Financial markets

Buttonwood's notebook

Culture shock

Beck to the future

Feb 2nd 2011, 23:08 by Buttonwood | WASHINGTON, DC

YOU leave Britain for just three days and what happens? Turn on the TV and you find that Britain is going to be part of an "Islamic caliphate". This is on the US's "most-watched cable news network". There is no mention of this at home but perhaps my wife is trying not to worry me. I am surprised the FTSE 100 and sterling haven't taken more of a hit.

Mind you, it's not the strangest theory I've ever heard. Once I had a letter from a reader warning me of an international Swedish conspiracy to control the world (sounds like a good idea; the world would be a much nicer place).  But those were innocent days when people who wrote letters in green ink didn't get to host TV shows.

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bampbs wrote:
Feb 2nd 2011 11:31 GMT

Isn't it amazing that an ignoramus can adopt the trappings of a teacher, and spout nonsense for the tens of millions of Americans even more ignorant than he is ? This may be why the Republic is ultimately doomed; we do not even manage to educate the mass to the extent that they are educable.

Shhh...don't tell about the Swedes. You'll ruin everything !

abjecthorror wrote:
Feb 2nd 2011 11:34 GMT

I wouldn't give Beck any more respect than he deserves. He probably has a ratings high at 3 million, or 1% of the population, which is statistically insignificant (joke). At least e keeps all of the nut jobs on the same page so we know what they are thinking.

Faedrus wrote:
Feb 2nd 2011 11:44 GMT

My dear Buttonwood. Apparently the terrorists have won, and you are still contentedly unaware.

The only option is to buy gold, and Mr. Beck's sponsors can help you with that as well.

He, and they, are only here to help...

OneAegis wrote:
Feb 2nd 2011 11:52 GMT

And not just Britain, soon the US will be under Sharia law as well. It would be funny if not for the fact so many people truly view this trash as gospel.

jomiku wrote:
Feb 3rd 2011 12:03 GMT

They also believe that the southwest is going to be some sort of Mexican superstate. I assume you're aware of the way that George Soros overturned governments while hating Jews*. Or about the elderly professor who is regularly accused of plotting to destroy the capitalist system and who now gets death threats.

One can say many things about Roger Ailes, but he chose to put a person who is insane on TV.

*For someone not aware, Soros supported pro-democracy movements, ones that like the US, but hasn't managed to bring down any governments. And he's Jewish and supports Jewish causes. But he was accused of anti-semitism.

JGradus wrote:
Feb 3rd 2011 12:04 GMT

We did, but then freaking IKEA left the country to avoid taxes :(

Colonialist wrote:
Feb 3rd 2011 1:34 GMT

I think Beck will become fun when he retires, ideally sooner rather than later, after some racist or chauvinistic rant that isn't thinly veiled enough. Hopefully he'll return to the cannabis smoking entertainer he was (truly is?) and drop the serious act and inform all his dear viewers that, yes, first and foremost he's an entertainer and, no, you shouldn't have taken him as seriously as he insists on being taken.

willstewart wrote:
Feb 3rd 2011 3:29 GMT

Obviously there is some strange significance in writing in green ink that everyone gets but me! Or perhaps this is an American concept? What does this say about green revolutions?!

LaContra wrote:
Feb 3rd 2011 4:04 GMT

I think perhaps Beck is a Swedish name? :)

LaContra wrote:
Feb 3rd 2011 4:26 GMT

willstewart..

The 'green ink brigade' is a common British appellation....denoting the endearing type of eccentric, crank, or whacko who cannot resist the desire to write the type of letter which firmly places them outside the political, social, or at least reality based mainstream... a bit like writing in green ink being outside the norm.

As Carl Sagan once noted:
“There came in the post an eighty-five-page handwritten letter, written in green ball-point ink, from a gentleman in a mental hospital in Ottawa. He had read a report in a local newspaper that I had thought it possible that life exists on other planets; he wished to reassure me that I was entirely correct in this supposition, as he knew from his own personal knowledge”....

A modern example would be the 9-11 'truthers'. Now, if they could write, they would be green-inkers.
Mind you there a few green-inkers around this forum too ;)

abjecthorror wrote:
Feb 4th 2011 1:04 GMT

I think the modern version of green ink is "comic sans"

willstewart wrote:
Feb 4th 2011 8:41 GMT

@LaContra

Thanks! I am British and fairly well-read but had never heard the term (perhaps I do not read the right kind of newspapers). It does seem to be quite recent as a common term, notwithstanding Sagan's use (& Amis') usage (of green ink as a fact but not as a descriptive term) from earlier. One for Johnson maybe!

My fountain pen contains dark red-brown ink, but I did have a purple period as a teenager; green suggests teacher's annotations to me!

Doug Pascover wrote:
Feb 4th 2011 1:40 GMT

Regina akbar

jbay wrote:
Feb 8th 2011 3:47 GMT

Ahl al-Bayt family~ that's kinda' funny! :-d

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