Glenn Beck Attacks Smart Grid As Socialist Plot To Steal Our Thermostats
Glenn Beck Attacks Smart Grid As Socialist Plot To Steal Our Thermostats
Glenn Beck, the conservative ideologue whose show is mocked by fellow Fox News anchors, recently attacked plans to modernize our electric grid. After Carol Browner, President Obama’s climate and energy adviser, said that a smart grid means “we can get to a system where an electric company will be able to hold back some of the power so that maybe your air conditioner won’t operate at its peak, you’ll still be able to cool your house, but that’ll be a savings to the consumer,” Beck argued that would lead to “one-world government” with “Czar Browner” in charge of everyone’s air conditioners:
I can’t wait for the 97 degree day in August when Czar Browner in Washington decides it’s in my country’s best interest to make sure I’m not cooling my house. . . . There’s no way the government would turn down the air conditioning at the wrong place and kill someone.
On Fox News, Beck snorted, “Gosh, that would be great if I could just keep turning the air conditioner up and the government won’t let me do it. That’s fantastic.” Watch it:
In reality, Browner was describing demand-side management technology, the kind of grid modernization that corporate executives from Wal-Mart’s Lee Scott to American Electric Power’s Mike Morris have called an essential advance. Our antiquated power grid, a national embarrassment which threatens our energy future, needs to be upgraded to a digital network just as the analog phone system gave way to the Internet.
Beck’s rant assumes that an “electric company” and “the government” are one and the same. In fact, eight-four percent of the United States retail electric power market is provided by private companies. Over 120 million customers are served by the private market, versus 21 million served by public utilities, most of which are small municipal entities. The concept that Carol Browner would have control over a national thermostat is frankly bizarre:
During his diatribes on his Fox News show and his radio program, Beck also called cap-and-trade — which would establish a multi-billion-dollar private market in pollution allowances — “one of my favorite socialist ideas.” Although global warming is increasing the deadly heat waves that worry him so, Beck further claimed “the only thing that has become incredibly clear on the science of climate change is that they can’t decide whether to call it global warming or call it climate change.”
It’s not surprising that someone who can’t tell the difference between capitalism and socialism doesn’t understand much about science either.
This is exactly the same nonsensical argument that was made a few weeks ago about the administration’s efforts to upgrade technologies to streamline medical decision-making and treatment — electronic medical records, prescription orders, things like that, that have been conclusively demonstrated to improve care. But the wingnuts somehow morphed that proposal into a draconian government medical board that would intervene in (or overrule) individual care decisions made by patients and their physicians.
12 Responses to “Glenn Beck Attacks Smart Grid As Socialist Plot To Steal Our Thermostats”
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Actually Beck is being successful on TV where El Rushbo failed. If you can deliver this kind of stuff effectively thru TV you can make even more millions. There should be an infomercial with Beck detailing how to become a right-wing media favorite. It’s curious that there is such a dearth of radio/tv liberal millionaires (Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann aside). I am thinking that liberals just don’t need to hear the same mindless drivel repeated 24/7 thru every media orifice available. More NPR than EIB I would guess.
March 19th, 2009 at 2:04 amTurn up the thermostat. Glenn gives me a chill.
March 19th, 2009 at 5:09 am> I can’t wait for the 97 degree day in August when Czar Browner in Washington
> decides it’s in my country’s best interest to make sure I’m not cooling my house. . . .
This is exactly the same nonsensical argument that was made a few weeks ago about the administration’s efforts to upgrade technologies to streamline medical decision-making and treatment — electronic medical records, prescription orders, things like that, that have been conclusively demonstrated to improve care. But the wingnuts somehow morphed that proposal into a draconian government medical board that would intervene in (or overrule) individual care decisions made by patients and their physicians.
March 19th, 2009 at 10:13 amIt is obvious that BECK has once again taken on a subject on which he knows NOTHING!
As I live in TX (no, I am not a TEXAN) I know better than to run my air conditioner, dishwasher and washer/dryer at peak demand hours. As he probably doesn’t know how to operate the later two or program a thermostat, I am not suprised by his idiotic remarks!
March 19th, 2009 at 2:55 pmFor republicans, the most important right is the right to remain vehemently ignorant.
Glenn Beck is an Idiot.
March 19th, 2009 at 4:45 pmAndy, et. al.:
Here’s the thing I’ve noticed about hard-line conservative politicizing of health care, the environment, and other matters that directly impinge upon the common good of not only our own country but also the world: These pundits and politicians are more interested in mobilizing people to get behind policies that push a narrow self-interested agenda, directly at-odds with truth, justice, and decency. Rather, Beck and others put these ideas on the airwaves so to get people to believe what they say. In this case, believing something whether it’s true or not is the point. When belief is divorced from truth, it’s not only an intellectual vice, it’s also destroys the entire basis of civil discourse. Because, if true discourse and argument was their real interest, they either wouldn’t say such things or if their listeners were interested in good discourse they wouldn’t listen.
March 19th, 2009 at 6:58 pmI suggest you people watch the DVD Media Malpractice if you want to see what media drivel looks like.
But of course I am sure all the pandering and promotion was “civil discourse.” In the liberal world there is only one kind of civil discourse, censorship of anything you don’t agree with.
March 20th, 2009 at 4:07 amI live in Columbia, South Carolina that calls itself “famously hot”. Come down in July if you want the experience. Most people have programable thermostats so we can keep our A/C down during the day while at work or on vacation. Letting people see the difference in their power bills is more motivating than government regulation, but the Glenn Beck fans can’t think that far ahead.
March 20th, 2009 at 9:56 amKLV – Who are “you people” and what is it that is being censored? What are you even talking about?
March 20th, 2009 at 9:10 pmI thought the location of powerplants took into consideration the distance to the High Voltage Electric Grid.
I also thought the cost of the grid is included in the my electric bill.
Do we have a reason why the Government must build a power grid to reduce expenses for power companies?
The propaganda used to support a power grid is laughable. They say things like “we have to link all windmills in case the wind dies down”. We have had windmills in California for a long time and groups of them (”farms”) are linked together and the site are optimized for minimum total cost and all the power goes out in a single line; this line absorbs variations between windmills. Elementary, Watson! Me thinks scam afoot!
March 28th, 2009 at 10:40 pmI just read what I wrote.
What if someone is pushing powerplants some place which is very far from cities and wants the government to pick up the extra cost of the grid, to make their electricity competitive?
I gues the right term is “Appear Competitive”. Gee, you don’t think someone with a lot of Natural Gas far away is pushing?
March 28th, 2009 at 10:46 pmafisher: “I’m not a TEXAN”…was that to somehow ensure that everyone knows you are a liberal??? No worries. It’s obvious.
March 30th, 2009 at 9:31 am