That Fishy Smell Is The Giant Red Herring
Vol: 107 Issue: 28 Saturday, August 28, 2010
If you were planning to attend Glenn Beck’s “8/28 Restoring Honor Rally” at the Lincoln Memorial and you used Google to map it, you’d end up a half-mile away at the FDR Memorial instead.
It seems that Google suffered some kind of ‘glitch’ that PC World notes has been happening for two days now. It has nothing to do with the fact that it is a conservative rally and internet bully Google is run by Silicon Valley liberals. Honest.
PC World questions whether Google was sending Tea Partiers to the wrong site or if it was just letting Glenn Beck know who is really boss.
Beck has publicly expressed his disgust with FDR, so redirecting from the Lincoln Memorial to the FDR memorial is intended as a jab at Beck personally.
Google has long practiced internet censorship; the Omega Letter was bounced from Google’s news aggregator five years ago because Google said the OL didn’t meet Google’s ‘standards’.
Since then, pretty much all overtly Christian conservative websites were bounced for not meeting Google’s standards, which evidently had morphed into ‘no Christian websites and hardly any conservative websites’.
I hate to use Google because it enriches them and seemingly rewards them for bad behavior.
There are lots of other search engines — and I use them too – but Google is the biggest game in town. I would dump them on principle, but that would only affect me –in that it would cut me off from a source of information.
All information is valuable, even if the only information gleaned is that the information gleaned isn’t trustworthy – that’s valuable information to have.
I recall once being five minutes late at the video store and being charged another day’s rental as a late fee. With great pomp and ceremony, (I was much younger then) I paid the late fee, tore up my membership card, threw the pieces on the counter and strode out indignantly.
The video store remained in business, despite my principled stand. (And henceforth, I had to drive ten miles to the next closest video rental store.)
“He that controls the news, makes the news,” to paraphrase the old cliché. Staying on that theme (for one sentence too long), “Give me control of the world’s news aggregator and I care not who makes the rules.”
Google’s aggregator pulls in thousands of news stories concerning the Beck rally – almost all of them from liberal news sources either questioning Beck’s patriotism or his agenda.
But I note that suddenly, Google has found some Christian-oriented news sites that DO meet Google’s ‘standards’ for inclusion.
All a Christian website has to do in order to be rehabilitated into a legitimate news site again on Google is go after Glenn Beck because he’s a Mormon.
Assessment:
First off, I am not mounting a defense of Glenn Beck or of Mormonism. Having said that, I am amazed at how many Christian websites have made Beck’s religious persuasion a major issue.
Or maybe I am just amazed at how gullible we are because of our principles. Since the other side doesn’t have any, they have no problem using ours against us.
Beck says that the “Restoring Honor” rally isn’t a “political event, it is a God event” – which I admit would give me pause if I weren’t a Christian. But because I am a Christian, it doesn’t shake me like it seems to shake some of the others.
If Beck’s a Mormon and somebody else is a Hindu and somebody else a Muslim and somebody else a Christian and they all attended the “Restoring Honor Rally” at the Lincoln Memorial because they share the same conservative Deist political view, it’s not a religious event.
Pretty much every religion has a god of some kind. Almost all religions call their god, “God.” That doesn’t mean because they call him ‘god’ it makes him God.
Get a grip! I know a Spanish guy named Jesus. That doesn’t make him the Savior. The bone of contention is that Beck claims Mormons are Christians and Christians say they are not.
Before beginning to sputter at me as an ecumenist, would it make any difference at all if Glenn Beck were a practicing Jew? Jews aren’t Christians, either. And by and large, Jews don’t have a much higher view of Christianity than Christians have of Mormonism.
The rally in Washington IS political. If it is religious, it is the uniquely American religion of Constitutionalism. Glenn Beck’s god and mine don’t have to be the same for us to religiously observe the same Constitutional law.
Let’s take a step back and take a sniff of the Big Picture. That fishy smell is the giant red herring in the center of the frame. It is difficult for any conservative American to find fault with Beck’s political views on the Constitution.
And Beck has systematically exposed the infiltration of Marxism and national socialism in government, the machinations and manipulations of the Money Trust throughout the 20th century and the historical consequences of the progressive movement.
All true. All unchallenged. Beck’s invitation to correct the record is issued repeatedly throughout the program – nobody takes him up on it.
Beck’s program is repeatedly assailed, his attitudes, his persona, the way he cries on-air, his goofy haircut, but NEVER the facts in his material. If Keith Olbermann, or even a real journalist, could prove Beck was lying on the facts, they’d be all over them.
But they don’t.
So clearly, they have investigated Beck’s claims about Wilson, the Federal Reserve, the Money Trust, the League of Nations, Col. Edward Mandel House, FDR, etc. They MUST have investigated Beck’s claims about the Marxist, socialist and communist backgrounds of the various czars and czarinas of the current administration.
If one assumes they HAVE investigated and one assumes that since the anti-Beck efforts are aimed at Beck and NOT the facts underlying his “outlandish” claims, then it can only mean that their investigation ALSO shows it is all true.
Or they knew all along, and don’t want to rock the boat because they share the agenda, which is the most likely case.
In any case, there is little doubt that among the mainstream liberal media, “Get Glenn Beck” is the standing order of the day. But how to attack the messenger without highlighting the message?
Divide and conquer.
How does one do that? Beck has effectively inoculated himself against somebody smearing him by bringing up some past indiscretion – he regularly admits he is a recovering alcoholic with a bad history.
Calling the Tea Party ‘racist’ isn’t really working out too well. Invoking Sarah Palin hasn’t paid off. Attacking the Tea Party leadership doesn’t work too well when the Tea Party doesn’t have an organized leadership.
If there is one thing that unites the Tea Party more than politics, it is faith. And that is where the Left has found their Achilles’ heel. Divide them on faith.
Glenn Beck is a Mormon. If he’s a Mormon, he can’t be a Christian. So what’s the deal with him using all these Christian symbols, talking about God and the Christian faith of the Founders?
Look at the list of news organizations that mention Beck is a Mormon in conjunction with today’s rally. (From Google’s news aggregator, of course)
The Star Ledger. The Associated Press. The Washington Post. Salon. USAToday. CNN. Does anybody think any of these guys care a fig about whether or not Beck is a Mormon? They probably didn’t know Mormons weren’t Christians until somebody told them that it might be useful information.
Let me shock you all. I don’t care that Beck is a Mormon anymore than I care that Jackie Mason is a Jew or that Dinesh D’Souza or Ann Coulter are Catholics. Conservative writer and Fox News contributor S. E. Cupp is an avowed atheist.
The Tea Party Movement terrifies the Establishment structure. They can’t attack its message without admitting they oppose America’s founding principles. They can’t attack the movement’s political leadership, since it doesn’t have one.
THAT is the red herring that is designed to break the back of the Tea Party movement.
Pay no attention to the issues at hand. Don’t get sidetracked by the fact that several hundred thousand Americans are so furious with their government that they dropped everything to gather in Washington to express their displeasure.
The important thing to remember is that Glenn Beck is a Mormon. The rest of you are racists. So if you aren’t a racist, you’re an apostate Christian. Birds of a feather flock together, you know.
Divide and conquer. Works every time.
Omegaletter 