Please remove Glenn Beck from your shelves
10:59 AM
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I freely admit my politics are in the minority within the LDS Church. But Glenn Beck can't possible be in the majority either. I mean, he is not a religious writer - maybe an odd inspirational book now and then - but some of us find the promotion of his books very disturbing (besides the fact that he seems to have resurrected sales in Cleon Skousen "literature"). I've talked to a couple of store managers about this and while I occasionally shop Deseret Book for products I can't get anywhere else, if I can get it elsewhere, I have made that my practice.
But this latest stuff that Beck did with his inordinate obsession with Nazi and KKK memorabilia is over the top. As reported by the SL Tribune and Media Matters at the links below, it sickens me that any of this can be associated with Salt Lake City and Mormonism. He claims that with the exhibit he is trying to promote history and our conquest of Nazism and Racism. But do we really need to see a satinEva Braun's handkerchief with Hitler's blood on it? Many of the items he displayed are banned by law in European countries. Please, please, give some consideration to this. You did remove Stephanie Meyers from your stores. It seems that Beck would be a lot more offensive to more people than her fiction.
But this latest stuff that Beck did with his inordinate obsession with Nazi and KKK memorabilia is over the top. As reported by the SL Tribune and Media Matters at the links below, it sickens me that any of this can be associated with Salt Lake City and Mormonism. He claims that with the exhibit he is trying to promote history and our conquest of Nazism and Racism. But do we really need to see a satin
Thank you for your consideration.
Grant L. Vaughn
Centerville, Utah
They do have a Current Affairs/American History section which is small but fairly well balanced with some books just left of center including the President's own writings. I was pleased to see that. I may even have bought my copy of "Dreams from my Father" there. But Beck over tips the balance. I know he sells, but so does Stephanie Meyers.
Maybe somebody ought to start a campaign. . . . Wait a minute! I'm writing a blog here! It doesn't have a very large audience, but if you've read this far and agree with me (and you don't have to) you could send a very polite email to Deseret Book to help out. The address I used was: dbol@deseretbook.com
Addendum
July 29, 2013
In partial response to some comments below, I offer the following. The American Spirit of the Founders wasn't all that defeated Nazism. The Brits were in it two years before we were. Context is everything.
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| My wife at the WWII display, Monmouth Regimental Museum, Monmouth, Wales. August 20, 2010 |
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| I'm with Winnie. Monmouth Regimental Museum. Honor the heroes. |
I agree. He's mean spirited and an embarrassment to the church as we try to be Christlike and humble.
ReplyDeleteHas the LDS Prophet or any leadership of the church voiced embarrassment due to Glenn Beck or is this your own personal opinion?
DeleteI can't speak for languagemcr, but I have only expressed my own opinion. I do not in any way speak for the LDS Church. Many other members have different political views - and Mormon Democrats are in a distinct minority. But I don't think there are really that many who are big fans of Beck.
DeleteThe President of the Church is very careful not to express any opinion on any particular political view or philosophy. He has his personal political views that are not binding in any way on the people of the church. For more, you can cut and past this url: http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/official-statement/political-neutrality
You are an absolute joke. You obviously don't know anything about Beck and what he was trying to do with the exhibit. Try to ban whatever you want, it won't change the fact that your an ill informed, progressive boot-licking, moron.
ReplyDeleteWhat was Beck trying to do with the exhibit? To me, it doesn't make sense for Beck to be promoting those things within a Deseret book either. It doesn't seem like the appropriate place-and like the post says, you can find the materials elsewhere. I don't want to have to worry about being offended by something in a store that promotes my religion in a very good way. And calling someone a 'moron' anonymously seems a little childish to me, don't you think?
DeleteI think you need to be a little more objective. It's obvious you're letting your politics cloud your judgement of Beck. I used to do the same thing: very PROUD LDS Democrat at BYU. I finally had to stop thinking all Conservatives were evil because, well, 99% of the folks I hung out with on campus were really really nice AND Conservative. It took me awhile but I finally began to see things from a different perspective. I know where you're coming from: I used to DESPISE Conservative radio hosts...thought they were scum. I finally decided to LISTEN to what they were saying without any pre-conceived ideas or shunning them. It was HARD...but I realized the LEFT does not corner the market on compassion and they aren't right about everything. If you listened to Beck and tried to understand what he was doing with the memorabilia (from his point of view) you would turn your back on the folks at the Trib who published that opinion piece. Talk about getting it wrong on so many levels. Half the problem is not trying to identify with or understand those you disagree with. Beck a Nazi? That's laughable. Beck a racist hater? Again...get beyond the name calling and get out of your comfort zone. The truth is out there somewhere in the middle, so try being as moderate as you say you are. I saw Beck's museum of artifacts as a warning about what happens in history when the "collective" somehow trump the rights of the individual. Imagine that? I was able to come away with a different perspective than the Trib author. It didn't take much more than some critical thinking.
ReplyDeleteExcellent post. Totally agree.
DeleteCouldn't agree more with Anonymous and Tom. The fruits of the labors of this self-described 'Moderate' paint him as a hateful Marxist.
DeleteI know, the truth can sound harsh:
1 Nephi 16:1-3
1 And now it came to pass that...my brethren...said unto me: Thou hast declared unto us hard things, more than we are able to bear.
2 And it came to pass that I said unto them that I knew that I had spoken hard things against the wicked, according to the truth; and the righteous have I justified, and testified that they should be lifted up at the last day; wherefore, the guilty taketh the truth to be hard, for it cutteth them to the very center...
Whenever somebody dares to speak truth to corrupted power, and calls out Utah's leftists for their hateful rhetoric, their lies, their vengeful bile, they are chastised for 'speaking hard things against us.'
Well don't you think that the TRUTH isn't nearly as frustrating to hear as the constant LIES spewed by Utah Marxists?
You see, forcing taxpayers to pay for the slaughtering of millions of unborn babies, turning the power of the federal government against Tea Party and other conservative organizations, running guns to Mexical drug cartels, abandoning heroes defending American soil at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, then covering it up, constant purjury, corruption, and abuse of taxpayers and trampling on the Constitution, and promoting Islamist revolutions in the Middle East, with the attendant slaughter and persecution of Christians, as the current administration has done, isn't just wrong, it's downright evil. Encouraging mobs to attack 'whitey' because George Zimmerman dared to defend his life, while ignoring the hundreds of deaths of men, women, and children in Chicago, because the perpetrators are overwhelmingly black, isn't just hypocrisy, it's attempting to incite a race war, and that's treason.
Genocide & brutal oppression happen when the wicked seize power of a large, oppressive government. And ours has exploded so far past its Constitutional constraints that it would be unrecognizable, downright alien, to our Founding Fathers.
Utah's hateful 'Democrat' extremists will continue to spew vile rhetoric, but now that Karl has finally engaged not in mere hate speech & her typical lies, but has now crossed the line into full-fledged, provable libel & defamation, perhaps consequences will begin to right Democrats' ship of hate.
I hope that Glenn Beck fires that nasty Marxist harridan, Karl, once he wins ownership of the Tribune, assuming he does what he should, and sues the current owners for defamation. I notice that Alexandra Karl keeps changing her story, constantly 'updating' her story throughout the day since Glenn, Pat, & Stu mentioned her hatchet job on the air, indicating that they have passed this article on to their legal department to investigate a defamation lawsuit.
Too bad for her, the print edition is the one that counts in a court of law, not a 'scrubbed' version online.
Oops. Hate and lies can only get one so far, and eventually, if they become hateful enough, the logical consequences begin to threaten:
Alma 30:60
60 ...thus we see that the devil will not support his children at the last day, but doth speedily drag them down to hell.
Now while I'm sure the guilty will take the truth to be hard, for it cutteth them to the very center, the hard truth isn't said with vengeance, but with exasperation and righteous indignation, but at the root of it all, is a love for my fellow man, even Marxists who actively fight against my liberty, and against the INSPIRED Constitution.
Please, for the sake of your souls, heed the warning in Helaman 13:38!
Hating conservatives, Glenn Beck, and others who are worthy of our praise WILL come back to bite you. For your sake, don't let your hatred consume you! Let go of your hatred, before it destroys you!
Please, for the sake of your soul-DO THE RIGHT THING! REPENT OF YOUR HATE!
Dear "anonymous" at 7/30/2012, 11:51 p.m.
DeleteI thank you too, for helping to move my point along. I'll let the readers judge on their own.
Well, in response to my anonymous reader friends, Anonymous #2 isn't helped by the caps. You're pretty close to the limit for my spam filter. Anonymous #1 just helps my case.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's true I can't look into the heart and can't judge Bro. Beck except for what he puts out in public. I simply reject that a personal collection publicly displayed of Hitler's blood, signature, Nuremberg banner, and Goering's love letters have has any value in any context.
As I understand it, Beck was sharing his personal collection to emphasize the triumph of the American Spirit exemplified by the Founders, over the evil of Nazism. Great. Maybe a swastika or two would get that point across in dramatic fashion but paying who knows how much for Hitler's signature, blood, etc., is just sick.
Here's the development of my perspective. As a kid in junior high, I became fascinated with the horrors of WWII including Nazism, the Holocaust, and Imperial Japan and read a bunch of books about it. I knew who the bad guys were, but the juvenile obsession with Nazis was a typical part of growing up in the generation a little after the war generation. But I grew out of it. I learned to respect the sensitivities of Holocaust Survivors and the descendants of those who didn't survive. Many of these items are the type of thing that would be banned in Europe and are of the nature of things that have no place in public display - maybe in a historical archive. Blood and signatures have the tendency to become cult objects for the really disturbed. I'm not saying you or Beck are of that type. But, the opinion piece in the Trib opened my eyes to the seriousness of the offense these items could cause. I have no regrets in my call to distance the church bookstore from Beck.
A few years ago I visited the Monmouthshire Regimental Museum right next to the castle where Henry V was born. It was fascinating to see war memorabilia from the 15th Century to the present. It was absolutely chilling with a deep intake of breath to see a captured German battle flag from WWII with a swastika. But that display was in context put there by the very men who conquered Nazism. For Beck to equate himself with such heroes is the height of arrogance and just disturbing. Feel free to disagree but the tone of the anonymous comments above do not help.
Sorry for the caps...I kind of admire you for swimming against the stream. Like I said, I was pretty proud of the fact me and about five other students on campus voted for Clinton in '92. That being said I got to the point where I couldn't just pigeon-hole an entire block of folks just because their politics differed from mine. I was really honest with myself and discovered the Democratic Party didn't have a strangle hold on compassion or the right answers for everything. That was the key for me. I then began to look at, and understand Agency in a completely different light. A significant portion of my family is still Democrats-and I love them. However, the Democratic Party today and the folks on the left, are not the same collective force they were years ago. I look at the Party Platform and I can't say I agree with much of it at all. I would like for the party (and the government) to stop with identity politics; to stop seeing us as factions and groups. I am an American and an individual. Wouldn't it be great if we could treat each other that way? So far I enjoy your posts, so keep up the good work. There's always hope for you :) -Richard in Lehi
ReplyDeleteS'alright, Richard in Lehi. I voted for Reagan when I was at BYU and I reformed.
ReplyDeleteSo, if you disagree with "Brother" Beck you're a Marxist?
ReplyDelete"Brother" Beck frequently talks of overthrowing the government of the United States - and please don't try to deny it, I'm not stupid, and have frequently listened to his show or read what he has to say, and have heard him say it - proposing or encouraging armed insurrection is, by-the-way, in violation of Federal law, and is not patriotic. Captain Moroni never advocated overthrowing the freely elected government of the Nephites, he fought to defend it.
"Brother" Beck starting his SLC show by hoisting an American flag upside down, was tasteless, and showed the utmost disrespect. It was not patriotic, and is also against the flag code.
"Brother" Beck is a modern day purveyor of Preistcraft, and has even admitted in at least one interview to being in it for the money and not really caring about what's going on. As P.T. Barnum once said, "There's a sucker born every minute" and Beck's found a lot of "suckers".
I got the same thing from the 'anonymous' posts-apparently disagreeing with an LDS 'celebrity' is too much for some people. I'm also tired of the stigma that being LDS and Democrat is such a negative thing. My political views don't change how faithful I am and how I practice my religion. I don't believe that the conservative LDS are any less faithful either. We probably don't agree on a lot of political fronts, but that shouldn't matter in the grand scheme of things. People need to calm down and remember that politics aren't the most important thing. Faith in Christ and his Atonement, however, are.
DeleteTo the anonymous reader who refers to me as "Marxist Mormon," you have had your say. There is no need for further response. Your additional comments will be going to the spam folder.
ReplyDeleteDon't be too hard on Brother Anonymous Allcaps; they serve a lot of KoolAid down at the Y...
Delete;-)