Speeches by conservative personalities Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin echoed off the marbled edges of the World War II monument, far from the stage at the Lincoln Memorial during the "Restoring Honor" rally today in Washington, D.C.
They were bused in from smaller towns across the country - a 20-bus caravan came from Dauphin County - to express their growing unease with rising unemployment, ballooning budget deficits and runaway government spending. On the anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s “I Have A Dream” speech, they came to revive their version of the American Dream, fearing that it's slipping away.
Glenn Beck, a man who only ten years ago was wallowing in drug addiction, is a reformed sinner who has seen the light and believes he has a God-given obligation to bring America out of the wilderness. Whether God has anything to do with Glenn Beck’s mission is subject to personal belief.
Beck is hardly spreading his message while wearing sackcloth and ashes; he travels across the country in his private jet, bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars a year from lecture tours, book signings, and speeches at Tea Party rallies.
He asked all Americans today to return to God, to restore decency to the public sphere, and to honor their creator in their personal life. Parents should get down on their knees and pray daily for the salvation of their country, and Beck urged that they open the door so their children can see them praying. Glenn Beck warned that terrible times are coming to this nation, and only God can save us now if we are willing to turn our hearts once again to Him.Many in the crowd no doubt have personal experience with terrible times. With unemployment and underemployment near 17% of the working population, millions of people are familiar with fear, hunger, and homelessness. But there was not a word in Glenn Beck’s speech about any of these afflictions.
The Glenn Beck crowd today, much like his audience for his television, radio, or book products, was overwhelmingly white and elderly. Many of them were from the South, and however indistinctly and subconsciously, their slave-owning ancestors and Jim Crow enforcers were whispering to them today through the mystic chords of memory. Many others were the progeny of immigrant forefathers from Europe – immigrants who may have had trouble assimilating in America on the basis of religion or language or culture, but who blended in on the all-important matter of race.
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