After Glenn Beck’s recommendation, the demand for [The Road to Serfdom] has exceeded our current inventory. A large reprint is due early next week and the availability dates on the retail web sites will change. This is an unusual circumstance for the Press but The Road to Serfdom is a perennial best seller for us so there is no danger of this book being out of stock for long. The book is selling very strongly on Amazon’s Kindle e-book site where it will never go out of stock. It’s safe to say, though, that we have sold roughly a half-a-year’s worth of copies in the last two days.
Isn’t this sort of response exactly what the lefties fear if a news channel with a conservative slant operates in Canada? They are afraid that conservative views openly expressed will resonate with Canadians just as they do with Americans.
Imagine, for example, if we had TV journalists reporting on the abuses of our immigration and refugee system instead of doing touchy-feely stories about the joys of multicult? People would be demanding much more rigorous reforms than the watered-down efforts Jason Kenney is struggling to implement.
It would be like this across a whole host of political issues if we had a news channel that offered fair and balanced reporting about issues that really matter to Canadians (global warming comes immediately to mind as one such issue). This is the formula Fox News uses to wipe the floor with its rivals in the U.S.
I guess Glenn will have to start taking kick-backs.
‘the abuses of our immigration and refugee system’
What do you mean by ‘abuses’?
The truly conservative stance opposing ‘touchy-feeling’ multiculturalism is the plight of the individual. Multiculturalism shouldn’t be embraced because it seeks to group people based on their race, just as ‘traditional’ racism does.
Global warming is scientifically supported, it is the political agenda in response to climate change that should be challenged.
Fox News is popular in the US because the population has legitimate concerns and will buy into whatever propaganda gives the best vent for their frustration. The US also loves it’s drama, which Fox News also plays up like crazy. It is not because they offer valuable insight…not in the slightest.
Yeah, we don’t like Drama here in the Upper 10…
AGW is bunk. Climate has changed has changed for millions of years.
I intend on purchasing a copy of “The Road to Serfdom” as the recent attempt by the AGW fraud crowd to start us on this road bears some study.
I guess my keyboard thought “has changed” was worth repeating. Sorry about that.
BTJ: Let me sum up our immigration and refugee system for you.
1. We take in too many immigrants. There is no correlation between immigration levels and the economic need for more bodies. During the recent recession, our immigrant intake never skipped a beat despite widespread lay-offs in many sectors of the economy.
2. We take in the wrong kind of immigrants. Family class immigrants are not required to meet any of the criteria the apply to unsponsored migrants. This is why the overall economic success (achieving self-sufficiency) of immigrants to Canada has been in decline since the mid-1980s when family class immigration expanded under Mulroney. Family class immigrants comprise more than 60 per cent of the annual intake and is a primary reason why immigration (immigrants bringing in elderly parents) fails to achieve one of its primary goals which is to counter the natural aging of our population.
3. We have a refugee determination process that cannot distinguish between real refugees and phonies.
Other than that, it is a great system.
Glenn Beck is a genius, or if you prefer, has genius. Imagine a pitch to a TV exec for a show on the Founders. Yawn.
As I mentioned on another thread, The Road to Serfdom was a best-seller (1944?) and was excerpted in Reader’s Digest. Reader’s Digest?!
Pre-Beck this would be unimaginable today. I am greatly cheered by the very real possibility of a conservative-libertarian revolution in America.
Beck is successful because his passion and integrity are palpable, unquestionable, which is why I blanched at the mention above of kick-backs. I can’t imagine Beck ever doing this.
A few things: Glenn Beck’s “biographer” continues to spread easily debunkable lies about him:
http://bit.ly/cRBOy5
Luckily, that “biography” isn’t selling very well, esp. compared to Glenn’s own books and, well, The Road to Surfdom…
Two: the FBI told Beck to start wearing a bullet proof vest a few months back. He (and his family, which includes a handicapped daughter) now travels with a security detail. Beck also has one of the few personal concealed carry permits in New York City.
Kinda makes you feel all warm inside.
Glenn Beck sees ‘the writing on the wall’, he is a patriot who loves his country. He is doing what the teachers have refused to do for the last 50 years – educate people! People want to learn the things he is teaching. This will come as a big surprise to the lazy lefto teachers who have been boring students for decades.
‘The Road to Serfdom’ was one of the books I read for my American History 305 course at U-Vic back in the early 1970s. My prof was a Viet Nam Vet. There was a time…..Victoria was then a backwater of Conservatism, it was a lovely old city with ‘proper’ people living in big yards and keeping the property up to snuff. We could smoke in the Empress Hotel Tea Room but you got kicked out for swearing.
I hardly recognize the city now, full of soviet type condos and bland, ugly hotels and public buildings. Most of the lovely old mansions have been torn down and the grounds are paved over. The charm has almost been destroyed, but at one time Victoria was fertile ground for the study of a book like ‘The Road to Serfdom’.
Glenn Beck is one program that I never miss, I tape it if I can’t watch it live. I have learned so much from watching Glenn’s program and from his website. Every day my gratitude to and admiration for this extraordinary man grows.
Any News network whos purpose it is to repeat the partisan doctrine won’t accomplish much. This is proven on a daily basis on CBC. Glen Becks numbers have been in a steady decline for months now. If the trend stateside is any indication of what should be expected.The truth is what people want to see, hear, or read, anyone who fails to acknowledge this is living in a fantasy. Incumbents are being systematically eliminated in the primaries. The American public are awakening in ever greater numbers.I look forward to the day that Cdns. do so in sufficient numbers ,change is a coming.
Here is something worth reading if you have the stomach for the unadulterated truth. Search engine Hazlitt’s Battle with Bretton Woods. Apparently Austrians have accuratley predicted finance and economics for 100 years.
Was it T(roll) who was commenting last week the it didn’t matter what “faux news” had to say about a book because its watchers aren’t literate anyways? That must be the allure of it’s intellectualism, being far left means never having to say “I was wrong”, nor indeed remembering what was said 1/2 an hour ago.
I have here, right in front of me, a similar book published in 2006.
A Nation of Serfs by Mark Milke describes the Canadian condition and is also worth getting your hands on. In fact, I’m going to dust it off and start reading.
The application of knowledge will eclipse the ignorance perpetrated by the utopian socialists and can help in our struggle to emerge fro Trudeaupia and continue building a real country.
mikeg
RE: Beck’s ratings, while you are accurate in your statement, you (deliberately?) do not place it in context.
To wit:
1. Beck is still the #2 rated cable news program, second only to (10 years and counting) #1 Bill O’Reilly. Impressive, especially, given his sh1tty time slot (he’s on at 2:00 p.m. here on the west coast).
2. April/2010 ratings, year over year, were down for ALL the major cable players, including O’Reilly, in the key demo. Using this info, you could say they’ve ALL been in steady decline — hardly a state of affair unique to Beck.
April 09- April 2010 in the 25-54 demo:
Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly– down 3%
MSNCB’s Rachel Maddow – down 8%
Fox News’ Greta Van Sustren – down 13%
Fox News’ Sean Hannity – down 17%
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews – down 23%
MSNBC’s Headline News – down 26%
MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann – down 28%
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer – down 37%
CNN’s Campbell Brown – down 39%
CNN’s Anderson Cooper – down 41%
CNN’s Larry King – down 46%
(citation: http://www.businessinsider.com)
Also, what exactly is partisan, or doctrinaire, for example, about the current Beck series on the Founders? Pure history is neither.
I used to watch Glenn Beck regularly but now do so only occasionally. I liked him better before he became a preacher, when he and guests commented on the news from a conservative perspective. Now he reminds me of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, who used to preach on TV complete with chalk and blackboard. Boooring! I imagine this is what TV is probably like in Ayatollah land.
We get it Glenn. Barry is a Marxist in democratic guise and is a threat to freedom. The growing tea party movement shows that a lot of Americans get it too. Beck needs to go back to what he was doing before he embarked on his 9-12 crusade.
JMD:
You’d like to be Beck’s program director?
Send in you application.
Thanks, colin. The “Beck’s ratings are down ha ha” meme is still hanging in there, I see, despite the fact that non-partisan industry sites like TV By The Numbers make it easier than ever to get access to once secret ratings numbers.
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/06/03/glenn-becks-ratings-up-is-down-in-leftyland/
In May, Beck was up 10% total, and an amazing 25% in the key 25-54 demo.
But remember: up is down in Orwellian lefty land!
Colin asks: “what exactly is partisan, or doctrinaire, for example, about the current Beck series on the Founders?”
Colin, even suggesting there -is- history is partisan and doctrinaire today. The idea that dead white men from 200 years ago said anything useful for today is wild-eyed radicalism my friend. Dangerous lunacy! That kind of talk will get you kicked off any university campus in the USA right now.
Well, except for Marx. They like Karl. He had Vision, y’know.
Lets talk about the systematic elimination of encumbents from both sides of the political paradigm. Or how about that Glens time slot is only supported by small time local advertisers.As for your list of stats regarding viewer numbers, need I quote one more time.Liars Damn Liars and Statistics.
Sigh, now he’s onto the advertisers.
Mike, cable news networks are supported mostly by their share of subscriber fees paid to them by the likes of Rogers and its US equivalents like Comcast.
Unlike old fashioned broadcasters, who can actually be effected by boycotts of sponsors, the money Fox earns from those “small time advertisers” is simply gravy.
Glenn Beck’s show could run ad free forever, as could most of Fox’s shows, and they would still make money through those subscription payments.
The Glenn Beck boycott has been going on for months. It has had zero effect, as evidenced by the fact that Fox HASN’T TAKEN HIS SHOW OFF THE AIR.
But you’re obviously not the kind of guy who lets the facts, esp. those related to something as yucky as capitalism, get in the way of your Chomskyite worldview.
But Glenn Beck Is The Crazy One
With money only an Obama with his political vultures could imagine.
JMO
Question for you Kathy when did I ever say I was a Chomskyite. You folks on this site sure enjoy telling a guy what he thinks who his heroes are and what he intentionally omits from his postings.With magic powers such as these I cant help but wonder why cant you capture pixies catch a leprechaun or grant Harper a majority.
I love it when lefties know they’re losing and change the subject.
What gave it away, Mike? Your pseudo-sophsticated media analysis, unsullied by any real world experience or knowledge. Intelligent people are able to make inferences based upon the evidence of their senses, and extrapolate further. We’re not always correct but either way, no magic powers involved. Just life experience and a working un-washed brain.
Why are you and your type always anonymous cowards? I write everything with my full name attached. Why don’t you?
Kathy instead of name calling and changing the subject perhaps you would like to comment on 100 years of Austrians being right. While your at it a concise analysis of the situation unfolding for incumbents both Republican and Democrat would keep me riveted to my screen and key board. One more thing Ive voted Conservative or Reform Party my whole life. I would have your crystal ball recalibrated the impending pole shift seems to have caused it to misread by about 180 degrees.
I’ve said on numerous occasions that I disagreed with my husband’s decision to try to remain anonymous. However, we do not have a modern marriage; it is not my habit to nag him into submission on any topic. The decision was his.
Do try to keep up, dear.
And while Fox News does dominate the ratings in cable news, the left still controls the broadcast networks and most newspapers and newsweeklies, Hollywood, book publishing and the academy.
Glenn Beck makes me sick to my stomach. His show represents all that is wrong with politics, the US, and modern ‘conservatism’.
Being from Australia and peering in on the goings on of the North of America. This man Beck seems to have a way of cutting through crap and giving a reasoned view, closer to the truth than the MSM.
Some times even diagonally opposed to them, but usually on the button. Sad that the left are so violent that he needs protection from them. Is their agenda so sinister that they have to lie and bully. Same for us in OZ have to keep your head down from flack from islamists and the left, or suffer. We too are p#ssed off.
If Beck makes certain posters here sick to their stomach, I just want to say Thank You, Glen.
Independence is personal. People who have grown up in a collective hothouse cannot imagine the joy that independence brings to a human being. The ‘spread the wealth crowd’ are not interested in bettering the lives of pocked, diseased, miserable poor people, they are interested in punishing people that they perceive as their ‘betters’. The elitist wealthy understand the natural urge to feel independent and they understand that lazy, IQ challenged yappers are not a threat; ambitious, intelligent thinkers and doers are the threat. Blabbers that ‘feel the pain’ of the underfed and uneducated view the ‘unwashed’ as useful and disposable. Elitists do not invite the ‘unwashed’ to dinner at their house, they do not inquire about their hopes and lifestyles or what kind of situation could lift the poor out of poverty and make it possible for them to live a decent, independent life.
The homesteading act in Canada gave many Canadians a key to prosperity because it gave the homesteaders independence via ownership to a quarter section of land if they stayed on the land and built a place for themselves to live on that land. People planted gardens, bought animals and lived free from gument/my boss control. Infrastructure was built by the landowners and it was common sense infrastructure because the landowners had a vested interest.
The socialist crowd came in and said people should wear a suit and live in town. The ‘key’ was to get an education, the socialists said. Farmers were not usually rich, they were still one generation removed from serfdom, in most cases, so they were not on to the tricks that the elitists were using to steal their land, independence, children and infrastructure. Innate peasant greed replaced the price that the joy of independence demanded; many people caved.
The very best of all Canadians did not cave in, they kept their land/businesses and taught their children a healthy respect for independence from freeloaders and gument. Self made people are the enemy of the elitists; for this reason, the yappers always target people like the tea party crowd who still remember the abstractions: God, country, independence, kindness, the dream of a place of your own where you can ‘kick the ass’ of anyone you don’t want in your house, out of your house ( I use the U.S. President’s words!)!
The nomadic, food gathering crowd (hippies, some first nations tribes, serfs, peasants) are not Communists (contrary to popular belief), Communists are educated elitists who wish to CONTROL the lives of people who chose not to live off the proceeds of others or rape and pillage land that they do not own, care for or improve. The former mindsets are the Communist’s propaganda fodder. The msm types, who speak for their elitist masters, are the ‘useful idiots’, idiots that will be disposed of when their usefulness is no longer needed, there will be no free food, cocktail parties and schmoozing with the egg smashers ends, free flights etc when the ‘party’ ends with complete control by human haters (elitists). People who don’t have independence resent it in others. The evil elitists know this and they are playing the ‘give them the wealth’ (to the poor they say!) every day, all day via their mouth horns.
The msm are shrilling for the wrong team, if they wish to stay attached to their heads; they would be wise to shrill for independence (it is the only way we can save our souls with our lives).
Glenn Beck is educating people about the art of happiness, independence and the key to individual ‘joy de vive’; the elitists don’t like educated citizens.
I pray for the safety of Glenn Beck, his family, his friends and his peers; every single day. I also pray for our honorable Prime Minister who is of the same ilk as Glenn Beck.
Everybody’s gone serfing’, serfin’ USA…
“And: whine, whine, whine, about the “liberal media”.
Ha ha! Good one, coming from one of the ranks of the paranoid left who – despite owning the vast majority of electronic and print media, still shriek like schoolgirls and scheme to shut down US conservative talk radio.
Guess your “irony meter” is busted, mouth.
Canuck conservatives would merely appreciate a bit of an even playing field in public (so called) media procedures. You know – not having to run a gauntlet of leftwing CRTC losers when trying to air conservative programming, or the government loosening its stranglehold on printed retail, allowing national chains owned by folks who aren’t card-carrying liberal shills. Or maybe even taking our “national” broadcaster – patronized by a minority of canucks – and eliminating their trough at the public purse and funding themselves thru – gasp! – advertising or donations.
Simple stuff like that. No biggie, eh mouth/bleet?
mhb23re at gmail d0t calm