The Glenn Beck Report

UPDATE: 2/27/10

Glenn Beck’s slash-and-burn schtick fired up the CPAC loony bin by repeating lie after distortion after smear, the most comforting material that he could present to America’s dead political party. It’s hard to imagine how so much crap could come out of a human being in a short period of time.

Beck (with Palin and the rest of the GOP) is attempting  to drag the TeaBaggers into the fold,  kicking and screaming, but they are so thick that most of them have yet to realize it.  Some of them are getting suspicious. (Hmmm… both of them are paid contributors to Faux News, the official propaganda organ of the GOP. Palin was the Vice Presidential candidate for the GOP in the last election. Glenn Beck has never said one nice thing about any Democrat.  Sarah Palin has repeatedly stated that she has no use for the “liberal elitists” and would rather be chasing down animals in a helicopter and shooting them with weapons designed for war than serving as Governor in a corrupt system.   Hmmm. D’ya think…?)

Tonight we hear that Beck and Palin are going on a 2-stop tour to TeaBagger-land, the first stop in Oklahoma, the intellectual center of gravity in America and also home to lots of fancy dancing by men in cowboy hats with shit-kickers that never saw any shit. Watching these two on the same stage reminds me of the dance scene with Gene Wilder and Peter Boyle in Young Frankenstein, doing the soft shoe to “Puttin’ on the Ritz” for a thrilled crowd until an explosion casts a flash of light on them.

At that moment the monster goes wild and runs amok. Surely whatever they say or do cannot stand the light of scrutiny by a critical press. Why else would Sarah Palin try to shut them out of their events? My other question… would Gene Wilder consider impersonating Glenn Beck for a parody remake of the scene?

The Beck CPAC speech lies and abuses have been well-documented by Ryan Witt in the Des Moines Register at the following link:

http://www.examiner.com/x-5738-Political-Buzz-Examiner~y2010m2d21-Video-Commentary-and-fact-check-of-Glenn-Becks-CPAC-speech?#comments

I am looking for an “official” transcript of the speech and will try to get one up on a separate page. Ryan has done a great job of detailing the lying sack-o’-doody, but in case he’s missed any I’ll be doing my own fact check as well.

BTW, you should be careful when you search for Beck transcripts. I put this into Google and it spit up a link that tried to infect my computer. If this happens to you, please press Alt-F4 (the Alt key and the F4 key simultaneously) until all the windows related to your browser close. In this process, you may reboot your computer if you press the combination after all windows are closed; this is still better than having to disinfect your browser.

I am not sure who would want to discourage you from reading a transcript of Glenn Beck’s CPAC speech, which is why I will post a clean copy here when I get one.

I just learned today via The Progress Report that Glenn Beck has lost every single sponsor for his UK version of the show. The digest email that I get refers back to an article at Think Progress by Amanda Terkel, who quotes two of my cultural heroes. Those would be Color of Change and StopBeck.com. Please give them a click; they have been instrumental in the effort to boycott sponsors of Glenn Beck’s show and force him off the air. I consider myself a mere dabbler in comparison to these true warriors for justice.

IN OTHER NEWS….

Glenn went totally ape-shit over an Obama speech about job creation and the stimulus bill. The clip is amazing; insanity, personified.

A nice gent who goes by the name of Kevinge3 on YouTube posted this clip:

UPDATE!! This video can’t be embedded by the request of the poster, but the link below still works to take you to the YouTube video. I respect Kevinge3’s right to disable embedding, so when you go over to YouTube, please do 2 things: First, show Kevinge3 some love for editing this 30 seconds or so out and making a nice video, and second, don’t forget to come back!

Alpo, anyone? Everyone send Glenn Beck a can of Alpo, please.

Temple of Doom: Savaged, the sequel, extended version

Glenn Beck, who was cursed to be gone from the airwaves on or before January 21, 2010 by Michael Savage (see story here) has been graciously granted a 90-day extension by the Glenn Beck Report.

This gesture of good will on my part is not entirely magnanimous; I took out a 1 year hosting plan and domain name registration, and if Glenn were to go off the air before then I would have wasted part of my $60. In times like these, we have to watch our pennies. Therefore I am granting Glenn a 3 month extension; this, too, is an arbitrary amount of time pulled out of my ass so it may be extended again should Glenn still be on the air 3 months from now.

Should Glenn do anything stupid, this extension may be withdrawn at any time. (ROFL)

NOTE to my regular visitors….

I must apologize for not keeping this site updated. Glenn has been chumming the planet for bloggers since November, when health concerns have caused me to take a break from posting updates. I would like to say that the situation is resolving, but unlike Glenn, I don’t like to lie.

So, if anyone thinks they would like to submit material, please let me know via email and I will create a posting account for you.

Cheers,
Wexler

Is this the “Fair and Balanced” aspect of Faux “News” or is it the “nobody here bothers to read anything” aspect?

Thanks for the link, Glenn.

It’s appreciated, I’ll try my best to say something nice about you once in a while. Maybe to help me out, you could stop being a psychotic mess of a right wingnut conspiracy-theory-promulgating, racist, cult-member, fear-mongering, bat-shit-crazy, crocodile-tear-shedding, money-grubbing, and so on, person.

I would really, REALLY, enjoy having a formal debate with you as I have challenged you to do in a post elsewhere on this site. Please, PLEASE, let’s do this. You can have Stu or anyone you would like to help you out. How about William Kristol? Have you pissed him off lately? Or this would be cool, wait for it… Sarah Palin!!!!! Perfect!

I’m a busy man, Glenn, but I will make time in my schedule to prepare for this debate. There are few conditions, it’s just got to be a fair fight and when you use the tape you have to be fair about it.

Whaddya say, Glenn? C’mon, you might even get in a couple of sound bites!

When I started this website I thought it might be fun to take a few verbal pot shots at the King of Clowns. However, he’s turning out to be so damn easy that I just don’t know if I can stand it.

For example… yesterday the news was that he had booked the Harlem Boy’s Choir for one of his “cult events” (as reported by Keith Olbermann, who probably doesn’t realize how close to the truth his choice of words was). So why did Glenn try to hire these gents in the first place? It is just a PLAIN FACT that he despises black people and his cult religion, Mormonism, believes that it states in the Bible that black people are cursed. So there wasn’t any purpose to have them there other than window dressing or to somehow try to obscure what most people know about Glenn. He hates The Negro.

So the Boy’s Choir apparently pulled out when someone pointed out that Glenn Beck has called the President a “racist”. But where were they for the last 6 months? This is old news, I realize that young people are out of touch and so on, but for crying out loud. Beck’s people say it was a dispute about money.

Gotta run… more later.

LATER…..

So again, I read that James Rucker and Color of Change persuaded the organization to drop out of Beck’s “Christmas Sweater” tour, citing Beck’s racist comments and beliefs. I just have to wonder how any black person in this country could not already know what Glenn Beck has said about black people. It astonishes me.

The choir says it backed out for financial reasons. That’s hard to believe, given Beck’s estimated $18 million a year salary plus the millions of dollars he’ll pull in from the gullible on his Christmas Sweater tour. By the way, the Christmas Sweater is a book that Glenn wrote that is sentimental garbage designed to make himself look like a regular Joe.

He’s NOT a regular Joe. He’s not even a CHRISTIAN. He’s a Mormon. Mormons are NOT Christians, even though they trot out the Bible at Easter and Christmas. To be a Christian you have to hold to certain dogmatic beliefs. One of them is NOT that Jesus and Satan are twin brothers, which is what Glenn Beck believes. The Mormons are FRAUDULENT when they call themselves Christians, in fact, they are the people that the Bible warns Christians about. You know, people who make up their own scripture and follow false prophets? For Glenn Beck to be running around the country pulling in the Christian Fundies to his “Christmas Sweater” tour is supreme irony, and I predict that there are going to be a passel of sermons given about Glenn Beck and the Mormons before this is all over.

Meanwhile, if you want a nice break from Glenn Beck, please pick up one of the many fine recordings of the Harlem Boys Choir at this link: http://www.boyschoirofharlem.org/home-nosound.html

They are a wonderful group and definitely worth seeing. Especially if you don’t have to sit through 2 hours of Glenn Beck Bullshit to hear them.

I have been over to the 912 Project site (guilty pleasure, kind of like staring at an impending train wreck).

They had a link to an article about the “true” meaning of Thanksgiving… and it’s not what you might expect. The story is that the TRUE meaning of Thanksgiving is celebrating the Pilgrims’ freedom to practice… wait for it… capitalism after escaping European socialism!

I can’t find the link to the story and it’s not showing up in Google, but I swear I saw it with my own two eyes. If anyone finds a link to it, please email it to me… wexler@glennbeckreport.com.

OK, it’s Thanksgiving and my wife and I just prepared and ate a very nice dinner which we made with our own 4 socialist/secular humanist hands. I’ve done some thinking about that friggin’ article that was even too WHACKED for the 912 Project. Here’s my response to the notion that the Pilgrims came here to escape socialism.

You’re ignorant LIARS. The Pilgrims came here so that they could practice their own religion, not to practice capitalism. But they DID practice capitalism, and how! And if you want to know how American capitalism works, the indigenous people that sat with the Pilgrims during the first Thanksgiving dinner provide us with a PERFECT illustration. American capitalism works by using power and deception to take whatever you want from those who don’t have the means to defend it, and if they get in the way just go ahead and wipe ‘em out.

To whoever wrote that dumbass article, and also to whatever racist fool at the 912 Project website thought that it was a good idea to link to it because it had the word “socialism” in it:

Who do you think was living here BEFORE Europeans came and established American capitalism? Where did they end up, how did they benefit from capitalism? They were wiped out in a savage and shameful series of genocidal wars, exploitation of military power, even germ warfare. This is the DISGRACE of capitalism, it shows what it does to the people at the bottom.

Happy Thanksgiving, warpigs. Are you happy yet? Not quite, I suppose, there are still a few of us in the middle class hanging on.

http://www.firstpeople.us/photographs/Children-of-Quanah-Parker-Comanche-1892.html

Glenn Beck Humiliated by WIPO Loss

This is a story I’ve been meaning to get around to writing about for a while, now. I’ve had an email exchange with one of the principals, because I wanted to see if he had a comment or would like to have the story treated in any special way. In light of the menacing, bullying, yet cowardly acts of the self-proclaimed defenders of the Constitution who bring guns to public meetings and make anonymous death threat calls in the middle of the night (been there, answered those), I thought I’d give “Name Withheld” a chance to nix this story or at least give me his viewpoint on the whole thing. He declined to comment, but gave me a load of information with which to use as reference for this post.

If you have ever watched or listened to Glenn Beck you have heard him insinuate something that is totally unsubstantiated and then claim it must be true because nobody is denying it. For example, How do we know Obama isn’t turning AmeriCorps into a secret, armed police force? The White House hasn’t denied it. Beck uses this tactic on a continuing basis to create straw man conspiracies. Of course nobody’s denying it, Glenn, because you’re the only dicktard stupid enough to say it, and who cares what you say?

didglennbeckrapeandmurderayounggirlin1990.com

In case you’ve not heard about this, here’s the nutshell version. Some posters over at Fark.com’s forum, a satire and news site, had a rapid series of free associations and determined that Beck’s routine was actually very similar to how Gilbert Gottfried performed at Comedy Central’s roast of Bob Saget which took place on August 3, 2008. During this roast, Gottfried begged people to stop accusing Saget of rape. So, this guy named Isaac Eiland-Hall, fed up with Glenn Beck’s frequent use of guilt-by-insinuation (aren’t we all?), claimed the domain name http://didglennbeckrapeandmurderayounggirlin1990.com and set it up as a parody website. A parody of Glenn Beck’s character assassination and smear techniques. However, Eiland-Hall was deadly serious about Beck’s smear tactics and also his own First Amendment rights.

I should interject here that the website took flak from everywhere as “serious” liberal commentators were quick to “condemn” it as they were covering the story. Even Keith Olbermann took a swing at it, while giving it free PR at the same time. It’s hard to know what goes on in the editorial rooms of MSNBC but I’ll bet they were LTAO as they were deciding how Keith should handle the story.

Eiland-Hall stated (later) that the tipping point for him was Glenn Beck’s interview with Minnesota’s Congressman Keith Ellison, to whom Beck confessed he was nervous because of Ellison’s Muslim faith. “And I have to tell you, I have been nervous about this interview because what I feel like saying is, sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.” Watch:

So because of Glenn’s ignorant, racist, flapping gums and some high-spirited posting in the Fark Forum, didglennbeckrapeandmurderayounggirlin1990.com was born.

The site went viral and soon Glenn Beck was on it with legal threats trying to get it taken down. The site went down briefly when the webhost changed nameservers, but it stood with unflinching valor as Isaac and his attorney Marc Randazza held their ground against the most popular screwball in the Fox News bullpen of screwballs. Having failed to bluff the website out of existence, Beck chose to take the fight to WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Switzerland. (I forget, is that Old Europe or NEW Europe?) The complaint was based on an alleged trademark violation. However, WIPO ruled in Eiland-Hall’s favor as this is clearly not a trademark issue; the website is political in nature and not an effort to profit from the name (re-read that last statement, Glennie-boy). After winning, Isaac said his point had been proved and graciously gave Glenn Beck the “keys to the account” and told him he could take the website down at his leisure. It’s still there as of today. There is a lot of information about this controversial case on the ‘net, and Eiland-Hall’s new website is www.GB1990.com if you would like to check it out.

Naturally, I have taken an interest in this case since I operate a website with Glenn Beck’s name in the domain name. Also, I know the schizoid freak reads this and it probably keeps him up nights trying to figure out how he can shut it down. Glenn, sadly for you, this is political commentary, and you’re a public political figure so you are fair game. I am not selling anything here, just documenting your lies.

There is a larger issue here and I hope it’s not missed. In 1976, the Supreme Court ruled in effect that money = free speech in Buckley v Valeo. The ruling was that the state couldn’t limit political ad buys by candidates or anyone because that would be limiting their free speech. Soon the Supreme Court will review whether or not corporations have free speech rights. I predict that the mostly corporate-owned SC will rule that they do. There you have it. Corporations with money and free speech rights. The perfect hatchery for fascism in the media.

The significance of the WIPO ruling is that somebody like Isaac (or me) can spend about $75 and take on a giant media doofus backed by the mega-cult Mormon church and prevail. I have operated www.stopdubya.com for 9 years, even as the Bush Administration threatened us with domestic spying and forum posters threatened me over the phone. But despite the reach of Bush’s network my little part-time budget site stayed put, because they knew that regardless of how bad I made them look, I wasn’t lying. Further, if they would have made an issue of my site (or any of the hundreds of other anti-Bush sites) it just would have given that site the spotlight in the national media.

As long as we have true net neutrality we’ll have free political speech. Even if others can buy it by the boatload.

Glenn Beck has won the title of “Fearmonger-in-Chief” from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), snatching the coveted award from the formidable jowls of former Vice President and un-indicted war criminal Richard Cheney.

The ADL has spent most of its life as an organization since 1913 defending Jewish people against Jew-baiting and hate speech. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary efforts, however, which prompted them to do a special report on the anti-government hate speech and conspiracy theories spun by crackpot melon-headed assholes like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

Glenn Beck is well known in rational circles for being a dry druggie (allegedly dry), Cleon-Skousen-spewing Mormon bigot, and self-made millionaire. He’s only in it for the money. Maybe. Or maybe he really believes the crap he says? Who knows?

Congratulations, Glenn, you little maggot. You deserve everything you get, including this award.

I’m still working on the next installment in my 4 part series on how Glenn Beck’s Mormon faith will be instrumental in splitting the teabaggers along a religious fault line. In the meantime, enjoy…

“Teabagger” makes runner-up for Oxford Dictionary New Word of the Year for 2009

This is a story that Glenn should be proud about, since he barks instructions to the teabaggers for hours at a time. Some of those instructions, by the way, are becoming rather vicious. Glenn better watch how he runs his mouth or perhaps someone over at Faux will actually have to be the adult. For example,

Glenn Beck compares health insurance reform to rape

The unbelievable dry druggie (perhaps) never ceases to amaze. This time he went over the top, even topping his bit where he “poured gasoline” all over a person sitting on his set. This time he said

The American public doesn’t want government-run health care and, for the first time in history, we don’t think it’s the government’s place to give it to us. We’re the young girl saying “no” and government is Roman Polanski: In the end, we are all going to be cowering in France.

Seriously, Glenn, even some of the faithful must be wondering WTF you are doing comparing any public policy to the rape of a 13 year old girl. This ought to spur another round of phone calls and nastygrams to your few remaining sponsors. You can keep up to date on this effort at http://foxnewsboycott.com/. Last count was 85 sponsors lost, you can get information about how to vote with your pocketbook at this fine site. Please do take time to call, it makes a difference.

Glenn Beck’s Candidate Concedes, and then…

I have written at length in an earlier post about the unfortunate schlub Doug Hoffman, the teabagger candidate who claimed that Glenn Beck is his “mentor”. Holy smokes, to think that a grown man would admit that in PUBLIC. Well, on election night, November 3, as the teabagger dream crumbled before his eyes and his mentor lay sick in the hospital with acute appendicitis, Doug Hoffman conceded the race to Democrat Bill Owens. Owens was sworn into office last Saturday, November 7.

So today, just to prove what a weird creepy dick he really is, Doug Hoffman got into a phone conversation with “the mentor” on his radio show and got egged on into the following conversation:

BECK: Alright, so let me ask you two questions. Are you currently bowing to me at the waist? (LAUGHTER) Have you bowed, or will you bow, to anyone, at the waist? No? Okay, good. Second question for you, are you officially un-conceding at this moment?

HOFFMAN: Yes, if I knew this information at the election night, I would not have conceded.

BECK: So are you un-conceding?

HOFFMAN: If that’s possible, yes.

BECK: If the President can bow to an emperor and nobody says anything, yeah, I think you can unconcede.

Update 11/20:
The actual event that spurred this conversation was the news that around 10,000 absentee ballots had not yet been counted. There are various rumors circulating about what actually happened on election night, but thanks to excellent reporting by Submitted to a Candid World, we don’t have to speculate. Hoffman had all the correct information when he conceded. The NY Board of Elections has NOT issued final certification of the election results, it’s conditional. However, Hoffman’s chances of winning with the uncounted absentee ballots are next to none because they were cast before Dede Scozzafava dropped out of the race. Do the math: she was polling at about 20% when she dropped out. That leaves 8,000 votes. Owens had roughly a 3,100 vote victory, which means that in order to make up the difference and win Hoffman would have to take 5,550 or about about 70% of the remaining 8,000 votes. Now think about this for a moment. After what you’ve seen of the teabaggers in video, still photos, on TV, and elsewhere, what do you suppose are the chances that these people would send in an absentee ballot? 70% of the toothless goofballs couldn’t find their ass with both hands let alone obtain, fill out, and mail in an absentee ballot.

I predict that Dede Scozzafava will do much better in absentee ballots than Hoffman. This is just a hunch, but it makes sense if you think about the organization of the GOP versus the angry rabble that voted for Hoffman based on the recommendations of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin.

The election will not be officially certified until December. If you go to Hoffman’s website, there are stories on the index page that claim there was a virus in the voting machines (how’s that paper ballot thing the GOP fought for the last decade working out for ya?) and another article that tantalizingly asks the question “Owens in Office Illegally?”. Nope, he’s not. The New York Board of Elections gave Congress a conditionally certified result. If the teabagger boy gets the 70% of the absentee ballots as explained above, then Glenn Beck’s head will explode with glee. If not, it’s going to be Vapo-Rub City for the Prince of Pricks. Maybe everybody should send him a crying towel. Stay tuned…
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Well, Glenn, you had so much success on your first try at throwing the GOP out of office, we here at GlennBeckReport and StopDubya wish you the best of luck and continuing success for many years to come.

Not just about fresh-faced boys and a great choir

I think the first exposure  or awareness I had to the Mormons was just past the midpoint of the last century.  My grandfather, retired from his job as county assessor, had taken a part-time job doing accounting work at a gas station in our little town.  Our family didn’t have much money in those days so Gramps picked up a Christmas LP with a variety of artists singing Christmas carols.  I think it was from Firestone tires and I think I may even still have it somewhere among my 1500 albums. If my memory serves me correctly, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang “Adestes Fedeles” (O Come All Ye Faithful). We listened to that record hundreds of times over the years.

So, growing up, the only thing I knew about the Mormons was that they had a great choir.  We didn’t have a Mormon church in our city, and we were near the end of the line, so to speak, so perhaps the Mormons hadn’t gotten around to mapping out our community yet.  If they ever showed up at our door, they never got through it. During this period of my life, I was very much interested in religion and was even considering a career as a pastor at one point, which amuses me now given my agnostic/atheist beliefs. During my second year of college, there was a Mormon in our dorm who happily gave me a copy of the Book of Mormon, which I prized and kept near my Bible and Satanic Bible. Back in those days, people used to sit around and have “bull sessions” about various topics, and religion was a favorite as it always included plenty of semi-informed speculation about what this or that might mean.

Flash forward to a new century, in a quiet town in a quiet state.  Our doorbell rang about every 6 months and my wife would coldly yet politely shag the two young “elder” Mormon lads who rang it down the road. This happened several times before I decided to let them in, sit them down and give them hell, and THEN shag them down the road once and for all. They sat down and we chatted about normal stuff for a while and during that conversation I realized that I really liked these fresh-faced kids.  They reminded me of me when I was about their age, earnestly and eagerly wanting to talk about their religious beliefs and proselytize if the opportunity presented itself. (Of course, in my day, I was all about LSD, not LDS).  We began to talk about religion, and I gave them fair warning that we both have religious beliefs (my wife is Catholic) and on we went.  There was slight pressure in the conversation towards the Mormon beliefs but it was subtle and respectful. After a while they said they had to go but they wanted to pray for me first. I thought that was sweet.  I invited them to come back any time, adding that they were welcome to come in out of the rain or cold, to warm up, have some water, use the bathroom, or whatever.

I think we saw that pair of young men two more times. One of them was from Portland, Oregon, and his mission was almost over.  A second pair came in once, and after that we haven’t seen any more Mormon missionaries. From what I know now, I expect that records of each contact were carefully noted and reported. I think we have used all of our allotted opportunities to become Mormons.

I wouldn’t have ever even thought of Mormons again, possibly, if it wasn’t for Glenn Beck. That would have been unfortunate, because despite being a political junkie I may have never bothered to notice them because they operate in such secrecy.  If you’re not actually looking for Mormon political actions and history you won’t see it because they rarely allow themselves to be seen.  That is, unless you’re one of the people who they screw, as they did in to LGBTs in California and Maine by pumping millions of dollars into a hate-filled smear campaign against the civil right of marriage for all.  This one I find to be rather interesting given the role of the government in ending polygamy in 1890 and the struggle that the Mormons fought for 50 years to hold to it.

A quick side note. I got an email just yesterday from Fred Karger of Californians Against Hate.  The Mormons have come out publicly supporting Salt Lake City’s proposed ordinance which prohibits discrimination against LGBTs regarding employment and housing. The ordinance also protects those with disabilities.  Fred is hopeful that this is an opening step in a LDS church that is more open to granting civil rights to LGBTs. I take a more cynical view.  In the last days before the November 3^rd election in which Maine overturned their LGBT marriage law, there was a dispute between gay LGBT advocates and NOM (National Organization for Marriage) which pumped $1.6 million into overturning the marriage law in Maine. A federal court ruled that NOM must disclose its donors under Maine law; they still haven’t complied with the ruling and I believe that this latest news from the Mormons “supporting” LGBT civil rights in Utah is pure PR. They know that they are about to be cold-busted in Maine as the primary donor to NOM’s campaign.

Mormon History: steeped in blood, fraud, racism, sexism and lawlessness

This section is not intended to be comprehensive nor is it a mini-course in comparative religion.  The history of all religions could be written in the blood spilled by their adherents. In any religion there is an “in” group and an “out” group defined by a dogmatic set of rules and codes that the in group follows and the out group doesn’t.  The history of early Christianity has been filtered through the ages, but Mormon history is relatively recent so we have modern accounts dating back to its very beginnings.

Fraud

The Mormon faith is founded on documents supposedly found by Joseph Smith, a self-proclaimed “Glass looker” (also known as “money digger”) who said he could see things that other people couldn’t see by looking into a glass or special stone.  One of the things he looked for was buried treasure, which explains why he never had any money.  In the 1820s phonies like Smith were commonplace. In 1826 Smith was hired by Josiah Stowell in New York to find what he thought was a Spanish treasure buried on his farm.  Smith spent a month on the farm living off of his host’s hospitality, and came up empty handed. After that small fiasco Smith was brought up on charges by those close to Stowell; Arad Stowell, Josiah’s son, was one who testified at the trial that he had observed Smith’s operations and that he was a fraud.  Smith was convicted of Disturbing the Peace.  (An odd charge, I think).

There has been a lot of controversy about the Book of Mormon’s origins, authenticity, and even plagiarism.  The story is that Joseph Smith was out money digging and was guided to a buried box of golden plates which were there under the protection of the angel named “Moroni”.  This find supposedly took place September 22, 1823, near Manchester, New York.  This Moroni was a “rules person”, and Smith was not allowed to have the plates until he followed a bunch of rules, including coming back to them every year for 4 years.  Smith finally got the plates but was not allowed to show them to anyone (of course).  The plates were written in a language Smith referred to as “reformed Egyptian”, which is a language that no linguist has ever seen.  It has no trace of existence on this planet.  Smith began translating the plates by looking at his seer stone in the bottom of his inverted stovepipe hat, dictating the English to several people who took turns writing it down.

Since there are but a few eyewitness accounts of the plates, and since the accounts of what they actually looked like don’t match, there is not even any usable circumstantial evidence that proves they existed.  Therefore the Mormons accept their existence and the authenticity of their translation as an article of faith.  Those of us who don’t believe in magic tricks would be more easily convinced if there was any tangible evidence besides a book that is full of contradictions, inaccuracies, and even some suspected plagiarism. Passages from the Book of Mormon are almost identical to passages in the KJV of the Bible, which is odd because the plates were alleged to be 1100 years old and therefore predate the King James Bible, which was written in 1611, creating a compelling point for calling the golden plates story nothing more than hokum and charlatanism.

There is another book of rules called the “Doctrines and Covenants”, originally published in 1833 as the “Book of Commandments”.  In 1834 the book was pared down to what were considered the most significant ‘revelations’.  There was another version printed in 1876 contains disputed material attributed by some as revelations of Joseph Smith.  There are about 100 revelations and lectures in it.  So here’s another opportunity for FRAUD.

If a church claims that one of its bedrock doctrines is the word of God through revelation, and that God speaks directly through the Apostles, then it’s fraudulent when the church changes its dogma as a matter of convenience.  It provides a stark example of how the so-called God-given code is nothing more than a phony rule somebody made up that worked out for them at the time but became uncomfortable or inconvenient so it gets changed.  This is not a “revelation” of God’s will, it’s a cynical game of opportunism played by the church Leadership.

About Face on Polygamy

Note: the information regarding Mormon polygamy below is largely sourced from  what is considered to be an authoritative paper titled “LDS Church Authority and new Plural Marriages, 1890-1904 written by D. Michael Quinn.  Quinn actually ran this by Mormon President Gordon Hinckley before publishing it.  It’s available at http://www.lds-mormon.com/quinn_polygamy.shtml but I get spooky popups from the site, I will just warn you in advance.

The Mormons have taken a dogmatic U-turn at least twice.  The first example occurred in 1890 when they suddenly renounced polygamy at the same time that Utah was being held up from statehood over the polygamy issue.  The church leadership had been fighting a losing battle with various state and local governments over this issue since the church formed in 1830.  They were hounded out of New York, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois where Joe Smith was killed while in protective custody in Carthage. (Accounts say he killed two of his assailants with a pistol before they killed him).  Brigham Young move the church to Utah starting in 1847 to avoid persecution for polygamy and other heresies.

It wasn’t until 1852 that the Mormons made official what was already known by every community within they had lived, namely that they practiced plural marriages. In February 1851, Mormon President Brigham Young announced to a meeting of the Utah territorial legislature that he had more than one wife.  Then in  August 1852, Young announced that “celestial marriage” was a doctrine of the church.

The Mormon church and its leadership were willing to break local laws, lie to authorities, and even develop the posture that truth was relative, not absolute in order to hold on to polygamy. In 1890, a document called the “1890 Manifesto” (Czary, eh, Glenn?) surfaced which declared an end to polygamy but muddied the waters with a whole big lot of controversy as to its origins, its meaning, its scope of authority, and place in the church’s hierarchy of dogma.  Was it a revelation? Was it part of the D&C?

The short answer is that there is no short answer. The US Supreme Court had just upheld anti-bigamy laws in 1879. The Mormon leadership was on the run in Mexico. Anti-Mormon forces in Utah were gaining more control; Mormons were denied voting rights and barred from public office. Church property was being seized. The church was in turmoil and confusion for decades over this issue. So… zing! Just declare the sacrament that is central to the faith, the practice that is the life of practicing Mormons, to be null and void! Afterwards, persecution tapers off, Mormons regain control of Utah, which becomes a state, and the rest is history.

Another U-Turn of Convenience: Wassup, bro?

For 150 years, the Mormons taught that all blacks are cursed by God.  This is just a plain, ugly fact.  It is documented in the D&C. It is reflected in church policies, and their official’s public statements.  This is well-documented at the following link http://www.christiandefense.org/mor_black.htm where specific quotations from the Book of Mormon, the D&C, and church leadership spanning those 150 years can be found.  The racial prejudice was founded on their interpretation of the Bible, no less, saying that all black people were descended from Cain and therefore were not only inferior beings but were also cursed by God to live lives of suffering and servitude.

But… wait! In case of emergency, break dogma. For 150 years the Mormons refused to allow black men into “the Priesthood”.  But in 1978 the pressure mounted on the church to a point where the Apostles had another convenient “revelation”. It might have had something to do with Stanford University’s declaration that they were banning football games with BYU because of racism.  Maybe it was the pending NAACP lawsuit filed on behalf of Byron Marchant, a black man denied the position of Scoutmaster because the church required all Scoutmasters to be members of “the Priesthood”.  For whatever reason, there was another “revelation” that blacks could now be received into “the Priesthood”. Strangely, the text of the “revelation” has never actually been revealed.  It’s only been included as an “Official Declaration” in the D&C, which states that the “revelation” occurred.  However, although the policy has changed, the idea that black people are inferior and cursed has NOT changed.  This dichotomy of practice vs dogma is a perfect example of the church adapting itself to the environment.

Please note carefully: although the church institutionalized racism, this is NOT a universally-accepted doctrine of all Mormons nor has it been over the last 150 years.  Many Mormons have been outspoken challengers of this policy and have championed black civil rights.

Blood on the sand, blood on their hands

In 1857, the Mormons in Utah were in a state of rebellion against the US government over the polygamy issue and others as well.  The Mormons had formed a militia named the Nauvoo Legion and loudly claimed that they would defend Utah from any invading force.  President Buchanan was incensed by this and ordered a force of 2,500 regular army to Utah to restore order.

Against this backdrop, a wagon train originating from Arkansas called the Fancher-Baker party passed into Utah territory on its way to Oregon.  Church leaders wanted to off the interlopers, but they didn’t want to have to take responsibility for killing them.  Their Big Plan? They dressed up like Indians. WTF? The initial attack became a siege as the wagon train put up a fight. After some period of time, the Mormons persuaded the wagon train to surrender.  What happened next was horrible.

On September 11, 1857, at Mountain Meadows, the members of the wagon train surrendered to the Mormons.  Every man, woman, and child that was deemed old enough to recount what happened was executed in cold blood. The men were shot by the Mormons.  The women and children were killed by Piaute Indians who were assisting in the siege.  Approximately 18 children were spared execution but lost their families and were assimilated into the Mormon whack factory.  All the possessions of the wagon train were stolen, including 800 head of cattle.

Brigham Young’s role in the slaughter of humans like animals is controversial.  But we know a few things.  First, he stated “If any miserable scoundrels come here, cut their throats” during a sermon he delivered under the subject “Red hot blood atonement”.   Second, he orchestrated a coverup to blame the murder on the Indians.  There is a theory that Young ordered the massacre personally, sending a message to the militia, “Brethren, do your duty.”

A woman is a wondrous thing to own

The Mormon church is designed by men to serve men and keep women subordinate.  Women are excluded from holding positions of authority but all women are subservient to that authority.  Women are not only subordinate in this life, but in the Mormon afterlife as well where they will fulfill their “equal power” by spitting out babies like a Tommy gun.

The male chauvinism of the Mormon church is codified by statements of Leadership and teaching documents such as “The Latter-day Saint Woman – Basic Manual for Women”. In these writings, women are not only ordered to embrace their inferiority to men by affirmation, they are to embrace it spiritually as well.  Further, women have no control or say over the vast Mormon fortune; this is the provenance of men alone. Women are required to serve the church when called without pay.

The pervasive integration of Mormon church membership into family life guarantees that women will get no better treatment at home than they do within the church.  Women are expected to obey their husbands, serve them, support them, and make babies for them, lots and lots of babies.

Is the Mormon Church a Cult?

I have tried to give a brief overview of events and people who have shaped the Mormons into what they are today.  I have not yet addressed some of the dogma that separates them from Christians.  The church uses the words “Jesus Christ” in their official name; however, they hold beliefs that the Christian world consider to be heretical, non-Christian, and fraudulent. To make this concise I’m going to just list some of them, as I’m already up to 3000 words for this part of my article and I don’t want you to have to take a whole day to read it.  The next 10 points are written from a Christian point of view, which I am not, but know quite a bit about.

Heretical views of the Mormon Church:

1. Mormons believe in polytheism, or multiple Gods. They believe that men can become God in their own universe.
2. Mormons believe that God is flesh and bones, just like humans.
3. Mormons believe that God is married and that all spirits of all people on earth were conceived through sex.
4. Mormons believe in polygamy, even though they have a “revelation” to stop practicing it.
5. Mormons believe that God has evolved.
6. Mormons believe that Jesus is the “spirit brother” of Satan and was not born of the Holy Spirit and Mary, but instead through physical incest.
7. Since 1830 the Book of Mormon, supposedly the scripture, has been changed 4000 times.
8. You will never see a cross, the symbol of Christianity, in a Mormon temple as they do not accept grace from God
9. There is no corroboration with the Book of Mormon in history, archaeology, geography, linguistics, or anthropology.
10. The Bible has little use in the Mormon worship service and usually only appears in the temple for Easter and Christmas.

I thought it might be useful to take a quick trip through to the characteristics of cults.  Here’s a “checklist” I found that covers a lot of what I have been thinking about since I got interested in this topic.

Characteristics Associated with Cultic Groups – Revised

Janja Lalich, Ph.D. & Michael D. Langone, Ph.D.

http://www.csj.org/infoserv_cult101/checklis.htm

Concerted efforts at influence and control lie at the core of cultic groups, programs, and relationships. Many members, former members, and supporters of cults are not fully aware of the extent to which members may have been manipulated, exploited, even abused. The following list of social-structural, social-psychological, and interpersonal behavioral patterns commonly found in cultic environments may be helpful in assessing a particular group or relationship.

Compare these patterns to the situation you were in (or in which you, a family member, or friend is currently involved). This list may help you determine if there is cause for concern. Bear in mind that this list is not meant to be a “cult scale” or a definitive checklist to determine if a specific group is a cult. This is not so much a diagnostic instrument as it is an analytical tool.

‪ * The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law.

‪* Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.

‪* Mind-altering practices (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, and debilitating work routines) are used in excess and serve to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).

‪

Now we know. Briefs, sort of. What you have to wear to temple, under what you have to wear to temple.

* The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel (for example, members must get permission to date, change jobs, marry—or leaders prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, whether or not to have children, how to discipline children, and so forth).

‪* The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s) and members (for example, the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, an avatar—or the group and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity).

‪* The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society.

‪* The leader is not accountable to any authorities (unlike, for example, teachers, military commanders or ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream religious denominations).

‪* The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. This may result in members’ participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group (for example, lying to family or friends, or collecting money for bogus charities).

‪* The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt iin order to influence and/or control members. Often, this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion.

‪* Subservience to the leader or group requires members to cut ties with family and friends, and radically alter the personal goals and activities they had before joining the group.

‪* The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.

‪* The group is preoccupied with making money.

‪* Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities.

‪* Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.

‪* The most loyal members (the “true believers”) feel there can be no life outside the context of the group. They believe there is no other way to be, and often fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave (or even consider leaving) the group.

What it all boils down to is control. If you belong to an organization that controls a large part of your life, including the way you behave and the way you think, you may be a member of a cult.  Personally, the Mormons fit the definition above matching all but a couple of characteristics but a few of them.  They control you, and if you try to get away from them they will make your life miserable.

NEXT: Glenn Beck, Mormon convert and de facto Teaparty Minister of Propaganda