ago this month Glenn Beck announced that he had a "Plan" that he promised to unveil at public event to be held at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. It is a 100 year plan to restore America to what Beck imagines it was a hundred years ago, before the progressives came along and convinced everyone to eat some forbidden apples. The big event would be the launching pad for his "Plan" and a book by the same name.
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In the intervening year Beck fundamentally transformed the purpose of his rally into something that resembled the old Holyroller Roadshows and Salvation Emporiums. He had completely abandoned the book launch and the mysterious "Plan" in favor of an open air revival meeting and the witnessing of a miracle flock of geese.
However, as it turns out the book wasn't shelved. It was repackaged, retitled, and released a couple of weeks ago.
BROKE: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth and Treasure, is now available with a new emphasis on the country's fiscal woes. This isn't exactly a new theme for Beck who has been predicting (craving) an American economic calamity for several years. The irony is that his "Plan" now places the blame for our dilemma on the American people:"Once you see what we're really up against, it's much easier to develop a realistic plan. To fix ourselves financially, Glenn argues, we have to fix ourselvesfirst. That means some serious introspection and, ultimately, a series of actions that will unite all Americans around the concept of shared sacrifice."
See? We are the problem. And to fix it Beck has suddenly adopted the notion of shared sacrifice, a concept he previously regarded as abhorrent and a product of the socialistic ideology that he believes diminishes individual freedom and responsibility. Furthermore, his own philosophy is one that advocates allowing our economic system to crash and burn. Again, a concept he previously reviled as the Cloward/Piven strategy. He asserts that we are beyond the point of no return and must abandon all measures to stimulate growth and create jobs. Let the bottom fall out, cower in your bunker with your Survival Seeds and gold coins. Cling to your God and guns and, if your faith is strong enough, you will be redeemed by some miracle from above.
I don't plan on reading Broke any time soon because ... well because reading Beck's books falls somewhere below bobbing for Ebola on my to-do list. And what I've read of his in the past has always been just a rehashing of the tired lies and disinformation that he spews on TV and radio.
However I can't help but comment on the nauseating image he has chosen for the cover. To place himself, a man of prodigious wealth, behind a banner proclaiming destitution, with empty pockets and an expression of distress and defeat, is an insult to the millions of families who are truly suffering and struggling to maintain some semblance of comfort and security. This is a man who extorts sums exceeding $100.00 from his humble disciples for the privilege of hearing him blame them for the mess that greedy conservatives, like those Beck admires, have gotten this country into. This is a man who preaches a brand of economic isolationism that will bring misery to millions, but leave himself unscathed - hardly broke. That cover is as dishonest as everything else that Beck does and says.
The unmitigated gall of this self-centered, Randian, populist impostor, pretending to have something in common with hard-working Americans, is repulsive in the extreme. Consequently, I have come up with a couple of alternative titles and covers for his book:
Either of these is a better representation of the scoundrel Beck is and the immorality for which Beck stands.
