This is might to be an unpopular post with some readers – but hear me out.

As you know I can be a little cynical when it comes to buying peoples sincerity. With that said I generally like Glenn Beck in a passing sort of way I think he believes what he says, but some of the things he comes up with I take with not a grain of salt but more of a bucket of it. I never take him too seriously nor completely writing him off as a nut and occasionally I listen too or watch his show, but some days… actually most days he is teetering on the edge of insanity. If it wasn’t for Pat and Stu on his radio show… I would have to listen to it with a bottle of whiskey and a pack of razor blades.

So does Beck believes everything he says or if he is a just a huckster pushing products – I don’t know. I am not saying Beck is a complete fraud but does he have an agenda other than what he presents? Here is what prompted this post, well one of the things – the other day I was watching his TV show and he was telling one of his overly dramatic emotional Beck-style stories of how he finally had a years worth of food stored up in his basement/bunker and there was this tremendous weight lifted off his shoulder because he knew his family was provided for if he was to lose his job today – sound great doesn’t it? Daddy Glenn providing long term food for his family in case of job loss and he could rest easy for achieving this goal… Glenn Beck made $32,000,000.00 just last year – he will be getting residuals off book and DVD sales for year to come, he has multi-year contracts with TV and radio… don’t tell me about a burden on your shoulders of supplying your chauffeured driven family with food storage. Beck and his family are not going to go hungry anytime soon so he can just stop it with the overwrought melodrama.

I might take Beck a little more seriously if everything that he advocated wasn’t a sponsor of his show.

Currently Beck is on a this minimalism kick to rid your life of clutter and most material goods – sure we could all use a lot less crap in our life I know I could, but must he tell us that he is going to list it all on upiller.com a sponsor of his and perhaps you should too? But after you sell you stuff he want you buy long term food storage, interestingly enough foodinsurance.com and survivalseedbank.com are a sponsor and since studies he cites show you have $25,000.00 in crap you can sell, maybe you should take the rest of the money and buy gold from his other sponsor goldline.com! Glenn mention in more than a subtle way that you should own weapons, I’m fine with owning guns – I do, but Glenn say you can get them from cheaperthandirt.com and after you buy your guns call his sponsor libertysafes.com to keep them and your gold in, but since the end is coming you’ll need a Will from legalzoom.com that you can save and back up with carbonite.com. It seems like everything Beck is advocating is also a sponsor of his show – name a sponsor of his and can show you how he works it into either his radio or TV show as something you need to have, something you must have. You know me – I’m all for capitalism, but I’m against playing on people’s fears and paranoia just to boost personal revenues. If you can make a buck then make it, just do it in a forthright way is all I ask.

Another thing that got me was Beck’s comparison of the Tower of Babel to the EU Parliament building – as interesting and bizarre as it was you cannot take the artistic mental imagery of an 16th century Renaissance painting by Pieter Brueghal who to my knowledge never saw the actual Tower of Babel and use it as some sign of foreboding evil. The Tower of Babel was believed to be in ancient Babylon and it was not as Brueghal imagined it to be, but according to history a ziggurat – which was a pyramidal structure. So to equate a Renaissance artist rendition of a ancient unseen structure to the modern day EU Parliament building as a definitive sign of a impending one world government and the “bricking” of the populous, well that’s just trying to connect some very vague dots. It’s not to say Beck’s message isn’t interesting and perhaps it is on target, it is just the panicky method of delivery that I find awkward and more than a little conjured.

If you think about it based on that logic I could equate the impending downfall of American purely on Washington, DC architecture and the back of the Dollar Bill – doubt me? The dollar bill has a pyramid on it and the Washington Monument is an Egyptian style obelisk, Egypt fell to Rome! US Federal Building is based on Greek and Roman architecture and both Greece and Rome fell to invaders – coincidence? I think not, it’s like street magic – it’s not so amazing when you know how it’s done.

Beck also engages in the six degrees theory that we are only six people away from knowing everyone on the planet. He often does this with Barack Obama, George Soros, Andy Stern and other lefty progressives, this is not to say these people aren’t bad people for America in all likelihood they are, but some of Beck’s connection are tenuous at best. He will break out his caulk board and magnetic pictures while drawing lines from one to another creating this grand conspiracy of a shadow government with a puppet master at the helm. Now I’m not saying for a minute that there are those that would love to see this country fail or be transformed and I feel pretty sure Obama and Soros in on the short list – the reality is as much as Obama would like to be King or Emperor, he is not and he limited in what he can do with our current form of government and he can not change our government alone. It would require a constitutional congress and sadly for Obama most of the Governors in the country are Republicans.

Am not going to get further into Beck’s preaching and religious prophecy – suffice to say even streaming radio guide has moved him from the conservative talk section to religion and listening to Beck on some days – it’s rightfully so.

So is Glenn Beck a prophet with the powers of Nostradamus who can see events long before they unfold? Is he seeing a picture so big we are left looking at the trees while he sees the forest in clarity or is Beck seeing the boogieman in the moon shadows of his bunker wall? Admittedly he has been right on a few things that he reminds us of constantly and equality some of his ideas and thoughts have died a quite death that is to never be mentioned again… whatever happened to Beck’s 56 Refounders or the Armageddon that was to happen on August 22, 2009 in Iran? The Refounders was grand idea he spent weeks upon weeks on has all but disappeared from his website and dialog and hasn’t been mentioned in months. Or is Beck milking a cash cow of public angst and fear of impending chaos, financial meltdowns and hyperinflation resulting in some sort of post-apocalyptic dystopia? I don’t know – on one hand I say he really cares about the future of the country and expresses genuine concerns for it’s well being, I have no reason to doubt him on that, but on the other hand I see a fear-monger selling everything from freeze dried food, magazines, website memberships, gold coins, t-shirts, books, safes and seeds and I think to myself that if money is going to be so worthless in the future, then why are you trying to make so much of it right now?

Beck has quite the media empire and little of it is given to his adoring masses for free and if he is as concerned about you as he claims to be then why does he want so much of your money to tell you about it, such as his many books or Beck University? Just saying. One closing thought – I’m a capitalist to the bone. I’m all about making money, but I’m also a realist too. I realize that finding a blog with someone like myself bitching is about everything as difficult as finding porn with the safe search turned off – it’s not to damn hard. I could plaster the site with advertisement, I could generate a popup begging for money, I could charge a fee for “premium content” – there is a ton of ways I could use this site to make money, but I don’t… yet, that could change. So far I keep it free of advertisement, free of popups and I never beg of money. If you want to donate, great every little bit helps defer the cost of the hosting and bandwidth – if you don’t… well it’s your right to engage in liberal freeloading*.

*As of today everyone reading this is a freeloader, so thanks for nothing.