After Mr. Beck had mercifully ended his speech and the man in the kilt came onto the stage playing Amazing Grace, it fully registered with me what a huge non-event this was. The speech, full of references to God, over and over, possessed not one concrete thing to take away. When the people who were at this event get back to their normal lives this week, what changes will they make? What steps will they take to restore honor? Seems to me there would be no place for racism or homophobia in the life of an honorable American, so I guess we won’t be having to deal with any more of that. Mr. Beck wants his people to make God the central force in their lives. Does that mean they get all generous, tolerant, and kind now? Cool.
When was the honor lost? Operation Ajax in 1953? The bitter opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964? The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968? The covert bombing raids into Cambodia in 1969? Watergate? The invasion and occupation of Iraq? I am not listing president Clinton and his sexcapades because no one was killed, although millions of dollars were wasted. So, were these instances where America lost some traction on the honor-highway? Or perhaps it was things like the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 that abolished child labor and established a minimum wage or Social Security that pushed America off the shining path to honor?
Beck's followers believe America had honor when the Bush administration tortured people and invaded Iraq on bogus claims of weapons of mass destruction. These people were silent on the subject of honor during the Bush years. Suddenly, they are worried about the size of the deficit and the expansion of the federal government. The Tea Party complains about health care reform but were mum when the Bush White House threatened to fire Richard S. Foster if he release to true cost of the Medicaid bill to Congress.
Richard S. Foster, the chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which produced the $551 billion estimate, told colleagues last June that he would be fired if he revealed numbers relating to the higher estimate to lawmakers.
"This whole episode which has now gone on for three weeks has been pretty nightmarish," Foster wrote in an e-mail to some of his colleagues June 26, just before the first congressional vote on the drug bill. "I'm perhaps no longer in grave danger of being fired, but there remains a strong likelihood that I will have to resign in protest of the withholding of important technical information from key policy makers for political reasons."
There was not a single Tea Party rally in protest of the Bush administration's Medicaid prescription drug bill. I guess America still had honor in 2004.
What's more interesting from our perspective about this Glenn Beck phenomenon is that "The Folks in Control," however one might characterize them in terms of race, status, class, wealth, geographic location or whatever, allowed our current situation to develop over arguably the last 50 - 100 years, and now there are complaints by a vocal group of concerned citizens.
ReplyDeleteIs it possible, as postulated by some, that the liberal, conservative, progressive, corporate and banking interests, and libertarian POWER FORCES in our society are laughing all the way to the bank, and that we minions with little money and power (the members of the Institute for Applied Common Sense included) are the ones complaining? And that because of new technological advances in communication and the power of the Internet, the voice of the minions is now being disseminated with greater force, essentially saying, "Stop! Enough is enough!"?
Is this arguably a populist movement somewhat similar to the one led by "the Great Commoner," William Jennings Bryan at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th Centuries?
Is what we are experiencing simply the most vocal expression of the perhaps 80% of we citizens at the bottom of the heap?
Is what we are experiencing simply the most vocal expression of the perhaps 80% of we citizens at the bottom of the heap?
ReplyDeleteDemocracy doesn't work unless people are involved. The Tea Party is engaged. Unfortunately, they are poorly informed on policy and follow people who profit off of them.