9.16.2010

Let Them Die

I hardly know how to respond to this.

Glenn Beck thinks fat people should be denied medical care and simply left to die. That is his reaction to the Michele Obama anti-obesity program. I always hate it when I see people arguing about best to hate fat bodies.

Beck, obviously, doesn't even care about fat people. This is just the next thing on the list to flip out about from the Obama administration. He even self-servingly defines an exception for his kind of fatness. Oh not him. Just those other fat people.

What's unnerving, though, is that fat acceptance makes a very nuanced response to the "Let's Move!" program addressing how even good measures can be undermined by a flawed purpose and I feel like a lot of FA critics just stare back blankly and decide we're just saying we should let fat people die. But we here we have someone outright saying it. Probably going to be cheered for it, too. I'm sure folks on that side were just staring at FA blankly and deciding we were just saying the opposite. I don't like feeling the only acceptable positions on fatness are "Let 'em die!" and "Thintervention!" When we try to argue from something truly balanced, both extremes just label US as extremists and keep on gravely shouting about what to do about all the fat people.

11 comments:

Notblueatall said...

As much as I hate to say this (because even seeing him on t.v. makes me nauseous), but at least he's upfront about how he feels on the subject. I mean, some people will bandy about and say everything but what they really feel. But yeah, gotta love him & Limbaugh to not be a part of "those fat people." I guess if you're rich enough you are no longer considered the same type of fat. Ha!

Brian said...

The problem with that is he's also giving people permission to say those things. He's "leading by example" as it were and so long as people have those attitudes I'd rather they felt socially constrained from expressing them than empowered to declare their antipathy towards fat people.

And of course, there is that issue that most people will condemn him not for his attitude but for not shaming fat people in their preferred fashion.

Anonymous said...

Obviously someone forgot to realize that a majority of his devoted teabagging followers are those fat people he wishes dead. Beck has put his foot in his mouth so many times, I'm surprised he hasn't died from choking already.

Regina said...

It really is appalling that Glenn Beck can get away with this kind of hatred. It makes him a monster in my opinion....and a hate mongerer. I'm sure, since he said this openly, that there will be others who will express the same sentiment against the super fatties out there (of which I pretty much AM one--though *gasp* I have a husband, kids, and can leave the house). Because, let's admit, PEOPLE ALREADY BELIEVE THIS. Many already believe that a super immobile fatty doesn't deserve to live, isn't human anymore, and got that way out of pure gluttony and enabling from their loved ones who bring them milkshakes. There was a NYTimes article about the atrocities and mercy killings of obese people at the hospital in New Orleans (see the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/magazine/30doctors.html?_r=3&hpw ).
The lack of humanity shown by Glenn Beck, and now soon his sheeple backing him up, just astonishes me. Fat people are real human beings. We have feelings. We love and are loved. We don't deserve the hatred and vicious attacks of anyone who believes that the made up obesity panic is the root of all the world's problems.
If it didn't hate GB before today, I certainly do now.

CTJen said...

[sigh]

Meowser said...

Does Glenn Beck care about ANY people?

To be honest with you, if that guy hates our guts, we're doing something right in my book. The last thing I want is for someone like that to be trumpeting FA principles, because that basically means we can forget about progressives ever taking up our cause.

Anonymous said...

"Does Glenn Beck care about ANY people?"

He cares about one person. Glenn Beck.

And I'm right there with ya on this one Meowser. If somebody who's well documented to be so hateful and illogical starts spouting that kind of hate, it should only make the message clearer that fat hate is NOT ok.

I honestly don't know how many people honest to god still watch this guy, and how on earth Fox can continue to keep him employed. They've already lost major sponsors to this guy's virulent tripe. And I honestly don't understand how on earth a network like Fox can continue to demonize and alienate EVERY DAMN BODY so much and still have so many viewers. At some point, the hate nearly every one of their "reporters" promotes, extends to every group of people.

I have no doubt in my mind this is exactly what he and his band of hateful followers think of the elderly as well, I mean, let's talk about their desire to get rid of Social Security. And what's ironic is, these are the same people who screamed their friggin' heads off over the supposed "death panels" the Obama administration was supposedly going to set up. And here they are, working to eliminate the possibility for our elderly to retire. So no, they aren't going to pull the plug on granny if she's been comatose for 6 months (though I don't doubt they'd want to), instead, they're going to ensure that guys like my dad are going to work in factories doing hard manual labor until they literally die on the factory floor because they are entirely too old to be doing the kind of work they're doing.

God bless the U.S.A.

Courage said...

It really gets my goat when talking heads rail on about fatties without seeming to realize that a good portion of their audience is composed of said fatties (see Morgan Spurlock). I can only assume he means the tiny subset of super fatties who are supposedly immobilized by fat and who are not a significant enough number of people to be basing policy on at all. And his followers, many of whom probably look like me (fat and white), can assume he doesn't mean them.

Anonymous said...

Horrifying, and yet, in a way, totally unsurprising coming from the likes of Glenn Beck.

He basically sounds like a eugenicist. And not just when it comes to fat people.

Heidi said...

The other issue is that so many fat people truly hate themselves and won't blame Beck for thinking this.

New here, been reading about a month or so.

Anonymous said...

Based on the linked quote...
"You know those fat people sitting on their couches? And I mean really fat. I mean...not like me. I mean the people whose skin grows into the couch... I say let them die. I say punish the person who’s been bringing them the milk shakes that allowed them to eat and not get up off the couch. Am I too harsh?"

...I think that every single person listening to him will be able to say to themselves, "He doesn't mean fat like me..."

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.