What hath Glenn Beck Wrought? Naught but Rot.

". . .There is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone." 

Martin Luther King,  August 28, 1963

Here it is, the morning after the heralded Glenn Beck "Restoring Honor" rally, held on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial inches away from the exact spot where Martin Luther King delivered his "I have a Dream" speech exactly 47 years ago. (Beck claimed it was "coincidence" that his speech was delivered then and there, but we know Beck so we know better.)

So the crowds came and the numbers were relatively "vast", and we're in a tizzy because it just shouldn't be.  It's Glenn Beck in charge and he's a mean one, and there's fear of a sullying or a misremembering or a watering-down of MLK's glorious words.

Fear not, oh, please.  Crowds are what we have with Glenn Beck but resonance is what we cherish with the Rev. Martin Luther King.  When we quote entire phrases from Dr. King, even now, after nearly a half-century, we're uplifted by their goodness and reminded of his courage and his deeds.  He brought us around to his way of thinking at a time when there was still so much resistance to the notion of racial equality.  We look back now (most of us who lived through it) and wonder how we could have been so blinded for so long, until true leaders--good men and women willing to lay down their lives for the kind of justice that should have been theirs all along--spoke to us in words and actions we could finally understand.

This is what Glenn Beck wants his flock to believe he's doing now.   Yesterday's Beck put on his religious cloak and preached goodness and mercy and a back-to-God  message that might have brought tears to our eyes, had we not known about the Beck-Before-Yesterday.

That is the Beck he's going to have to live down if we're to believe anything he said at the MLK "I Have A Dream" site. Glenn Beck's history is neither as a peaceful organizer nor as a man of God.  He's not even a man of the people.  He is a man of the person, an island unto himself.  This is his show, his shtick, and tomorrow the matinee will have changed and on the screen will be Glenn Beck, the actor, in yet another role designed to keep his paying audience riveted and agitated.

It's possible that he'll like this role so much he'll do an encore and we'll see him in MLK makeup for a while longer, but Beck is Beck and not that good at the kind of discipline that would require him to maintain the persona.

He is smart enough, however, to know his own people.  They're not peacemakers, either, and they won't tolerate this for long.  It's all an act, it's all a game, and they're playing because they think there's something in it for them.  Their goal is to destroy the "others" (that's us) and "take back" the country (our country--all of ours).
 
 It won't happen.

Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and spoke to a huge crowd of their followers.  That was the significance of yesterday.  The significance of MLK's "I have a dream" speech 47 years ago to the day is that we still remember it and we still honor the man who gave it.  We still believe in the America he dreamed about, and we still understand our roles in preserving it.

Glenn Beck tried to dilute that message yesterday and he failed.

Curtain down. 

Finis. 


Ramona

Obama's "I Have a Dream" speech

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

MLK, August 28, 1963, Lincoln Memorial.

I watched President Obama's speech at Cairo University this morning--this intelligent, thoughtful cry for justice, tolerance and peace given in front of an intelligent, hopeful audience of young people who hold the future of their worlds in their hands-- and as I listened, I realized that this was Barack Obama's "I have a dream" speech.

When Martin Luther King gave his impassioned speech that sizzling day in Washington in 1963 there were no illusions that it was the speech that was going to change the world. It gained resonance and built power and ultimately became the battle cry and the triumph of the civil rights movement because of MLK's eloquent observations of simple truths. We could no longer defend the notion that a nation as strong as ours could go on denying a segment of our population equal rights under the law. We were a better people than that.

Over time we either forgot or ignored those lessons--that we can only function as a whole when we all have the same opportunities to rise above--and it cost us. But today our president, Barack Hussein Obama, reminded us that we are citizens of the world. He reminded us that other cultures, other religions, other beliefs live side by side with us here in America. He reminded us that we as a people, as a nation, have an obligation to ourselves to do the right thing.

It was a brave speech. He talked openly about Muslims and their place in the world, knowing that the hatemongers would barely wait for the speech to be over before they would begin their attack. He talked about what we as Americans would do to help bring peace to a tattered Middle East, but there were no promises that we would provide the solutions.

There was loud cheering whenever Obama talked about Muslims and their rights, but noticeable silence when he talked about peace in Israel. There is still a long way to go, but there was no question that Obama sees himself as a citizen of the world. He comes to it naturally, given his background, and he has allowed himself to see the world from all viewpoints.

As he was talking (reading from his prompters, if you must) I thought about our last "president" giving a speech of that magnitude and how it would have gone over. The best speechwriters on the planet couldn't have given GWB the power, the presence, the authority to handle it. It wouldn't have been seen as anything even close to genuine. Nor would it have held up over time, as Obama's speech surely will.

But I happened to be watching MSNBC during the speech and so when it was over, it was Joe Scarborough who was there to give the commentary. This is what Joe said minutes into his own speechifying:

"I found it fascinating that he didn't move away from George W. Bush's belief in democracy and the rights of women."

No, it's true. He really said that. Then, moments later, he brought in Liz Cheney to dissect Obama's speech and give her take on what it all means. He really did.

And moments after that I changed the channel to CNN, where intelligence reigned and people from all sides and other cultures discussed the speech at length.

I have no illusions about Barack Obama's power to make changes. I don't see him as a deity. I don't always agree with everything he does. I don't see an end to Muslim extremism.

But at this moment, on this day, I give thanks that he's where he is and that he's who he is. I'm proud of our president. I haven't been able to say that in a very long time.

Ramona