{"id":2706,"date":"2010-08-29T02:32:42","date_gmt":"2010-08-29T09:32:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=2706"},"modified":"2010-08-29T02:57:40","modified_gmt":"2010-08-29T09:57:40","slug":"he-didnt-even-have-a-scream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2010\/08\/29\/he-didnt-even-have-a-scream\/","title":{"rendered":"He Didn’t Even Have a Scream"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\"29scream\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I have not yet heard the entire text of Glen Beck\u2019s speech yesterday.\u00a0 I\u2019m still just to tired to clean the barf that would be soaking my keyboard if I had.\u00a0 However, from almost everything I have read and heard, it was a complete flop, except on Fox, of course.\u00a0 If Beck\u2019s purpose was, as he has claimed, to restore the civil rights movement and reenergize America, he failed miserably. I don\u2019t see Beck doing anything for any purpose other than promoting himself.<\/span><\/p>\n

The official estimate of crowd size was\u00a0 500,000<\/a>, while most of the MSM are guessing at 100,000 to 120,000.\u00a0 I was in the same place in 1963, and helped organize several demonstrations in Washington from 1966 \u2013 1968.\u00a0 The 500,000 claim is absurd.\u00a0 From the pictures I have seen, I would estimate the crowd at between 50,000 and 100,000.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is a day that we can start the heart of America again,” Beck said. “It has nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with God. Everything [with] turning our face back to the values and the principles that made us great.”<\/p>\n

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was a featured speaker, invited not as a political leader, she told the crowd, but as the mother of a soldier who fought on behalf of the nation. Still, her remarks were peppered with references to how elected officials had led the nation astray<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

“It is so humbling to get to be here with you today, patriots \u2014 you who are motivated and engaged and concerned, knowing to never retreat,” she said. “No, we must not fundamentally transform America as some would want; we must restore America and restore her honor.”\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <LA Times<\/a>><\/p>\n

One of the most poignant observations I found comes from Mark Herman of Salon.com<\/a> that there were only 27 African-Americans in the crowd, including the 3 on stage.\u00a0 Mark provided this video of his interviews of rally attendees:<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/span><\/p>\n

Are those people clueless or what?<\/span><\/p>\n

After the rally, the attendees seemed subdued:<\/span><\/p>\n

The Glenn Beck fans on my subway car after today\u2019s rally were a subdued bunch.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t seem energized by having spent time with their idol and many thousands of fellow fans. Why not?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was kind of boring,\u201d said one. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t what I expected<\/strong>,\u201d said another. \u201cIt was good,\u201d one said with an unenthusiastic shrug. \u201cHe had some good speakers.\u201d One recalled someone sitting near them grumbling, \u201cI didn\u2019t come all this way for an awards ceremony<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not the reaction you\u2019re going for when you\u2019ve declared your intention of fundamentally transforming the country and sparking a Great Awakening that will turn the country back to God.<\/p>\n

It wouldn\u2019t be surprising if a lot of attendees at today\u2019s rally feel like victims of a bait and switch<\/strong>. Beck built a huge fan base with over-the-top attacks on President Obama \u2013 he hates white people, he\u2019s a communist-socialist-Nazi \u2013 denunciations of \u201csocial justice\u201d Christians, and hard-hitting appeals to the anti-government Tea Party brigades to save America from all the evil villains who are trying to destroy it from within.\u00a0 There are a lot of people in America who love Beck because they believe he is telling them these hard truths that nobody else has the guts to tell them.\u00a0 They were the folks with the \u201cDon\u2019t Tread on me\u201d and \u201cTaking our Country Back\u201d T-shirts. But today Beck was preaching love and unity. We\u2019re all Americans aren\u2019t we?… [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Right Wing Watch<\/a>><\/p>\n

Perhaps Beck is trying to recast himself as a saint, but he built his media following on a base of hatred, racism, intolerance and lies.\u00a0 The Republican base that follows him and his cohorts at Faux Noise<\/em> won\u2019t accept anything less that the vile tripe he has built his career spewing.\u00a0 They wanted blood, and he didn\u2019t even have a scream.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 I have not yet heard the entire text of Glen Beck\u2019s speech yesterday.\u00a0 I\u2019m still just to tired to clean the barf that would be soaking my keyboard if I had.\u00a0 However, from almost everything I have read and heard, it was a complete flop, except on Fox, of course.\u00a0 If Beck\u2019s purpose was, […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2706\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}