One thing that puzzled me about Beck's recent gathering in DC is the whole point of it. On the one hand, there seemed to be a veiled message about repudiating successful and crucial social programs, such as Social Security and Medicare (which a recent Republican candidate for Senate from Alaska was fairly clear about). On the other hand, there was an attempt to mask this in a kind of universal religious cant. The combination makes oil and water look chummy, and reminded me of how Vanderbilt, on his deathbed, talked about how he soon would be sitting next to Jesus in Heaven.
In the past, right wingers would try to repudiate people like Martin Luther King, Jr., perhaps bringing up extramarital affairs (as if Republican politicians were never guilty of such things). Or they might mention that:
Quote: King... told the SCLC that "the movement must address itself to the question of restructuring the whole of American society. There are forty million poor people," King elaborated for his colleagues. "And one day we must ask the question, ‘Why are there forty million poor people in America?’ And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question you begin to question the capitalistic economy." Unquote.
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/...
Now, by contrast, some right wingers are trying to rewrite history in a way that strikes me as outright absurd (perhaps because they can't believe that a "great American" like King could be a "progressive"). But let's take Mr. Beck at his word for a moment, and let's think about a march for "faith, hope, and charity." Faith and hope are internal, and if Mr. Beck wants to wish for good things, that's fine with me. Personally, I don't need someone like him telling me about values, and find the notion simply laughable. However, the idea really seems to be that one must have faith and hope rather than Social Security and Medicare. Right wingers used to reminisce about the wonderful 1950s, but now they seem more interested in the late nineteenth century, when unions were weak and rare, and working conditions, including wages, were poor (relative to the 1950s). In such a Dickensian world, most people probably did require plenty of faith and hope to survive on many days. King still saw that the only so much had changed, mentioning that the system was "socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor" on more than one occasion.
Exactly how far people such as Mr. Beck can advance this charade will be interesting to see. However, I do wish that someone in the "mainstream media" would try to ask Mr. Beck a simple question: "If you think that charity is so important, and of course you do know that Jesus told rich people to give their money to charity and help the poor and sick, why didn't you announce that you were going to give all your money to various charities, and only keep a small amount to pay for the basic expenses required to live a simple, humble lifestyle?"
Perhaps that would be too much to ask, but how about citing this quote by King:
"Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true."
and asking if he would refrain from making his usual hateful statements on his radio and TV shows?