Beckstianity 101–Social Justice is un-American

Now I don’t like to knock a guy twice in the same week. Not that I think it’s unfair, but it always strikes me as a lack of imagination on my part. Surely there’s someone ELSE you can lampoon, Greg. Oh, of course there is–and stop calling me Shirley. But Glenn Beck, bless his pointy little head, has managed to do so.

Of course, last Thursday’s cartoon wasn’t really a mock on der Beckstein (although the text was ). Getting Eric Massa on his show SEEMED like a good idea at the time. How was Beck supposed to know that a Democrat might not be disloyal to President Obama? Or that he would think that male-on-male tickling orgies might be misconstrued as sexual in nature? Or that he would take little Glennie to task for the alacrity with which right-wing commentators and Teabaggers call everyone they don’t agree with Nazis or socialists?

OK so his counterparts on Fox News all told him so. Can’t blame a guy for trying, right?

But he also managed not only to reveal that he never actually listened to the lyrics to “Born in the USA”. I guess for the last 25-and-a-half he’s been looking at the FRONT of the album cover with The Boss’s tight-jeaned butt smiling at the camera in front of a flag, head-banging along and singing BORN IN THE USA every time it came around. Yeah, Baby, Born in the USA! And for 25.5 years he never actually “listened” to the lyrics to find out what Bruce Springsteen had to say. Well, I can understand that, sometimes even us boys from Jersey find it hard to understand New Jersey. But to ADMIT IT, as if he just found out something everyone in America already KNEW! that just boggles the mind.

Only to be topped by his warning to the faithful. Now if you thought 25+ years of cluelessness was bad, check out the evidence of a LIFETIME cluelessness. He told his audience that if they heard the words “social justice” in their churches, they should run away as fast as possible to find some other church that did NOT believe in “social justice”, because “social justice” was nothing less than a codeword used by Nazis and Socialists! Now I’ve commented before on the peculiar form of Christianity some people espouse, the Calvinist belief that the poor are miserable, not just because they deserve to be, but because they WANT to be. Because if they didn’t “want” to be poor, why they’d just pull themselves up by the bootstraps and make a Horatio Alger success of themselves. So any talk of “social justice” actually allows them to go along, living off unemployment and welfare. This he says, in the middle of a recession where 1 out of 6 people of working age is either unemployed or underemployed. Way to go Glenn!

But the corker is that hitherto, lots of church leaders thought Glenn was the bee’s knees. Now, they’re up in arms–because if there’s one thing that Christian churches have in common, it’s preaching charity, helping your fellow man, fighting for social justice, because their founder, that #$%^&* liberal Jesus Christ, said it was important. More important than praying as a matter of fact. Even the Mormons, who most people figure on being iffy Christians–and Glenn Beck, having been raised Catholic, converted to Mormonism in his adulthood. Looks like SOMEBODY hasn’t been paying attention in church for a long long time. I mean, we all try to not listen to sermons, but usually some of what was said sinks in after a few decades of repetition. But it’s just like Born in the USA. Glenn Beck just doesn’t pay attention. He’s off in his own little world, dreaming dreams no man ever dreamed before, because they’re too #$^&*( crazy to begin with.

Well, Glenn’s finally “clarified” his statements–I think now he says he meant Big Government instead of Nazis–and apologized in the standard approved format and his faithful congregation have returned to the fold, knowing that Glenn didn’t really mean what he said, even though he did when he said it. But myself, I’ve got to wonder–does this man even HAVE an attention span?

STAMPEDE!

Feeling a bit achey after shoveling out of this weekend’s snowstorm (and thinking a little global warming would be good right about now), I realized that I’ve been giving President Obama such a hard time lately, I should really celebrate a signal triumph, the GOP Q&A session which has been described as Barry in the Lion’s Den, otherwise known as the GOP strategy conclave. Faced with salivating opposition party members WITHOUT knives and forks, Barry not only managed to hold his own, but did so on LIVE TV! For some reason this has shocked people, in spite of knowing that all Republicans, no matter how otherwise intelligent they might be, have to sign a waiver against the use of their own brains and limit themselves to parroting “talking points” despite how nonsensical it sounds when you play back a montage of Sunday morning talking head bites. Or that Obama can actually think and talk on his feet without benefit of teleprompter. So much for mainstream media propunditry. Congratulations to Virginia Foxx (R-NC) for taking advantage of the situation and getting Barry’s autograph! Way to go, Virginia!
What makes it all worthwhile is that Fox News was so disheartened by the event that they cut away to their own tiny car of clowns to inform the loyal viewership how bad Obama was doing so they couldn’t see for themselves how WELL he was doing. Of course, Fox viewers don’t know what to think unless they’re told, so undoubtedly a poll of viewers would have told us that Obama was soundly defeated by chants of “TAX CUTS.” But no poll was taken as Roger Ailes, Fox News Channel President, declared to “This Week” that he was no longer at war with the Obama White House. Maybe he isn’t, but the information hasn’t yet “trickled-down” to his staff of commentators yet. In any case, he had no ready answer for Arianna Huffington’s asking that if he wasn’t, why the cutaway. At which point he lamely countered that Fox News was the most trusted news in cable, a non sequitur that was no better than if he’d put on a big false nose and got up to hoarsely sing “I did the Strut-A-Way in my Cut-A-Way! Ha-chachachacha!” (OK there’s my age again–Jimmy Durante? Anyone ever hear of him? Sigh, the disadvantages of being 205!)
However, good news for finance–I hear Bernanke’s been re-upped and dear Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs is scheduled for a $100 million dollar bonus. Boy, oh, boy, isn’t recovery sweet? Remind me to celebrate on my way back from the Unemployment Office. Take care!

Well, It’s a Little Bit Better than ‘The Christmas Pouch’

Yours truly is as sick as a dog, fortunately having a doctor’s appointment already scheduled for this morning. We’re going to have to keep our normal discussion very minimal. As you may have heard, the mawkish Glenn Beck has risen to a new height of mawkishness with a bathetic barrage called “The Christmas Sweater”, available as a novel, a kid’s picture book, and movie-fied stage show with Glenn acting out all the parts. Supposedly autobiographical, Beck trades in on his mother’s apparent suicide (or accidental drowning) to provide the kind of emotional blackmail which passes for heartwarming, replete with every Christmas cliché and missing none. Sales of the books supposedly made all four of the NY Times bestseller’s lists, while his staged reading managed to only sell handfuls of tickets in the major cities. Audiences were bussed in to make up the difference, while ministers gathered outside to protest Beck’s wrapping himself in the garland of Christmas spirit while his normal persona spews hate, race baiting and wrapping himself in Kleenex and the flag as he cries that he just loves America too much.
We have a modest proposal. We propose that Beck’s next literary effort be a sequel to be titled: “The Christmas Merkin.” Beyond the expected Christmas drear, “The Christmas Merkin” has the advantage of sounding quite patriotic if you say it out loud with a bit of a twang. “The Christmas Merkin” will be sure to warm the cockles of your heart, or something else with a similar name. Not only will Glenn be able to sell multiple versions of this opus, but Christmas Merkins can be sold to exploit the demand. (For those of you unsure what a “merkin” is, Jake Gyllenhaal explained it on Jimmy Kimmel the other night.)

Sarah Palin’s New Book: Should it have been called ‘Ramblin’ Rogue’?

Does it seem to you that the single most important talent for young actors and actresses is the ability to take their clothes off? Not that I’m complaining, nubile pulchritude is an important aesthetic consideration of mine (I’m afraid the guys don’t do much for me). As I said a few days ago, any sweet young thing (of legal age) who wants to send me photos of herself, just send me an email. Actually right now I’d rather have money–year end is coming up and the squirrels are getting frantic wondering if they can afford any Christmas gifts…and nuts. I rather enjoyed that shot of Christian Serratos posing nude for PETA–she waited a whole YEAR after her 18th birthday! It could ALMOST get me to go see NEW MOON–except that in my world view, vampires don’t sparkle–but these are Mormon vampires who wait until marriage to put the bite on their loved ones so I guess they’re different. (Interesting, when I go to google images to find this picture searching on “christian serratos PETA naked”, I go through about 10 pages and still can’t find the photo–Google doesn’t censor… so here’s the PETA page on the poster).
Of course, Sarah Palin is another story–although she doesn’t sparkle either. This former beauty pageant contestant where she paraded her bathing suited body in front of a bunch of ogling judges and an audience, is extremely modest these days and objected strenuously to NEWSWEEK using a photo of her dressed in short shorts, calling it sexist (even though she posed for the photo in the first place–I guess posing isn’t sexist but showing the photographs is). Now it seems the photographer may have broken a contract by licensing the picture to Newseek–but whether that contract was with Runner’s World (for whom the shoot was intended) or with Sarah isn’t being mentioned. Could it be that Sarah, former governor and mom doesn’t want publication to sully her image? No no no! The pic was supposed to be withheld from publication until August 2010–just in time to heat up the off-year elections with an image of Republican MILFdom!
What was SUPPOSED to be the only thing keeping Sarah in the public eye, besides her incessant twittering–excuse me, I meant tweeting–was her not very long awaited book about how wonderful she is, “Going Rogue”. Yup, she’s just a rogue elephant, mavericking around, you betcha. I hear it’s marginally more coherent than her normal writing–I’ll have to get back to ya on that one–since it was actually written by somebody else. In the meantime, I’ll stick with my own title, Ramblin’ Rogue. Never fear, Sarah comes across as self-loving and responsibility-shedding as always. She HAS probably made an enemy for life in Katie Couric, who, Sarah claimed, is so lacking in self-esteem that Sarah allowed her an interview out of pity–I’ll bet Katie would love to meet her in a dark alley without any witnesses! But that’s OK, now that the election is over, Sarah’s new BFF is none other than Oprah herself! Especially since Sarah’s appearance gave la Winfrey her best ratings in two years. And we must not neglect the ever fair and balanced Faux News which demonstrated the size of the crowds waiting for Sarah’s book by using a clip from last year’s presidential campaign.
Palin-Beck ‘12? Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
I’ll be attending ANIME USA in Crystal City VA this weekend–look for me in the purple Intravenous Caffeine T-shirt (for sale over on the right) and say HI!

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ABOUT MEH

Cartoons and text by Greg Uchrin (aka Gregorius alexandrinus), with the able assistance of Fred and Bert Squirrel, with special appearances by George Dymme. Published Mondays and Thursdays.

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