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John Willingham: At Glenn Beck University, Hatred is the Curriculum

[John Willingham is a regular contributor to the History News Network (HNN.us) and also writes for Religion Dispatches. He is the author of The Edge of Freedom, A Novel of the Texas Revolution, to be published in early 2011.]

Dull your wits and sharpen your prejudices—Beck University is back again.

Now Beck’s temple of knowledge has a completely new curriculum, and this “semester” concludes with a sledgehammer course: “Presidents You Need to Hate.”

This did not come from The Onion. “Presidents You Need to Hate” is the actual name of the course, if you can call a one-hour lecture, divided into two segments, a course.

Students will already know whom they are supposed to hate, because the objects of hatred are right there in the course description: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Beck U’s most treacherous “progressive” of all, Franklin D. Roosevelt. (Be sure to pay up and watch on December 8.)

A few months ago, at a joint appearance with Beck in Tyler [TX], Rick Perry proudly proclaimed that Beck was, by God, “an honorary Texan.” Holding out the proclamation, Perry watched as Beck gave it a cursory look, and then—handed it right back to Perry, who was forced to walk off the stage holding the framed proclamation, as if it were a carnation turned down by his date....
Read entire article at Texas Observer