Restoring Honor Rally 8/28

[Skeptic Ginger]

Interesting. Sinclair Lewis managed to say something 50 years before he was born.

The poster has the quote right but the date wrong. It's from the 1935 book, "It Can't Happen Here"

Except I just went through the online copy of the book and the line isn't in there. I'll keep looking.

WikiQuotes also finds the quote widespread and documentation of the source non-existant. The Net is such an interesting rumor mill. Once something gets going, people rarely look for the original source of things.

 

[quixotecoyote]

You know, I used to think it was just all about the money for Beck, but after seeing this nonsense, I'm changing my mind. I think he's starting to creep into dangerous, theocratic demagogue territory now

He's better than I gave him credit for. He managed to be generic and turn off the crazy. I see his prospects improving since he's proven he can play tin-foiler for his audience and generic populist to the crowds.

 

[Denver]

You know, I used to think it was just all about the money for Beck, but after seeing this nonsense, I'm changing my mind. I think he's starting to creep into dangerous, theocratic demagogue territory now

Yes I posted a thread about that last month: He's been putting himself into the light of a prophet more and more lately.

...What 'honor' do you think they are referring to restoring?

I'm still not sure I get it. Maybe he thought he'd get more people if he didn't title it as a religious event. Or less protests.

He's better than I gave him credit for. He managed to be generic and turn off the crazy. I see his prospects improving since he's proven he can play tin-foiler for his audience and generic populist to the crowds.

I suspect he accomplished a few useful things:

1) He showed his current and future sponsors and advertisers that he has a large well-defined demographic that will do what he tells them to.

2) He is helping to better define the tea party movement by having it organize around a common message. Or person.

3) He raises several million dollars for a vets organization. Which is probably a good thing in itself, and will also help to deflect any criticism that the rally was a waste of time.

 

[Hutch]

I see a lot of Father Coughlin in Glenn Beck these days.

Or Nehemiah Scudder.








(see, Heinlein, Robert Revolt in 2100 for reference).

 

[Rodney]

I guess it depends on how you interpret the sentiments this crowd is expressing.

I didn't hear the crowd expressing any sentiments, other than cheering most of what was said by the speakers. And what was said was largely religious, not political, in nature. If I had not known it was a Glenn Beck rally, I would have thought I was watching a get-together of Southern Baptists.

 

[Denver]

I didn't hear the crowd expressing any sentiments, other than cheering most of what was said by the speakers. And what was said was largely religious, not political, in nature. If I had not known it was a Glenn Beck rally, I would have thought I was watching a get-together of Southern Baptists.

I think this was the big reasons they did not allow signs. Now, they can say their audience believes whatever they want to say they believe, with no inconvenient signage to contradict that.

Unless the rest of the press did some crowd interviews...

 

[bit_pattern]

Interesting. Sinclair Lewis managed to say something 50 years before he was born.

At least that explains why he was able to predict the rise of fascism over 80 years before the word was coined!

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I didn't hear the crowd expressing any sentiments, other than cheering most of what was said by the speakers. And what was said was largely religious, not political, in nature. If I had not known it was a Glenn Beck rally, I would have thought I was watching a get-together of Southern Baptists.

I heard the message loud and clear. Like I said, it depends on what you think these people mean by "restoring honor", "taking back" whatever it is they think they lost.

Religious in nature, yes, Christian, Bible Belt-Southern values, if you aren't one of them you are are evil incarnate.

 

[GreyArea]

Except I just went through the online copy of the book and the line isn't in there. I'll keep looking.

Try Halford E. Luccock. I'm not in a position to verify the newspaper article, but at least it's a pretty strong lead.

 

[GreyArea]

CNN claimed the crowd went as far back as the WA Monument and I think that agrees with the pictures I saw. That makes 500,000 a very low estimate. It could be closer to 1,000,000.

Maybe if it was from the Capitol Building to the Washington Monument. I think you're looking at the wrong part of the map you cited.

Instead it looks like Beck's Restore 1950 Rally ran from the Lincoln Memorial to the World War II Memorial, with a sparser crowd leading to the Washington Monument. CBS has pictures and is reporting that about 87,000 attended.

 

[Ducky]

Yes I posted a thread about that last month: He's been putting himself into the light of a prophet more and more lately.



I'm still not sure I get it. Maybe he thought he'd get more people if he didn't title it as a religious event. Or less protests.



I suspect he accomplished a few useful things:

1) He showed his current and future sponsors and advertisers that he has a large well-defined demographic that will do what he tells them to.

2) He is helping to better define the tea party movement by having it organize around a common message. Or person.

3) He raises several million dollars for a vets organization. Which is probably a good thing in itself, and will also help to deflect any criticism that the rally was a waste of time.

So wait, did he actually raise money for vets? I didn't see anything in what of his speech I could watch about that. Best I could tell this was him on a god trip with no real cause.

 

[JihadJane]

I watched a good part of this rally and never heard even one bigoted statement. A number of performers and speakers, including Martin Luther King's niece, were African-American.

King's niece is a rightwinger who also appears on Beck's show, the house black woman.

 

[eeyore1954]

So wait, did he actually raise money for vets? I didn't see anything in what of his speech I could watch about that. Best I could tell this was him on a god trip with no real cause.

According to his website more than 5,000,000 was raised.

Skeptic Ginger
I guess it depends on how you interpret the sentiments this crowd is expressing.

You might look and see some white mother talking about returning to our past values of hard work and self reliance.

I see the same woman and read between the lines that she is talking about her specific Christian values, no gays, no foreigners, no atheists, no non-Christian values and all those people on unemployment are shiftless and lazy.

So the rally could have been about anything and they could say anything and you would read between the lines. Your mind about the rally was made up long ago. You give creedence to the statement that the media wrote their stories about the rally days before the rally.

I know a lot of people who like Glen Beck not a one of them I know believes "no foreigners, no atheists, no non-Christian values". Most do believe that historically a lot of people on unemployment and welfare are lazy.

 

[bit_pattern]

According to his website more than 5,000,000 was raised.



So the rally could have been about anything and they could say anything and you would read between the lines. Your mind about the rally was made up long ago. You give creedence to the statement that the media wrote their stories about the rally days before the rally.

I know a lot of people who like Glen Beck not a one of them I know believes "no foreigners, no atheists, no non-Christian values". Most do believe that historically a lot of people on unemployment and welfare are lazy.

And I guess it's no coincidence that you highlighted "lot of people" in black?

 

[paiute]

Most do believe that historically a lot of people on unemployment and welfare are lazy.

They don't realize that the lazy people are the ones who make any progress in this world. It was some guy too lazy to dig with his hands who invented the shovel. It was some guy too lazy to dig with a shovel who invented the backhoe. It was some guy too lazy to brush, cool down, and feed his horse who invented the automobile.

If it weren't for the lazy, those people would have to walk to the Beck rally, and those at home would have to follow it by having charcoal-on-rock drawings carried to them.

 

[JihadJane]

According to his website more than 5,000,000 was raised.



So the rally could have been about anything and they could say anything and you would read between the lines. Your mind about the rally was made up long ago. You give creedence to the statement that the media wrote their stories about the rally days before the rally.

I know a lot of people who like Glen Beck not a one of them I know believes "no foreigners, no atheists, no non-Christian values". Most do believe that historically a lot of people on unemployment and welfare are lazy.

Isn't it strange how, in times of economic recession, more and more people become lazy? Currently almost one is ten people in the US are officially lazy but this is probably an underestimate.

I spent as much time as I could bear watching the live stream of comments on the Restoring Honor Rally facebook page - the majority were about God, God making America great again, God being on their side, and giving God's blessing to Glenn Beck. I found it an extremely sinister display.

 

[Ducky]

According to his website more than 5,000,000 was raised.



So the rally could have been about anything and they could say anything and you would read between the lines. Your mind about the rally was made up long ago. You give creedence to the statement that the media wrote their stories about the rally days before the rally.

I know a lot of people who like Glen Beck not a one of them I know believes "no foreigners, no atheists, no non-Christian values". Most do believe that historically a lot of people on unemployment and welfare are lazy.

According to whose website? link please?

 

[JihadJane]

They don't realize that the lazy people are the ones who make any progress in this world. It was some guy too lazy to dig with his hands who invented the shovel. It was some guy too lazy to dig with a shovel who invented the backhoe. It was some guy too lazy to brush, cool down, and feed his horse who invented the automobile.

If it weren't for the lazy, those people would have to walk to the Beck rally, and those at home would have to follow it by having charcoal-on-rock drawings carried to them.

So global warming is lazy people's fault too!

 

[Denver]

I think the next (short) wave of dispute in the press will be how many people actually attended. This was also a matter of contention in the last one (which I think was a Tea Party rally).

Beck says over 500,000.
CBS: 87,000.

I expect Beck to be very vocal with proof that his numbers are closer to reality (and why the press lies).

IMHO, it was very important to show he could mobilize a huge amount of supporters.

ETA: CNN has a nice little article on the differences so far (somewhere between 78,000 and 1,000,000...)

 

[Ryan O'Dine]

So I'm starting to get the feeling the Tea Party is really a kind of stealth Christian Supremacist movement, with all the racism, shallow jingoist mentality, and choking overdose of Everything in the Name of Jesus you'd expect.

In a way, it's almost the inverse of the Republican Party. Instead of a fundamentally political movement that relies on a small number of religious issues to shanghai a large number of grass roots activists, the Tea Party seems fundamentally religious, relying on a small number of political issues to shanghai its activists.

I'm not all the way convinced yet, but I'm certainly getting there.