Farewell to America's #1 Fear-Monger: Peace Out Glenn Beck!

Posted by CODEPINK Staff

Actually, it's not just Glenn Beck who's saying bye-bye to prime time this April. Two notoriously noxious, fear-mongering institutions are being phased out this month. The first we've known about for months. The second, dubbed the #Glennpocalypse on Twitter, was a most pleasant surprise.

The Dept of Homeland Security (DHS) has finally realized that "code orange" doesn't. mean. anything. In January, the DHS announced that they planned phase out their color-coded alert system by April. We at CODEPINK: Women for Peace have always argued that their system was meaningless at best and alarmist and fear-mongering at worst. (Kind of like someone else we know who's being phased out on our airwaves this month.) We even named ourselves CODEPINK satirically to help make our point. More importantly, we have refused to live in the culture of fear stirred up by programs like Beck's and government agencies like the DHS. Through two Presidents and their unwinnable wars, we've been bringing the PINK people-power to the halls of Congress demanding that our representatives work to Bring Our War $$ Home! While we still have a lot of work to do, it looks like the times they are a-changin'.

Today we can all breathe a little easier knowing that one glorified shock jock is going off-the-air. FOX News just announced that their chalk-stick-wielding pundit-in-chief Glenn Beck will be transitioning off of daily programming. This is a huge victory for all of us who signed petitions, organized boycotts, and spoke out against Beck's misinformation and hate speech.

We at CODEPINK can especially savor this moment, having played an outsize role in Beck's chalkboard constellations of paranoia. You may recall that back in February, Beck gave us credit for the massive, peaceful uprising that brought a revolution to Egypt. Sorry, Glenn, but that was a people-powered rebellion against a violent regime. We were inspired by the Egyptian people and stood in solidarity with them, but we couldn't possibly take credit. Beck also accused CODEPINK co-founder Jodie Evans of being involved with the Muslim Brotherhood, a group he warned would take over after the Egyptian Revolution. Wrong and wrong. Comedian Jon Stewart featured Beck's paranoid ramblings about CODEPINK among others in his Moment of Zen on The Daily Show. Good times. In case you missed it:



Just the other day Beck basically gave us credit for the Gaza Freedom Movement. Wow. While we're flattered, we really can't take all the credit for the incredible efforts of countless activists who are working to bring peace and justice to that region. Beck's clearly had it all wrong for a long time and FOX is finally getting one thing right by kicking his show to the curb.

But it's still not safe to turn on FOX. While media watchdog groups like Media Matters for America can certainly take a moment celebrate (and savor) winning this victory, the movement for media reform for can hardly rest until the rest of FOX News cleans up its act. Check out Media Matters' website to take action against conservative misinformation.

While Beck is busy on Twitter today asking his followers to vote for him for TIME's 100 Most Influential People, we'll go ahead and bestow upon him a much-deserved title: America's #1 Fear-Monger. Peace out, Glenn!