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August 29, 2010 in Nation/World
Restore country’s values, Beck rally told
Event countered by civil rights leaders
WASHINGTON – A sea of people rallied at the hallowed site of the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday as conservative commentator Glenn Beck and other heroes of the tea party movement honored Americans serving in the military and delivered impassioned calls to turn the nation back to God and to protect the traditional values they say make the country exceptional.
Claiming the legacy of the nation’s Founding Fathers and repeatedly evoking civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr., Beck, Sarah Palin and other speakers at the “Restoring Honor” rally exhorted a sprawling and overwhelmingly white crowd to concentrate not on the history that has scarred the nation but instead on what makes it “good.”
“For too long, this country has wandered in darkness, and we have wandered in darkness in periods from the beginning,” Beck said, at times pacing at the memorial. “We have had moments of brilliance and moments of darkness. But this country has spent far too long worried about scars and thinking about the scars and concentrating on the scars.
“Today,” he continued, “we are going to concentrate on the good things in America, the things that we have accomplished – and the things that we can do tomorrow.”
Beck’s attempt to appropriate the legacy of King, who delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech from the same marble steps 47 years ago to the day, occurred as the Rev. Al Sharpton and other civil rights leaders organized a simultaneous event. They rallied outside Dunbar High School in northwest Washington.
“The ‘March on Washington’ changed America,” Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., said at the Sharpton rally, referencing King’s 1963 speech. “Our country reached to overcome the low points of our racial history. Glenn Beck’s march will change nothing. But you can’t blame Glenn Beck for his ‘March on Washington’ envy. Too bad he doesn’t have a message worthy of the place.”
Avis Jones DeWeever, executive director of the National Council of Negro Women, also spoke to the crowd at Dunbar High School: “Don’t let anyone tell you that they have the right to take their country back. It’s our country, too. We will reclaim the dream. It was ours from the beginning.”
Beck’s rally had been billed as a peaceful and nonpolitical “re-dedication” of the traditional honor and values of the nation. Throngs of people crowded shoulder to shoulder for six city blocks, from the Lincoln Memorial past the reflecting pool to the World War II Memorial. From there, the ralliers spread out as they spilled onto the grounds of the Washington Monument.
The size of the gathering promises to be a subject of contention. Demonstrations on the Mall are notoriously difficult to estimate, with no official source for such figures. At one point, Beck joked he had “just gotten word from the media that there is over a thousand people here today.” Later, he told he crowd he heard it was “between 300,000 and 500,000.”
Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., speaking soon after the Beck rally at her own impromptu event nearby, said: “We’re not going to let anyone get away with saying there were less than a million here today – because we were witnesses.”
Beck, a Fox News host, has developed a national following by assailing President Barack Obama and Democrats, and he warned Saturday that “our children could be slaves to debt.” But he insisted that the rally “has nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with God, turning our faith back to the values and principles that made us great.”
King’s niece Alveda King, an anti-abortion activist, addressed Beck’s rally with a plea for prayer “in the public squares of America and in our schools.” Referencing her “Uncle Martin,” King called for national unity by repeatedly declaring “I have a dream.”
“I have a dream that America will pray and God will forgive us our sins and revive us our land,” King said. “On that day, we will all be able to lift every voice and sing of the love and honor that God desires of all his children.”
The crowd was not visibly angry. Rather, people said they had come to express their fear that the country is at a perilous moment.
But the much-discussed anger did sometimes appear. A counter-protester, Ben Thielen, 32, a District public-policy worker, caused a stir with a sign that said “It’s because of the 1st Amendment that Glenn Beck can spew his filth on the steps.”
Thielen said a gray-haired woman accosted him and tried to rip the placard out of his hand, screaming, “No signs! No signs!”
“She just came up to me and said, ‘No signs!’ and clawed me like a wild animal,” Thielen said, showing off red marks on his arms.
The crowd erupted when Beck introduced Palin, a tea party heroine and a former Republican vice presidential candidate. Palin said she was speaking not as a politician, but as the mother of a combat veteran. Evoking the legacies of King, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, Palin called on Americans to restore traditional values to the country.
“We must not fundamentally transform America, as some would want,” Palin said. “We must restore America and restore her honor.
“Here today, at the crossroads of our history, may this day be the change point,” Palin said. “Look around you. You’re not alone. You are Americans! You have the same steel spine and the moral courage of Washington and Lincoln and Martin Luther King. It is in you. It will sustain you as it sustained them.”
The crowd responded with chants of “USA! USA! USA!”
At the counter-demonstration at Dunbar, Joyce White arrived early to show her opposition to Beck.
“If we hadn’t elected a black president, do you think they would be doing this today?” she asked.
Tehuti Imhotep came from Baltimore with posters depicting black history from the middle passage through King’s 1968 march in support of trash haulers in Memphis.
Imhotep shouted at passers-by: “This is our real history. Beck’s trying to redefine the civil rights movement. How insensitive! King was about bringing people together. This man Beck is pulling people apart.”
The Sharpton rally was primarily African-American.
At the Beck rally, the recession weighed heavily on people’s minds.
“We just feel that government’s getting too large,” said Bill Bunting, 58, of Lancaster, Pa., who was laid off from his construction job this spring and now works as a real estate agent. “It’s mainly to send a message to politicians that we’re tired of the corruption, both Democrats and Republicans. They should go back to following the Constitution.”
Others came just for Beck, a television personality who has become a hero of the emboldened tea party movement. Beck repeatedly said the Saturday rally was intended to be “entirely” nonpolitical, but with the midterm elections nine weeks away, it is sure to be seen as a test of the strength and energy of the conservative movement.
Ancient Roman wrecks found in deep water 
Vernon on August 29 at 1:04 p.m.
I’m not a stranger to the term, ‘Dooms-Dayer’. In fact, as you might guess by what is written below, from time to time I’ve also been so identified. I don’t mind the heat or sarcasm brought on by the identification… because those who proclaim such are inevitably those who’ve never really studied the issue at hand, anyway. So… why be concerned with their un-learned rhetoric???
As for the USA, though any reasonable, thinking person is morally obligated to strive do what they are able to return America to the historic, proven world enhancing platform America once had… and many assumed Obama’s “Change” mean’t to return us toward… it is unfortunately, now far too late for America to regroup in order to capture that which has been lost. We are, in fact, no longer on a slippery slope, but on the brink of a near complete demise. Demise from a political, economic, terroristic as well as spiritual basis.
Thus, in addition to continuing our ‘fight against Incumbents’, we must look to the realities the very near future is about to spring upon us. Recognize these coming concerns as fact and then seek to learn what we must do and how we must do it in order to protect ourselves and our loved ones from the horrors which are about to befall us, i.e. horrors not even imagined just a few short years ago.
Rather than simply write off ideas such as that which is herein promoted, that which most have not really sought to gain even an elementary understanding, don’t we only become wise on any subject when we choose to diligently investigate the entire parameter of the issue at hand? Rather than continue to retain the self imposed ‘nose ring’ those in political and economic power over the last few decades have encouraged us to wear on their behalf, why don’t we begin now to more fully and more deeply investigate?
For starters, you may wish to review the below noted WebSite. I encourage you to gain a basic understanding of what is therein said and then further investigate other resources of your choice that lead in the direction you feel will be most valuable to the immediate and short term benefit of you and your loved ones. Our End is very, very near.
My best…
http://www.demiseoftheusa.com
Dazzeetrader1980 on August 29 at 2:27 p.m.
America fights. It’s part of our culture. I agree…we are close. Too much liberalism and secularism. America also builds. WIth Obama…we’ve been crippled in my opinion. He wants that. His vision for America leads to socialism with a troika of BIG government, Big Business and Big Unions.
Not acceptable to most. We must begin with local government and build upwards not downwards. We know where thes present pathway leads. Do we really want to be like other democratic socialist countries? I don’t. Wake up and fight America. It’s easier to be pablum fed and remain brainless and without ambition. We do not want that. It’s not what made America special.
We are perilously close to the pint of no return. Rid us of the liberals like Obama and his team. It’ll be a tough climb out but I’m all for that fight. Can we retore America? Not sure….much damage has been done. We need a new contract with America.
America needs to understand this will take effort and lots of retraining….and development. Courage too.Obama has plenty of ambition for himself. Not us though. Let’s dig in, return to priniciples of proper governance and move ahead. This will take at least a generation. Long slog…we’ve been put to sleep by government. Wake up. Do you all know that America is the only country who has all the natural resources to completely stand alone? Let’s fix things.
misjustice on August 29 at 4:22 p.m.
The pint of no return? And the fight to retore America?
Priceless! ; )
Wink, wink, yeah, you betcha!
james_l on August 29 at 4:31 p.m.
Sounds like Daisy is already past the pint of no return, maybe flirting with the fifth of no return. Vodka or gin Daisy?
misjustice on August 29 at 4:43 p.m.
ROFL!!!! The fifth of know return? ; )
jddavis on August 29 at 6:53 p.m.
Wow! Daisy makes a couple of typo’s! I suppose if you can’t counter her comments you might as well look for typo’s.
misjustice on August 29 at 7:22 p.m.
Countering her right wing crazy train comments is pointless; pointing out her typos, priceless!
Those of us that are regular contributors to this blog have tangled with the DAZE crazy train for years…it gets ya nowhere, fast…good luck with that, though, jddavis!
Shadedmuse on August 29 at 7:46 p.m.
Daisey and Soccermomsusie are the same person.
misjustice on August 29 at 8:04 p.m.
No, soccermom is brilliant and truly skilled with the satire shtick, DAZE isn’t brilliant or skilled.
Spokane_Citizen on August 29 at 8:38 p.m.
misjustice…is soccermomsusie really an engine of satire? If so, she’s damn good.
Daisy really believes the mental glop she espouses. I know Dick Adams really walks his whacky talk…we watched him for years on chanel 5 at the televised city council meetings..some popcorn and beer, and it’s a whole evening of hysterical conspiracy outrage…his monotone and lecturing delivery is only surpassed by George McGrath’s.
jddavis on August 29 at 9:13 p.m.
Mis J, so why waste your intellectual prowess on identifying typo’s? It should be easy for you to discount her points, after all, they are “right wing crazy train comments.” Picking the low hanging fruit does little…
james_l on August 29 at 9:29 p.m.
jddavis: If you can point out a single salient point in Daisy’s diatribe, I would be happy to discuss it. “blah, blah, Obama ruining America, blah, blah, Big Government, blah, blah, Wake Up America, blah, blah, liberals, blah, blah”.
Do you really see a point there? Tell me specifically what Obama has done to ruin America, tell me specifically how the Government has grown bigger under this administration (it hasn’t), or tell me exactly what liberals have done, and I will be glad to discuss the points.
I am sorry if I have passed the pint of no return, but Daisy never offered to share whatever she is drinking (or smoking) with the rest of us :).
misjustice on August 29 at 9:39 p.m.
I, too, have passed the pint of no return; as I attempt to make another pint or two.
Yes, Spokane_Citizen, our very own soccermom is a budding Andy Borowitz!
jd; You’re new here aren’t you? Welcome! Why don’t YOU try debating our minx Minken? Good luck with that, let us know when you reach the pint of no return! ; )
jddavis on August 29 at 10:13 p.m.
James—my point is if you disagree with someone, that is ok. If you disagree with someone and your arguement is “your idea is wrong because you have typo’s”, then your position is unsupported (weak). Whatever Daisy said in her diatribe in neither here nor there.
Mis J—I am not new (or old) reading or posting on Spokesman stories. Is Minken the brain trust of the frequent commentors here? I enjoy reading others’ positions and views on current events, particularly if they are thought out and supported by fact rather than emotion. Thanks for the welcome, I look forward to reading your comments! Now for that pint…