But who is supposed to laugh?

There are some things that I have little truck with and some that I don't bother with and others that I simply let slide to the side. For a while at least I have tried to let this slide to the side and I have decided I simply cannot. Glenn Beck, self-professed "rodeo clown" of the media world, utilizing a strategy of throw it against the wall, see what sticks, has run through any number of right-wing conspiracies since before the election of Barack Obama last November. There was birth certificate-gate, but that was dropped (and not just by him) when it became simply and obviously and damningly-for-those-who-argued-it untenable. There was his self-serving 9/12 Project, so painfully and wittily and properly skewered by Stephen Colbert not long ago. And though I am sure I am skipping over any number of other ludicrous ideas offerred up there is this absolutely maddening and patently ignorant idea that the nation is being dragged down the road to fascism by the evil "them" that he so often decries. Such a steadfast belief is this new revelation of his that he was moved to apologize for getting it wrong when it was just encroaching socialism that he thought was the problem. Of course, the fascism he is so convinced we are heading towards is a "brand of non-violent fascism or . . . 1984" Leaving aside how ridiculous the idea of a non-violent fascism is, or the fact that despite his frequent invocations of Orwell's most famous work he has obviously never read it if he is to suggest that it is free of violence, we might simply ask if he actually believes this as all the footage that he shows in any of his near ubiquitous montages when he talks of these things is of Nazi Germany . . . certainly a non-violent state if there ever was one.

The turning point for me, however, was his recent round-table where he gathered a (very) select crew to discuss how the United States was headed towards fascism and revealed the moment that he knew something askew was up. Turning to footage from a relatively early debate among the Democratic candidate hopefuls he focused in on a clip of Hilary Clinton:

Clinton: "We are better as a society when we're working together"
Beck: "that is the key, 'we are better as a society when we'reworking together, [sigh] America do your homework." (roughly 6:40-7:00 minute mare of the above link)

Let me do my homework then, what does the word society mean? If we allow some heft for the Webster's dictionary definition, we might suggest that society means a voluntary association of individuals for common ends. Doesn't that sound absolutely dreadful? But because the issue for Beck is actually the New Deal (and if we want we'll turn to the issues of whether it worked or not at a later time) and government intrusion into the economy and the free market let us ask who Mr. Beck suggests stood up to this creeping fascism:

Beck: ". . . I want to go to the Depression, I want to talk about that. . . . Who is the person we should look to that stood up against this? Who are the people that were successful? I know Henry Ford was one of them . . . in FDR. He stood up against them and said 'This is wrong!'" (roughly 7:50-8:10 minute mark of the round-table link)

Let me get this straight. Henry Ford stood up against them - I mean he stood up against fascism?! Once again, let us leave aside the very nature of that which made Ford powerful and famous (besides head-breaking and strike-busting of course), the assembly line. Well, leave it aside after this -- as a means of manufacture there is no doubt that the standardization and uniformity of product of the assembly line brought (and continues to bring) higher production and even wealth to those who master the rote skills necessary but the best thing we can say about the assembly line is that it operates best when everyone is working together. The efficient mechanization of production was also a part of the Progressivism that has been so decried by Mr. Beck.

Now that that is out of the way let me try and get my head around this, Ford fought against fascism/nazism. This is the same Henry Ford who bought a dead newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, and used it to publish the pernicious The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion and any number of equally anti-Semitic articles about American Jews, many of which were collected and published in 1921 as Jewish Influences in American Life. This is the Henry Ford who, in 1938, was awarded the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the Nazi state's highest honor for foreigners - who no less than Adolph Hitler declared an inspiration. This is the Henry Ford, the overseas holdings and factories of whom likely played no small role in arming the Wehrmacht? To reference a periodic Saturday Night Live mini-skit on the blogosphere, bitch pleeeaase!

Beck recently announced a comedy tour "where," according to the NYTs, "he will mix topical comedy with his modern-day take on 'Common Sense,' the Thomas Paine pamphlet that argued for American independence from British rule." If his grasp of Paine's surprisingly meaty pamphlet is as utterly slipshod as his hold on any number of other concepts, ideas and literary works I wonder what his comedy will amount to? But that perhaps brings us back to his notion that he is a "rodeo clown". On more than one occasion I have seen him ward off questions about what such a declaration might mean by joking that he has received mail from actual rodeo clowns who say that they work much harder than he does. Laughing, or at least chuckling, ensues and the subject moves on to the next empty answer. But perhaps we should stop and ask. A rodeo clown's job is to distract an enraged bull from a cowboy who has been riding him against his will. Maybe we should all ask who the cowboy is and who the enraged bull should be in Mr. Beck's scenario.