My Glenn Beck Decoder Ring

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So I finally ate to the bottom of my box of Glenn Beck Anger Flakes (for a fair and balanced breakfast). It took a while. The flakes themselves are these razory shards with little bald eagles on them. They have a weird Lipton tea taste, and they make me want to upchuck when people talk about poverty, and I found when I ate them for breakfast on consecutive days my right hand would involuntarily contract into a fist and everyone started to look like a Communist.

But! My perseverance paid off this morning in the form of a vacuum-packed plastic decoder ring I found down in the anger dust. It’s size-adjustable, and has a big disc bearing a hologram sticker that from one angle shows Beck making an outraged face and from another, an ad for 1-800-Pet-Meds. When I wear it while I watch video of Beck shouting hoarsely, or sliding on his glasses to read aloud from a giant 3-ring binder, my mouth goes numb and I get kind of poltergeist-possessed with the subtext of his message.

Buzzing off Anger Flakes, pinwheels aswirl in my eyes, gums bleeding, this morning I did what no one in their right mind would do: I jammed the decoder ring on my thumb and watched Glenn Beck’s whole CPAC speech.

Why did I do this to myself? Why, oh why. I did it for you, America. I let those voices into my head so that I could condense and relay them back to you. You’re welcome. Here’s what you should be happy you missed, but what you really ought to know if you’re going to join that anti-Glenn Beck Facebook group for the dog in the tinfoil hat:

Glenn Beck’s Keynote Address at CPAC 2010.

Enter Glenn Beck to strains of Muse’s “Uprising” (They will not control us/ we will be victorious). He shakes hands with his introducer, who had dubbed him Professor Babe Ruth, had called his TV program “a graduate program in political philosophy.” Beck begins, “I hate Woodrow Wilson with everything in me.”

Decoded: Part rebel, part wonk, I will turn you flatly against things about which you probably have an imperfect understanding because my vehemence on the subject suggests I care enough to have done the research for you.

Beck: “I remember when Ronald Reagan talked about morning in America. If you ask people all across the country, do you think their children will be better off than they are today, the answer will be a resounding no.”

Decoded: Bam, Ronald Reagan nod in the first fifteen seconds. Suck it, O’Reilly. Also, that pessimism you sometimes feel? Roll with it.

Beck: “And it’s not just from Republicans, or conservatives, it’s also from the entire, uh…uh…whatever. It’s the entire spectrum is saying that.”

Decoded: Progressives, I dare not speak your name. Yet.

Beck: “I don’t use teleprompters. I just speak from here, and sometimes… (grins to tremendous applause)”

Decoded: My people, you know me, Mister Authenticity, Mister shoot-from-the-hip, wear-it-on-the-sleeve, no prompters or palm notes, no filter or sources or booo-ring research, just cold-noodling it out with my thinking cap on; Mister Sometimes I Cry for The Future of This Great Nation Because I Love It So, Mister I Only Shill for Gold and Seeds to Plant Crisis Gardens for the End-Times Because I Earnestly Want You to Be Ready.

Beck: “It is still morning in America. It just happens to be a kind of head-pounding, hungover, vomiting for four hours kind of morning in America.”

Decoded: Even though I’m a recovering alcoholic, I use hangover metaphors to connect with the binge-drinking set. Where my frat boys at?

Beck: “What made us sit there at the john vomiting for four hours? What are we suffering from? If you say Obama it’s too simple of an answer, because it’s not Barack Obama.”

Decoded: True political domination requires a holistic approach. Also, I am obsessed with vomiting.

Beck: “Can I just ask to bring a friend up?” Assistants wheel out a blackboard, to wild applause. “It’s sick when a chalkboard gets a standing ovation. You have no idea what it’s like to travel with one of these things. Trying to get this in an overhead luggage compartment is impossible.” Assistants lay down ten long piece of chalk. Beck takes one up, writes, Progressivism

Decoded: Don’t I remind you of a passionate high school teacher, who just teaches for the love of his subject? I can’t use a dry erase board because that would remind you of your soul murdering job, your harrowing cubicle. And like my giant blackboard, I will not be stuffed into your tiny compartments!

Beck: “This is the disease in America. It is progressivism. And it’s in both parties. I’m so sick of hearing people say, Well the Republicans are going to solve it all. That’s like someone sticking a screwdriver in your eye and you saying, Stop! Stop!, and someone else takes it out and puts a pin in your eye. I don’t want stuff in my eye! Stop stabbing the eyes!”

Decoded: No way am I tethering myself to the anvil of the Republican Party. Also, listen to me talk of puking and stabbing. You’re getting angry…very, veery angry…

Beck: “Progressivism is the cancer in America and it is eating the Constitution.”

Decoded: Though unschooled, I am a doctor. My specialty is Founding Fatherology.

Beck: Takes out a little pamphlet “someone” mailed him on progress and democracy in Rhode Island. It was printed in 1938, by Communists suggesting the Constitution was obsolete, as it was over 100 years old, and alleging allies in progressives and FDR.

Decoded: Don’t worry about my sloppy use of dubious, selective sources. Authentic truth resides in these long-forgotten, out-of-print documents that so-called scholars overlook.

Beck: Asks us to consider the difference between Revolution, associated with Communists, and Evolution, associated with progressives. He writes the two words on the board. “There’s no difference except one requires a gun and the other does it slowly.”

Decoded: Communists and progressives are essentially interchangeable, but at least communists have the stones to handle a firearm.

Beck: “I’m a recovering alcoholic. I screwed up six ways to Sunday and I believe in redemption. But the first step to redemption is you’ve got to admit you have a problem. Hello, my name is the Republican Party and I’ve got a problem. I’m addicted to spending and big government.

Decoded: While progressives are Communists, Republicans are just drunk. Someone call A&E’s Intervention.

Beck: Brings up Tiger Woods’ public apology. “Some people don’t believe he’s repentant. He’s only sorry ’cause he got caught. If drinking wasn’t causing me a problem in my life I’d probably be drunk right now. And…If you’re making it with a whole bunch of unbelievable babes and no one has a problem with it (gestures to indicate all systems go)…”

Decoded: Sorry, the decoder ring jammed on this one, because it’s way too freaking yucky.

Beck: “All [Republicans] are talking about is, We need a big tent. How can we get a bigger tent. What is this, a circus? America is not a clown show. America is an idea, an idea that sets people free.”

Decoded: Republicans are not taking you seriously, America. They want to trap you in a tent and patronize you with balloon animals.

Beck: “I’m tired of feeling like a freak in America. You don’t agree with me, that’s okay! There are three hundred million of us, we’re never going to agree.”

Decoded: Well, maybe big tents aren’t so bad, just as long as they’re not erected by Republicans, who are drunk.

Beck: “What does it mean to be a conservative? I know what it means to me. Personal responsibility. If I’ve done something wrong, it’s up to me to pay the price. Don’t talk to me about your childhood. Do you want to hear about my childhood? No!”

Decoded: I know it seems like a weird contradiction that I’m constantly gesturing to lessons from history (the patented Glenn Beck version) while I deny that solving problems requires determination of their root cause. I only mean I don’t want to hear your personal grousing.

Beck: “What we don’t have a right to is healthcare, housing, or handouts. We don’t have those rights.”

Decoded: You shouldn’t feel bad when your neighbor’s home is foreclosed, or when their non-metaphorical cancer goes untreated and they die. It’s probably not because of the vagaries of the economy or racial and socioeconomic inequality or the inhumane practices of insurers. They probably made dumb choices! They should have bought gold.

Beck: “I’m the first person to go to college in my family. I went for one semester. I took one class. Do you know why? I couldn’t afford it. Now I never once thought, This isn’t fair. I never once thought I was owed an education. When I couldn’t afford to go anymore, I went to work.” Beck got books from the library and bookstore and read late into the night. “I educated myself. My education was free, and I’m proud of that.”

Decoded: Oops, I know I said I wasn’t going to talk about my background, but I only meant you shouldn’t talk about your background to explain your problems. You can totally brag about it. And I’m here to tell you: you can get a university-grade education all on your own. Anyone telling you different is an elitist.

Beck: “In America you can choose to be greedy. Money is like sand. The harder you try to hold onto it, the faster it slips through your hands. Better yet, it’s like the ocean. Back that truck up, get as much success as you want. If someone stops you on the exit to that beach and says, Can I get some of that water, say, you bet, take as much as you want, there’s enough for all of us.”

Decoded: Metaphors are really hard.

Beck: Not everyone gets a trophy. What is the point of competing for a trophy if everyone gets a trophy?

Decoded: Competition is the meaning of life. Because really, what’s the use in living if you can’t feel superior to anybody?

Beck: I have for four years been ringing the bell: economic holocaust is coming. I’ve been trying to get you to save your money! The worst is still ahead of us. But no one in Washington has the spine to tell you that.

Decoded: Gold, you guys. Get some. Also, crisis gardens. And, just beta-testing these, but if I said “titanium suits of armor” and “downloadable handbook of known socialist facial expressions” would you say, “Tell me more?”

Beck: After noting that the Statue of Liberty was designed to “mock Europe,” he reads the Emma Lazarus poem inscribed on the statue’s pedestal in two different voices. The first read demonstrates the problem with America, he says, and when we correct our problem we will “blaze to life.” He reads the “give me your poor” part of the poem as a gentle plea, then sneers, “What are we, a hospital?” He then reads the poem with great rumbling relish, growling, “Keep your ancient lands, your storied pomp!”

Decoded: Fuck empathy. Also, I’m a lover of art. At least the macho stuff they put on statues and memorials.

Beck: Some people ask me when there’s some celebrity that’s vomiting on themselves in some rehab center what could we have done to save them? The answer is, nothing.

Decoded: He who vomits, vomits alone.

Beck: This is a pretty good bottom. But if we don’t stand up now and recognize it, it’s going to get much, much worse.

Decoded: Fear. It just feels right.

Beck: It may be a hard day. We may have been all night retching, holding onto that bowl, because we went out for a party. And it may be a hard struggle and we may work until late in the night, and our kids may be crying and we may be losing the house. But we will make it, and at night we will be beat tired, and when we put our head down to sleep again that night we can be happy, because we know tomorrow it will again be morning in America.

Decoded: We may vomit, and our children may annoy us, but at the end of the day we can rest easy knowing our boots have sturdy straps on them, and for those who don’t have straps on their boots, that’s their fucking problem.

OK, guys, I’m off to go have a good hard cry and wash my mouth out with Soft Scrub Lemon Bathroom Cleaner. And this decoder ring is going in the recycling. It’s turning my finger green and doing something to my peripheral vision.