It's been called a lot of things... Beckapalooza.
Glenn Beck's "I Have a Scheme" rally. The Fear and Loathing March on Washington. And, of course, Restoring Honor. FOX News dressed it up
with a nice logo (left) and graphic treatment as part of their fair and balanced reporting.
As they always do, crowd estimates were spit-balled. They ranged from
87,000 (CBS News' independent consultant) to 300,000 (NBC News, unsourced) to 5
million (my friend Rikk on a Facebook post where we were trying to trump one
another). Videos were shot, Beck squeezed out some tears (presumably he's
learned to do that without the Vics VaPoRub under his eyes by now... 'cause
people can smell that stuff a mile away you know).
But a funny thing happened on the way to the rally:
Glenn found God (again). This time he found her in words procured from
speeches given by Martin Luther King Jr. and President Obama, among others.
And he found three of his major rhetorical points in my old Sunday school
reader (and also, though I am not sure, the Boy Scout handbook): Faith,
hope and charity. I have to hand it to Mr. Beck. He picked three virtues
that pretty much everyone finds decent and acceptable, at least in a general
sense. Sure, "faith" has a religious definition... as in
"Christian faith." which Mr. Beck was leaning upon firmly as he
worked himself into full-tilt revival mode. Hope, oddly, was ridiculed
extensively by one of his special guest stars, Sarah Palin. (I can still
hear her sing-songy "How's that hopey-changy stuff working out for
ya?" meme.) Now, for Sarah, hope's back in style... perhaps as in
"I hope I can continue to charge really high appearance fees because all
the hope in the world is not going to get me into the presidency.) And
charity. In Republican-speak, isn't that something you do for a
write-off? That's if you're giving charity, of course. If you are
taking charity, it's welfare or handouts, and it goes to lazy crack heads and
it's evil.
In a bunch of back and forth comments on a few Facebook
threads, this became a discussion topic. My friend Troy described the
Beck virtues as follows:
As long as it's Christian faith, hope for corporate profits, and charity for people who don't really need it.
My cousin, the good ol' boy, weighed in from the Deep South
Faith - Black Liberation 'Theology' and the Government
Hope - Someone else pays my mortgage, car payment, utilities
Charity - Steal from those who work and give who [sic] those who won't
And my independent nee Libertarian high school friend Craig
from Idaho called the question:
Dave, this deal got snagged in your craw alright [sic]. By the way I'd like to see your rebuttal to each of the points your cousin made.
Take Faith, Hope and Charity from your perspective. Looking forward to reading that post.
I started to answer him, but it grew far too long for
Facebook and became the Daily Kos and/or Kerfuffle post I was looking to write
since it's been a while since I've really ranted.
So, Craig, since you asked...
When mentioned as glittering generalities, a la Mr. Beck
yesterday, it's hard to simplify these three important virtues to brief definitions.
You can be sort of cynical, and Troy may have taken that route. You can
be crass, and I submit my cousin's version for that. I'll choose to be
optimistic...
Faith:
That I can count on my fellow man to treat me with the same amount of respect
and dignity that I try to treat my fellow man. Essentially, as I am
agnostic and therefore do not subscribe to a specific version of a
"god" but rather consider myself to be a spiritual being and that
while I cannot explain it, there is some natural force greater than man.
But man is the one force in our world that is rational, and therefore is
capable of working with/living with his/her fellow man/woman and together
making the world a better place. In short, my faith is in humanity
itself... not some competing deity.
Hope: I
have great hope that my fellow man will rise to the occasion, whatever it may
be, with what it takes to move mankind forward. This may be with
creativity, with discovery, with sacrifice, with love, with effort, with labor,
or other man-driven forces, be they intellectual, spiritual or physical. To
"hope" that "god's will" might make a difference or impact
on one's life is, to me, a cop out. Hope is something that comes from
within.
Charity:
That's pretty simple. Man helping man, addressing the needs of the less
fortunate, less intelligent, less gifted, less educated, less physically able,
less advantaged. It might be giving your used clothes to Goodwill, even
if mostly for the write-off. But it is a lot more than that. It's
an attitude of shared responsibility for the collective welfare of mankind.
Sure, there will always be people who take "charity" of some kind and
may be less-deserving than others. Just because one lady at the Beck
rally rants on and on for the camera how the Obama administration is planning
death camps (really!) for people who don’t embrace socialism is not reason to
think all Tea Partiers are batshit crazy (though one must wonder at times).
I find interesting the turn Mr. Beck took with his booklet
of virtues, veering away from politics and toward revival. I'm
speculating this redirection came at the behest of his corporate masters,
funders, and the Republican powers that be, lest he trash the party. He
borrowed from MLK's and Obama's speeches, he made it all about Christian love
and benevolence, and he had people eating out of his hand. Even though
many, many people in the tea party movement have demonstrated, repeatedly,
that they are not grounded in reality, it is a stroke of genius --
self-promoting egotistic genius but genius nonetheless -- to make this rally
appear as a big apolitical Christian gathering. He essentially bailed on his
politics and fell back on the Lord... always crowd pleaser. It was not
without it's hiccups, of course. Seeing Beck's disciples chant at
Reverend Al Sharpton's people "Go to church!" was oddly amusing, let
alone ironic, though also rather bigoted in terms of religion versus religion.
Beck's performance was brilliant in terms of a well-crafted
message strategy. He may well have done a huge favor to the more
mainstream Republicans, who truly feared what this loose cannon might let fly,
because he fell in line with the God and Christianity = Republicans meme.
That's both powerful and valuable to a party with no real plans or policy other
than to go back to what drove the economy in the ditch in the first place.
So, sure, give more tax breaks to the top 2% (because we know they are suffering), take
health care back away from people who otherwise can't afford it, make Muslims
hate us even more, extend the age for Social Security while reducing
benefits... the same old GOP hit parade of failed policy. Unfortunately, people who blindly
buy into the God Gays and Guns style of crap -- and it is crap in my not-so-humble opinion -- will buy it lock, stock and barrel.
Sometimes it's simply not possible to save people from their
own ignorance, prejudice and fear. Some who read that might feel that's a rather
"elitist intellectual" thing to say. I can't help that. But for better or for worse, I
learned early on in my advertising career that with the right message, offer
and pitchman, you can sell a lot of ice to an Inuit. People can be manipulated
to behave in a way that is counter to their best interests. You can get
people to buy fast food and high-fat snacks that are terrible for them.
You can get people to make bad investments (antique gold coins anyone?).
And you can get people to vote for a candidate or party that will actually make
their life worse off. It's a lousy thing to do... to take advantage of
people who don't realize they are being played. But Shame is rarely invited to
the party in politics (or marketing), especially when Money and Power are making the guest
list.
Are the Democrats geniuses? Hardly. Are there a
lot of corrupt liberals? Probably as many as conservatives. But do
liberals and progressives actually care more about their fellow man? Yes,
I truly think so. That's what makes them liberals and progressives.
They think in terms of the future and of "we" while conservatives
tend to think of the status quo and of "me."
All too often, none of that matters when most people are
low information voters, and are easily manipulated. Capitalism and politics
both count on that to a large degree. Mr. Barnum, who gleefully welcomed
the suckers that were born every minute, knew the value of good old-fashioned
gullibility when you have something to sell that can't be sold on merit alone.
[cross-posted at Daily Kos]
Like most thinking people, I have what I consider to be well-reasoned opinions about a lot of things. (Not that you'd ever notice that from reading stuff here or anything.) I try to stay informed by consuming a wide variety of news and opinion media from both traditional and new media sources. Yet I still found myself dumbfounded by what I can only describe as the group-think thuggery that was played out by the self-described Tea Partiers last week in Washington and across the country.
Thomas Jefferson noted in his writing that our country was built on dissent. Freedom of speech and of assembly are core rights valued deeply by most Americans. To protest what one thinks is wrong about some aspect of government action is an important form of participation in our democracy. Yet I find it both amazing and disheartening that so many people these days seem to take on a selective approach to free speech.
Remember a short four or five years ago when supporters of the previous President and his then-majority party were quick to shout down anyone who dared speak out against the President? According to those on the Right, it was downright un-American to question our increasing use of torture or the erosion of our civil rights. Any suggestion that the people were being manipulated into submission by fear and propaganda was to beg to be asked why you hated America.
Today, almost 18 months after Barack Obama soundly trounced the McCain/Palin ticket to become president, those same people, now in the minority, are still bleating about birth certificate authenticity, the President's supposed secret Muslim faith, and how awful it is that the current majority in Congress is actually doing what majorities get to do: draft and pass legislation. The Conservatives cry foul over a lack of bipartisanship even though Republicans do nothing to advance any issue, remaining steadfast in their strategy to say "No" to virtually everything.
Think about it. Back a few years the oh-so-pious Republicans, admonished as treasonous anyone who would dare speak out against anything their king, err, I mean President Bush might do. Today, many of those same conservative Congressman stand idly by as their supporters in the media and in the streets condone and commit acts of violence, spew racist epithets, spit upon members of Congress and do all kinds of other toxic things. They increasingly commingle with purveyors of hate speech and crazy talk (e.g. Limbaugh and Beck) while their party strategists play to the fears and upon the ignorance of their devoted followers. The Congressmen themselves label the President and his majority tyrannical for making laws they and their benefactors dislike. All the while, their followers demonstrate their utter ignorance of politics and government by using words like fascist, Nazi, communist and socialist as if they all mean the same thing. It doesn't matter how totally false and patently ignorant, as long as it is screamed at a loud volume.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nothing new in this observation. Indeed, Republicans have always been pretty good at playing to their base, knowing that god, gays and guns will stoke the religious fundamentalists. Any mention of social programs for those who need help gets turned around into some sort of evil entitlement for "those people," red meat for the rabid racists among us. Most of us, of course, are thankfully neither intolerant religious fundamentalists nor hate-mongering klan members. But those seem to be the people who always get on TV. Those are the narrow-minded screamers who for better or for worse are the face of today's Conservative movement. And soon, they'll pretty much be the face of the Republican party as the more level-headed moderates flee. (I was an early adopter...I fled the GOP about 15 years ago.)
The thing that got me to thinking about this, oddly, was not the video of the guy who spit on a Congressman, and not the sound bites of people yelling "nigger" and "fagot" at other members of Congress. It wasn't even the audio of Rush Limbaugh talking in a (poorly done) stereotypical Southern Black voice about entitlements that were "just like Christmas!" as he race-baited his legion of Dittoheads. (I never understood why anyone would be proud of that nickname, which essentially proclaims "I cannot think for myself," but i digress.) No, it was the unfortunate story a friend told yesterday about how her son is routinely bullied at school.
The boy is in sixth grade. He's a really smart kid, but is also painfully shy, prone to anxiety issues, and is very small for his age. Kids being kids, he gets teased, pushed around, and generally treated so badly at school that he is excited about the possibility of being home schooled. He's npt like the other kids, so that means he is to be ostracized by the group-thinkers. Of course, group-think is part of nature of childhood. Most kids outgrow it like they outgrow acne. This boy's situation reminded me of the knuckle-dragging jerks in my junior and senior high schools that picked on the kids who were like this boy. They never really had any reason to be jerks, I thought, except that they could be. They were used to getting their way, whether by might, by parental fiat of their own greatness, or as a result of the preferential treatment routinely shown to student athletes. No matter if a kid couldn't write a coherent sentence or do basic geometry problems; as long as he could catch a football or throw heat on the baseball diamond, he was made to feel better than others.
Of course, unless those boys (or girls) married well or perhaps were coddled through a college career, the underachieving but overly ego-stroked jocks usually never matched their high school level of popularity and sway. A few trips to high school reunions always bear that out, for me and most likely for you. (That's why we go to those stupid things, of course.) Funny how it's always the shy ones and the brainiacs that turned out so well. And those once golden running backs and star centers? They're at the Tea Party rallies, mad at the world, bitching about the government while quietly cashing their government checks.
Update: Frank Rich's column from today's New York Times is worth a read. He's so, so, way, way better at this than I am, and he proves it every Sunday.
How curious that a mob fond of likening President Obama to Hitler knows so little about history that it doesn’t recognize its own small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht. The weapon of choice for vigilante violence at Congressional offices has been a brick hurled through a window. So far.
:::
If Obama’s first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory. The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play. It’s not happenstance that Frank, Lewis and Cleaver — none of them major Democratic players in the health care push — received a major share of last weekend’s abuse. When you hear demonstrators chant the slogan “Take our country back!,” these are the people they want to take the country back from.
[emphasis mine]
