Friends, these are some of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who came to the Lincoln Memorial to hear speeches about God and Country and Patriotism, speeches given by such right-wing intellectual visionaries as Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck.
“Something beyond imagination is happening,” Beck declared with evangelistic fervour. “America today begins to turn back to God.” This must be 2010 B.C. surely!
What struck me as ironic is that many Americans will get off their bums and attend a rally like this but they won’t rally to protest about the imperial direction their Government is taking.
They won’t protest their Government’s financial and military support for a rogue nation called Israel which threatens to lead the world towards a nuclear doomsday.
They won’t protest about inaction regarding global warming or the American drug problem or the many other social problems which plague their nation.
But they will happily listen to extremists who tell them that God is on their side. Hallelujah!
They will listen to charlatans who tell them that their country is the greatest country in the history of the world, that its destiny is that it should lead the world.
They will eagerly listen to those who say that ‘American might is right’, who say that those who disagree with the American agenda are enemies that must be killed or dominated.
Hitler told the German people exactly the same things and they too believed him.
When people talk about God and flags and patriotism, be very, very wary!
Trouble is coming.
They don’t want to admit the problem is THAT big. It is TOO big an existential leap for many. They are letting their subconscious, God mind – to process what are political problems. Yeah its big enough to go to DC, BUTT, we will leave it up there on the alter of God.
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It doesn’t help the fully conscious mind of America, that the biggest growth industry may be in the,”Secret” industry.
http://www.alternet.org/rights/148007/inside_top_secret_america/
Beck and Palin bring the word, “railroading,” to mind. Iow, switching the tracks mid-run, SO an oncoming train is heading one way, time to switcheroo the tracks, so that the train will be led to a different destination. Railraoaders, Beck and Palin are.
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“They,” in this case, meaning The People.
“People have the power” – Patti Smith
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i54t4rrS950
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Hello Everyone -
Sinclair Lewis said it well in his book “It Can’t Happen Here” about the rise of fascism in the 1930s – “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” Both Beck and Palin are among the best representatives of that mindset. They are both afflicted (and we are by extension) with malignant narcissism and they would quite readily take this country down the road of “Christian” Dominionism where a person would be considered worthy of the death penalty for their sexual preference or other personal things. In the 19th century the United States went through a similar period of religious fervor called, ironically enough, “The Great Awakening” and I’m afraid that based on what I hear and see in our media and in people’s utterances that it is quite possible that it might happen again. Instead of dealing with our multitude of deep problems we seem to prefer to let the Great Sky God tell us what to do through the yaps of scumbags like Beck and Palin and many others of their ilk.
I have to add one more thing. For Glenn Beck to try and appropriate the civil rights movement and say that that it was “God’s Provenance” that he was speaking at the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of King’s great speech is beyond a travesty. I can see now that there is nothing either one of them won’t do to advance their own agendas, power and money wise. Beck has even admitted that he is basically an entertainer and he doesn’t really care about politics. But he will certainly use it to make a huge amount of money and gain personal power. He has a lot of resentment to work through from all of those many years as a lowly paid unknown shock jock who regularly made fun of what we in the U.S. call “minorities”. He is a racist through and through just like Rush Limbaugh. Palin’s fantasy when she ultimately retires from warmongering and spreading anger and intolerance along with phony flag waving “patriotism” is to return to her huge house in Wasilla with the Escalade parked out front and wish for Alaska to secede from the Union so that she and the other “real people” can run the place anyway they see fit – you know, sort of like the Ante Bellum South. I think that they are both despicable.
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Hello Again -
To get an excellent analysis of what we are discussing go to the Common Dreams website and click on “Neo-Supremacy Chic: Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin’s Tea-Scalding of MLK”. It has very good comments about the threat that these two and their supporters represent along with the abject hypocrisy of their beliefs.
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Oh boy, I’ve heard a million excuses. Many Americans are limited to what ever the MSM exposes. Few are aware of the potential damage that exists outside of what they see and hear on T V. Just go along to get along. To all you living outside the U. S., We’ve had better days.
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Grace, railroaders is a good description. Opportunists is another. Even nutters applies!
Bruce, I guess the one to blame is really Rupert Murdoch who, via his media monopoly, encourages lowlife like these to entrap the gullible of which there is a plentiful supply. Perhaps they’ll bring the burning of witches back, make it a Saturday night entertainment!
76-water, we watch America self-destruct with a sense of horror. Wish we could help!
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All the far right needs is a truely charismatic leader, another Hitler, that most people will follow blindly and america will be finally and truely be lost.
It is amazing how fast and how big the Tea Party has grown. A year ago a rally like this last one would have had only a few hundred people and now it has thousands. As conditions continue to worsen I am sure many thousands more will beleive that the answers to our problems lie in bigotry and hatred.
Sadly there is nothing on the left that speaks to the “little people” and offers them any alternative to rightwing hate. The strong progressive/workers movement of the early 1900′s is long gone and everbody is home watching Dancing With the Stars and eating junk food. The only passion they seem to feel is hate for anyone who isn’t exactly like them.
It is everywhere, my grandson who is four and African-American is already aware that some white people are mean to him because of his race. It scares me! I fear for his future in a world so full of hate and intolerance.
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Jeannie, I went through a stage where certain races of people would send me into rageful feelings. There is a next evolutionary step, that the American people – that are full of hate, must take. Now, I honestly see that we are all members of the same tribe.
Pangaea, was a time and place when all the continents of Earth, were one. The earth separated and the tribes separated.
Your grandson, bless his heart, may be a leader among people, one day. For, he represents a greater promise. It is sad that a young innocent will have to know the pain of racial hatred. Keep him safe – until the Amercan people can grow up a bit more. Until we evolve to human status. Stop looking to Big Sky God to come down and save us. We must save ourselves. God made us in is image – so….we’re good, we’re capable.
Peace and love
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Interesting little movement growing.
Wear a hijab on 911. Stand in solidarity against hate and Islamophobia in general.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=144913692209438
Source:
http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/ich-bin-ein-muslim/
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Jeannie, I feel your concern. Instead of moving closer to peace, we move towards hatred and violence and ignorance.
Grace, we are all members of the same tribe and should therefore be all equal. Of course, as the Pigs said, “Some are more equal than others.”
Amerika, I don’t think I’d look good in a hijab!
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“Madness in individuals is rare, but in groups, crowds and nations, it is the rule.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
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David, hundreds of thousands of people did march against war and imperialism.
I know. I was there.
But it wasn’t covered at all by the corporate media.
This “grass roots” phenomenon is not!
Just as last year, when the Tea Party convention in Nashville was covered live on all our media, and also on yours (!), the media focuses on these people to make it seem as if they are representative of the American people.
People are herd animals, and the point is to make fence-sitting racists feel as if they are part of a great herd, and rational people to feel isolated and alone.
With the amazing brainwashing that the American people are subjected to daily, it’s really surprising that so many people hang on to their humanity!
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I was there too. tens of thousands of families with kids and old people, young, All with homemade signs. We were all saying, NO WAR IN IRAQ! We filled up entire boulevards, thick with people protesting. Somewhere in the number of more than 50,000 people. That was just in one town. Protests were being held everywhere on that day. Bush later referred to all the protesting as, “fringe groups.”
FYI: for everyone wout there: The Tea Party is a fringe group. I have never even met one Tea Partier. They are a creation of and by the same people who called the real protesters, fringies. The real protesters now get put into “protest zones.” Sometimes they end up in jail and sometimes they are tasered or pepper sprayed in the eyes.
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Wagelaborer, Americans are brainwashed and may be the most brainwashed people on the planet. Regarding ‘herd animals’, I think my cattle are several steps above most humans. At least they look after their calves!
Grace, that some people stood up is great. But, as in Australia, the politicians made the call and we all know how dumb they are!
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