Death camps?!?!
Glenn Beck took to the airwaves today to respond to a letter from Simon Greer, president and CEO of Jewish Funds for Justice, which recently targeted Beck with a brilliant Twitter campaign in which people tweeted haikus about social justice to Beck. On the show, Beck quotes from Greer’s letter:
“…Government makes our country function. To put God first is to put humankind first. To put humankind first is to put the common good first.”
Glenn Beck responds:
“This leads to death camps. A Jew, of all people, should know that. This is exactly the kind of talk that led to the death camps in Germany. Put humankind and the common good first.”
I am totally flabbergasted by this insane “logic.” Particularly in light of Newt Gingrich’s comments today, in which he backed down from his comparison of the Obama administration to Nazi Germany, I would’ve thought conservative commentators would have started to wise up. Incendiary and irrational statements like this, particularly ones which reference a horrific moment in history, are not only cruel, but also undermine the shreds of credibility they have left.
Listen to the whole excerpt here, or see the transcript over at Media Matters:
UPDATE: Simon Greer responded with a powerful statement today:
…Glenn Beck has a history recklessly invoking Nazi Germany and the Holocaust in order to advance his political agenda. But never before has Beck accused Jews – including survivors of the Holocaust and their children and grandchildren – of paving the way for fascism. Through his comments, Beck has demonstrated that he has no idea what leads to fascism. Jews and others, who were victims of the Holocaust, do not have the luxury of his ignorance.
Beck’s reflexive hatred for government is rejected by Americans of all backgrounds, who have seen the powerful role government can play in providing us with greater freedom, security, and opportunity. I am proud of the work we do at Jewish Funds for Justice, where our belief that we are all made in the image of the divine compels us to petition private enterprise, charities, and yes, the government, to do their part to ensure our shared divinity.
Is it possible that Beck is unaware that he is criticizing some very basic moral teachings of MOST of the Christian denominations in America? And telling their members to leave their churches? If all the members of all the churches that teach social justice and the common good left (as Beck advises), that would be one heck of an influx to — well, the Church of Beck.
Speaking as a Catholic, for example, I find it astonishing that the Catholic Church has been tirelessly preaching and teaching social justice and the common good from the very highest levels (these ideas have been advocated vigorously by Popes Leo XIII, Piux IX, John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II is major encyclical letters over the past 120 years), and yet construction of the death camps has yet to begin.
Or maybe we’re just hiding them in the basements of all the Catholic hospitals, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and inner city schools.
Mr. Beck is supposedly a Mormon. Why doesn’t someone from the Mormon Church speak out and tell us whether or not he is theologically correct? Are Mormons really against the common good? Certainly, most religions value both the common good and social justice. I’d like to know exactly where those values appear either in Nazi or fascist documents. I have never seen them there.