UPDATE appears below
A few years back I dropped expanded cable. I've missed having all those channels and decided just a few weeks ago to get it back, but put it off for a while, until last week. Today it was hooked back up. What was the first thing I watched, at 5:00 pm today? Well, I'll just say that the painting above figured prominently in the program. It's an old painting by a Flemish painter named Pieter Bruegel-The Tower Of Babel.
It's important to remember that it is not a photo or a reproduction of the actual Tower Of Babel of Biblical fame but is, in fact, an artists conception of what the structure might have looked like.
That of course is assuming it ever actually existed. There is no proof that it did, nor is there any evidence it did not. But whatever the case, the artwork above would not be an accurate representation of The Tower of Babel which, unlike the sixteenth century painting, was either a gigantic ziggurat or, if it indeed existed only in the realm of mythology, was nevertheless inspired by the ziggurat, a rendition of which is featured below. Do note the difference.
The Bruegel painting is of a gigantic, circular monolith, while the true type of ziggurat is more of a pyramidal structure.
What in the hell am I talking about?
Update tomorrow, sometime or another as time allows. Until then, to those who have not yet seen the previous post, posted earlier today, I have another question I would appreciate an answer to and which I will no doubt ponder tonight.
What color are Chelsea Clinton's panties?
UPDATE-And now as promised, I present the answer, though with great reluctance and trepidation. Glenn Beck may well have jumped the shark, and you can view the carnage here.
I say he *May* have, and you should bear in mind, this is my first experience of watching this gentleman's program on Fox, so for all I know this might be a common theme, though if it is I would be highly surprised were he not called to account by many on the right to say nothing of the left.
And I want to stress, its not that I don't agree with Beck's overall main point, in fact I agree wholeheartedly with the gist of what he is trying to warn us all about. George Soros is without a doubt hazardous to the health of individual freedom, dignity, and overall to the US Constitution. He quite plainly promotes internationalist style "one world government", for lack of a better term. He is through his "Open Society" project a firm believer in open borders, and a leftist approach to democracy in the same vein as the European style Socialist Democrats. He has proven to be a pernicious influence on politicians and the political process, and in particular on the Democratic Party. He also has his tentacles spread throughout the media.
And while I for one consider it a dubious proposition that George Soros is personally responsible for the collapse of the Bank of England, there can be no doubt that he has made a significant portion of his billions in wealth by taking advantage of and utilizing insider information in order to know when to sell short various international currencies in ways that are at least unethical. But the main fault here is not with him, but with those who have set the situation up and allowed it to devolve to this point. Soros has merely taken advantage of the mess others have set up, although I concede he might well be a partial influence on them, or has learned over the past couple of decades how to look for and manipulate these kinds of trends.
Be that as it may, this post is not about Soros, or even about the "New World Order" he undoubtedly promotes. Its about the apparent tendency of Beck to go completely off the deep end, as he came close to doing in his program yesterday. This brings me back to the Brueghels painting, which Beck and his guest, a Jewish Rabbi Daniel Lapin, claims is the inspiration for this-
This is the Louise Weiss European Parliament Building in Strassburg France, which is the headquarters of the European Union. Beck was told by an unnamed EU source that the building was modeled loosely after the Roman Colosseum (which inspired a comment from the Rabbi pertaining to the execution of Christians) but Beck infers that its actual modeling was after the Tower. Again, the Tower was a Hebrew legend inspired by the ancient Babylonian structures known as ziggurats.
I guess what bothers me about all this is that Beck, in jumping into this lion's den, as it were, risks limiting the appeal of what should be his broader argument against over-expansion of government and especially the internationalist aims of the quasi-socialists of Europe and others. And what is worse, he does it in ways that depends on inaccuracies.
At one point, incredibly, he even contradicts the Bible by inferring that mankind already spoke a variety of tongues prior to building the Tower, and that Nimrod tried to enforce a universal language. The rabbi guest did not dispute this.
As for Nimrod, he was a legendary figure, and a very shadowy one about whom, if he did exist, next to nothing is known, other than he is credited in Hebrew scripture with founding the nation of Assyria, and various other cities of that nation and in that general vicinity. He is also referred to as a "great hunter before the lord", which some have taken to mean in opposition to God. The original point was probably an attempt to explain the origins of the divine king system of Mesopotamia, whereby kings were traditionally seen as hunters, and engaged in royal hunts as a matter of cultural tradition, but beyond that as a matter of ritual initiation. He has been identified with various Babylonian gods and kings, but the main gist is he was put forth as the progenitor of the Babylonian system of false religion, the concept of divine rule of kings, and of polytheism-the worship of the forces of nature as opposed to their creator, according to the Hebrew scheme of things.
But even this Beck turns on its head, by identifying the Babylonian system as "secular". By this device, he ties this into the secular humanist movement of modern times. Granted, the Hebrews might have been ahead of their time in seeing the Babylonian pagan religions as somewhat an idolatrous expression of self-worship, but that hardly made them secularists, by any stretch of the imagination. If anything, they were woefully superstitious. Even if this originated as a promise that by building the tower they would "be as gods", there are still significant differences at work here. For one thing, secularists tend not to burn incense and sacrifice animals in hopes of curing their gout, regardless of whether or not the god in question might have at one point walked the earth as a man.
The point is, it was a different time, and a different world, when men looked towards strong rulers and cohesion, with a goal of building society. Freedom was based on strength and security, not individual liberties and human rights, which were secondary considerations at best.
Of course, there are similarities worthy of illustration. For example, even though Beck's Jewish Rabbi guest insists there is no Jewish word for "coincidence", there is one at play here. Bruegel's painting of The Tower of Babel was purposely modeled after the Roman Colosseum. It just so happens the Louise Weiss Building was also purposely patterned after the Colosseum, although presumably for different reasons. Brugels used the Colosseum as a symbol of hubris and tyranny. The European Union is certainly nothing if not an exercise in hubris. In its own way it is also tyrannical in concept and execution. But does that mean the leaders of the EU are purposely trying to recreate the culture of ancient Babylon?
Granted, there are other similarities which can be read as disturbing. The Tower in Bruegel's painting is unfinished. So is the Weiss Building, as a symbol of the "unfinished" nature of the European Union. There are also similarities between communism and capitalism, but if you make too much out of the similarities the whole fabric unravels, and so does your case.
In other words, you wonder if Beck actually believes himself in what he is saying. In the example of the language mix-up, he certainly seems to be tip-toeing ever so gently around the prospect of literal Biblical truth, which is understandable. He doesn't want to offend a large portion of his viewers who insist on a fundamentalist interpretation of scripture.
The real reason for the mix-up of languages is pretty well-established as an on-going, multi-epochal process that involved mankind being "scattered" long before there was any civilization to speak of, let alone anything on the order of a major city. We are talking about prehistoric times here, and for that matter possibly even before the times when human beings had evolved to the point where they could properly be called human. As a natural consequence of this multiple migration to various and diverse points around the globe, when mankind did develop more complicated languages and social structures, there would by the nature of the process have to be significant divergences and variations in language and culture.
This does not imply that the story of the Tower is not without merit as a morality tale and a warning relevant to any time as to the dangers of tyrannical dependence on human government. It just speaks to a need to see to that greater truth.
The Tower Of Babel was written in ancient times by people trying to come to grips with these differences in humanity and in the meantime explain other phenomena as well. Beck had to have known this, or at least he had to be familiar with this commonly accepted view, yet instead of confronting it directly he dances around it in order to preserve his greater point.
That point is that any such attempt to forge all mankind into one common, one-size fits all system of laws and government, however loosely forged, is unnatural and by its nature doomed to failure. It always does, as the decline and fall of empire after empire serves to demonstrate. That was the meaning of the Biblical story. He could have concentrated on that, and he could have used the story of The Tower Of Babel as an apt symbol, a prophecy if you will, that perfectly illustrates the ultimate outcome of any such endeavor, however well-intentioned or cleverly and carefully implemented. It will always be doomed to failure.
Unfortunately, Beck wasted precious time chasing after phantoms in the forms of now widely discarded mythologies once but no longer accepted as literal fact, instead of making clear their value when viewed as symbolic warning applicable to the time and subject matter.
In doing so, he does himself and us a disservice by building his case on a foundation that will collapse as quickly as the Tower, and as quickly as, ironically, the European Union has all but collapsed today, with one member nation after another going into default and bankruptcy, with others desperately trying to engage in severe cutbacks in spending and services, all geared toward propping up a system which by its nature is unsustainable.
The Tower has all but fallen, as well it should, but it seems to have escaped the notice of Glenn Beck.
