Jon Stewart Deconstructs Glenn Beck (With A Bruce Cockburn "Chaser")

Mr. Beck admits to rubbing Vicks Vapor Rub below his eyes to make him cry "on set."

See "Tears Of A Clown" by Hal Crowther at http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/01/hal-crowther-unarmed-and-dangerous-best.html

Alan: The Following Jon Stewart parody of Glenn Beck reminds us that -- in the main  -- the social life of contemporary conservatives depends existentially on gossip - interminable blabbering about... well... nothing. And in that "nothing" -- in that absence of The Good as the ancient Greeks would put it  -- evil manifests.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebexx89yohE

There are two ways of lying, as there are two ways of deceiving customers. If the scale registers 15 ounces, you can say: "It's a pound." Your lie will remain relative " to an invariable measure of the true. If customers check it, they can see that they are being robbed, and you know by how much you are robbing them: a truth remains as a judge between you. But if the demon induces you to tamper with the scale itself, it is the criterion of the true which is denatured, there is no longer any possible control. And little by little you will forget that you are cheating."    

Denis de Rougemont

***

"People See Through You"

Bruce Cockburn

Original Studio Recording

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53JkTgdTKd0

***

Lyrics

You've got covert action
Prejudice to extremes
You've got primitive cunning
And high tech means
You've got eyes everywhere
But people see through you

You've got good manipulators
Got your store of dupes
You've got the idiot clamour
Of your lobby groups
You like to play on fears
But people see through you

You've got instant communication
Instant data tabulation
You got the forces of occupation
But you don't get capitulation
Cause people see through you

You've got the sounding brass
You've got the triumph of the will
You do what you want to
And we pay the bills
you hype the need for sacrifice
but people see through you

You've got anti-matter language
Contrived to conceal
You've been lying so long
You don't know what's real
You're a figment of your own imagination
And people see through you

You've got lip service tributaries
You've got death fetish mercenaries
You hold the tickets to the cemeteries
You're big and bad and scary
But people see through you

---

Cockburn's comments about this song:

March 1987

[People See Through You" is aimed straight at Ronald Reagan, an uncharacteristic move for Cockburn.] "The idea came from meetings with people in the Sanctuary movement, and hearing about the FBI breaking into their churches," he says. "They'd go in and break into files and leave the ones pertaining to Sanctuary people on the desk. It's what Reagan says the 'evil empire' is doing, yet it's exactly what his own people are doing. Plus there's the almost amusing contrast between the incredible power of these covert agencies, and the use of that power to break into places any idiot could get into, and just throw paper around. That had to be a song."

-- from "Bruce Cockburn - A Voice Singing in the Wilderness," by Steve Perry, Musician Magazine, March 1987. Submitted by Suzanne Capobianco.

1990 - "The Sanctuary Movement in the U.S. bloomed during the Reagan years, a graphic testimonial to the gap between the grassroots honour and compassion of the American people, and the stated aims of military-industrial foreign policy. The FBI (or someone like them) was going around breaking into churches (!), stealing documents and trying to scare people. Secret police acting just like secret police." - from "Rumours of Glory 1980-1990" (songbook), edited by Arthur McGregor, OFC Publications, Ottawa, 1990.