The 11/3 Project: Take back Glenn Beck's organs America!

Jon Stewart masterfully lampoons charlatan Glenn Beck's trademark hysteria on the subject of ... Glenn Beck's appedicitis. We have to go back to a simpler time, Stewart says, to when Beck's organs were pure. As in puberty.

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How would I know that this could be my fate? (Glenn Beck version)

This is one of the better, most acute assessments of Glenn Beck's masquerade I've read, by davenoon, on Beck and his latest tear-jerker:

In any event, the entire clip is standard gauge Beck -- chalkboard, photos of administration officials hastily slapped up next to portraits of dictators, silences by turns reverential and mournful, the fake tears and the rest of it -- but by far the weirdest part comes about three and a half minutes in, as he uses Coke's old Mean Joe Greene spot along with one of Kodak's "Times of Your Life" ads to remind his (apparently middle-aged) viewers of a "simpler time" in the nation's history. Which is obviously a multiple tiers of bat-shit, given (a) the implied assumption that television advertising's generic nostalgia was somehow more sociologically accurate way back when, and (b) the fact that, in this case, "way back when" happened to be 1979 and 1975, respectively. I realize that Beck spends most of his time dreaming about kissing George Washington on the mouth, so more recent historical reference points might have veered away from true North, but seriously -- 1979? The annus horribilis of the Carter era? And 1975? The year that witnessed the collapse of South Vietnam and the beginnings of the Cambodian genocide? The year the Weather Underground bombed the State Department?

Zing! What fairy tale land does Beck think he grew up in? And how much of an indelible impact did advertising leave on young Glenn-boy? It's almost as if he wants to go back to having no real responsibility in life ... as if he were 12 or 13 years old eating ice cream on his adoring Gram-Gram's couch in the Summer heat as Gram-Gram shielded him from the "unpleasantries" and realities of the world. She filled his head with this yearning-for-simpler-times mindset. The odd resentment and paranoid insecurity of this hate-mongering set make me believe they feel left out for some reason. Especially now that the president's black and they're positive the Mexican illegal immigrants are coming for their jobs, women and political power.

Whose Cult of Personality?

How will historians look back upon the exploitative vitriol of Rush Limbaugh/Glenn Beck era of American political and societal discourse? Not kindly, is my prediction.

I just read Conor Friedersdorf's article on why Rush Limbaugh is actually not a proven racist. But he is the worst kind of race-baiter. He calls everyone a racist. He accuses what he clams to abhor: immediate guilt of racism.

Limbaugh knows every dog whistle in the book of the Right Wing: Republicans, Libertarians, Fiscal conservatives, Christian conservatives, White Power zealots. He knows the resentful feeling many of these people share. They think the world perceives them as racists and they're afraid of being labeled the dreaded "racist" tag. So they turn to Rush to be their voice. They think they don't have anyone but Rush and Beck to speak up for them. But all these two do is play on the age-old stereotypical fears and preach the politics of resentment. Really, I think either of these two could go quite a long way with this schtick. They are the modern day charlatans of religion and racial button-pushing. They have few boundaries they won't touch. And they have major platforms.