We haven't given a shit about brand name of our blue jeans since approximately 1981, but we might start insisting on Levi's once again. (We wear Costco jeans or any pair under $20 that makes our diminishing Irish ass look better).
Why? Because Glenn Beck (KTTH m-f, 6-9a) is boycotting Levi's. Is it because their name "sounds Jewish?" He says not- it's because of the above commercial which he finds "shocking" and as "glorifying revolution." The scene, he said, of the young man apparently standing off riot cops, urges confrontations with the police. He compared the scenes to "European socialists marching" and "a Palestinian kind of march."
Beck comes from a generation (the X-ers) who didn't have a campus revolution (actually, he didn't last long enough in college, anyway). He never experienced the glory (as short-lived and futile as it may be) of standing in front of the power and majesty of The Man with a two-fisted "fuck you!"
Glenn Beck's salad days were a drug-sodden parade of radio studios where he talked about tits and ass and pulled nasty tricks on people to the glee of his adolescent male listeners.
Then he got religion, rich and started living inside high walls.
What a pitiful human being! So Go Forth and buy yourself some Levi's.
But don't tell anybody why you bought them... this boycott wasn't so much to hurt Levi's as it was to buy a little of this sort of attention for an entertainer whose career has fallen to a place that this sort of attention means something.
While Beck may technically be in Gen X (born Feb of 1964 according to Wikipedia, but has anyone seen his long form birth certificate), his reactionary right wing silliness is pure Boomer childhood, not Gen X.
That being said, Beck is stuck trying to be as controversial as possible now, as he needs people to pay to see him before he washes out all of the money of his investors. As things get tighter and tighter, I expect the conspiracy theories to get weirder and wilder.
Posted by: JDB | September 21, 2011 at 02:11 PM
That's ridiculous. What if it was a group of Tea Partyers marching against President Obama, and the police were trying to stop them? He'd be singing a different tune then.
Posted by: Norah | September 21, 2011 at 07:40 PM
What. An. Idiotic. Commercial.
To the extent that you can tell from the one-eighth or so of the commercial that showed shots of protesters, they appeared to be of the Arab-or-Chinese-youth-confront authoritarian regime type (that's certainly what the commercial is trying to evoke). That any such youth would associate their struggle for freedom with a brand of blue jeans is as preposterous as it is insulting.
And if the commercial is in itself pathetic, what does that make Beck's outraged response to it? One thing's for sure: for as much as Beck obsesses over America's founding fathers, had he been around in 1775 he would have been a Tory. And probably publishing shrill broadsheets (with graphs and circles and arrows) about how those vandals in Boston really were an Iroquois conspiracy.
Posted by: Pete | September 21, 2011 at 10:36 PM
Beck don't like it because the people in it all look foreign to him.
They don't look like midwest dumbass teabaggers.
They don't look like bigoted, homophobic Mormons. They look a little scruffy, and earthy, but cool.
They are totally unlike anyone Beck comes in contact with in his gated Dallas abode.
What do the kids say? Haterz gonna hate.
Posted by: Itchy | September 22, 2011 at 06:31 AM
What does Glenn Beck have in common with the following people?
1. Rush Limbaugh
2. Sean Hannity
3. Michael Savage
4. Dori Monson
5. David Boze
6. Dick Cheney
7. John Carlson
8. Dennis Miller
9. Bill O'Reilly
(Answer: They all avoided any military service in the multiple wars they so strongly and consistently promote.)
Of course there are probably other things this group has in common, but under the new rules we're not supposed to use the terms like 'hypocritical a-hole' in the comments section.
Posted by: Itchy | September 22, 2011 at 07:25 AM
I wouldn't have believed it but Hood is actually right for once. I watched the ad and most of the Glenn Beck segment (at Huffpo) and it's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard a conservative say.
In the ad, the guy in the homeade-looking boat looks like maybe a Cuban fleeing Castro. And the quote 'Your life belongs to you' reminds me of the quote from John Locke "Every man has a property in his own person." John Locke is the godfather of individualism, which is modern conservatism (used to be called liberalism, but that's another post).
Levi Strauss has been boycotted by various pro-gun-rights groups for many years. Apparently they have donated to/supported anti-gun groups & legislation. The NRA still lists them as an 'anti-gun corporation.' So this is all moot as far as I'm concerned--I'm not buying any Levis anyway. My life is mine, and so are my guns.
Posted by: 338 Lapua | September 22, 2011 at 07:31 AM
OK, I've watched this commercial 10 times and I still cannot fathom what Beck is talking about.
Its like he just makes stuff up to be enraged about, and I guess its to try to sell you his brand of clothing?
The revolution is coming! Beck's selling guns, safes, yummy bunker food and fashion wear for the few who are left after the incursion.
Pathetic,really.
Posted by: Bill | September 23, 2011 at 08:22 AM
I like it bill when you said Beck makes stuff up when in the same sentence ou do the same. Hypocrite.
Posted by: Sleeping with bears | September 23, 2011 at 09:20 AM
Hey, Sleeping...what did I make up?
Posted by: Bill | September 23, 2011 at 12:03 PM
bill, just like you didnt see what beck was talking about in that video, nowhere in Becks talking about this commercial is he trying to sell his brand of clothing.
What is it with some people here. Do they have ghost writers who post for them or are they just ignorant about what they post.
Posted by: Sleeping with bears | September 23, 2011 at 04:01 PM
OK, Sleeping....there's a difference between making stuff up and speculation. Beck announced some months ago that he was launching his '1791' line of clothing (btw, something I doubt he'll follow up on as he has quite a history of starting 'projects' with a huge announcement that will CHANGE THE WORLD, only to forget about them a few months later). I was just speculating that since Beck never does or says anything that doesn't benefit Beck financially or publicity-wise, he was going on a rant about boycotting Levi jeans in order to get people to thinking about his own line of clothing that may or may not be in the works.
Posted by: Bill | September 24, 2011 at 05:46 PM
If he had said something to the effect that his brand clothing was coming out during his rant against Levi, i would take your word that you were speculating. But he doesnt so you just made it up that he was boycotting levi to sell his clothes and for the sole purpose of making him the butt of your joke which is just pathetic if you ask me.
Posted by: Sleeping with bears | September 24, 2011 at 06:07 PM