A Specter Is Haunting Glenn Beck

Department

Sociology and Criminal Justice

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Fall 2009

Abstract

On June 16, 2009 the New York Times ran an article that gently mocked an event in Union Square celebrating the publication in English of a French book called The Coming Insurrection (Invisible Committee 2009). The NYT article was titled “Liberating Lipsticks and Lattes,” and ended with a quote from an onlooker as a crowd chanted “All power to the communes”: “I have no idea what’s going on, [b]ut I like the excitement” (Moynihan 2008). This is a sly reference to the Situationist manifesto The Society of the Spectacle (Debord 1967), a key influence on the new manifesto. Debord maintains that in modern capitalist society protest is absorbed and becomes spectacle. The article did not go unnoticed on the right.

Journal Title

Critical Mass Bulletin

Volume

34

Issue

2

First Page

6

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