I've had it, please help me, Glenn Beck related uggghhhh

[recoveringrepublican]

Ok, I love my father-in-law dearly. Have known him now since 1998. His hero was Bill Clinton, he loved that guy. He didn't want to talk to my BIL for months after Nov 2004 because BIL voted for GWB. He would argue against anything republicans stood for whenever he could.

During the most recent primaries my FIL was sooo excited, he thought for sure we would have another Clinton in the WH, and things would turn out for the better. As the primaries went on he said how disgusted he was with CNN and MSNBC treatment of HRC, and to his amazement he started watching Faux instead.

He was pretty pissed and heartbroken with HRC lost. He had never said a bad thing about BHO, but now BHO was the anti-christ. He couldn't stand McCain before HRC lost, but now McSame and Palin were going to be god sends. I really thought it would pass. I just laughed it off.

Now it's been a year. Faux news is the only station on their TV when we go over. My FIL has turned into a different person. He still loves us and we get along, but he is a much bitter person.

Now his hero is Glenn Beck. Beck can do no wrong. I live in FL and use to listen to Beck when he was here. My husband and I thought it was hilarious that people agreed with him (we no longer find it funny!!). FIL does not listen to the radio show, only Beck's Faux News show, so not sure how bad it is compared to radio.

We got into a fight this morning. He told me to watch Beck at 5pm, about the swine flu vaccine. I said there was no way I was turning that station on my TV (it's blocked), and even if I did, I wasn't about to take medical advice from any experts who associate themselves with FAUX news. Basically he said I don't care about my children's health and he is not going to "allow" me to turn "his" grandchildren into "radicals" (lmao, I love the "")

What I'm asking for is every link to any articles, watch dog reports, videos, etc that prove what a fucking moronic liar this guy is. I want my FIL back. He is an integral part of our family, my kids adore him. He also has a very bad heart, and I really do worry what all the lies and negativity do to his heart, maybe that's too dramatic, but that's how I feel.

[SheilaT]

1. Can you get him to watch

Keith Olbermann? Last night's show, which was an entire Special Comment about health care, was exceptional.

[recoveringrepublican]

10. I wish I could get him to watch anything else, but he just won't. He will turn on CNN

for me, but will make snide comments.

That's the funny thing. He came from a war torn country, that is now socialists, and he thought that his birth country was the greatest country in the world.

[hlthe2b]

2. This is a pretty abrupt and dramatic change in viewpoints, ideals,

and possibly thinking patterns. Have there been personality changes? There is always a possibility that your FIL has something organic going on.... It is possible.

[tekisui]

9. I agree, it seems like something deeper is going on.

[recoveringrepublican]

11. I thought that also at first, but it is truly only politics, it's just now that seems

to be all he talks about.

I truly hope it's not something medical, because I don't see him or my MIL agreeing and getting it checked out.

The more I think about it, I think he is just watching too much commentary of any kind. I already spend a lot of time with him, but maybe I just need to get him out more and away from all the negativity? His heart has become really bad in the last 3 years, and the doctor has restricted a LOT of activities. He use to be very active. Maybe he is a little depressed because of this? He use to golf 4 times a week, now it's maybe once a week. He use to take my kids out by himself all the time, but now he feels he's too tired to take them anywhere without me.

[babylonsister]

3. Check out media matters; they have daily stories on beck...

http://mediamatters.org/

[Ineeda]

7. Turn the tables. Beg him, for his grandchildren's sake, to at least watch

last night's KO. (available online at MSNBC site and links on DU) Plead with him, get down on your knees asking him to sacrifice only one hour of his life to watch this. Tell him it's for the kids.

[maxpower]

4. Both of my parents watch Fox and Beck

I wish I had some advice for you. If they bring him up, I ask them politely not to talk about his views. That's where it stands. Good luck.


Peace,
Max

[One of Many]

5. Salon Article ...

You might start here -

Part 1 - http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/09/21/glenn_beck/index.html

Part 2 - http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/09/22/glenn_beck_two/

Part 3 - http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/09/23/glenn_beck_three/

=============================================
Beck kept trying. When KZZP's music director held his marriage at a Phoenix church, Beck loaded up Y95's two Jeeps with boxes of bumper stickers and drove to the ceremony. As the service was coming to a close, Beck and his team ran crouching from car to car, slapping bumper stickers on anything with a fender. The service ended while Beck was running amok, and the KZZP morning team appeared just in time to see Beck jump into his getaway car. "Beck saw me standing in the way of the exit and gunned right for me. I threw a landscaping rock on his windshield and blocked him," says Kelly. When his old friend demanded he roll down the window, Beck reluctantly obliged. Kelly then unloaded a mouthful of spit in his face.

"Glenn Beck was the king of dirty tricks," says Guy Zapoleon, KZZP's program director. "It may seem mild in retrospect, but at the time that wedding prank was nasty and over the line. Beck was always desperate for ratings and attention."

The animosity between Beck and Kelly continued to deepen. When Beck and Hattrick produced a local version of Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" for Halloween -- a recurring motif in Beck's life and career -- Kelly told a local reporter that the bit was a stupid rip-off of a syndicated gag. The slight outraged Beck, who got his revenge with what may rank as one of the cruelest bits in the history of morning radio. "A couple days after Kelly's wife, Terry, had a miscarriage, Beck called her live on the air and says, 'We hear you had a miscarriage,' " remembers Brad Miller, a former Y95 DJ and Clear Channel programmer. "When Terry said, 'Yes,' Beck proceeded to joke about how Bruce apparently can't do anything right -- about he can't even have a baby."

"It was low class," says Miller, now president of Open Stream Broadcasting. "There are certain places you just don't go."

[no_hypocrisy]

13. Welcome to DU and EXCELLENT citation(s).

[crim son]

6. Sheila T has an idea.

Tit for tat. For every time you watch something stupid on Faux to please him, have him watch something like Olberman or Maddow. I'll tell you that Jon Stewart brought the light to my parents' eyes. They were O'Really fans during the shrub admin but after 2004 I started sending them Jon Stewart clips. They're smart people and put two and two together quickly AND were laughing as they did it. Just a thought. I know the horror of dealing day to day with somebody you love who is also truly deluded. Damn demoralizing, it is.

[lunatica]

8. Maybe if you sit down with him and actually let him talk about his feelings

openly you might find out what he seems to fear. Maybe you can use Hillary as a meeting of the minds where at least you can agree on something and then find out if maybe he fears Obama for some unconscious reason. It sounds like you aren't listening to him much but instead you've been assuming he'll get over some temporary thing.

The first thing I would do is really listen to what he has to say and actually have a real conversation about it. Ask him why he feels the way he feels and really show an interest and listen. Be open minded about what he says and feels. You'll probably be surprised and yet at the same time you'll understand why.

[recoveringrepublican]

12. I wish it was that easy, it's hard not to let him talk. He has now become one of those

people who thinks if he interrupts enough and speaks loud enough he will prove his point better. Any kind of discussion ends with me being called a radical, and wonders of how he ever raised 2 other children who think they way they do.

I think I answered my own question though above, I think he might be depressed about his health situation and the restrictions that come with it, and listening to the likes of Beck isn't going to improve that.

I'm just going to spend even MORE time with him, (my children and I see him pretty much everyday). Even if he still thinks Beck is all knowing, he won't be so focused on bullshit.

[lunatica]

15. I didn't mean to have political discussions as usual

I meant that sometimes if you let him do almost all the talking and you simply ask questions that elicit his deeper thoughts on why he feels the way he does, without trying to prove him wrong or set a gotcha trap he'll probably end up revealing what's really bothering him. It might be something as simple as the change he's seeing. The change itself is scary when you see it happening. It may be something as simple as he's forgetting a few things and therefore he's jumping to conclusions that he's getting Dementia and that scares him.

I'd be willing to bet he's afraid of something. Distrustful and afraid. And he may not even know what. It may be unconscious. He may be aware that his America is changing on a fundamental level and that's very scary because he probably wants his known America back. We're all facing an uncertain future. It's scary. And it's easy to fall in with the extreme views that Beck has when your future is unclear. I'm sure he had an idea of what his future was going to be and now he's losing that as each day passes. And Beck is eliciting people's darkest and scariest fears at top speed and in a deafening screaming drumbeat.

Even people here will cry out that they want their country back every once in a while even though we're realizing with each passing day that this won't happen any time soon, if ever.

[sinkingfeeling]

14. How old is your FIL? There was a discussion on Altercation about how Faux News

targets the elderly.

Starts at the bottom of this column:Name: Tim Kane
Hometown: Old, White and Angry... http://www.thenation.com/blogs/altercation/474307/you_say_you_want_a_revolution

Continues with other letters here: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/altercation/474889/slacker_friday
And here: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/altercation/477110/what_we_talk_about_when_we_talk_about_acorn