Why Glenn Beck Is the Modern-Day Girolamo Savonarola

   Here's this for the sake of a brief history lesson if you need one.  I don't expect you to be familiar with Florentine history.

   Anyway.

   Now, I'm not saying Glenn Beck's next step is book burning and forcibly removing people's personal property, but what I am saying is that the two men have extremely similar styles of rhetoric and even came into prominence in the same fashion while having been regarded in much the same way before their rise.  It's absolutely worth noting that until fairly recently, I've not been all that against Glenn Beck and what he does.  I've been able to look the other way at the social calls and general "God stuff" so long as his focus was on being a watch dog for the extremist elements of the Progressive movement, the evils of George Soros and the nutjobs in the dark recesses of President Obama's administration.

   What he's doing now is harder to ignore, what he's doing now reeks of proselytising and it does so in a way I can only describe as nefarious.  It is much the same kind of strategy of "preemption" adopted by the Holy Roman Empire in its early days (and especially so before the first Crusades) as today adopted by modern American Protestants.  This is not, however, what give Beck his shades of Savonarola in my eyes.

   Girolamo Savonarola rose to power in Florence after French armies under Charles VIII drove out the ruling Medici family and their closest beneficiaries.  As the Medici had basically been de facto rulers (not to say that their rule was anything but absolute), Tuscany and especially Florence were left with a definite power vacuum.  With the powers tied to the Medici gone, even the budding middle classes of Florence were left voiceless.

   What happened in this vacuum?  Savonarola, a extremist Dominican friar who had, before the flight of the Medici out of Florence, been seen mostly as a rambling crank, suddenly developed a popular following.  At first, it was only with his fellow "far right" sorts, but over time, as Florence looked for leadership and a unifying voice, more and more of the middle class stood behind Savonarola.

   Now, let's stop for a second.  It's true and entirely fair to say that a lot of Savonarola's message at first was actually pretty fair.  The Catholic Church had become incredibly corrupt and the ascendancy of Alexander VI to the Papacy was an excellent example of this.  In an era of corrupt, whoremongering, murderous and downright villainous Popes, Alexander VI was a stellar example of an incredible bastard, it's fair to say that his rise to Pope was one that can be followed in a trail of blood.  To wit, cantarella, a form of arsenic, is historically tied to Alexander VI and the rest of the Borgia family because it was arguably their favourite way of killing people.  So it's fair to say that, at least at first, Savonarola's railing against the Papacy, the corruption in the upper echelons of Florentine society and the church and his general call for the Florentine people to expect more from their government and church was, actually, not that bad and not even that extreme.

   However, as more power, specifically public opinion, aligned itself behind Savonarola, his extreme views came to bear.  He called for an end to personal property, a return to a time of simplicity and freedom from the corruption of materialism and "impure knowledge".  At first it was a popular movement and entirely voluntary, but it wasn't long at all before Savonarola's vision of an ideal society became mandatory and the remaining middle and upper class that served under the patronage of the Medici aligned behind Savonarola, giving this batshit monk obscene social power.  Thankfully, this undeniably insane individual was lynched and burned to death by the very people he oppressed and freedom, thought and gambling returned to Florence.

   Glenn Beck rose to power in the same way.  His time on Headline News was spent being viewed as a joke, a rambling goober on the far-end of Social Conservatism.  It wasn't Barack Obama's candidacy and Presidency that led to Beck's rise, Obama only enables Beck.  If not for the faltering of Social Conservatism and its lack of a clear head from 2006 to 2010 (Sarah Palin does not count in any serious way) there would be no Glenn Beck as he is.

   Like Savonarola, Beck's message was originally completely valid and worthy of attention.  He spoke out against the extremist factors surrounding Barack Obama, warned the nation of the dangers and history of George Soros and reminded us of what the Progressive movement is.  However, there is an element of danger in Beck himself.  Like the Progressive movement itself and both Liberalism and Social Conservatism of the last 20 years, Beck has used a certain creative element in his retelling of American history, one that shines the best possible light on his message that only now is completely evident.

   Glenn Beck's call is not to restore responsibility and an expectation of worthy representation from our government.  His call is for a return to a time of community togetherness, honour and unity under God is, like Savonarola's, a call for a return to a time that never existed.  His tenets of "faith, hope and charity" are falsehoods in his own eyes as proven by what he now preaches with his malignant use of the Torah.

   This is where I lose my objectivity and we enter into what I consider the obscene connection between Beck and Savonarola.  Savonarola used his knowledge of the Bible to twist its message to suit his antisocial, anti-material world view.  The mad monk was an anarchist who wanted an anarchy that existed only under him as God's prophet.  Beck uses his knowledge of the Bible to twist its message and, now, the message of the Torah to claim that all morality and human decency is descendent from God and religion.  The disgusting irony of this view is that the the Torah says in no mixed terms that doing good for God or for fear of retribution is not doing good, it is a self-serving act.

   That Beck now wraps his message in both Jewish and Christian scripture while even daring to malign the Hebrew language itself by making bizarre, direct translations of a language that is arguably baffling to any outsider from an etymological perspective is an affront to an independent, thinking mind.  While I myself do have some world views that come with being a Right-Wing Jew (while not a Social Conservative), I have no problem saying that Glenn Beck's partner in crime, Rabbi Daniel Lapin, is a traitor to his people and heritage by enabling the rantings of the modern-day mad monk.

   I am hardly one of those idling, over-imposing twits who says that private individuals and companies shouldn't be allowed to have religious holiday displays, but there is another side to that freedom.  When someone like Beck, overtly supported by so many, makes aspersions that the concepts of faith, hope, charity and honour are unique not only to the religious but unique to Christianity (as, in his historical view, all of the "important" founders were absolutely devout Protestants without a deist among them).  This type of alienation breeds contempt, both among those whom are being elevated above the uninitiated and those whom Beck is tacitly denouncing as without faith, without hope, without charity and without honour.

   Girolamo Savonarola dared to abuse scripture and recent history to elevate himself as the vox populi, attack the Pope, attack the existing power structure and turn public opinion against the public itself.  His just reward for his deeds was being mobbed and burned at the stake.  While Beck's ultimate goals may be less extreme than a brief return to the Dark Ages, I must wonder what end his aims will reach and what will befall the important aspects of Beck's original message.  I don't see him being burned at the stake, but I do see his warnings of Obama's extremism, the dangers of George Soros and the elements of Progressivism that seek to destroy this nation going unheeded once he is widely regarded as the deranged theocrat he is.