What’s the difference between Glenn Beck schilling for Goldline by broadcasting his Fox TV doom report, and Dick Cheney schilling for Halliburton by broadcasting his lies about Iraq?
Glenn Beck’s act, artful with all the paranoia buttons, asks you to believe in a world constructed in his imagination, and then alleviates some of that fear by pushing Goldline. Buy this gold, sold at inflated prices and you will be a bit more secure, provided the Muslim left wing progressive Nazis don’t get you…
Vice President Dick Cheney’s act, cultured in the boardroom of Halliburton & delivered in the second best spot on prime time TV, read like the marketing pitch from an arms dealer, a mercenary company, a private army. “You were attacked before, I know they or someone who looks like them is planning to attack you again, so we will destroy them or someone who looks like them. This will keep you a bit more safe, but remember they are a constant threat. We are always needed..”
Beck sells Gold, Cheney sells ‘They or someone’.
‘They’ in Halliburton / Cheney’s evaluation, as any good company should view it, is the entity that delivers the most profit. Pick a target to attack which generates maximum revenue. You want a short high intensity war, with lots of munitions expended. You want a long, protracted occupation, with the ability to generate decades worth of revenues for support, logistics, private security etc. Iraq was a prefect target.
In both instances fear is amplified by the salesman, the aim to get you to buy the product. How many dollars of Fox viewers hard earned cash is currently sitting in Glen Beck’s bank account. Following the neocon war in Iraq, how much of the money from US taxpayers is currently sitting in Halliburton’s bank accounts. How much of that Iraqi oil money has been siphoned off into the Bush / Cheney circle of influence?
Are Becks ranting reliable? No.
Were Dick Cheney’s continual assertions about Iraq true? No.
In both instances the presented motive is weird, we don’t quite understand it unless we enter a bizarre world where logic and facts just don’t add up, so fear must be used to counter any reasoning. However step back, follow the money and all the spiel make perfect sense. They are salesman pure and simple…
Aftermaths
If it turns out the whole thing was a con, as in both these cases, where is the accountability? In the Glenn Beck world the rest of the media, financial institutions and even some politicians are beginning to question the practices that Fox is allowing. It’s gaining momentum, and the outrage is quite palpable.
What about accountability in the Dick Cheney world? Where is the outrage, why aren’t newspapers and financial institutions questioning the movement of money from taxpayers to organizations associated with the people who initiated the Iraq war?
You can easily withdraw your support from snake oil salesman like Beck, the Financial regulatory authorities can deal with him. Yet we lose so much more of our hard earned cash to companies which host the likes of Cheney, Bush, Blair etc. Who stands for ordinary people against our political elite?
Which regulatory authority can I go to, to ask about this fraudulent war that cost so much money and so many lives? Who holds Bush, Cheney, Blair to account?
The difference, no one does….
