Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Glenn Beck Relaunching The Blaze As Global Libertarian News Network

The very curious Glenn Beck, who can at times display very strong libertarian views, but who can at times advocate policies that fly in the face of liberty has announced, according to BuzzFeed  that Beck plans:
...to expand the news operation in his media company, The Blaze, and refocus it as a libertarian network, opening three foreign bureaus, debuting a nightly news magazine show, and relocating his New York staff to showy new offices.
Buzz continues:
 Beck introduced his ambitious plans by standing in front of a split screen with MSNBC's Chris Matthews on one side and Fox News's Sean Hannity on the other, and bemoaning the fact that cable news has devolved into the "far left [and] far right... yelling at each other."

"We're not gonna play in that crazy space as a network," he said, adding, "I consider myself a libertarian... I'm a lot closer to Penn Jillette than I am to Chuck Hagel."
He said over the next 60 days, The Blaze will open three foreign bureaus in cities that are "important to America." He will also relocate his New York staff from their current midtown offices into a building that will "send a very clear message to everyone in New York... it will piss everyone off."
Beck also showed a teaser for a new nightly 30-minute newsmagazine show called For the Record.
"Our Nightline will be a nightly half hour broadcast to update you on a topic that no one else quite frankly has the balls to do. I will," he said.
The trailer for the show — which he said will be "the most expensive show on the network, including mine" — featured future episodes exposing the NSA for turning America into a "surveillance state," and warning that the UN "want[s] your guns," both big issues in libertarian circles.
After the in-your-face trailer ended, Beck chuckled, "Security is going to be a real issue for the people in our company."
The Blaze also has plans to hire investigative journalists and plans to produce more documentaries, Beck said.
"We are currently looking for our own Woodwards and Bernsteins," he said. "Maybe they don't exist anymore, and if that's the case I don't really care. We'll grow our own!"

Only time will tell if this is a serious effort to launch a real libertarian network, or an attempt to co-opt the massive youth libertarian crowd created by Ron Paul/

It would also be interesting to know where Beck is receiving funding for his show. It is known there is some degree of contact between Beck and billionaire Charles Koch, who has turned the Cato Institute into an outpost for the pro-war wing of the Ayn Rand movement.

(ht Travis Holte)

27 comments:

  1. Great news! I look forward to tuning in for the Jesse Benton program sponsored by Goldline and Food Insurance.

    ReplyDelete
  2. In view of Beck's militant pro-Israeli views, support from the Kochs would not be surprising. Militant state-sponsored interventionism is inherently anti-libertarian, so Beck is nothing more than a flamboyant neo-con who likes to talk about globalist conspiracies and religion. He may be a little more "libertarian" than Fox News, but that's not saying much.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is the equivalent of Fox New Network opting to name themselves the Conservative New Network. And we all know that while there may be some conservatives on the network, they are mostly Neo-Conservatives. He may put libertarinism more into the mainstream, but at the expense of watering it down and infesting it with libertarians in name only. I say it's a doubt edge sword, on one hand you get more people interested in libertarianism and on the other hand you turn more people against libertarians. My hope is that once you attract people into the libertarian realm, someone else will step up to compete with them. That is why key libertarians like Tom Woods, Peter Schiff and Lew Rockwell need to continue hitting the airwaves and spreading their message because one day they might have their chance to hit the mainstream in one form or another, perhaps thanks to Glenn Beck. lol.. imagine that!

    ReplyDelete
  4. No Glen Beck can not have libertarianism. After watching the way he treated Ron Paul b/c he was a lazy bastard that pandered to the lowest common denominator of the Republican Party was sickening.

    F off Glenn.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm a Ron Paul kid, and nine of us will be falling for that shit.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Glenn needs to mend a LOT of fences with the Ron Paul wing of libertarianism before this can be seen as legitimate.

    Otherwise he's just another attempt to co-opt "liberty" in the name of the Evil Empire.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Is this the Onion?

    ReplyDelete
  8. It's a great sign that someone sees the libertarian movement as one worth leaching off of. We must be doing something right.

    And it should provide incredible amounts of fodder for Robert and Chris and others like myself who just get a kick out of ripping faux libertarians apart.

    I couldn't be more excited!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Beck is not to be trusted. Both in 2007 and in 2011, when Ron Paul was gaining traction (obviously far more in 2011) in the polls and on the internet with new supporters, Glenn went out of his way to attack Ron Paul and his views. Only after both primary elections were settled did he change his tune and talk about how right Ron Paul was all along.

    My favorite was after trashing Ron paul on his old CNN show repeatedly, he then apologized a year or so later and admitted he had been wrong and Ron was right about everything. So what does he do four years later? The exact same thing, except without the apology.

    I remember him laughing at Ron talking about the Fed, how it was going to cause a massive collapse, the business cycle, how basically everything being done by government was to increase its own power in a police state and empire of war, etc - and Glenn used to laugh at him just as bad as the mainstream media did. This time around, when Paul was first in Iowa and a strong second in New Hampshire polling, Beck went out of his way to attack Paul for wanting Iran to have a nuclear weapon and destroy Israel, blah blah.

    He essentially sounded no different than Rush or Foxnews, who he is now attempting to distance himself from. Just a few weeks before the election, I heard him refer to Mitt Romney as our modern day George Washington! Now I do not fawn over the Founding Fathers like conservatives do, but there is simply no comparison. Mitt would never have the balls to lead an armed revolt against the best army in the world, for starters.

    No one should trust Glenn Beck one bit. Screw him and his network. This is an attempt to co-opt the Ron Paul movement that is energized and growing while already in the millions of young people across the world. The neo-con movement has been exposed and is on the decline in power, so they are trying to find a new way to market themselves.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I wouldn't trust Glenn Beck as far as i could throw him, and in an interview with Penn Jillette he already showed some difficulty in understanding some basic concepts.

    But i would be willing to keep an open mind.
    Of course, if he would have the likes of Justin Amash and Ted Cruz on, while ignoring people like Tom Woods, Judge Napolitano, Lew Rockwell and so on the message would be clear enough.

    I think in the end the simple but profound question that Murray Rothbard asked would likely easily expose Glenn Beck:
    "Doesn't matter if you are an anarchist or minarchist, Glenn. But DO YOU HATE THE STATE?"

    ReplyDelete
  11. Give me a break. Glenn Beck is no more a libertarian than my dog...if I actually had one.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I share the skepticism of the others here, but at the same time, I think it is possible Beck's network could be a lot better than what we are anticipating. Say what you want about Beck, he definitely is a good business and he knows that for this thing to work is has to have street cred, and it has to some degree address the hardcore segment of the libertarian community which garners pretty much all the interest and all the real activism in the movement. Just pushing "Tea Party" conservativism or Koch-approved libertarianism is an obvious recipe for failure if this is what Beck has in mind.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Glenn Beck is a hard nut to crack. He got me started down the libertarian path and then we took another road. Nevertheless, political purism is killing the Liberty Movement.

    Beck is not the libertarian poster boy by a long shot, but his news network could prove to be a useful teaching tool that will reach an audience that is powerful to have in the corner. Beck changes like a chameleon, so don't count him out for finally "getting it" or at least returning back to his more libertarian days.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Amazes me how a bunch of non-libertarians like the commenters here, can sit there and say Glenn Beck's not a real libertarian. Un-fuckin'-believable. Hey you schmucks. ONLY PEOPLE WHO ARE REALLY LIBERTARIAN GET TO DECIDE WHO IS AND WHO IS NOT ALLOWED IN OUR MOVEMENT.

    When's the last time anyone of you fuckers ever picked up a clipboard to gather signatures for Libertarian Party ballot access? When's the last time anyone of you fuckers ran for public office or worked in a campaign as a Libertarian Party candidate or libertarian Republican?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you.
      I needed a good laugh.

      It was supposed to be sarcasm though, right?

      I mean, i can see you're following blogs like "conservatives4Palin" and "Texans United For Rick Perry", so i can't be too sure it was meant to be sarcastic.

      Delete
    2. I sent several polite replies to Mr Dondero, and received hateful, profane and utterly ignorant replies.

      Thank God he is just a small faction of the liberty movement. His hatred towards "those Muslims" has warped his mind.

      Bob, he is the reason I'm glad you call out morons who claim to love liberty and then support war, or some government intervention or bailout.

      Delete
    3. LOL! The Donkeydero resurfaces and sounds as insane as ever!

      Delete
    4. Dale, I don't think Dondero is actually a "faction" of any "movement." He's more of a raving lunatic who usually keeps to the hobo jungle beneath the underpass. On occasion, however, he wanders downtown to expose himself and dribble crazy at passersby. Any attempts at rational communication with him are, as you discovered, futile. The best policy is to avoid eye contact and keep on walking.

      Delete
    5. Eric, has your life ever been in danger? Were you in Lebanon or something? Did you kill any this nations enemies? Huh? Or were you were just on a Navy ship somewhere? I guess by your own logic you didn't really serve your country.

      Delete
  15. Oh, geez, I guess I'm supposed to suck the dicks of the FUCKERS WHO KILLED 3,000 OF MY FELLOW COUNTRYMEN? Damned right I hate these Islamists trying to impose Sharia Law on France, the UK, Germany, Spain, Canada and the United States. And in the 1930s and early '40s I would have opposed Hitler and the Nazis too. Guess you would have been on the other side.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Damned right I hate these Islamists"

      >> Relax, Eric. I'm sure "those Islamists" have heard you loud and clear with the million or so who have died from the US Government's invasion/occupations, sanctions, and drone bombings over the past 20 years. But I suppose in those cases, it's merely a statistic, not a tragedy.

      Delete
    2. I'm surprised you can even spell libertarianism.

      You sure as hell don't have a clue what it means.

      My advise: Wikipedia is your friend.

      Go check it out and realize you should be goose-stepping nehind the likes of John McCain and Rudy Giuliani.

      Delete
    3. Mike & Tony-

      The guy (Eric) is FU(<*d UP!

      His replies to me were just rants about how evil the Moooooslims were, and how evil anyone who didn't want to kill them

      Delete
    4. Go get 'em then tiger! As for me, nobody that lives in New York is my countryman. If you ain't in Montana, heck if you ain't part of my family or if I don't know you, it's too damn bad if you get yourself blown up for seeking rent from the World Trade Organization or the Military Industrial Complex.

      Delete
  16. What the heck does Penn Jillette have to do with Chuck Hagel???

    ReplyDelete