Glenn Beck has been working hard to claim the mantle of Martin Luther King for conservatives like himself. He's even planning a big Tea Party event for the anniversary of King's march on Washington "I Have a Dream" speech. (Wait, let me guess: Glenn Beck, too, has a dream. Yegh.)
Thursday on his Fox News show, he tried to deny that progressives had any right to the mantle of civil rights:
Beck: Who were the Civil Rights marchers? They were people with a profound belief in God. They were trying to set things right. They weren't crying for social justice! They were crying out for equal justice!
Well, actually, Glenn ...
"Social justice" was a common rallying cry for the Civil Rights movement. Indeed, your newly adopted hero, Martin Luther King, gave a famous speech in Michigan titled "Social Justice and the Emerging New Age", on December 18, 1963, at the Herman W. Read Fieldhouse at Western Michigan University.
I think with all of these challenges being met and with all of the work, and determination going on, we will be able to go this additional distance and achieve the ideal, the goal of the new age, the age of social justice.
The speech may best be remembered for its stirring conclusion:
In spite of the difficulties of this hour, I am convinced that we have the resources to make the American Dream a reality. I am convinced of this because I believe Carlyle is right. "No lie can live forever." I am convinced of this because I believe William Cullen Bryant is right. "Truth pressed to earth will rise again." I am convinced of this because I think James Russell Lowell is right. "Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne; Yet that scaffold sways the future, And behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, Keeping watch above His own." Somehow with this faith, we will be able to adjourn the councils of despair and bring new life into the dark chambers of pessimism. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation to a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. This will be a great day. This will be the day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God, Almighty, we are free at last!"
Of course, this all kinda raises the point we've made previously with Beck: If progressives really are a cancer destroying America, what about the cause of civil rights they championed?
It's a joke and an outrage that Beck is trying to claim MLK's mantle for conservatives -- the people who were MLK's lifelong enemy. I hope folks in the civil rights community start making a stink about this nonsense.
is a spoiled, little, pathetic tyrant. His ratings are plummeting. Even many of his followers question his delusions of grandeur. He had his 15 minutes. Now off to the trash heap of history with him.
to explaining Beck's falling ratings. He is trying to seize the mantle of a great man that his viewers pretty much universally despise.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
that still listens to him.
Just responds to his food being dropped.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
backs on churches that are espousing things like helping the poor and standing up for equal rights?
Funny, I thought that's precisely what Dr. King did in his church...
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
"Dude, I like everything about MLK except that he's black."
after or before thinking it?
Glenn's gonna have his train set taken away.
No, I made that up. That's how I make fun of people. I say "Dude," in a stoner voice, and then say something stupid that sounds like something they might say. But essentially, that's the type of nonsensical circular logic he's employing.
He actually makes O'Riely looks sane.
So, they're havin a teabagger parade huh?
I'm sure there will be a turnout for his little event. Probably around 30K. Maybe more. He's had enough time to persuade people to go to this thing. I'm sure they'll triple the size in the reporting. No matter what it is.
But for him to try to take MLK's position on this, and spin it to fit his own needs is crazy. But, then again, we're talkin Glen Beck.
I see Campbell Brown quit because of low ratings. Becks days are numbered. It's just a matter of time. He doesn't care. He's made a boat load of money. Just like Palin is doing. They have one thing in mind, money. They couldn't care less about this country.
What is your conceptual, continuity?
Thought I saw her yesterday. Maybe that was Contessa Brewer?
So many talking heads. So little said.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
Eh! adios Campbell. Next up?
What is your conceptual, continuity?
Oh where ever will wee willy krystolnacht go to pontificate...?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
has got to be the most shameless sonofabitch to hit the airwaves since El Puerco Limbaugh first shoved his fat ass into national notice.
There is nothing even remotely socially redeemable about this buffoon and the only thing that keeps him on the air is the lowest common denominator of all, the uneducated, uninformed and totally intellectually incurious "morans" that make up his audience.
He's a cheap shill, a sideshow barker presiding over a lame assed freak show whose sole purpose appears to be to get his lame assed viewers to buy gold from some fly by night coin dealer who appears to be about the only flipping sponsor he has left.
Ailes would do better just cut his losses and boot this dumbass to the curb before he takes the whole FOX News organization down with him. I'm already convinced that the only reason you keep a crazy man on the air in spite of the fact that he doesn't have any sponsors and his audience is shrinking faster than a billy goat's balls in a blizzard is that you're just as bat shit crazy as he is.
than burning tires in Bangkok.
is better for one's health.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
It is class warfare. The first rule is divide and conquer. Ailes knows that perfectly well. Neither he nor his boss care about losses.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Sat, 05/22/2010 - 08:25 — Tom
I woulda said a penguins balls in the snow...
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Glenn has left are a few kooks and liberal web sites that enable him ;)
You said it all , nothing more to add .
Insanity , it is what it is , there is no understanding it .
Jean Kellaway p 90 from:
The History of Torture and Execution: From Early Civilization through Medieval Times to the Present by Jean Kellaway (Paperback - Nov. 2002) - A book before its time. here
and at Amazon here
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
I've no doubt it is a very thorough catalog of human cruelty but I'll pass.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
...that Beck's ratings are kind of tanking right now, but how is he allowed to go on national TV and make these utterly, demonstrably, false statements.
Why is no one else with as big a microphone calling him on it publicly and loudly?
I mean come on. This is just fantasy! It is not an interpretation (ideological or otherwise) of history we're talking about. Beck is just flat out WRONG!
Even 10 years ago, someone would have come out and called him on the BS. It can't possibly be that our collective consciousness has vanished in the 40 years since the Civil Rights Movement. Where is Jesse Jackson? Where is the King family? Where are other leaders of the movement that are still alive?
don't have access to the microphone. Thank the M$M.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwvI4k-V65g
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
about beck comparing himself to King. Something so profane it reeks of evil, donnit?
planned nearby?
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
I think one could build an argument that King was for equal opportunities, not equal outcomes, and it's an open question what he would've thought of Affirmative Action but Social Justice is a general principle much like when republicans try to argue they're for ma, apple pie and America.
Who in America isn't?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Coming up next from the coke-addled mind of Beck:
- MLK was into gold coins.
- That whole 'non-violence' thing was exaggerated. MLK packed heat and whupped ass!!
- When MLK sang 'We Shall Overcome', he meant overcome big government, fiat money, health care bureaucrats and Social Security!!
- If MLK had lived, he would have gone to work for a corporation, taken up golf and joined the NRA.
And the Freedom Bus riders were risking life and limb for a chance to collect a full set of Dixie Cups.
William Sloane Coffin was one of them and he was one of the greatest social justice progressive ministers of our time. Liberal, progressive, anti-war, anti nuclear, for justice over charity, supporter of gay rights, and on and on.
This is the strategy that both the NeoConservatives and NeoLiberals have been using to control the "message" of the liberal populists and liberal progressives, for many decades. It has only become patently obvious since the consolidation of the bulk of Main Stream Media into the clutches of the Crony Capitalists. Their final target is the Internet -- when they can control the "message" there as well, their control will be complete.
It is class warfare, using tactics of "divide and conquer" and NewSpeak / DoubleSpeak, and their strategy is working exceedingly well. Haven't we already seen blurbs in the media that MLK was not a pacifist progressive but actually a black Republican?
Welcome to the New World Order, where the populace and even entire governments are bent to the will and well-being of our crony capitalist masters -- privatized profits and socialized risks. This is naked Fascism or National Socialism, folks. It's really difficult to deny any more.
The $64.00 question is, what can we do about it, to change the paradigm? Voting for Tweedle Dee Dee or Tweedle Dee Dum seems to be ineffective, since the Republican and Democratic Parties are like two wings of the same Crony Capitalist Party.
[http://www.therealdifference.org/issues.html]
Armed resistance is out of the question. This country is already a quasi-police state: wholesale domestic electronic surveillance of the populace, COINTELPRO operations run rampant, a heavily armed police force already brutally efficient thanks to the contrived War OF Drugs, all Constitutional rights guarantees erased, and facing a mercenary-augmented military with 7+ years of experience suppressing rebellious civilian populations. If SWAT, National Guard, or the U.S. military aren't up to the task, there's always Blackwater/Xe which were deployed to New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
The only thing that I can think of that might be nominally effective is a pacifist-inspired resistance movement in the fashion of MLK and Gandhi -- a broadly based general strike of anti-consumer sentiment. Stop spending money on non-essentials, especially on credit, move all your money to small community banks or credit unions, and relying more on public transportation or bicycling/walking instead of using automobiles. Anyone else have more or similar suggestions?
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
-- John F. Kennedy
Its the Mao book in the lieberry that the oligarchs have been honing their skills upon. Only they won;t be participating from their gated 'hoods.
Given the gross ignorance and stupidity of half the people in this country , I hate to say it , but honestly I believe we are SOL .The Fascists have hit a little glitch right now in Obama , the Dems and a few Libs on MSNBC but it's just a temporary road block . One day these Fascist scum will regain power and control ... and then ? These treasonous saboteurs are not playing around , they are evil ,radical , dangerous and patient , this is no longer your father's or your grandfather's Repug party ( which was bad enough ). People need to pull their heads out of their butts and read some ( real ) history books.Speaking of history books , the school board in Texas , a bunch of right wing activists , complete simpletons who appear to be right out of the local bowling alley , sabotaged the history books of the public schools and rewrote history to suit their right wing political agenda .Are we the people going to accept this ? They gotta be stopped here and now .
Insanity , it is what it is , there is no understanding it .
I don't know if quite that percentage is ignorant
But I can tell you from personal experience that whenever anyone tries to show some erudition or insight
Others seem too eager to shoot them down
So people keep their own council.
America has had an antipathy to the learned since they started using the expression "Ivory Tower eggheads," however I think originally it was due to the lack of practicality in University education, not on expertise per se.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Drown itself in pointless opinion reporting and reality TV is a start.
Beck is calling it "Restoring Honor" and he is using a veteran's charity to help him fund it for free...by getting his fans to make "donations" to this 501c3 charity (tax deductable?)...but the first 1 1/2 - 2 million bucks (by Beck's own estimate) will go to pay for staging this vanity rally. Only after the expenses are met will the charity get a dime (at least, that is how it appears given the information available....and the disclaimers at the bottom of every plea for donations.)
Is that scammy or what? Using our veterans to make Beck look like a grand patriot and funneling the money to stage his rally through their charity? The board of this organization (Special Operations Warrior Foundation) really ought to be fired for associating their military charity with a lunatic that regularly compares the sitting commander in chief with enemies of America. What the heck are they thinking?
Soldiers are not immune to vanity, either.
teh stupid hurrtz...
Before enlightenment - chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment - chop wood, carry water.
Conservatives have now completely separated themselves from facts. They are trying to spin a world where they spew crap and the American people drink it up. Democrats don't believe in God. The zombies reply, "Yes, they don't believe in God." Martin Luther King was a conservative in the Reagan tradition. "MLK and Reagan, we understand," reply the Zombies.
It is part of their agenda to re-write history.
"The republican't war on reality."
When angry, count four, when very angry, swear.
-Mark Twain-
Becky attempting to usurp the civil rights movement is nothing new, CONservatives have been doing that since the 90's. It's part of their attempt to lay claim on all that is percieved to be good in America and claim it as a CONservative belief, they could care less that the CONservative position back then was against civil rights, or even that the leading lights of their so-called movement were calling Martin Luther King a commie and un-American and what not.
The truth does not matter, only the propaganda coup matters, as long as CONservatism appears to be for the good.
When angry, count four, when very angry, swear.
-Mark Twain-
"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane."
--Martin Luther King Jr.
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