Glenn Beck is a Crazed Street Corner Ranter by Nature, But He's Got a High-Paid FOX Megaphone and Number One Book

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

By Mark Karlin

If you've checked the mega-giant online retailer lately, Amazon.com, mutant demagogue Glenn Beck's latest book is number one (very possibly ghost written by some right wing failed comics) entitled, "Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine."

Often right wing wacko authors are number one on Amazon.com.  There are a lot of reasons for this, which we will get into, but one significant issue is that many progressives do not support liberal authors by buying their books and rest content that everything can be changed in D.C., rather than committing to creating a progressive culture by altering consumption and purchasing patterns.

This is the very basis of the BuzzFlash synergistic model of progressive journalism supported by creating a progressive, ecological, economic justice, and celebration of progressive culture marketplace. We wrote a must-read explanation on our unique model of self-sustaining reader-supported (with no advertising) journalism that helps to build an alternative culture of liberal, healthy, economically just and earth-healing consumption.  In some ways, it's simple: Buy progreessive and read progressive news and advocacy that creates an economic self-sustaining system of journalism that channels dollars away from destructive corporate policies and the "status quo for the wealthy and elite" media (increasingly on the Internet) that corporate advertising supports.

The creation of "perceived need" for often unhealthy products and food that we don't even remotely need -- along with corporate support for a media that distorts information to maintain a governing and economic system that dramatically favors corporations and the wealthy -- is the crowning glory of a corporate infrastructure that has amassed more power, in many ways, than the White House.

We were fortunate on Friday (June 26th) to meet with Margot Baldwin who has turned the Chelsea Green Publishing firm into a highly successful business (at a time when independent publishing is in decline) because of its wonderful selection of books on sustainable living, its occasional political offerings, and smart marketing practices.

Chesea Green is located in White River Junction, Vermont, but Margot's distance from the big publishing firm's in NYC only enhances her understanding of how right wing books get so much play in book stores and sell so well. Unlike the nascent progressive media, the right wing media mercilessly hawks right wing books as part of their mutually enhanced propaganda machine. Ultra-wealthy wingers finance marketing campaigns for the books and subsidize their sale via special offers with right wing magazines and the like. Wing publishers pay for well-placed space in chain bookstores so even if you don't buy the book, you get the message of its title pushed in your face.

Of course, there are the guest appearances of authors on the endless right wing talk programs -- and bulk sales to true believer political and cultural organizations.

There is nothing even remotely comparable to this (and we haven't even gotten into the right wing think tank publications) on the liberal side -- and much of this is to do with wealthy Democrats putting money into elections more than investing in changing the perception and reality of our our culture.

So it pains us when we see the like of Mark Levin ("Libery and Tyanny") on top of bestseller lists.  So many of our readers do so much, but so many progressives are content to take the lazy route and pay monthly cable television bills to let them watch Bill O'Reilly, larded with corporate advertising, so that they can feel and express disdain toward him.  Frankly, it's being lazy. That is a reactionary, defensive position, not one that creates an alternative model of media, as BuzzFlash and other Internet sites have done. (Although BuzzFlash is the only one that finances  -- and unfortunately perilously -- its progressive news and commentary through the sale of items that help improve our health, our planet, and celebrate our progressive culture.)

Yes, we have made some beachheads on progressive radio and big advancements on MSNBC, but all of that can be pulled out from under us on a moment's notice.  If we don't starting owning pieces of the media, we are at the mercy of the corporations who have gotten us into this economic and foreign policy (think the oil companies and Cheney and Iraq) mess.

Like many independent Internet sites, BuzzFlash is facing serious financial pressures this June.  This month has been a financial drought to a number of well-known sites that aren't beholden to oil, nuclear power, and unhealthy mega-food company advertising.

If you want to counter the likes of shrewd demagogue Glenn Beck being number one on the bestseller list, it is time to start financing progressive and populist media and stop thinking that you can battle the likes of FOX News, Rush Limbaugh and the Washington Times on the cheap.

Sean Hannity allegedly charges $40,000 to cover private jet transportation costs to his "liberals are the enemy of America" speeches.  In contrast, the BuzzFlash owners have to take out loans to subsidize pay to our staff.

If you want the Davids of the world to take on the Goliaths, the least one can do is buy them some slingshots for them.

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

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