Glenn Beck: Senior Scammer
by digby
This is the ultimate Senior Scam:
If you have any doubt of the truthfulness of that argument, consider this: Glenn Beck is urging his listeners to donate money to the Chamber of Commerce. Now, the Chamber of Commerce is not simply an advocacy organization pursing an ideological agenda, like the National Rifle Association or the National Right to Life Committee. It is a trade association representing some of the largest corporations you can think of. Its board of directors counts among its members executives from Pfizer, Lockheed Martin, AT&T, US Airways, JPMorgan Chase & Co., IBM, and Verizon. It is The Establishment incarnate. And Glenn Beck is calling on his hardworking listeners to donate money to the Chamber. He is literally asking American workers to give their hard-earned wages back to their employers, so their employers can use that money to advocate a public policy agenda that benefits the rich at the (again: literal) expense of everyone else. It’s incredible. It’s such a twisted scheme that it’s easier to believe as a piece of performance art meant to mock right-wing pseudo-populism. Though if it was art, it would be dismissed as overly broad and heavy-handed.
Sadly, so many of the Tea Party followers who listen to Beck subsist on social security and really can’t afford this. Of course, they also object to any sort of consumer protections that might require Glenn Beck to reveal that he’s collecting money for wealthy corporate interests who don’t need it to do the work they are doing, so there’s nothing anyone can do for them.
This just makes me sort of sad.
.