2 weeks have now past, and just like the Park51 issue, and the wing-nut Qur'an burner, the story of Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor 8-23-10" rally, which was supposed to "change the course of American History" has come, gone, and in retrospect been totally meaningless. I blame the upcoming November elections for encouraging this type of bulimic media hype. Items of no value or content are elevated to a national media frenzy, and as more sound minds and rational journalists approach the supposed hot-button topic, it is revealed that, in fact, there is no story there at all. Case 1: There was an Islamic prayer room located on the 17th floor of the World Trade Center's South tower for 17 years before the tragic events of 2001. Therefore, the idea of installing a prayer room a full 2 blocks away its original location cannot possibly be considered controversial, even by the most insane (informed) individual. Case 2: Mr. Jones is a wacko with only 30 people who bother to listen to him - until recently. Revealed as such, the media pretends like it was "forced" to cover the story, and now maybe 31 people care what Mr. Jones says or does.
In the case of the Beck Rally, which time and further (non-beck) media coverage have revealed to be essentially a non-issue itself, I want to offer one final post based on my physical presence at the event just to offset any media slant that may have trickled out into the world. What follows are undoctored photographs and a few observations to go along with them.
1. Crowd Size
Let me say that I am not good at estimating large numbers of people. Let me also say that on August 23, there were, by any standard, a lot of people at the Beck Rally. The most accurate total count, done using aerial photography by a professional photo census company, was 87,000. To be honest, on the day itself, I guessed somewhere between 10 and 30,000 - but I am bad with numbers, so I'll go with the professional count. Mr. Beck personally proclaimed the crowd to be 500,000 strong - roughly 6 times the official count - while Palin said anyone claiming it was less than a million was lying (sorry, Glenn) and another conservative pundit proclaiming "at least" 3 million in attendance.
Here's my on-the-ground assessment: There was a crowd of people stretching from the foot of the Lincoln Memorial down both sides of the reflecting pool, throughout the WWII memorial, and just barely onto the lawn of the Washington Monument. That is a lot of ground to cover, and respect should be paid to any event that can accomplish such a feat. Having said that, the density of the event over that area was not very high - more Montana than Massachusetts. People were spread out. When possible, they clustered in the shade, leaving huge empty spots throughout the "rally zone." Also, they were mostly sitting. Pic-nic blankets and lawn chairs dominated the crowd, especially the elderly and the disabled, often with families or groups of friends who came to town on the same charter bus claiming their own large territory to put the cooler, umbrella, and other "necessities." This all goes a long way to explaining the nature of the event. It was not a packed house, stretching almost a mile, of fervent supporters standing toe-to-toe in a mass of angry protest. It was more like an ultra-conservative tail-gate party, or is that redundant?
2. Imagery
Placing an event at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial carries with it certain historical connotations. In the case of Mr. King's famous speech from almost the exact same location, it was Lincoln's heritage as the man who ended slavery, with the Civil Rights Movement seen as the final culmination of the mission and vision which Lincoln began. In the case of Mr. Beck, intentionality is harder to guess at. On the one hand, Lincoln is revered by Mr. Beck for being one of the first influential Republicans - which is odd, given that the platform of the pre-depression Republicans was so radically different from their modern decedents. Still, the Grand Old Party can traces its lineage, if not its ideology, to Honest Abe, so I guess this makes sense. Except that many of the participants in the rally, and much of the Tea Party movement in general, are not especially pro-Republican. They may be reactionary enough to believe in the same things that Abe did in the 1800s - like no voting rights for women - but I doubt it. Instead, they lump Abe in with the "Founding Fathers" myth that stands at the core of their invented identity. I find the idea that Washington, Madison (but not the "radicals" Adams and Jefferson) and whoever else envisioned a country of small government, no social welfare, limited foreign policy, freedom of religion only for (some) Christian sects, and tax breaks for the wealthy to be utterly nonsensical. Retrospectively adding Abraham Lincoln to a group of "Founders" 100 years his senior only emphasizes the preposterousness of the claim. By the argument put fourth - that he shaped our modern country - I think Woodrow Wilson, FDR, and many others - such as Adams and Jefferson - would also have to be included.
What was most odd about the actual visuals used at the rally were the three large posters put up behind the main stage. Done in the Shepard Fairy-style of Obama's iconic blue/white/red campaign poster, Mr. Beck chose 3 images to identify the core principles of his rally: George Washington, a Native American in war paint, and the 1969 Moon Landing.
The first, I understand. The second seems disingenuous - claiming a parallel victimization of North America's indigenous peoples while simultaneously celebrating those who ruthlessly subjugated them. The this is just bizarre. I think it commemorates a time of American self-esteem, specifically our space race "victory" over the Soviets, after, of course, they already beat us in a race into space. It brazenly ignore that fact that the Soviet's win had practical implications - balistic missile capacity - while the US win was purely symbolic. It also, of course, happened under the guidance of a Democrat.
3. American Apparrel
The above image is not extraordinary or uncommon at the Beck Rally. It seems wearing a t-shirt with either 1) an American flag, 2) a Glenn Beck slogan, 3) Tea Party motto, or 4) anything that linked Jesus to America - was a prerequisite for attending. I was genuinely struck by two things: First, that the resulting mixture of cargo shorts, size 45+ jeans, sandals with socks and (let's be honest) mostly X and XXL t-shirts presented a rally of people mostly connected by a shared poor fashion sense. Second, after passing various back-pack t-shirt vendors, that someone was making a fair chunk of cash by convincing these ultra-conservatives that they weren't really "committed to the movement" unless they had one of the 4 above categories proudly displayed on their chest.
To be quite blunt, at first it was rather scary. This was a lot of people who, if their t-shirts were to be believed, genuinely thought Woodrow Wilson was the worst president in history, and that "don't tread on me" was an appropriate parallel between British colonial tax policies from which the colonists would not benefit, and for which they were not represented, and Obama's health care bill, in which they were fully represented and will reap the benefits. That this many people were capable of blindly ignoring the basic precepts of logic, fact, and meaningful scale, was frightening. If I were being bombastic, I would liken it the earliest days of the Social Democratic party in Weimar Germany. But of course that would be an exaggeration, and I, at least, can tell the difference.
4. The Coming Revolution
Another common theme - in addition to the Jesus-America linkage that was omnipresent - was the idea of radical (perhaps the wrong word - reactionary?) change that was coming to America - - and soon! Revolution! A revolution of.... God?
As much as the Rally - and its participants - expected dramatic reversals in the course of American politics, it was pretty clear they weren't really going to do anything about it. They would attend rallies, so long as they were on the weekend, weren't too inconvenient, and there was plenty of sun in which to stretch out their folding lounger. They would vote - and as conservative as possible - but probably only in national-level elections. And they would gripe - a lot - about how those East/West Coast; Intellectual/Urbanite; Liberal/Radical/Moderate/Left-Wing/ Establishment/ Beltway/ Incumbent politicians - were ruining this great nation of theirs. They would "rededicate themselves to Christ" - at the urging of Mr. Beck - and otherwise they were free to sit on their couch, watch football, and rely on Mr. Beck's program to keep them angry while assuring them that they, the good/real Americans, were doing enough. Just wait. God has a plan for America. Stay tuned.
5. Demographics
In case it hasn't been clear from earlier posts or other reporting, I cannot possibly end my observations without noting the overwhelming lack of "diversity" in this crowd. I use quotations because I'm not comfortable with the word "diversity" having a coded, especially racial/ethnic, meaning. In this context, I mean to say that yes, there was virtually no one at the entire Glenn Beck rally who was not white - my friend and I walked actively for 2 hours through the crowd and counted a combined total of 10 hispanic or African-American attendees. But I mean more than this as well. The age range was quite broad, but manipulated. There were people present from the age of 7 to 70+, but everyone under the age of 20 was there with their parents, and seemed - to my eye, and despite their equally inflamatory t-shirts - to be rather bored. What 20- somethings were present (and very few of them) had come in groups, usually affiliated with a religious group like FCA or other on-campus faith-based group. Whether or not they held to the hyper-conservative rhetoric or not, I couldn't tell. They were often too busy texting with friends to pay attention to the speakers. Numbers began to tick up, slightly at the 30-something mark, as young (presumably very Christian) couples showed they weren't afraid to stand against the overwhelming liberalism of their peers. In all, the median age sat, not in the 50s, but likely in the low 60s, so strong was the retiree portion of this crowd - and that a long walk from the nearest public transport, and on a fairly hot afternoon. The irony that well over half of those present were active beneficiaries of social security and medicare/medicade was not lost on this young observer.
One issue that both Mr. Beck and the Tea Party movement (which are not the same thing) have to contend with is the issue of race. Fox News has a 1% African-American audience in a country with an 18% population. The rally, though scientific numbers are lacking, would have needed at least 8,700 African-American participants even to reach Fox's regular percentage. While my count of 10 is unquestionably low, it's virtually impossible for the total to have been even as high as 870, or 0.1% . And what about religious diversity? The freesdom "of and from" religion which our Constitution promises us? Glenn Beck was a preacher on a pulpit, giving out an exclusively Christian appeal for an (exclusively) Christian, or at least Christian-dominated America. One can only imagine how awkward it would have been to be a Muslim, Jew, Hindu or atheist in that crowd. I can imagine the last quite well, and my accomplice was raised in the Jewish faith. The regular appeals - from the pulpit - for Amens, and the constant calls of "Thank you Jesus" everything Beck tear-fully described the greatness of our Founding Father's vision. Truthfully, it was more of a religious, than political rally. This was made all the more odd by the presence of several groups of pentecostals, and a mormon, Beck, leading a crown of generic protestants in a call for "Christian resurgence" in the US of Jesus-America. But what about the rest of us? Aren't we part of America too? Aren't we, the non-christians and lapsed-faith, in fact the majority? Should we perhaps have a say, have a role in the future of this country? Not according to Mr. Beck. He has his chorus of monotone sycophants, which resonates louder and louder through cloaked bigotry and exclusionary xenophobia.
I did not get the sense of racially-motivated hatred at the Glenn Beck rally as I have personally witnessed at other Tea Party events. In fairness, everyone I spoke with and walked past, carrying my camera and audio recorder, was very polite. I mean, extremely, middle-America polite. I'm sure if people of diverse racial or religious background did come to the rally, they would have been welcomed and treated respectfully. I'm also sure the rally didn't have much to offer them. The White Jesus America of which Mr. Beck preaches hearkens to the Utah of the 19th century - a promised land in which, if anyone different may currently dwell, they will be expected to leave, or face institutional "correction."
6. Conclusion
As the crowd petered out, to spend the rest of their weekend enjoying the socialist-inspired free Smithsonian museums on the Mall, we passed this road sign. In anticipation of the large crowd - Beck told DC city officials to prepare for a crowd of 300,000 - the city shut down a road that runs through the Mall. Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally forced the closure of Independence Avenue. I can think of no better example of how political bombast preying on the fears and faith of our most fragile citizens can endanger the actual founding principals of our country.
Weber
::(lame)Texpatriot
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