Earlier this month the White House announced that it would be treating the Fox News Network (and the term “news” should certainly be used loosely in this case) as a political opponent.  In an interview with Time magazine, White House communications director, Anita Dunn, criticized Fox by saying “It’s opinion journalism masquerading as news” (Time.com article).  One pundit in particular from Fox, Glenn Beck, has jumped on the ‘attack Anita train’ with something that can only be referred to as fervour.

Now let us talk Facebook.  Since this Time article was sent to press I’ve been seeing more and more comments about Glenn Beck on my newsfeed in Facebook.  Mostly positive feedback about a guy that some of my friends (for reasons unbeknownst to me) seem to love.  I decided to engage with one of these Facebook “friends” last week and get to the bottom of this obsession with Beck.  My “friend” had put up a comment about how much she loves Glenn Beck so I asked her why.  She fired back with a litany of how she is “afraid for the future of our country and for our children”.  Well - that’s all fine and good, but why?  No response came from the other side.  Since I couldn’t get a response on this question from my “friend” I decided to give Beck a chance and force myself to sit through a full episode of his show.  Here are my findings.

Glenn Beck does, indeed, present scenarios to be afraid of.  The problem that I found while watching his “news” show was that he isn’t fully basing his arguments in reality.  In the particular episode I witnessed, he spoke of the dollar and how it is “about to collapse”.  After watching him discuss this for 20 minutes I have cracked the code!  Beck begins talking about a subject, in this case the dollar, with an “if” scenario.  “If” the dollar collapses this will happen and that will happen.  “If” the dollar collapses you can be sure that [fill in the blank].  The interesting thing about the argument is that at about the midpoint he changes from an “if” stance to a “when”.  He begins stating things like “when” the dollar collapses this will happen or that will happen.  This is how the fear mongering is spoonfed to the Fox audience.  They don’t notice the switch in future conditionals.  “If” becomes “when” with intentional effort on Becks part.  He is basically duping his audience.

Now I understand.  If you have a hard time following news in the first place, the mere change of a future conditional within an argument will make you fearful of whatever hypothetical is being presented.  This is why people start showing up all over the internet talking about how afraid they are for the future of our great country.  What a lot of hooey.  The real fear should be OF Beck.  He is leading the “tea party” charge which is plainly a racist movement.  If you don’t believe that you should look at visual proof from the 9/12 teaparty movement gathering in D.C. (courtesy of Strwbrry_Blonde on Twitter. Yes, she was there to take photographic proof of the nutcases).

Hopefully you haven’t been duped into thinking that this network is presenting facts.  If so, please turn to another channel at some point in your evening.  Or, better yet, turn the television off and read a book.  Prefereably something that will increase your brain power and open your mind.  Take a break from the political roller coaster that is Fox News and relax.  Things are going to be okay.  If we could just educate ourselves as a country, collectively we would be a lot better off.  Education is key after all.

Go Anita!  Keep fighting the good fight.  Someday our country will be a place of inclusion and intelligence.  Until then we must contend with comedians masquerading as pundits like this Beck character.  Someday we will be past this.  Someday.

Peace - Chantale