar to saying that if a student gets an A, that means they learned more from the teacher. That might be true in some contexts, but the student also could have done independent reading on their own, or might just be so smart that they can infer information without being taught it. In other words, this argument does precisely what Hahn is arguing President Obama didn’t mean to do – that is, obviate individual achievement.”
Click here to read the full debate between David Webb and Kelly and watch the video.
Hahn is the perfect example of the coward Glenn Beck’s book is about. He either knows better and is lying for his political bosses or is so stupid he cannot come in from the rain. I believe it’s the former. The only comment I
want to make about Hahn’s statements is that when Hendry Ford began rolling his Model “T” Fords off the assembly line in 1908 there were no decent roads for the car to drive on. The roads came due to the demands of the buyers who wanted more and better all-weather roads so they could enjoy their purchase and they were willing to pay for them with taxes on the fuel they purchased. Henry Ford said of his Model T:
"I will build a car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. But it will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one – and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God's great open spaces."
Henry Ford built the auto industry – not government.
The second example of the cowardice comes from the Black community and their left-wing apologists.
Every Black spokesperson, activist , politician I have seen interviewed reading the poverty, lack of jobs and education, and violence in the African-American community goes on and on about the lack of good schools, jobs, and funding for programs to assist Blacks out of their poverty and create jobs. They blame government for not doing enough to help this community.
The underlying reason for the poverty and crime in the African American community is not the lack of federal, state and local money it’s the birthrate for unmarried women in the African-America community. In 1941 the birthrate for unmarried African-American women was less than 15%. Between 1950 and 1997 the rate rose from 36% to 97% and today it stands at 75%. (African American Marriage Patterns, Douglas J. Besharov and Andrew West, 2000).
It is the fatherless household within the African-American community that contributes the most to the poverty and crime. Here is no male figure to mentor the child and show responsibility. The feeling is that the government will take care of them. Consequently there is lack of respect for education and to find acceptance Black youth look to the community of the gang. This usually brings them a criminal record, which makes it very difficult to enter a profession or get a good paying job and recycles them back to the streets and the gangs.
Young girls having these babies are totally ill-equipped to raise them. They begin having babies soon after puberty, as their mothers and grandmothers did. They have learned that they can receive money from government to support these children and the more children they have the more money they get. Their food, health care, and education are subsidized by government. Not much thought is given to the damage they are doing to these children. Many of the males will end up in criminal activities and the females will go on to repeat the actions of their mothers.
Most Black politicians, preachers, and leaders are loath to mention this issue when queried about the poverty and crime rate in the African-American community and almost no white person will mention it for fear of being labeled a racist by the MSM. It takes a very brave person to face the public and state the real reason for the sad state of the African-American community.
President Obama spent his pre-legislative days walking the streets of Chicago as a community organizer financed in large part by ACORN and wealthy Chicago liberals. He organized by telling this community that their problems were due to the lack of government money and racism. He told them it was not their fault and he would fix things for them when he was elected to state legislature. To this day he will not talk about the real reason for their poverty. He, like the rest of the Black leaders like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are cowards.
Let me close by offering a passage from Bastiat’s The Law. In this passage he was talking about the enormous power of government in France and how it is failing in its primary responsibility to protect the rights of the people and not manage the people. Written some 162 years ago.it is as valid today as it was when Bastiat wrote it:
“As long as these ideas prevail, it is clear that the responsibility of government is enormous. Good fortune and bad fortune, wealth and destitution, equality and inequality, virtue and vice—all then depend upon political administration. It is burdened with everything, it undertakes everything, it does everything; therefore it is responsible for everything.
If we are fortunate, then government has a claim to our gratitude; but if we are unfortunate, then government must bear the blame. For are not our persons and property now at the disposal of government? Is not the law omnipotent?
In creating a monopoly of education, the government must answer to the hopes of the fathers of families who have thus been deprived of their liberty; and if these hopes are shattered, whose fault is it?
In regulating industry, the government has contracted to make it prosper; otherwise it is absurd to deprive industry of its liberty. And if industry now suffers, whose fault is it? In meddling with the balance of trade by playing with tariffs, the government thereby contracts to make trade prosper; and if this results in destruction instead of prosperity, whose fault is it?
In giving the maritime industries protection in exchange for their liberty, the government undertakes to make them profitable; and if they become a burden to the taxpayers, whose fault is it?
Thus there is not a grievance in the nation for which the government does not voluntarily make itself responsible. Is it surprising, then, that every failure increases the threat of another revolution in France?
And what remedy is proposed for this? To extend indefinitely the domain of the law; that is, the responsibility of government.
But if the government undertakes to control and to raise wages, and cannot do it; if the government undertakes to care for all who may be in want, and cannot do it; if the government undertakes to support all unemployed workers, and cannot do it; if the government undertakes to lend interest-free money to all borrowers, and cannot do it; if, in these words that we regret to say escaped from the pen of Mr. de Lamartine, “The state considers that its purpose is to enlighten, to develop, to enlarge, to strengthen, to spiritualize, and to sanctify the soul of the people”— and if the government cannot do all of these things, what then? Is it not certain that after every government failure—which, alas! is more than probable—there will be an equally inevitable revolution?”
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