Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor Rally – Aug. 28, 2010 | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Sharpton opened the “Reclaim the Dream” rally with these words: “They may have the mall, but we have the message. They may have the platform, but we have the dream. They want to disgrace this day, and we're not giving them this day. This is our day and we ain't giving it away.” Of course, it was the same tired negative victimization message… “We are still not there yet. We are still doubly unemployed.. We still haven’t arrived in education. We still don’t have a job to go home to. It’s been 47 years and we will still leave here in the same position we were back then.” He focused mainly on the job disparity and how it is the government's job to fix it. The tone was that somehow, even in 2010, whites are responsible for making sure that blacks are not treated with equality. Perhaps Sharpton could have brought up the facts and figures to show that African-Americans are overwhelmingly and disproportionately dropping out of school. Perhaps he could have brought up statistics about family and about crime. (See my reference section). To attack white Americans for their massive display of patriotism, for their “nerve” in invoking Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and for their solidarity in respecting the values that make/made America great showed a fundamental lack of good faith on their part to the words of their fallen leader. The hypocrisy was astounding. They revere a man who asked them to abstain from violence and show civility in pursuing their cause and who preached about “character” and unity, and yet they vehemently denounced the message of God and restoring honor. Our nation is indeed “at a crossroads” as Beck said, and we are on a destructive path with potentially disastrous consequences. If ever we needed a time for unity, it is now. It is a time to put country first. Yes, our rights and liberties are important, but what will we have if our country isn’t strong enough to protect them? This is a concern that wasn’t or isn’t on the minds of Al Sharpton and his rally-goers. In fact, he sent a message to the Tea Party movement when he told his followers: “We know how to sucker punch you. We did it in 2008 and we’ll do it again.”

    Others who spoke at the “Reclaim the Dream” rally had similar messages. Jaime Contreras, president of SEIU-32BJ told the crowd: "They sure as hell don't represent me. They represent hate-mongering and angry white people. The happy white people are here today. We will not let them stand in the way of the change we voted for!" Joyce White commented: "If we hadn't elected a black president, do you think they would be doing this today?"

    Washington Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton said: “Beck’s message doesn’t change nothing. (again with the proper English) Beck has march-envy, and he doesn’t have a message to match our march. His message isn’t worthy of the place.” [Wow. I don’t even want to go there. For a US delegate to show such blatant disregard to our history is an indictment of the lack of ethics and character that we have in government].

    Rev. W. Franklin Richardson, president of Grace Baptist Church in Mount Vernon, N.Y. said: "It's all right with me that they are at the Mall today because we are at the White House." Tehuti Imhotep, who traveled from Baltimore, shouted at passersby: “King was about bringing people together. Beck is pulling people apart."

    The sad thing is that Sharpton and his followers had the chance to embrace Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream of racial harmony by attending the Restoring Honor Rally and standing alongside white patriots to pay tribute to our military, to embrace God, and to respect the dreams of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King. White rally-goers would have welcomed blacks with open arms. But Sharpton is not honestly in the business of racial harmony. He is a propagation pimp. His role is to keep playing the race card and to drum in the message of victimization. His role is to maintain the racial divide. It is good for business.

    The problem is that Al Sharpton is still talking about the bad old days for Blacks and rather than see beyond race-colored glasses, views Glenn Beck’s call to “Restore Honor” as one to restore the “good old days” for Whites. When the nation can’t progress because of such a myoptic view, we have a problem. Blacks will likely never stand arm-in-arm with whites, as Dr. King urged, to move the country forward because they fundamentally want different things, and the way things look to many, longevity of the country is not one of them.

    As I was ready to finish this account of Beck’s historical rally, I just happened to turn on the TV and listen to the vile words of a talk show host who has long lost his relevancy. Chris Matthews. In talking about Glenn Beck and the rally, this is what he said: “This is the man who comes to Lincoln`s feet to claim the mantle of Martin Luther King? Can we imagine if King were physically here tomorrow, today, were he to reappear tomorrow on the very steps of the Lincoln Memorial? …. I have a nightmare that one day a right wing talk show host will come to this spot, his people`s lips dripping with the words "interposition" and "nullification." Little right wing boys and little right wing girls joining hands and singing their praise for Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin… I have a nightmare.”

    The forces for oppression are strong in this country, which is amazing considering the leaders history has given us to inspire us and upon whose shoulders we can stand to achieve even greater things. This time, the oppression isn’t against one class of people, it is against all Americans. For anyone who doesn’t see how their fundamental liberties have already been burdened, just take note of how many months in the year you have to work just to pay Uncle Sam and how much time that takes you away from your families. Take note of how your freedom to move about and enjoy your property is burdened by crime. Take note of how judiciously the government scrutinizes your assets and decides what no longer belongs to you. Take note of how it believes it is entitled to take what it needs from you to use for whatever it feels (without giving you any say on how it will be applied, even if its goals are personally offensive to you). Take note of how the government is increasingly taking away your rights to worship and speak freely. Take note of how little control you have in the raising your own children, for the school (ie, the state) knows better. Take note of how the government will now mandate what you MUST purchase, even though you don’t need it. Government isn’t the solution. It’s the problem. As Plato once said: “One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." Who would you rather govern you? God, who created you in love and all the liberties you need and deserve to reach your full potential? Or the government, run by inferiors, who only know what is good for the country and for their careers and not what is best for you personally? The less government in your life allows for more God in your life.

    On the topic of liberty and freedom, there is one indisputable truth that we need to keep in mind, and this revelation comes from a Frenchman named Alexis de Tocqueville. French philosopher, Alexis de Tocqueville, came to America in the early 1800’s from France for the purpose of studying her prison system. What became of that visit was a very powerful book called “Democracy in America.” In that book he compares America to the failed regimes of Europe, and especially France. He asks the question ‘Why was democracy able to take hold so successfully in America while it failed in other countries.’

    One answer, according to de Tocqueville is that the people in nations like France placed a much greater value on Equality (equal things, equal positions) than they did on Liberty. “I think that democratic communities have a natural taste for freedom: left to themselves, they will seek it, cherish it, and view any privation of it with regret.” While there is a natural taste for freedom, in France, however, the need for equality was greater. “But for equality, their passion is ardent, insatiable, incessant, invincible: they call for equality in freedom; and if they cannot obtain that, they still call for equality in slavery. They will endure poverty, servitude, barbarism – but they will not endure aristocracy. This is true at all times, and especially true in our own. All men and all powers seeking to cope with this irresistible passion will be overthrown and destroyed by it. Despotism cannot reign without its support….. I contend that in order to combat the evils which equality may produce, there is only one effectual remedy – namely, political freedom.” In other words, as long as we share that spirited protectionism over our liberties that our early countrymen possessed, and as long as we value our liberties far more than a government that needs to care for us from cradle to grave, then we stand the chance of survival. Our liberties are already burdened and the trend in government is to redistribute wealth and position (equal things). It is already determining who “has too much” or who “has enough.” “Return to Honor” is exactly the message we need to heed right now. We need to return to the honorable values that founded this country and which sustained our greatest grant of liberty. We need to honor those values that allow each individual to reach their full potential so that our country reaches its full potential.

    I hope August 28th is a turning point. I hope history will judge it as so. One man – Abraham Lincoln – made a difference. One man - Martin Luther King – made a difference. If individual men, inspired by God and motivated by the power of individual liberty, can make such a difference, imagine what we can do together. I just hope that the energy, the spirit, and the message that brought us together on Aug. 28th and which unites us every day in our Tea Parties in our towns and cities will continue to grow and will help us grow as responsible citizens “so that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

REFERENCES:

http://www.thesarahpalinblog.com/2010/08/video-and-transcript-of-restoring-honor.html#ixzz0y6dtaNll (Transcript of Sarah Palin’s Speech)

http://www.cspan.org/Watch/Media/2010/08/28/HP/A/37551/Restoring+Honor+Rally.aspx (Restoring Honor Rally footage, cspan)

http://www.glennbeck.com/content/article_images/diane_rufino/article/198/44980/ (Glenn Beck’s site)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxTtkWHkyUM&feature=email (The Pledge of Allegiance and National Anthem)

NOTE: While religion and honor were the overriding themes of the day, there can be no claims that the rally showed any religious intolerance for the name of Jesus was not invoked during the rally. It was a sweeping acknowledgement of all religions.

Our Tragic Numbers and Their Human Toll-

by George Will,
August 30, 2010

    [Referenced at: http://peripateticphilosopher.blogspot.com/ ]

    George Will opens his column by alerting the reader to the fact that 10,000 baby boomers become eligible for Social Security and Medicare every day while the unemployment hovers around 10 percent.

    Will then focuses on one specific group in America, the African American, a group he claims has been below the radar during the Obama Administration. He quotes Nathan Glazer, a sociologist, writing in the “American Interest”:

    (1) By the early 2000s, more than one-third of all young black non-college men were incarcerated;

    (2) More than 60% of black high school dropouts born since the mid-1960s end in prison;

    (3) For every 100 bachelor’s degrees conferred on black men, 200 were conferred on black women;

    (4) Inner cities have become havens for the poor, the poorly educated, the unemployed and the unemployable;

    (5) High out-of-wedlock birthrates exacerbate the social and economic problems of adolescent males without male parenting;

    (6) This translates into disorderly neighborhoods and disorderly schools;

    (7) Some young blacks harass those black males who take their education seriously (“hitting the books”), accusing them of abandoning their race and “acting white”;

    (8) Only 35% of black children live with two parents;

    (9) 24% of white eighth graders watch four or more hours of television a day whereas 59% of their black peers do (both groups also waste their time on some form of electronic contraption);

    (10) By the age of 4, the average child in a professional family hears about 20 million more words than the average child in working-class family, and about 35 million more words than the average child in a welfare family with a mother who is most likely a high school dropout.

    The disappointing fact, according to Paul E. Barton and Richard J. Coley, writing about the achievement gap, is that although the gap was closing between blacks and whites in the 1970s and 1980s, that progress has halted. They write, “Progress generally halted for those born around the mid-1960s, a time when landmark legislative victories heralded an end to racial discrimination.”

    Barton and Coley conclude five factors have contributed to this loss of progress:

    (1) The number of days black students are absent from school;

    (2) The number of hours black students spend watching television;

    (3) The number of pages read for homework;

    (4) The quality and quantity of reading material;

     (5) The presence of two parents in the home.

George Will admits public policy is not the answer. The answer is the same as that advocated by David Brooks. The strength of the culture and the resonance of the values of that culture with the concomitant demands on it produce the desired returns. In our rush into the future, we have left our soul behind, which is the idea of America.

Notes on the State of Black America --

By Nathan Glazer,
July-August 2010, in The American Interest,

[ Referenced at: http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=838 ]

    The election of Barack Obama to the presidency in November 2008 marked a paradox in the long history of race in America that has not been much noticed: The installation of the first black President in American history—black, that is, as Americans define black, despite his white mother and his non-American, African father—coincided with the almost complete disappearance from American public life of discussion of the black condition and what public policy might do to improve it. There was a time not so long ago when we had trouble having a dispassionate, constructive discussion of these matters in public; now we seem unable to have any discussion at all.

    Not one issue having to do with American blacks was on the explicit agenda of either major political party during the 2008 campaign, or on the agenda of the Obama Administration during the first year of his presidency. Neither the continuing crisis of black unemployment; nor the continuing crisis of public education for blacks in the inner cities; nor the crisis of black imprisonment; nor the related abandonment in most American cities of efforts to integrate black students in schools with substantial numbers of white and Asian classmates; nor the cyclical and structural “problems of the inner cities”, a euphemism for all of these problems and others suffered mainly by blacks—none of these issues has formed any significant part of public discussion now for years, including the years marking the political ascent of Barack Obama. As Harvard professor William Julius Wilson, perhaps the leading analyst of the black condition in our inner cities, has written in his important current book, More Than Just Race: Through the second half of the 1990s and into the early years of the twenty-first century, public attention to the plight of poor black Americans seemed to wane. There was scant media attention to the problem of concentrated urban poverty neighborhoods in which a high percentage of the residents fall beneath the federally designated poverty line, little or no discussion of inner-city challenges by mainstream political leaders, and even an apparent quiescence on the part of ghetto residents themselves.

    How is this to be explained, and what does it mean? Certainly, as Wilson notes, the disappearance of these issues from major public discussion cannot be explained by the successful end of the race issue in American history. Progress there has been in the fifty years or more since a major Supreme Court decision signaled the end of the legal segregation of blacks into an inferior position, but even so, some aspects of the problem have grown worse. The juxtaposition is jarring, confusing, and evidently silencing.

Glazer is a sociology professor emeritus at Harvard University.