You are not alone--We have them surrounded

After a series of doomsday shows, Glen Beck launched his 9/12 project on Fox News to encourage the revival of conservatives and libertarians so as to "take back" the country, which they lost to a bunch of flag-waving leftists. The libertarian Morman combined old street evangelism, show-manship and a touch of McCarthyism to gin up the audience gathered at viewing parties stationed around the country. If fascism comes to America, it will come as this noxious combination of sweet talking religiosity, fear-mongering and invocation of a patriotism separate from government.

Beck outlined a series of principles, which he thought should govern this new "movement". He introduced the show with a rundown of all the American institutions you can not trust--banks, big business, government. He claimed Americans were frustrated because they had no one to hear their complaints. Americans are afraid because of Islamic fundamentalism, Mexican drug lords and extrenal chaos. While he acknowledged that some Americans were suffering during these times, what about those people who behaved by the rules, he wondered. Whose rules and who decides they acted in accordance with them?

Beck posited that the country was asleep before 9/11 and then after the initial shock of 9/11 came together spontaneously and that's the spirit he wants to continue. America, for Beck, doesn't exist pre-9/11 and that's what makes his little project worrisome. Oddly enough, one of the first complaints in the show was that the Government--there was no Obama here--will raise your taxes--well, only if you are earn over $250,000, which he and all his Fox cronies do. Another cute trick was a photomontage of largely Democratic leaders in Washington with the rare appearance of John Boehner to give partisan balance and Beck saying that "Washington says they are the solution". But that's the problem ,according to him. You are the solution--the Forgotten Man.

Beck's faux populism is problematic. He calls for sacrifice by all Americans and encourages us all to adopt the value system of our military--the only organized force in the show that deserved respect. Interestingly, a study released this week showed that of all the organizations with respect--number one was our military. The other group of Americans who deserved respect was small business owners--one of the groups studiously omitted from the Republican campaign this past fall and that suddenly re-appears as the new heros (victims) in the new conservative populist scenarios.

Beck--as he has been recently on other shows--was prone to sobbing rather uncontrollably. This was done artufully as if he was genuinely moved like the great evangelist Jimmy Swaggert when he called his cousin rock-and-roller Jerry Lee Lewis to repent. In all, the whole program was a secular revival meeting using a therapeutic 12-step program for recovery. At times he reminded me of Nixon's discoursing about the Silent Majority with the production value of We The People.

Maybe it will work. His show was the highest rated for that time slot. He promised to return with an update of this project in six months. Maybe he will spell out what kind of revolution he has in mind since Sean Hannity has already posted a poll on the various options.

What is curious about this hyper-hysteria of the right is that they ignored a whole range of issues under the previous Administration that really did touch on constitutional rights and liberties and which affected everyone and not just the random terrorist cell.

Glen Beck has been pushing the idea of the FEMA concentration camps as some Obama plan, when in effect several times during the Bush Administration there was actually talk about declaring martial law, the last instance when the banks melted down. Beck knows --if he were honest--that these camps had been around for quite some time. Yes, their existence should be worrisome but one can not use them to make some case against Obama.

If we should all act as the soldiers he idolizes, then Beck should be the first to call for the re-introduction of the draft. That's the only way the warrior values he worships can be indoctrinated into the population.

For me, I simply don't see Americans fighting each other at this point in time. Despite propaganda about Obama's falling numbers, I take Gallup as the gold standard which shows him still riding high with the only region dragging his numbers is the South--now the only real Republican bastion left. Approval ratings in the Northeast are at 87%, other regions they are over 70%.

Somehow, despite the conservative noise machine and the Bush deadenders appearing as talking heads, the public isn't buying. Of course, this could all change but nothing on the domestic horizon indicates that the worst fears (hopes) of the conservatives are going to be realized.