Three of the top recommended diaries at Daily Kos right now are about sponsors pulling their support for Glenn Beck’s television show on FOX News. Geico, Sargento Cheese, and Men’s Wearhouse have all dropped Glenn Beck. Next in line are Wal*Mart, State Farm Insurance, Red Lobster, and Travelocity.
I won’t be giving any of my money to those corporations until they drop their sponsorship of Glenn Beck. Any meathead can get good ratings if they are willing to lie enough to a substantial group of people who want to hear lies. Glenn Beck isn’t talented. He’s a buffoon who caters to buffoons. If people want to consume crap, that’s their right. But fantasizing about poisoning the Speaker of the House and arousing race-hatred of the President of the United States are actions that go beyond entertaining the addled. Those are unacceptable actions that can inspire people to violence. Any corporation that sponsors Glenn Beck could discover that they’ve sponsored an act of political violence. And where would they be then?
This isn’t a free speech issue. This is about corporate sponsorship. Do you want your product to be associated with race-hatred and political violence? Really?
News Corp employs Glenn Beck for two reasons. First, he generates ratings which translates into corporate sponsorship. Second, he makes people stupid and angry so that they will oppose the Democrats agenda. FOX News is not a news organization. They are a corporation with a political agenda. If FOX doesn’t drop Glenn Beck’s show, then all sponsorship of FOX News broadcasting will become suspect. The Bill O’Reilly’s of the world are bad enough. But Glenn Beck is off the charts. No one should willingly be supportive of what he is doing.
I rather doubt Wal-Mart is going to budge. It’s not like most liberals shop there to begin with. Red Lobster, Travelocity, and State Farm, on the other hand, have reason to be concerned.
I am, however, unsure why you think O’Reilly is any better than Beck. The man did successfully solicit the assassination of a medical provider in Kansas. Beck hasn’t gotten anyone killed so far. Not that I doubt he will, given enough time, but if Beck is off the charts, he’s traveling through the exit wound left by O’Reilly before him.
I mean, sure, pile on, we’re making progress. But one fewer psychopath will not make FOX News less of a menace any more than losing Ernst Röhm’s occasional contribution made the Völkischer Beobachter a beacon of journalistic integrity after the Night of the Long Knives.
You’re right about O’Reilly. I wasn’t thinking about private citizens. I should have been.
Thanks for this post, BooMan. I totally agree. How can we overlook the fact that these corporations are sponsoring hatred?
he is more than a buffoon. the man is wacko, sick, in need of mental health care.
It seems that this is an issue behind which progressives should be able to organize. That and actually pushing back on the “death panel” mentality of Beck and buddies. This is too important an issue for us to lose.
Excellent.
posted somewhere on the web site. Speaking for myself
if when I check in on BooMan every day, I had my memory refreshed by seeing a list of Beck’s sponsors it would help me stay out Wal*Mart, Red Lobster, state Farm, etc. In these tough economic times, NO business is too big not to be impacted by a loss in sales. Sock it to ’em!
I’ve been ranting about Rupert Murdoch to friends for weeks. He’s ultimately responsible for O’Reilly, Beck, Hannity, et. al.
He wants to destroy democracy by challenging the policies this nation voted for in 2008 (by a 7% margin at the presidential level).