I've been watching the biographies of some of the best 60's rock stars on the Biography Channel. The stories of Neil Young, David Crosby, The Mamas & the Papa's and others were showcased with interviews and outrageous footage of life from the sixties. I was taken back to that time- listening to the Byrds sing Turn, Turn, Turn, and remembering my frame of mind when I first heard that song,
I was young (ah) ideological, and out to rid the country of social injustice. I knew my philosophy-but hearing it sung back to me by The Buffalo Springfield was a uniting mind-bongling experience I don't think any generation has witnessed.
And it finally hit me.
This is what Glen Beck hopes to achieve. This is what he is envisioning. A counter-revolution to counter the culture revolution of the sixties. To 'bring the country back' to the time before an entire generation stood up and said "no" to war, injustice and inequality.
I thought about this last year, watching the Tea Party protests. I remember feeling odd, sitting at home as others 'took to the streets'. How full circle we have come. Now they are protesting the very things we fought so hard to obtain. Of course, their 'grassroots' uprising didn't have the same joy or finesse as some of the Civil Rights marches I attended, but they had the requisite shocking (hey notice me) signs and stand-out characters (love those tea bag hats).
What they didn't have was heart. They weren't united by a chorus of anthems. They didn't come together on their own. The were led, and they followed.
Glen Beck saw this and knew this was an opportunity to good to pass up. He would be that uniting force. He will do today what music did for us in the sixties. He will give the movement its heart.
Little by little, over the course of two years, Beck has been feeding his audience a longing for those simpler times- of Ozzie & Harriet and Lassie-where women and non-whites knew their place and hardly anyone even knew what a homosexual was. And all the problems we have today- all the troubles and pain in the world that we face today were created by a society formed by those counter-culture protesters of the sixties. And its time to take the country back.
I don't buy his excuse that he didn't know that August 28th was the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. This 'plan' of his needed a symbolic unveiling. He needed the attention this time and place would provide. Otherwise, how could he unite the masses?
And this is where he will fail. Oh, he'll probably pull in a decent crowd, but, unlike the anti-war rallies or the Civil Rights marches, his 'masses' will not collectively have one voice. When Beck takes to the stage he will look out onto a sea of bigots, anti-government tax evaders, Palin worshipers and lonely individuals who jumped on the free busses for a chance to 'belong'. He will see signs saying our president is a Muslim, or Hitler, or Kenyan. And he will hear the applause for Sarah which will be louder and longer than his.
And nobody will understand his message. And nobody will care.