“The big river they have there that sounds like a disease”: Glenn Beck on India

I have been struggling and failing to find an appropriate way to respond to Glenn Beck’s latest insanity. MediaMatters has the video and the almost unbelievable quotes, which about 1.2 billion people are likely to deem to be offensive and tasteless, from a recent Beck broadcast:

For those not able to stomach watching the actual video, the choice quotes are as follows:

And also, in our research that it took us, oh about 40 seconds, we figured out that some of that money here in America winds up in the pocket of a skilled doctor that helps off-set the 20 years of schooling that he endured and the loans he took out. And – you’re not going to believe this one, Karlyn – some of that money seems to go to the 1 million SEIU workers in the healthcare industry that make slightly more here than in India. Because, you know, they have an American lifestyle, maybe a couple of cars, great union benefits, and homes with something that we in America like to call flush toilets. (link)

Quite separately from the nasty slur about India in this quote, Beck’s logic completely escapes me. If anyone can actually make sense of what he is trying to say, I would be curious to hear it. I think this is an elaborate way of saying Americans shouldn’t do medical tourism in India, but rather pay premium rates for procedures not covered by insurance, because some of the money they might be giving a surgeon will somehow go to SEIU workers? (But what’s all this about loans and so on? Is he aware that Indian students bring millions upon millions of dollars into American higher education?)

But of course, the real stunner in this ‘bit’ from Beck is the following:

I don’t want a discounted doctor. I don’t want discounted wages. I don’t want any of this stuff. If I wanted to live in India, I’d live in India. I want not the Indian lifestyle, I want the American lifestyle. I’m sure, no offense to India, I’m sure it’s beautiful and everything. I’ve heard especially this time of year, especially by the – you know that one big river they have there that sounds like a disease? Come on, it does. I mean, if somebody said, ‘I’m sorry, you have a really bad case of Ganges,’ you’d want Cipro.” (link)

While the earlier rant directed at medical tourism, incoherent as it was, had some salience to the health care debate, this bit of assholery is just utterly gratuitous.

I’m looking forward to the day this guy falls back into obscurity. A few months ago, left-leaning activists launched a campaign to get Beck’s advertisers to pull back from his show. While they were successful, it hasn’t done anything to slow him down. Beck’s provocations are working: his rating continue to be high, no matter how many times he’s mocked by comedians and spat at by bloggers. It’s hard for me personally to get newly outraged when this guy has been, for months, comparing President Obama to Hitler and the like.

Still, the level of offense these statements could provoke in India itself, if the comments end up being covered in the Indian media (hint hint), could make things interesting for Beck. (Here’s a tip for any Indian journalists reading this: Rupert Murdoch, who owns Fox News, also owns Star TV… Hmm…)

123 thoughts on ““The big river they have there that sounds like a disease”: Glenn Beck on India

  1. Beck doesn’t make any sense in this video: The medical care that lady in the video received was on par with what she would have received in the US, but it was cheaper, because costs are lower in India. She didn’t say she wanted to live there, just that she could AFFORD the hip replacement there, and she couldn’t afford it in the US. For people who are wealthy and CAN afford it in the US, no problem. Not all of us are wealthy television celebrities with a strong fan base.

    Some of us are just regular ol’ “shlubbs”, like Beck references here;

    http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-13-2009/glenn-beck-s-operation

    And by saying that “ganges” sounds like a “disease” at the very end, we are supposed to associate “India” with “illness” and not go there. LOL.

    Poor sublimiminal messaging technique.

    Anyway, he doesn’t address the issue of medical tourism and it’s validity for those of us who cannot afford domestic surgeries.

  2. 99 · ronnieboy on December 13, 2009 9:13 PM · Direct link This discussion is getting more serious than it should. We can argue (like the ‘Argumentative Indian’ by Sen?) about healthcare and poverty and technology and whiteass supremacy ad nauseum till the cows come home, it ain’t gonna change nothin’. There’s only one language that slimebuckets like Beck understand – you gotta hang him by the balls (figuratively, of course). Enough of insipid Ghandian nonviolence. We need role models like Subhash Chandra Bose. Where’s the spirit of mutiny?

    Pray, what does this mean? Boycott does not work as I have demonstrated with Van Jones and Dunn over and over again. Despite your ‘figuratively’, you seem to be going more in the direction of Sirhan Sirhan.

  3. look liberals, you don’t want glen beck (or for that matter rush) off the air. haven’t you noticed the Obama admin has all but made rush the defacto head of the republican party? Why? they make all sorts of incendiary comments that liberals can use to tar the entire republican party with. the repubs are then stuck between a rock and a hardplace because they don’t want to offend their base while at the same time they don’t want to be associated with bigotry. the association therefore sticks and moderates are scared away, turning to the dems while the repuclican party becomes more purist…eventually resulting in them nominating palin and Bam then cruses to a 2nd term even if he can’t get healthcare or any other reform done, which looks more likely mostly due to your former VP candidate.

    get with the program.

  4. look liberals, you don’t want glen beck (or for that matter rush) off the air. haven’t you noticed the Obama admin has all but made rush the defacto head of the republican party? Why? they make all sorts of incendiary comments that liberals can use to tar the entire republican party with.

    But. . . some of us want a functional Republican party that makes reasonable contributions to public policy.

  5. Beck doesn’t make any sense in this video: The medical care that lady in the video received was on par with what she would have received in the US, but it was cheaper, because costs are lower in India. She didn’t say she wanted to live there, just that she could AFFORD the hip replacement there, and she couldn’t afford it in the US.

    yeah, there’s no sense in what Beck is saying. and it doesn’t make sense b/c America NEEDED thousands of Indian drs, nurses, scientists, etc to use their Indian education to come to the US. So why does Beck make it sound like an Indian education has to mean underperformance?….b/c it fits with the lowest common denominator thinking that doesn’t take into account the reality with all its nuances. India has first world and thrid world education facilities. Indian drs and nurses must pass an exam to practice here in the States…and the ones that do thrive. My friend who is Hungarian and went to hungarian med school did not pass the what I believe is called the mlse here and she’s in quite a fix, b/c I believe you can only take it 3 times and w/o passing this exam you can’t go on to residency.

    So anyways back to the point, that Beck doesn’t make any sense.

    And as far as diseased rivers – I want India to clean up the Ganges and I’m sure there’s tons of environmental issues that need to be improved…no one is discouting that. But the US despite being a developed nation has its own environmental problems and river pollution – and a developed nation really shouldn’t compare its standards to a developing nation that doesn’t have the same resources or the longevity as an action nation-state.

    How old is my country the US? – it became a country in 1776….and yet the nation’s capital river, the Potomac still gets a D- in its environmental grade:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/11/AR2008111101148.html

    Prema/Sen/GoBeck/ Blackgodmen/Dhoni/Kabir and whatever else you must use to slink around to give your ignorant comments – it would be nice if you had the courage to keep one name and argue a point from that name, instead of pretending a new ignorant person is commenting to support yourself. Really if the point is good, having one name won’t hurt you, just make your point.

  6. But. . . some of us want a functional Republican party that makes reasonable contributions to public policy.

    b/f a market rebounds it needs to bottom out, allowing it to weed out the excess. only after the social conservative/paranoid militia set sees one of their own crash and burn in a general election will the republican party be able to redefine itself and return to making reasonable contributions. in the meantime, a week republican party inevitably creates a culture of corruption within the dems (which we are clearly seeing now), which in turn gives repubs the perfect issue.to run against once they rebound.

  7. it looks like immigration reform is on the agenda for 2010. if you think beck and the teabaggers are crazy in their opposition to HCR, you haven’t seen anything yet. it will be a curious mixture of the crazy coupled with virulent racism. fun times ahead.

  8. You must have a decent poker game with those skills

    only a decent poker? he sure talks them skills up.

  9. Well, after I poker, i don’t like to go around telling people about it. But I can’t keep her from talking.

  10. nasha dear, no fear…..the emphasis is on ‘figuratively’….the pen is mightier than the sword…..mutiny zindabad!

  11. nasha dear, no fear…..the emphasis is on ‘figuratively’….the pen is mightier than the sword…..mutiny zindabad!

    No worries, darling.

  12. glenn beck of fox news says that indian medical system’s a joke and we are nothing but a cheap imitation of the west,and i am sure that all this information must have taken hours and hours of datiled research…kudos to you glenn for that story..and thank you for letting the world know the level to which american television has fallen to.i just want to ask one question to glenn and fox networks, do you lot represent the american mass or only you bunch are such illetarates and dumbos…but kudos to glenn again for letting us know how low life our medical system is because the last time i checked the first awake heart surjery was done in india and strangely not in america..i wonder why…the number of foreign nationals coming to india for medical healthcare was more than 30% last year..and why is that glenn.

    i am sure i have heard wrong about indian education and medical facility..and mr.glenn is right..but i was told that the majority of good doctors in america are indians and they haven’t yet given up their indian passports…but i am sure i am wrong and that can’t be true. i also heard that the USB which americans and people all over the world so gladly use was co-created by an indian…that isn’t true..the educational syatem are are a joke…rigt glenn???but statistics state that 36% employees working for NASA are indians..38% of doctors in america are indians…34% of microsoft employees are indian..American Medical Association saying out of 900,000 doctors in the US, 720,000 actually see patients and of them 48,000 have degrees from India. according to american medical association out of 900,000 doctors in the us,720,000 actually see patients and of them 48,000 have degress from india..no wait there’s more glenn…15.5% of all silicon valley tech start-ups had indians as key founders witha nation wide average more than 7%. One reason for Indians’ remarkable contribution in the knowledge sector is the US education and the US Census Bureau says 64 percent of Indians over 25 years of age have a bachelor’s degree against the national average of 24 percent.Census Bureau says 64% of indian over the age of 25 have a bachelors degree against the national average in US being 24%

    but i am sure glenn beck knew those things and probably didint bring em up because they are probably not true…right how can that be..but when any american calls microsofts help line its an indian picking up the phone and not any of glenn’s family..am i right mr.bleck…how many years did you take to pass high school???you said ganga..or ganges thats how you illeterate prounce it sound like a deasease…how dare you insult us..and our religion…what right you have to critisize the oldest surviving religion…and i bet you don’t even go to church.

    and you talked about “toilet flushes” well lets just not talk about the bathroom habits of westerners…still wiping it off i bet…

    thats the time i can spent on dumbs like glen beck and like minded americans…but i am sure not all of them in america are illetarates some of them must have gone to college…well to them i hope you’ll support this blog..your comments whatsoever are most welcome

    lobe youbeck..keep up the good work..chaw.

  13. Hasn’t anyone noticed the really insulting thing he said about India, specifically about our doctors, hospitals and medical systems: that they are substandard, that they are somehow “fake”, that Indian medical colleges are laughable. He does all of this when he uses that metaphor of fake Gucci bags. This is more insulting to me as an Indian than any jokes he makes about the names of our rivers or the non-existence of flush toilets (that part is aimed at his domestic audiences in that third-world-putting-down sense). I don’t mind all that. But dissing on our intellectual resources and competence is inexcusable.

  14. Hasn’t anyone noticed the really insulting thing he said about India, specifically about our doctors, hospitals and medical systems: that they are substandard, that they are somehow “fake

    I have; I know that the Indian education system is really suffering and not reaching most Indian children. You’ll see my own comments as my father and many of his friends were doctors that emigrated from India during the ’70s when the US needed Indian minds to fill the empty spaces in medicine, science, nursing, engineering etc. And these folks sure have thrived.

    Beck is laughable in his need to stereotype a developing country’s education system, when right here in America, in our hospitals, in our Office Depots, we can see that there are some Indian education systems that are on par with the US despite the wide gulf in resources. He doesn’t care about the overall Indian Education system, our problems stemming from poverty, and yes diversity, caste, religion – he doesn’t care about nuances but trying to degrade another group of people that aren’t white.

    The most ironic thing about this (beyond the polluted Potomac’s condition in a developed country and the US being one of the world’s biggest polluters) is that everyday Beck, the idiot uses technology designed by Indians from Indian schools, 60 minutes did documentary on the competitiveness of Indian IITs, silicon valley is inundated with Indian grads, and Indian drs and scientists are providing the competitive services that Americans for some reason were lacking, that Beck uses. This coming from a guy who didn’t finish hs; and we all know that status of many Americans hs in the US.

  15. “And also, in our research that it took us, oh about 40 seconds, we figured out that some of that money here in America winds up in the pocket of a skilled doctor that helps off-set the 20 years of schooling that he endured and the loans he took out.”

    Well of course. He’s forgetting that all Indians are born with a certain level of graduate level medical training.

  16. “And also, in our research that it took us, oh about 40 seconds, we figured out that some of that money here in America winds up in the pocket of a skilled doctor that helps off-set the 20 years of schooling that he endured and the loans he took out.”

    Didn’t Micheal Moore cover this in his movie SICKO? Doctors in UK are paid well but they are happy with just one house and a car. In the US doctors want a house, a Florida condo, 2 or 3 sports cars and a yacht. That’s why they need to get paid so much. Not because of student loans.

  17. Though this guy is not being politically correct, it is quite hasty to label him racist. He would very likely have made the same type of remark if the country in question were white. It’s more an expression of the superiority/preference of the American lifestyle over a third world country. In other words, if India were a ‘white’ country, but very poor and offering cheaper medical treatment, he would say more or less the same things.

  18. “the Amrikan left, which “likes’ the “Islamists” because they “hate” “America” wind up allied against the “Hindus” because they don’t like the Islamists.”

    That’s a very shallow and crude ‘left’, that merely dislikes people or groups because of their view of America. The real “left’ supports freedom, justice and democracy for all people, regardless of religion or current geo-political circumstances. It’s also crude, ignorant and shallow( that is, if it isn’t motivated and conniving) to project the Israel-Palestinian issue on to India, to score a point about Hindus and Moslems. India is a massive victim of Pakistani instigated terror. Period. You don’t have to be Left or Right to see that, or to condemn it. Incidentally, the former presidential candidate John Kerry, a left-liberal, has frankly stated that India is the biggest victim of terror in the world, among all the democracies.

  19. I hope when Glenn Beck is in hospital doesn not get treated by an Indian or for sake Asian doctor trained in India. I didn;t feel idiot beck worthy of a comment but let me just say this an average indian or asian doctor will have more IQ than ignorant beck’s whole family.

  20. Oh my…..is Glenn Beck even worth taking seriously/being offended at? If you look at his previous statements, the man is a joke in general.

  21. Sumon Basu on December 15, 2009 12:52 AM · Direct link

    The Indian Education System seems to have done well by your standards. Not surprised.

    Ad hominem attacks against Beck is not going to make him any poorer. Just as a note.

  22. Dilip, here is a list of some people who would be able to answer your question authoritatively.

    Lupus you are such an irrational excuse-maker. It is people just like you who are responsible for India’s intractable backwardness. A picture of flush commodes for sale in India “authoritatively” refutes Beck? Lol

    Here is the ugly reality about the sanitation facilities, or lack thereof, in India. Half of indian homes do not even have the usual hole in the ground that passes for a toilet in India. One third of Delhiites defecate in the open! Probably no other country approaches the miserable state of India’s sanitation and hygiene conditions:

    http://www.deccanchronicle.com/big-story/india-stinking-881

    India stinking!

    December 20th, 2009 By Rashme Sehgal

    When Queen Elizabeth II visited Delhi twelve years, she was so “disgusted” with “dirty Delhi” that she complained to the then Prime Minister, Mr Inder Kumar Gujral, at a state banquet that India’s capital was one of the dirtiest cities she had visited. Asked to explain what she had meant by “dirty”, a senior official from the British High Commission responded by explaining that the Queen was referring to “people easing themselves in public.” An upset Mr Gujral, along with the then President K.R. Narayanan, were photographed the following morning, brooms in their hands, cleaning a street outside Rashtrapati Bhawan. The gesture amounted to sheer tokenism. Little has changed since then, or why would the environment minister, Mr Jairam Ramesh, have lashed out with his comment on India deserving a Nobel prize for filth?

    A survey across eight nations had Indian homes being ranked amongst the dirtiest in the world. Also, 50 per cent of Indian homes do not have toilets and people continue to defecate in the open, according to a United Nations survey.

    As a result of the rising filth, 80 per cent of urban waste in India ends up in the country’s rivers, and unchecked urban growth across the country combined with poor government oversight means the problem is only getting worse. India’s holiest rivers, the Ganga and the Yamuna, are dying due to unchecked pollution.