Summer Reading and Catch-up List part IV

The Blueprint: Obama's Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency

Former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell joined the program, and judging by the title of his new book he's not exactly thrilled with the direction the President is leading the country. One of the hardest hit states in the country is Blackwell's home state of Ohio, and he talks with Glenn about the book and the devastating effects Obamanomics is having on the country. ( Transcript, Insider Audio)

The Plan: Big Ideas for Change in America

In Mortal Danger: The Battle for America's Border and Security

Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century

Coach Wooden's Leadership Game Plan for Success: 12 Lessons for Extraordinary Performance and Personal Excellence

The Gone Fishin' Portfolio: Get Wise, Get Wealthy...and Get on With Your Life (Agora Series)

New Deal or Raw Deal?: How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America

Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses (P.S.)

Shadow People: Inside History's Most Notorious Secret Societies

The Secret of Shelter Island: Money and What Matters

The Promise: God's Purpose and Plan for When Life Hurts

To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine

The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions

The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time

The Evolution of God (Back Bay Readers' Pick)

Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America

The Yes Factor: Get What You Want. Say What You Mean. The Secrets of Persuasive Communication

The Bible of Unspeakable Truths

The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression

The American Patriot's Bible: The Word of God and the Shaping of America 

4rth of July DVD’s

John Adams (HBO Miniseries)

Yankee Doodle Dandy (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Summer Reading and Catch-up List… Part III

Summer Reading and Catch-up List… Part II

Summer Reading and Catch-up List… Part 1

The Overton Window  -  Description

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

The above poem appeared in both the commercial for Glenn Beck’s newest book, The Overton Window, a political thriller, and resonates often throughout the novel as well. It fittingly describes how quickly mankind forgets the political past of its country and willingly allows bad history to repeat itself.

Funnily enough, when this commercial aired, the Left had a field day, mocking it and the poem Beck used, seemingly unaware that it was written by one of the most famous poets in history: Rudyard Kipling.

A plan to destroy America, a hundred years in the making, is about to be unleashed . . . can it be stopped?

There is a powerful technique called the Overton Window that can shape our lives, our laws, and our future. It works by manipulating public perception so that ideas previously thought of as radical begin to seem acceptable over time. Move the Window and you change the debate. Change the debate and you change the country.

For Noah Gardner, a twentysomething public relations executive, it's safe to say that political theory is the furthest thing from his mind. Smart, single, handsome, and insulated from the world's problems by the wealth and power of his father, Noah is far more concerned about the future of his social life than the future of his country.

But all of that changes when Noah meets Molly Ross, a woman who is consumed by the knowledge that the America we know is about to be lost forever. She and her group of patriots have vowed to remember the past and fight for the future—but Noah, convinced they're just misguided conspiracy-theorists, isn't interested in lending his considerable skills to their cause.

And then the world changes.

An unprecedented attack on U.S. soil shakes the country to the core and puts into motion a frightening plan, decades in the making, to transform America and demonize all those who stand in the way. Amidst the chaos, many don't know the difference between conspiracy theory and conspiracy fact—or, more important, which side to fight for.

But for Noah, the choice is clear: Exposing the plan, and revealing the conspirators behind it, is the only way to save both the woman he loves and the individual freedoms he once took for granted.

After five back-to-back #1 New York Times bestsellers, national radio and Fox News television host Glenn Beck has delivered a ripped-from-the-headlines thriller that seamlessly weaves together American history, frightening facts about our present condition, and a heart-stopping plot. The Overton Window will educate, enlighten, and, most important, entertain—with twists and revelations no one will see coming.

Book Review

Glenn Beck’s Thriller  -   JUNE 23, 2010 4:00 A.M.

The Overton Window is a bona-fide thriller, but it’s also a book of ideas to ponder:  like thoughts of why the American experiment matters and why some people hate it.  You can read a few pages of this book and then set it aside and think about it or spend a good while researching connections or ideas.

Example: Who is Eli (Elijah Churchill)… really?  The name of one of Glenn’s characters…  (And is this the person Glenn meant you to look up and learn about when writing The Overton Window?)

Elijah Churchill (1755-1841), was a soldier for the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. Born inEnfield, Connecticut, a carpenter, he entered the 8th Connecticut Regiment as a private on 7 July 1775. On 7 May 1777, he re-enlisted for the duration of the war as a corporal in the 2nd Continental Light Dragoons, later the 2nd Legionary Corps, and was promoted to sergeant on 2 October 1780. He was cited for gallantry in action at Fort St. George near Brookhaven, New York on Long Island, in November 1780, at Tarrytown, New York, in July 1781, and at Fort Slongo (now known as Fort Salonga, also on Long Island) on October 2nd, 1781. He was awarded the Badge of Military Merit for his actions, one of only three soldiers to receive the medal that later became the Purple Heart.

The uniformed factotums of Homeland Security and TSA are checking airline travelers’ papers; grumpy crowds, long lines. But follow the beautiful people past the velvet rope and through an unmarked door to the VIP lounge, and you’re no longer in a major New York airport, but in the spaceport of Mos Eisley (from Star Wars): streamlined “security” where the privileged are quietly ushered past the polloi. Now the infuriating boarding process boils down to one lone guard. No fuss, no muss.

But in Glenn Beck’s thriller, The Overton Window, this guard by the metal detector is a Star Wars geek with a shiny plastic tray for your jewelry who may very well recognize an impersonator when he sees one. He may be the one guy in a million who’d know the difference between Natalie Portman in the flesh and patriot Molly Ross, a plucky gal claiming star status, cloaked in hoodie and sunglasses, and exuding eau de Hollywood. If the impostor is unmasked, our civil servant will allow agents provocateurs out west to unleash a national catastrophe.

“Would you take off your sunglasses for me, please?”

The let-me-see-your-identification moment has arrived. Well, if you’re going to bluff the Imperial Storm Troopers of the Empire, do it with a wave of the hand and a Jedi mind trick; the impostor, Molly Ross, plumbs a reservoir of gumption and goes all Queen Padmé on the poor man. Peering over her Foster Grants, she says: “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.”

And the TSA functionary, stunned at what he thought would never happen as long as he lived, the real Queen Amidala talking to him, repeats in a dream of delayed gratification, “These aren’t the droids we’re looking for,” letting our damsel pass. The words alone bring the TSA lad’s easily influenced mind to heel. He sees what he wants to see, Natalie Portman, not Molly Ross. Mixed episodes be damned. He couldn’t care less.

Yeah!

The real Jedi mind trick of Beck’s The Overton Window is that it says thriller on the cover. And, yes, a scion of wealth, power, and privilege, Noah Gardner, heir to the Gardner public-relations empire, dabbles in rebellion and gets in over his head. But Beck’s novel is, more than anything, a book of ideas. Ideas that are very frightening to many in our media elites. Like the idea of liberty, the idea that we have a right to pursue happiness, the idea of the responsibility that comes with limited self-government, and the idea that our rights are granted by God with a capital G. Ideas that make some men uncomfortable and afraid.

Want to ponder a vast idea? Go to almost any page in this book and you’ll find something to chew over. Beck quoting Thomas Sowell: “The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best.” How truly shocking in its clarity.

In Beck’s novel, the heavy is Noah’s father, Arthur Gardner: a public-relations master, but really a Sith lord, a master manipulator of public opinion. He is Beck’s anti–John Galt. A modern-day Mephisto with powers Ellsworth Toohey could only dream of. A man consumed with fixing and arranging outcomes, not creating anything of value. In Arthur Gardner’s preferred world, the enlightened elites rule. “The American experiment has failed, and now it’s time for the next one to begin. One world, one government — not of the people this time, but of the right people: the competent, the wise, the strong.” (The New World Order).

Why does that sound so darn familiar? Oh yeah . . . Bill Maher said something strikingly similar. Or how about Ed Schultz saying Obama should act like a dictator… or Woody Allen who said he should be one.

The scariest of Arthur Gardner’s ideas is that you can twist and mold the average citizen to achieve just about any desired outcome. Beck’s book is studded with real-life examples, some anticipating and reflecting the Orwellian nature of our present definition-of-reality struggles. As in: If it’s “Net Neutrality,” you can bet the effect will be anything but neutral.

In a planning session for societal transformation at Doyle & Merchant, Arthur Gardner’s public-relations firm, there’s a big screen in the conference room, showing how it’s going to be realized. We see a dozen items devoted to command and control, influence, the mind tricks of PR. All on the cusp of being put into practice. Take this item, for instance:

“Associate resistance and ‘constitutional’ advocacy with a backward, extremist world view; gun rights a key.”
Believe in the Constitution as written? Believe in gun rights? I mean that’s beyond the pale. No one enlightened believes in that sort of thing any more. Just ask Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan: NRA = KKK. Gosh, I wonder what “bad guy orgs” means? (Progressive community featuring updates on current affairs, politics, news, technology and humor.) NRA, KKK? Sheesh, they even sort of rhyme.

(Did Kagan Compare the NRA with the KKK?)

In another part of the novel a bunch of hired thugs break up a political meeting and get everyone thrown in jail for the night; there’s a dicey moment when we wonder whether New York’s finest are in on this abuse of power. As it turns out, our New York men in blue are true blue and won’t sign on to thuggery (like in Chicago). Now take a look at some real-life cops down on the D.C./Maryland border who can’t seem to find it in their powers to protect a kid in his own house from being terrorized by SEIU Imperial Storm Troopers and who go all lawyerly on Megyn Kelly of Fox News. Guess it depends on what the meaning of “terror” is.

Some critics get the vapors at the prospect of this book’s somehow inciting others to terrible deeds. In fact, this novel is about people trying to prevent others from doing terrible deeds, and it says so explicitly. Unlike Obama’s manufacturing czar, who has no problem with the concept of power coming from the barrel of a gun. And says so explicitly.

A grotesque monster of public relations, Arthur Gardner knows where his power comes from. And mere words are not enough. In the final scenes of the novel, Arthur Gardner, fearing that his son, Noah, is lost to him, uses every device he can find to twist and sculpt Noah and bring him back into the fold. Make his son a worthy image of himself, completely heedless of anyone else’s integrity.

I believe the character of Danny Bailey, one of the more outspoken members of the Founders’ Keepers, is mirrored after Glenn Beck himself. Bailey has used blogs, and other less mainstream media outlets to put forth his message, which is often distorted to appear insane and potentially dangerous, though it is never his intention to promote violence.

The last 20 or so pages of the novel actually identify most of the areas throughout the text that are based on actual events, people, and language used by America’s politicians and other powerful individuals, including Edward Bernays, author of the 1928 book, Propaganda, and a member of Woodrow Wilson's World War I propaganda agency — the Committee on Public Information. Bernays’ ideas on propaganda were so demented and powerful that his book was actually used by Hitler’s Joseph Goebbels along with the general concept and ideas behind American Progressivism.

In a truly horrifying final sequence, where the brainwashed Noah tries to please his father with little public-relations tasks, he just can’t get them right. Trying to make a statue of the perfect man, the great Arthur Gardner has only brutalized it — much like the commissioned statue in his private office, which appears on the cover of the book: the Statue of Liberty, partially morphed into the Colossus of Rhodes, no longer beckoning, now a bearded freak brandishing a spear. That upright arm still holds the torch, but it’s not the torch of freedom.

Hat Tips to Keith Korman and Raven Clabough