Beck Dials Up The Crazy

Actually, I think this first video doesn't entirely match up with the Media Matters commentary below. I hunted around and found the second clip, which is about two minutes long, that speculates about Russia controlling the Netherlands.




From Media Matters:

On his Fox News show on Monday, Glenn Beck unleashed a torrent of wild speculation about the consequences of the protests in Egypt. Beck described a world remade by a shift in global power:

BECK: I believe that I can make a case in the end that there are three powers that you will see really emerge. One, a Muslim caliphate that controls the Mideast and parts of Europe. Two, China, that will control Asia, the southern half of Africa, part of the Middle East, Australia, maybe New Zealand, and God only knows what else. And Russia, which will control all of the old former Soviet Union bloc, plus maybe the Netherlands. I'm not really sure. But their strong arm is coming. That leaves us and South America. What happens to us?

That's right: China may control New Zealand, and Russia may control the Netherlands.

Later, Beck proceeded under the assumption that there are connections between recent protests in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Beck designated these countries -- which included France, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Italy, among others -- as being "on fire." Pretty much every country that has seen a protest of any kind in the past couple of years, in fact.

While jabbing at Egypt on a map of Africa, Beck said, "When you take the Marxists and you combine them with the radical from Islam, when you combine those forces, which is exactly -- we'll show you this week -- what is happening here, the whole world starts to implode."

He also suggested that the Tunisian revolution could prove analogous to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the event that began the first world war.

All of this was offered up in service of his theory that the protests in Egypt are the manifestation of The Coming Insurrection, an obscure book that French police believe was written by a member of a small group of anarchists. Beck has repeatedly described the anonymous author (or authors) of the book as "communists." He's tied George Soros and President Obama to The Coming Insurrection, as well.

So, a diverse group of the Egyptian people are in the streets protesting an autocratic leader, and Glenn Beck has decided that this is directly connected to an anonymously written anarchist tract from France that he's been obsessing about for the past two years?

Normally, we are in the business of debunking the falsehoods and smears that Beck promotes. But how do you debunk pronouncements that quite obviously bear no relationship to reality?

This second clip is only about two minutes long.