Glenn Beck has taken to showing images of unrest anywhere in the world and claiming that, no matter how little they have to do with Egypt, they are proof of his wild conspiracy theory about the Egyptian protests. Two days ago, Beck even admitted that he was pointing to an unrelated protest to make his point. But today, he decided that protests in Ivory Coast, Sudan, Mexico, and even Madison, Wisconsin support his claims that radical leftists and extremist Muslims are working together to create global chaos in order to destroy Israel and the “Western way of life.”
Here's Beck from two days ago acknowledging that he's tying an unrelated protest into his Egypt conspiracy theory (via Nexis):
BECK: The problem is we're already seeing some signs of real concern. First, this thing is spreading as we told you on day number one it would. We are seeing instability across the Middle East and now even into Europe. This weekend there were massive protests in Algeria, Jordan, Yemen, and, yes, even Italy, where thousands of Italians took to the streets in some 200 cities across the country Sunday in protest of the prime minister's alleged behavior toward women.
Now, I want to make this clear. This Italian unrest is obviously coming from a different place than in the Middle East, but it does show the uprising mentality continuing to spread.
By the way, they have also declared a state of emergency in Italy because of all the illegal immigrants coming in from Tunisia. The fear is in Italy some of these are actually escaped prisoners from Tunisia or Tunisian terrorists. They are flowing in so rapid at such a high rate no one in Italy can tell who is who. [emphasis added]
But today, Beck claimed that, along with unrest in the Middle East, protests in Mexico and Wisconsin (along with actions by Google) are part of what he called the “evil spreading around the globe.” And he went into further detail during a nine minute rant later in the show:
Since Beck didn't provide the real facts, here's what's reportedly going on in some of these countries:
- In Ivory Coast, the situation is dire, with the dictator taking actions to shut down the nation's economy. But the stand-off in that nation pre-dates the Egyptian and Tunisian protests and has been going on since December 2010 when the dictator refused to accept the internationally-recognized result that he had lost an election.
- Sudan is still dealing with the repercussions of its decades-long civil war between the north and the south, but negotiations continue after the south voted to secede from the north. Again, the situation long pre-dates the Egyptian and Tunisian protests.
- In the Mexican city of Oaxaca, a teachers union that had called protests in 2006 organized protests again today when Mexican President Felipe Calderon visited the city. According to the Associated Press, the protests involved a plan to give tax breaks to attendees of private schools.
As for Madison, Wisconsin, teachers, nurses, doctors, and other public employees are protesting a bill by the newly-elected Republican governor to take away the public bargaining rights a bill that would take away collective bargaining rights from public employees under the guise of budget-cutting.
Beck took a remarkable step tonight by essentially stating that any public demonstration happening in the world right now could be part of the “growing evil,” regardless of the particular circumstances of the protest or the legitimacy of the grievances. It's a strikingly anti-democratic view and it shows how far Beck will go in defense of his bizarre theories.