Overton Window: Chapter 5-6
Aug. 19th, 2010 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyOverton Window: Chapter 5-6
Chapter 5
In this chapter, we are treated to the most outrageous conspiracy yet. Arthur Gardner has apparently funded his global takeover plan by starting various fads, from pet rocks to Che Guevara t-shirts.
Che rocks!
By the way, this is a balls-out lie. Pet rocks were invented by a guy named Gary Dahl. There’s a fine line between verisimilitude through incorporating details your readers will be familiar with, and claiming that your protagonist invented the slogan, “You can’t win if you don’t play” over the family dinner table. The firm that employed Nayirah al-Sabah is named right on Wikipedia, and it’s not Beck’s fictional Doyle & Merchant.
Arthur is also the Worst Boss Ever. Some woman looks at her watch because he’s giving one of his boring monologues at the staff Christmas party, so he has all of the clocks removed from the building. And fires her. And then kicks a puppy while sipping a glass full of orphan tears.
Noah, our supposed hero, is totally okay with all of this, because in college he knew a hippie chick who went to work for an African aid agency and inadvertently funding genocide. The moral of the story is that everyone sucks. Especially Noah. He’s one of those libertarian guys who cruise OKCupid looking for leftist girls to correct.
I think I hate this guy worse than Rayford Steele in Left Behind. Mad conspiracy points for including pet rocks, though.
Conspiracy count: 3.5
Chapter 6
There’s a whole string of clichés about bad luck that I won’t get into as Noah tries to get to the teabagger meeting, and an improbable cab driver who listens to “atonal Middle Eastern music” and has a statue of St. Christopher on his dashboard. From this I conclude that Glenn Beck has never taken a taxi in his life.
There’s then a very weird sequence where soldiers carrying assault rifles stop the cab, arrest the driver, and make Noah show his ID. Apparently there’s some campaigning happening for the November election, and a G-20 meeting happening at the same time. Also, what?
Noah gets taken into a truck, which is apparently also someone’s office. I think Beck was tripping when he wrote this. He meets a woman who is from Talion, a private military consulting firm whom his PR firm failed to win as a client. She knows for whatever reason that he’s heading to the meeting, and mentions that Founders Keepers has ties to “the Aryan Brotherhood, Lone Star Militia, the National Labor Committee, the Common Law Coalition, [and] the Earth Liberation Front.” To Noah’s credit, his reaction is kind of like mine when I heard about David Horowitz’s conspiracy site, Discover the Networks.
His reaction to, as he leaves, seeing his cabdriver get manhandled into the same truck, is less excusable:
Our hero, ladies and gentlemen.
Conspiracy count: 5.5
Chapter 5
In this chapter, we are treated to the most outrageous conspiracy yet. Arthur Gardner has apparently funded his global takeover plan by starting various fads, from pet rocks to Che Guevara t-shirts.
Che rocks!
By the way, this is a balls-out lie. Pet rocks were invented by a guy named Gary Dahl. There’s a fine line between verisimilitude through incorporating details your readers will be familiar with, and claiming that your protagonist invented the slogan, “You can’t win if you don’t play” over the family dinner table. The firm that employed Nayirah al-Sabah is named right on Wikipedia, and it’s not Beck’s fictional Doyle & Merchant.
Arthur is also the Worst Boss Ever. Some woman looks at her watch because he’s giving one of his boring monologues at the staff Christmas party, so he has all of the clocks removed from the building. And fires her. And then kicks a puppy while sipping a glass full of orphan tears.
Noah, our supposed hero, is totally okay with all of this, because in college he knew a hippie chick who went to work for an African aid agency and inadvertently funding genocide. The moral of the story is that everyone sucks. Especially Noah. He’s one of those libertarian guys who cruise OKCupid looking for leftist girls to correct.
Noah abruptly remembered where he’d been meaning to go: the bulletin board in the break room. He had to grab the address of that meeting of flag-waving wackos, and then finish his conversation with an attractive but naïve young woman who might need to be straightened out on a thing or two.
I think I hate this guy worse than Rayford Steele in Left Behind. Mad conspiracy points for including pet rocks, though.
Conspiracy count: 3.5
Chapter 6
There’s a whole string of clichés about bad luck that I won’t get into as Noah tries to get to the teabagger meeting, and an improbable cab driver who listens to “atonal Middle Eastern music” and has a statue of St. Christopher on his dashboard. From this I conclude that Glenn Beck has never taken a taxi in his life.
There’s then a very weird sequence where soldiers carrying assault rifles stop the cab, arrest the driver, and make Noah show his ID. Apparently there’s some campaigning happening for the November election, and a G-20 meeting happening at the same time. Also, what?
Noah gets taken into a truck, which is apparently also someone’s office. I think Beck was tripping when he wrote this. He meets a woman who is from Talion, a private military consulting firm whom his PR firm failed to win as a client. She knows for whatever reason that he’s heading to the meeting, and mentions that Founders Keepers has ties to “the Aryan Brotherhood, Lone Star Militia, the National Labor Committee, the Common Law Coalition, [and] the Earth Liberation Front.” To Noah’s credit, his reaction is kind of like mine when I heard about David Horowitz’s conspiracy site, Discover the Networks.
His reaction to, as he leaves, seeing his cabdriver get manhandled into the same truck, is less excusable:
But what could Noah do? You can’t get involved with every unfortunate situation. It wasn’t his place to intercede. For all he knew, the guy was the leader of a major terrorist cell. And besides, he was late for an appointment with a certain young woman who was in dire need of a dose of reality.
Our hero, ladies and gentlemen.
Conspiracy count: 5.5
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-08-20 05:29 am (UTC)Sadly they won't get the point.
Just as a lot of people who read Robert Anton Wilson get into conspiracy theories and believe in them in the sort of traditional sense of believing that there's some big grand conspiracy to rule them all, which is exactly the opposite of what RAW was saying.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-20 12:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-20 04:08 pm (UTC)I may try to check it out, between your recommendation and my curiosity.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-20 10:28 pm (UTC)Still, sounds so much better than this drivel. I raise my teacup to you. Ave!
no subject
Date: 2010-08-20 06:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-20 12:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-20 01:05 pm (UTC)