Pardon Me, Boy, Is This The Glennbeckistan Choo-Choo?

Glenn Beck Wants To Build Town Resembling An Ayn Rand Version of Disneyland

Steve Dibert, MFI-Miami

On Saturday, I posted an article about how a group of Ayn Rand groupies with deep pockets wanted to purchase a island park from the City of Detroit and turn it into an offshore tax haven with it’s governing based on the fiction of their favorite  dystopian author.

Now its right-wing media entertainer, Glenn Beck’s turn to announce his dream of an Ayn Rand Fantasyland.  Beck who made his fortune attempting to emulate Orson Welles by passing off his entertaining rants and conspiracy theories as news, now wants to build “Independence, USA”.  Unfortunately for Beck, any amateur connoisseur of Welles’ work will tell you, Beck’s work more resembles the Amazing Criswell than the artistry of Welles.

Beck unveiled his dream on his show that is coincidentally only available on his multi-media website, TheBlaze.

Beck in typical fashion gets all weepy during the presentation just like he used to on his Fox News Channel show.

Beck has named his dream utopia of craftsmen and innovation as “Independence, USA”.  He refers to it this way, “This is Galt’s Gulch. This is where dreamers go.”

Galt’s Gulch, of course is the secret hiding place in Colorado where all the striking industrialists go to hide in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.  Although based on the philosophies of Ayn Rand, the appearance will look more like a modern Disneyland with similar kitsch architecture and an opening gate resembling the entry at Ellis Island.  He claims  it is a tribute to Walt Disney before his vision was lost to commercialization.  Beck also points out that, “Independence, USA wouldn’t be about rides and merchandise, but would be about community and freedom.” and that the central themes of Independence, USA would focus around are “education, independence, entrepreneurship, and apprenticeship.”

The park-city would have a multi-dominational chapel modeled after “The Alamo” and unlike in “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” this one will more than like have a basement. It was also contain a film studio, so Beck can live out his fantasies of being Orson Welles by making his “Mercury Movies”

Unfortunately, for Beck it sounds like he never watched Welles’ masterpiece, “Citizen Kane” or if he did, he failed to comprehended it because Beck’s utopian vision is more like Kane’s Xanadu rather than Galt’s Gulch.