Overton Window: Chapter 10-11

[sabotabby]

Chapter 10

At a certain point in my former career, I encountered a lot of self-published authors. Despite the stereotype, some had good reason for it—one author had a higher profit margin that way, a few others had lucrative but very specific non-fiction niche markets. But overall, and particularly when it came to fiction, self-published authors fell into one of two categories: entitled asses who couldn’t handle criticism and rejection, and people with undiagnosed and untreated mental health issues. I’m not saying that entitled asses and paranoid schizophrenics aren’t capable of writing decent books—most write better than Glenn Beck—but overall, they tend not to be very easy to work with. I got quite good at psychiatric diagnoses in five minutes or less. I would meet an author and determine that, should we be so brazen as to suggest editorial changes, she would threaten to sue and then accuse us of being part of the same evil conspiracy that had persecuted her throughout her life.

I was always proven right, by the way.

Anyway, Beck’s novel reads like it’s been written by someone who falls into two out of the three categories of self-published author. Owing to his celebrity status, of course, it was published by Simon and Schuster, but I get the sense that no editor came near this thing.



So Chapter 10 is a great deal of talk and little if any rock. A woman—she isn’t given a name, so we’ll call her Glenda Beck—gets up and speechifies about how the “progressives” have been planning since 1909 to create a nanny state to control us all, presumably by denying us our God-given right to starve to death under a bridge after a lifetime of debt incurred by medical bills.

The politics here remain confusing. On the one hand, Glenda is railing about the evils of social justice; on the other, she blames lobbyists and Jews international bankers for implementing said ideology. There’s some nods to class resentment, which is cute coming from a fellow who pulls in $32 million a year. Note to Beck: If there’s a class struggle between the elites and the downtrodden masses, guess which side you’re on?

Blah blah blah, the Constitution is small because government should be small. I really wonder about these libertarian types and how they think civilization happens. For example, did you know that if the sewer system were to fail, we would have approximately three days before rampant disease and filth turned our wealthy cities into the Third World? There’s an argument for government intervention if I ever heard one. I didn’t hear this from a commie pinko, by the way; I heard it from a guy who ran a construction business for a few decades.


Let's drown government in a bathtub!

There’s the obligatory bit about how taxes are evil and the gub’mint is coming to steal your monies. Hilariously, Glenda Beck keeps on insisting that everything political and economic is really quite simple and ought to be kept short and small. Meanwhile, her speech goes on for six pages. That’s longer than the four pieces of parchment that originally held the handwritten Constitution!

Then she goes on about how opposing a social safety net is just like Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, and Gandhi (but not like Malcolm X), and protests, as in the author’s note at the beginning, that she’s not racist or violent. As if to punctuate her message, a Toby Keith song begins to play. Beck does not mention which song, but I imagine it’s the one where he promises to “put a boot in your ass [because] it’s the American way.”


Gandhi demands an explanation for this fuckery.

At the end of the seemingly endless speech, Molly asks Noah what he thinks, and when he equivocates, tells him that Glenda Beck is her mom. Except not really. And then she leaves him alone, sobbing into his beer. I guess I was wrong—this chapter is the opposite of sex, kinky or otherwise.

Chapter 11

Cockblocked, Noah gets drunk.

He’d briefly considered playing a drinking game with himself, wherein he would pound one back each time he heard one of the dirty words progressive, socialist, or globalism, but by those rules he’d have drunk himself under the table within a few minutes.

I think this might be the best idea Glenn Beck has ever had. Let’s do this thing!

Take one shot every time Noah ogles a girl in a disturbing manner.
Take one shot every time Molly leaves in a huff.
Take one shot every time a speech lasts more than a page.
Take one shot every time Beck talks about an elite as though he’s not totally part of it.
Drink your pint every time the plot advances.
If there’s a bear, drink everything you’ve got. It won’t help, though.

Feel free to leave your own suggestions in the comments.

Noah is joined by Hollis (Molly’s friend that she isn’t into because he’s fat and a redneck), and Danny takes the stage, accompanied by heavy metal music. He says some douchy things, condemns Net Neutrality and immigration and healthcare reform, and then comes up with a conspiracy about FEMA internment camps. Does anyone else remember that thing about FEMA and the bees in the X-Files? That was actually how I heard about FEMA. Also, they’re going to implant chips in you. The gub'mint, I mean, not the bees.

Danny has somehow acquired the memo from Chapter 3. He recites from it—apparently anti-choicers and homeschoolers are at particular risk from the gub’mint—and then comes up with yet another conspiracy, which involves Obama a president creating an emergency, blaming it on the far-right, and then being able to legally suspend the Bill of Rights for two-thirds of the U.S. Then he quotes Gandhi too (“First they ignore
you—then they ridicule you—then they fight you—”)



Noah finishes the sentence just as the room goes silent. Awkward!

Conspiracy count: 8.5

Comments

[icedrake.livejournal.com]

He says some douchy things, condemns Net Neutrality and immigration and healthcare reform, and then comes up with a conspiracy about FEMA internment camps.

Please, *please* tell me you made that part up.

[sabotabby]

"If they call something the Patriot Act, you can bet it won’t be long before they’re using it to hunt down us patriots. If it’s called Net Neutrality, it’s going to be used to neutralize their enemies. If it’s called the Fairness Doctrine, it’s meant to unfairly put free speech under government control and create a chilling effect on your First Amendment rights. Immigration reform, health-care reform—do me a favor, when you hear them say the word ‘reform,’ I want you to hear the word ’transform! And the next question you’ve got to ask is, What are they trying to transform us into? A better, stronger, freer country? Or a place filled with more and more people who are easier to control, easier to exploit, easier to keep under their thumb?

[more longwindedness]

He flipped to another one of the documents in his hands. “But what do we have here? A memo from 1970, written by a man who later became the director of FEMA, advocating the rounding-up and internment of twenty-one million quote—American Negroes—unquote, in the event of civil disorder. Now, I left my exact figures at home, but I believe at that time twenty-one million would have been roughly all of the black people in America.

“And here”—he squinted as he read briefly from the document on top of his stack—“United States Air Force Civil Disturbance Plan 55-2 will authorize and direct the secretary of defense to use the U.S. armed forces to restore law and order in the event of a crisis. Under this umbrella plan they ran an exercise in 1984—so you see they do have a sense of humor—and that exercise was called Rex-84. The purpose was to see how efficiently they could pick up and corral all those disobedient Americans on their lists.”

[icedrake.livejournal.com]

*whimpers*

But brain damage inducing writing aside, this is making less and less sense by the moment. An Air Force plan is directing the Secretary of Defence to use the whole of the armed forces? And on top of that, Air Force to counter civil disturbance? Because stealth bombers are so very excellent at securing urban centres, right?

Has Beck been asleep throughout the entirety of the Kosovo conflict?

[sabotabby]

I wonder if this will actually happen in the book. I would be very much amused. I imagine the handful of military geeks on my friends list will be even more amused.

[icedrake.livejournal.com]

For when you need to scrub your brain with soap after this book is done with, take a look at the DMZ comic series.

(where civil disobedience and military suppression of said do take place, but in a very non-Beckish manner)

[sabotabby]

I love DMZ. Zee is totally my hero.

[hopita.livejournal.com]

I'd like to add the phrase "chilling effect" to whatever drinking game this book ends up spawning.

[sabotabby]

I should add that FEMA conspiracies always amuse me, a) because of the hilariously over-the-top X-Files plotline, and b) because Hurricane Katrina showed exactly how competent and capable FEMA is.

[symbioid.livejournal.com]

But see you're forgetting that that was part of the plan to lure you into a false sense of security. They WANT you to underestimate them, then when it's too late?

BAM! YOU ARE IN A CAMP WORKING FOR THE COMMUNISTMUSLIMHITLEROBAMATRON

(I think I used to read about this shit too much in the 90s)

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

I promise I'll try not to self-publish next time!

[sabotabby]

Not YOU. :)

[ironed_orchid]

I approve of your selection of illustrations

[sabotabby]

I amused myself.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

For example, did you know that if the sewer system were to fail, we would have approximately three days before rampant disease and filth turned our wealthy cities into the Third World? There’s an argument for government intervention if I ever heard one. I didn’t hear this from a commie pinko, by the way; I heard it from a guy who ran a construction business for a few decades.

I'm waiting for another the large scale CME to wipe out every chip, coil, and transistor in the northern hemisphere.

[sabotabby]

What would I do without my internets?!

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Oh. The mind reels.

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

He’d briefly considered playing a drinking game with himself, wherein he would pound one back each time he heard one of the dirty words progressive, socialist, or globalism, but by those rules he’d have drunk himself under the table within a few minutes.

Thus we find out how Glen Beck became an alcoholic.

[sabotabby]

A+++ would lol again.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

Beat me to it.