The Usual Band of God-Mongering Idiots- So What's New?

Above: Some of the 85,000 or so clowns drawn to the Washington Mall yesterday by Clown-in Chief, Glenn Beck.


Yesterday featured a spectacle on the Washington, DC Mall (near the reflecting pool and Lincoln Memorial) , as two competing rallies were held, one actually in commemoration of Martin Luther King's vision (from his rally on the same date in August, 1963), the other led by a clown named Glenn Beck - of "Beck University" fame and peddling gold coins in case of a currency crisis.

Estimates of the Beck crowd varied, but most sober reckonings put it at around 87,000 (not 300,000 as Fox-driven crazies have propelled). From what I could see (having been on the Mall and familiar with its dimensions) it looked closer to 60,000, but who's counting? 60,000 nuts blathering about "going back to God" (when they're obviously more worshippers of Mammon, since all they worry about are deficits) is not much better than 87,000 or 87 milion. The sad fact is, this country is stewing in nut-tism and psychopathology and has been since Obama became President. Add on all the fears stoked precisely by looneytunes like Beck (who has referred to Obama as a "racist") and all the pieces are there for a large segment of the populace that belongs on a couch in an analyst's office. From FDR's famous "The only thing to fear is fear itself" we've come to: "The only thing to fear is EVERYTHING! A black President, Muslims, Mosques, Jews, Socialists, Atheists, deficits, taxes, ...."

You see, these racists at heart can't tolerate the thought or remote idea of a black man as President - so they disguise their racist mindset in covert ways: yelping that Obama's a "Socialist" (he's actually the furthest from it - a diehard Centrist Neo-liberal), or a "Nazi' (so laughable and idiotic it's not worth dignifying by response) or "destroying their children's future" via huge deficits. (Actually, if these fools knew one micro-bit about recent history they'd know that Bush and the Repukes ran up nearly $7 trillion before Obama even took office!)

But, oh ...they want the nation to "Go back to God".

Where do these numbskulls live? Inside their heads? Do they think "God" has been missing? Au contraire, he-she-it has been embedded in Amerikkan politics since the Reagan days - of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and the Christian Coalition, as well as Focus on the Family! The latter two alone have been mentioned as the major forces getting Bush back into office in 2004 as the rest of the world looked on in horror and thought Americans truly are morons.

It sure as hell hasn't been atheists in charge! Reagan, Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. - under whose watches the deficits accumulated to a total of over $10 trillion, have all been church-going, knee bending CHRISTIANS! So what do these yelping morons want to go back TO? My take is they want an all-white, Christian conservative Theocracy - and only then will they be happy. In the meantime they will wave their bibles while they stab Muslims in the neck that they don't like....or threaten to burn down any mosques under construction.

As noted in The Washington Post:

"The Beck crowd, meanwhile, was overwhelmingly white, and many in the crowd described themselves as conservatives with deep concern about the country's political leadership and its direction. "

That last line is code for:

"We are concerned about an out of control Negro leading our nation, and we want it back in the hands of a white man.... preferably a Baptist or Evangelical Christian"

Fortunately, there was one real genuine rally and it was composed, according to the Post, of union members, church-goers, college students and civil rights activists. The Obama administration Education Secretary Arne Duncan also spoke of education as the "civil rights issue of this generation."

There was no violence, which was good. Maybe we all ought to be grateful the Beck crowd were fervent God believers....as they probably reckoned that with their old man in the sky looking down on them all the time they'd best not try to stab a civil rights worker, or black man in the other rally in the neck. Or go bonkers in rioting or yelling "We hate Muslims"

All in all, not a very encouraging sight, though one couple Jim and Linda Harvey did drive 13 hours to the gathering to "bring a voice of sanity". Harvey held a sign labeling Beck a "whiner", while his wife held another labeling Sarah Palin "a Quitter" (since she resigned as Alaska governor). I can just hear all my European friends chuckling now as they watch clips of the main Beck slobbering crowd on TV, thinking:

"Jeezus, this country is really full of nutball freaks. Let 'em get distracted by an invisible man and old time religion, racism and they forget all about how unprovoked wars and corporations are impoverishing them all!"