Tens of thousands of activists are descending on the National Mall Saturday morning for a Glenn Beck rally billed in part as a peaceful commemoration of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. on the same stage where he delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech 47 years ago to the day.
Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally, which begins at 10 a.m. on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, is designed as a celebration of the military and American heritage and will feature former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and other heroes of the “tea party” movement. The demonstration has drawn national attention because of Beck’s many comparisons on radio and television this week between his own event and the civil rights movement.
“This is going to be a moment that you’ll never be able to paint people as haters, racists, none of it,” Beck said this week. “This is a moment, quite honestly, that I think we reclaim the civil rights movement.”
Separately, civil rights activists plan to march Saturday with the Rev. Al Sharpton from Dunbar High School in Northwest Washington to the site on the Mall where a memorial to King is being built. Martin Luther King III and other black leaders will join in what Sharpton called a move to “reclaim the dream.”
[More]
Updates:
3:44 pm EDT, August 28th, 2010 — Conrad Black: American apocalypse
Notes:
Glenn is correct as is Black and close to 500,000 (my estimate is higher — nearly a million) came to hear he and Sarah say it in person today in the mall. That should tell all US politicians that the shit has hit the fan (pardon my grammar) and they no longer have control. The people do and that is as it should be.
GLENN BECK: From the Wahington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2005/04/12/VI2005041201139.html#
Fox is giving reports on this rally and there is a very huge crowd there.
That’s right Mary T, as I indicated above is the video from the Washing Post on GLENN BECK/RALLY. God Bless him for doing what he can to restore his country- their country.
Conrad Black on today’s NP paints a grim picture of AMERICA.
At a counter-demonstrating starting at Dunbar High School, 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.
============================================================================================
Can hardly wait on how the Old Legacy Media cover todays events ………………… Beck or Palin bad, bigots etc.
Shady Al Sharpton Good !
You can watch it streamed live here.
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/08/28/open-thread-the-restoring-honor-rally/
Estimates are now as high as 500,000 in attendance.
Ther ruling class can only govern with the consent of the people. When you abuse and denigrate the concerns of ordinary citizens, the American tradition is to get out and demonstrate. Good on them for this show of strength. May you live in interesting times. Cheers.
RE: #4 — Thanks Ward, I just switched the sidebar video. Keep the info coming.
I can’t find any numbers on the Sharpton rally and because that “is” I suspect his counter rally was a bust. Not that this news would be a surprise. I’m going to leave things here today because this rally is important in that it sends politicians a very large message.
I had to change the video again. Hopefully, Ward’s link will replay the entire show later.
Also, Sharpton is losing his mind. What can I say?
Beck’s crowd was “massive“…no kidding?
One report I heard is Sharpton had about 3000 at his rally.
Reports from Beck’s rally indicate a minumum of 300,000 to max. 1,000,000.
Dare I say that Palin’s speech was “presidential”
Great turnout, I’d sure like to see Louis Farakans estimate of the crowd. Media invariably invokes the “lots of white people” narrative, but I would say its lots of constitutional conservatives. Since the Dems are the antithesis of that and blacks vote 90% Dem, I guess a good question might be, why would they be there in any great numbers in the first place.
Blacks are about 13% of the US population so at most there would be about 13 in 100 if this crowd was a representative sample of the total population. When you consider that Blacks vote 90 % Dem it leaves about 1.3 blacks per 100 people that might choose to be there.
Telling that MLK’s niece chose to speak with Beck rather than Sharpton.
The kind of people Beck attracts will assure far less than 13 in 100. I’m sure you left that part out intentionally. The few drops of color in that crowd were probably placed strategically and exaggerated.
Oh do tell Cy what “KINDS” of people does Beck attract? I love a good bigoted story made up by an intolerant twit.
This kind:
http://gawker.com/5624501/im-an-idiot-and-all-i-got-was-this-stupid-t+shirt
Again, you have no idea what intolerance is. The word you want is conformity and I will never conform to your narrow interpretation of Christianity. You’re no different from a Jerry Falwell or Bob Jones.
Read again Cy. I said 1.3 per hundred. Why does it matter that the the indoctrinated portion of the Black population show up. Why werent there more people at Sharptons rally?
Bottom line is I’ll bet you that there were more Blacks at Becks Rally than at Sharptons.
According to the 2009 census Washington DC has a population of 600,000. 55% of them are black. Thats 330,000.
If 10% could have been bothered to go to Sharptons Rally he would have had 30,000. But he could not manage even 1% or 3000.
Consider that Metro Washington has about 5.4 million people and 25% are black and you have a potential audience for Sharpton of 1.35 million. The man cant draw flies but is treated by the MSM as the top of Black leadership. There is a disconnect there.
Al Sharpton and Glenn Beck have the same amount of credibility among most black voters, which is none. Both are building their careers on the back of MLK even though both of their messages appeal to audiences who otherwise deride MLK. Sharpton’s “civil rights” target audience were infamous for calling MLK Uncle Tom for seeking peace with whites rather than calling for revolution. Sharpton eventually joined that crowd when MLK’s legal objectives were met (which left his core group without a job since the remaining problems in the black community were economic in nature).
Glenn Beck’s core audience are those some whites who opposed MLK’s advances back in the 1960′s. They intentionally chose this day and venue to override MLK’s real message with a pro-war monument and commitment to the same fundamentalist Christianity that happily oversaw the slavery and segregation eras. Neo-Nazi groups often march on MLK’s actual bday for the same reason.
Both are cynically abusing the memory of historic figure. On the plus side, MLK now truly stands among Abe Lincoln, George Washington and the other icons who, along with the flag and the bible, will be cited by every charlatan looking for power.
Wow Cy is psychic! He KNOWS the motivations of men and why they do the things they do. He KNOWS that Beck and cohorts did this just to spite those po black folks and their iconic MLK. Just like he KNOWS that no Republican dare claim MLK as one of their own. After all MLK was black and no black dare be Republican!
“Glenn Beck’s core audience are those some whites who opposed MLK’s advances back in the 1960s”
Is that why MLK’s niece choose to be with Beck not The Reverend AL? No Cy, the race card has just been maxed out along with Political Correctness…both a gift from electing Obama. Conservatives are now immune to PC, we just laugh it off, for example we’ll now vote for Ford and display Ford signs on our lawn … the most un-PC character to ever hit Canadian politics has helped us come out of the closet and let our Progressive neighbours know we are not going to be bullied any more my their PC.
In short it is PC to be un-PC, all thanks to the Harvard Law school prima donnas Obama and Miller.
Meanwhile, these Rallies in the US are indeed like the 1960’s in that they are about “values”. Both Beck and Palin are claiming that we are fighting for the same principles as The Reverend Dr King fought for: God-given, unalienable, individual liberties.
On the other hand, The Reverend Al is part of the multi-culti siloed progressive religion that claims that the core of Dr King’s message was like Trudeau’s “social justice”. I have no idea what SC really means other than more redistribution to pay for unfunded entitlements used to buy votes.
But yes, MLK is a great American and we need to go back and understand his dream was liberty for all. That’s the Civics 101 that Beck is good at teaching, now that the teachers’ union have become One Worlders.
Flattering, but admittedly you give me too much credit, Joe. Simply Googling pictures at Beck’s rally revealed said link. Also reading what people actually say and the placards they hold up at the rallies before the sudden MLK interest counts for a lot. Not everything need be blind faith, reverend. Clearly Beck was aware of what might show up via placard when he plead that none be brought to his rally. Bit strange, dontcha think?
Few blacks after the 1960′s wanted to be Republicans, and defnitely not after the Southern Strategy. Before that, the GOP was all the rage. That’s why you guys have gotten away with that lie that MLK was a Republican (actually he didn’t belong to any party).
Nom: PC is a myth. It never existed. There’s never been a period where miniorities didn’t have to watch their backs. During the height of “PC” growth – the 1990′s, I was spat on, thrown out of homes, challenged to many-to-one fights and refused voting service. True, there was a core set of liberally-minded people who were trying to make USA/Canada inclusive and listen to the viewpoints of others. The bottom line is that they never gathered the polical or economic strength to fundamentally transform North American culture. Moreover, the movement was usurped by political animals (e.g. the Clintons) who just used these people to gain power.
All you’ve accomplished is defeating the counter-argument that you hypocritically use 5% of the time to prove why North American society is better than Middle Eastern or other societies (the other 95% of the time you’re trying to dismantle it). PC and the much more successful PI was great for political theatre but had little impact on the real world.
Cy, you think PC is a myth, I think it is now dead…there seems to be room for us to move.on (hold the org please).
Sorry about your minority physical fights, that no doubt leaves scars.
There was a time; I can assure you that physical fights based on bigotry broke in with us WASPs and the Catholics of Quebec. It all seems like ancient history now, but it happened. Commerce forced the need to make peace. Which is why democratic capitalism is colour blind (exceptions will always occur) because it is in the self interest of capitalism to be colour blind and choose a meritocracy.
We do not need to “transform North American culture”. We need to restore values of individual liberty. Then culture, which is a Darwinian thing, being driven just like biology, will constantly evolve and adapt. The biome drives the economy which determines the sustainable population size which drives the appropriate culture/religion adapted. There is nothing we can do to stop that process of Complex Adaptive Systems. CAS plays into all aspects of our society with a large middle class, where only a bottom-up driven style of governance can assimilate all the information needed to sustain a large population. Because the large middle class is able to circumvent all efforts by elitists to coerce them. Have a look here:
http://www.economist.com/node/16789226/comments
…which is why we must decentralized our governments and why progressive centralizing will always fail.
Nom:
The Rob Ford issue is not comparable to the American Beck/Palin issue in any way. Rob Ford is boorish, aggressive, often ill-informed but rarely malicious. If you look at his track record, he helps a lot of disadvantaged people, particularly through his football programs. The man is a thug, but a thug with a heart of gold and precisely the kind of characater needed to shake up the union-esque culture at city hall. I know people in the Somali community among others defend him as a friend, even as he continues to make iffy statement with zero eloquence. That says something.
I am aware of the Irish/French Catholic/Protestant/etc wars in Ontario and Quebec. Interestingly enough, Toronto’s solution to the Irish problem was to create a separate school system that catered to Irish cultural norms and attempted to bridge them into the mainstream culture. That system remains in place today as the Catholic School Board. How amazingly hypocriticial it is for the Irish to be among those complaining about one lousy black-focused school that was created on the same premise. Incidentally, they called it political-correctness, which has morphed into a euphemism for any speech or action designed to help the disadvantaged rise up.
My own fights etc did not leave any scars (usually I won) but it did provide a direct look at traditional, non-liberal, deeply Christian, rural society – the same type advocated for on this site. Most of those people are scared to come to Toronto and would consider you a liberal.
All kinds of nasty activity happened during the height of “individual liberty” and “God-focused society”. Merely trotting out these catch phrases won’t appeal to those who have required their rights to be legally entrenched at any point.