The Great Pretenders

Crying and lying are profitable, but don’t take my word for it, ask Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. In fact, Sarah Palin has learned very quickly she since resigned as governor that a right-wing conservative pretender can make a lot of money.

These conservative pretenders bring in a lot of cash for themselves and serve as the glue that helps to hold together a cross-cultural base of conservatives across the country. They have taken up the sword in an effort to hold the Republican Party base together, but that sword is ripping through the fabric of America, and as they apparently believe themselves, he who lives by the sword also dies by the sword.

Glenn Beck for example, is keenly aware the vomit coming out of his mouth poses a dangerous situation. Beck is accompanied on a regular basis by two body guards. It has been said that Rush Limbaugh would be swinging from a tree if not for his bodyguards. Sarah Palin is well guarded, and rumor has it she can shoot pepper spray directly from her nose. (Efforts to confirm this rumor, however, have been unsuccessful).

Despite the damage these pretenders may be responsible for the money makes the effort worth it. Glenn Beck earms at least $32 million a year from his recent book about common sense, his radio show, a string of websites, speaking engagements and from television. Beck doesn’t think of himself as a “television guy,” however, but as a “brand.” Expect to see Beck breakfast cereal and cologne in big box stores near you. Glenn claims he was a pot-smoking alcoholic until his conversion to Mormonism, which according to his own account is responsible for his success.

Beck has become widely known for his on-air antics: angry outbursts when disagreed with, crying, lying and his bigoted words. For Beck and his audience tears are not a sign of weakness but a sign of sincerity. Anger is not a sign of weakness either, but of righteous indignation. Glenn Beck, like Rush Limbaugh, bends the spectrum of light to validate his values and claims. “I’d better start wearing a bullet-proof vest to guard against White House attacks,” he said in a recent interview. I doubt, however, the White House is planning to have the CIA assassinate him as he suggests, but he probably should be concerned about the man on the street.

Beck’s statement about the White House, not only suggests he is a weeping paranoid schizophrenic, but it lends credence to the idea that people who are intent on stirring up the emotions of others for their own wellbeing are making targets of themselves.

The rhetoric the pretenders create to make themselves rich also creates an atmosphere where violence can grow. Sarah Palin, of death panel fame, recently stated on Facebook “don’t retreat … reload.” This double-edged sword carries two messages: don’t give up and keep fighting for what you believe in, and to the dimwitted in our society, don’t back off, load you ...

Palin is not a rich woman yet, but she left her job as governor of Alaska, where she earned $125,000 a year, for a higher calling. She works as a pontificator Fox News, is a frequent guest on talk shows, has had a book written in her name and speaks at Tea Party rally’s for $100,000 a pop. She has seen the light. There is no money in not in public service, but there’s plenty to go around in the field of public torment.

Rush Limbaugh is the king of pontificating pretenders. An example of his rhetoric comes from comments he made about health care. In defending the US health care system as being the finest among industrialized nations, Limbaugh claimed statistics showing the US as having a poor infant mortality rates and lower life expectancy were skewed due to “the epidemic of low-birth weight babies born to teenage and drug-addicted mothers, along with drug related homicide rates.”

The fact of the matter is, The CDC estimates that removing homicides rates would only increase life expectancy by about three months on average and mortality rates have a direct correlation with lack of pre-natal care. The CDC estimates mothers who lack proper pre-natal care are ten times more likely to have unhealthy babies.

Limbaugh also claimed the H1N1 virus was created by the government to kill people. Rush likes to make things look dirty. Drugs and violence and government conspiracies are dirty, but so is the slobbery cigar clinging to his lips.

Nevertheless, Limbaugh’s false accusations and big-mouth ranting have made him a millionaire; he is estimated to be worth in excess of $650 million.

By the way, all of the above mentioned “celebrities” have something else in common, they speak in a knowing self-important way about issues they are not qualified to talk about, but unfortunately, people listen.

The gloves came off, as the news media likes to say, with the setting aside of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. The Fairness Doctrine had been in place since 1949 and required some broadcast time be set aside for opposing viewpoints. Under the Fairness Doctrine Limbaugh, Beck and Company could not spew an hour’s worth of deception unless they gave 20 minutes of that hour to an opposing argument.

The broadcasting industry, taken over by a few wealthy individuals and corporations, claimed the Fairness Doctrine was too costly to them, but the social costs since its disappearance have been even greater. As the Fairness Doctrine died, birth was given to the pretenders.

America gone rogue

Call her what you want, a buffoon, a ditzy idiot, a patriot, an ice hockey mom, or whatever, one thing Sarah Palin has become very good at is politicking. She is a politician through and through, and like most politicians; she is a fund raising machine.

Palin, like most politicians today, is predictable. So, it comes as no surprise that her Tea Party Convention speech, riddled with ridicule for the Obama Administration and the Democrats, also sucker punched the Republicans. She probably didn’t make a lot of points with her own party when she encouraged Tea Party candidates to compete with GOP candidates in the primaries. But, hey, she is keeping her options open. Like any good politician she needs to find out who has the most butter to put on her bread before committing herself.

What Palin is doing right now is aimed at two things: publicity and money, and she will take both any way she can get it. Whether she is speaking on camera as a pundit for Fox News or speaking behind a podium in front of a thousand Tea Party Convention goers, her aim is the same, air time and money.

As expected, she called the Obama Administration “misguided” and pointed the finger of blame at the Democrats for “big spending.” But what she didn’t say, and what no politician says, is that politics and policy today is all about money. If you can raise money for me I will listen to you.

Maybe she is doing the Democrats a favor by splitting the conservative vote, but she is not doing the nation a favor, and it doesn’t matter anyway because both the Democrats and Republicans are corrupt, it’s just that the Republicans are a little more hypocritical about their corruption – their doing God’s work, or they are fighting to limit big government and hold the line on spending. Politicians are not interested in limiting government; they seek to expand government, both parties do, so they can maintain their control. If they thought for one minute that limiting government would help them maintain their position of power, they would do so without hesitation.

Speaking of money and fiscal responsibility, Palin likes to brag about the excess money the State of Alaska has after her administration. She touts the fact that she sold the state jet in Alaska and fired the governor’s chef. What she neglects to tells us is she also increased the state’s budget by 30 percent, but it didn’t matter because of the excessive amounts of money coming into state coffers from the oil industry. The price of oil has been up the last few years, and that is good news for Alaska’s budget because 90 percent of the state’s budget in funded by royalties and taxes from oil producers. Palin does not have a history of making government smaller and she does not have a history of saving money.

Palin has her eye on the prize, and the prize is power and money. As for her presidential aspirations, she keeps saying she is uncommitted, but every indication points to what her ambitions are. Unfortunately for her, most people do not see her as a viable candidate. Even the Republican leader of the Alaskan Senate Lyda Green said, “she (Palin) is not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president?”

Sarah Palin is running a fund raising machine, and like the debutant she once was, she is running it with a smile and pretty face that has no idea about policy, foreign or domestic. The only policy she is interested in is the policy of promotion.

The party she affiliates herself with, at least for now, the GOP, has become a party of darkness and anti-enlightenment. The foundation of the Republican Party is based upon theocratic fundamentalism that opposes science, health care reform, financial responsibility, ecological responsibility and diversity. Like her party, Palin suffers from tunnel vision. They call themselves conservatives but they are liberal liars. Palin, and others like her will kill the Tea Party movement. Like the dark plague they are, they wither away any opportunity a third party has to make a dent in our monogamous fund raising two- party system. And yes, I used the word “monogamous” and the words “two- party” together because they are one in the same. The Democrats and the Republicans are monogamous in their inability to make real policy or change what’s wrong with American politics – they are what’s wrong with American politics. The foundation of America has gone rogue.