Beck Got the Date Wrong for His 'Restoring Honor' Rally: Missed it by 8 days

Eerily reminiscent themes of Beck's planned 'Restoring Honor' Rally

Glenn Beck missed the best date for his "Restoring Honor" rally.

Best date: August 20.

August 20, 2010 was the 83rd anniversary of the "Day of Awakening" rally held by some self-appointed super-patriots in Central Europe. Their 1927 rally (the fourth in an annual series) was designed to inspire a restoration of national self-respect at a time when the super-patriots believed their nation had "renounced the protection of its values."  The 1927 rally's other great purpose—like Beck's rally this weekend—was to restore lost pride in the nation’s military and those who served and fought: "Suddenly an ordinary military band begins to play, then the sleeper awakes from his dreams and begins to feel himself a member of a people that is on the march, and he marches along." 

The great rally was organized by people in a movement (which had turned into a party) who believed that their "entire struggle is a battle for the soul of our people."  They knew to the core of their beings that they were fighting against the same sort of dishonoring influences as Beck and his allies on the right believe they are fighting today in America: The forces of an elitist, power-grabbing socialist left which had (has) taken control of the federal government; a confused public that had (has) been lied to and tricked into electing a government inimical to their interests, hostile to their values, and indifferent to their voices; and an increasingly dangerous internal "enemy among us” (among them) that did (does) not share the values of the true citizenry and was (is) encroaching on the hallowed ground of the true nation, desecrating its soil, robbing the homeland of its former honor and glory.

The keynote speaker of the day told the crowd  that the nation "wants a leadership in which it can believe, nothing more."

Listen for these themes on August 28th at Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally.

The 1927 rally was titled “The Day of Awakening” – five years later, in 1936, the ninth annual rally of a series begun in 1923 was held; it was called “Rally for Honor.” That rally, like the others before it starting in 1927, was held in Nuremberg.

The notion of restoration is an old and recurrent theme for the ultra right. It always plays on fears that the “real people” are being squeezed out, that “we” are losing “our” nation, that “our” values are being disparaged, that “we just want our nation back.” The ‘others’ who threaten ‘our’ way of life are…well, they’re ever-changing: The “International Jew”, the socialists, the intellectual elite, the feminists, the Blacks who don’t realize that Martin Luther King was really all about color-blindness, the Muslims who want to desecrate ground we suddenly and arbitrarily decided was (selectively) sacred. Often the contaminating other is simply conjured out of fevered imagination: Do we know who it is that Beck thinks need to be reminded to honor our veterans and rebuked for not valuing their sacrifice? Who is it that he believes soiled our honor; when exactly was it lost?

Well…

It is this very impulse to look back to a “lost honor” that is the hallmark of revanchist rightwingers everywhere and throughout history. And for present day America, it is an ironic perversion of a core American value: to instead look forward to a fulfillment of our highest aspirations, to recognize the defects of democracy, to listen to the voices of dissent naming the promise not kept, to follow those who would lead us toward a shared overcoming of ourselves and the realization of what we may be.

Thomas Jefferson articulated this core American outlook:

I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As
that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of
circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as
civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

Think about that phrase “barbarous ancestors” next time you here some self-appointed guardian of the pure soliloquize the Founding Fathers, the next time you see Beck weeping over an image of George Washington.  The new cult of veneration of the Founders contradicts—and contradicts precisely—the spirit of the revolution in which we were born.

Which is to say, the posture of the teaparty is antithetical to the values of the revolution it seeks to mimic. Which is to say, the spirit of Beck’s rally—beyond being a desecration of the memory of King—is patently un-American.

Yep. Two taboos in 750 words: I’ve called Beck and his followers unamerican and I’ve associated Beck and his rally with the thugs of 1927 Germany. And I meant it.

And…Oh, yeah…Of course they have a right to free speech and everything, it’s just that…and so forth.

Guam Military Buildup: Resistance Grows

Chamorro protestors in Guam (Guahan) recently made clear their intention to resist some of the more egregiously destructive military buildup plans of the US DOD.

Protesters confront authorities at Pagat action.

Behind the protest is a long running story of US arrogance in its attempt to force the people of Guam into unconditional acceptance of sloppy, ill-conceived, and potentially destructive plans for a huge military buildup on the island.

Brig. Gen. Douglas H. Owens, a former commanding officer of Guam’s gigantic Andersen Air Force Base once referred to Guam as "an unsinkable aircraft carrier" for the projection of US military power in the Pacific. People who live in US territories kind of get used to being an afterthought in the minds of US policy makers--just ask the folks in Puerto Rico about Vieques or the folks who live unrepresented in DC about...well anything. (This, after all, is the reason other former US territories in the Pacific Island--Republic of the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of Palau--became independent nations.  But rarely is the exploitatively utilitarian truth expressed by Owens spoken with such brutal honesty and clarity; we should be thankful to Owens for his statements sheds light on why the US has been so seemingly indifferent to the chorus of objections of the people of Guam about the planned military buildup on their island Territory.

The US military is facing two primary problems in the Pacific. The Marines are getting chased out of Okinawa as the Japanese have had quite enough of a foreign presence they find unnecessary, obnoxious, and often given to bad (criminal) behavior toward Okinawan civilians. At the same time, China is flexing some new military power and has reportedly armed up a large number of missiles capable of reaching aircraft carriers at very long distances in the Pacific. Their aim is to counter the military power of the US should there ever come a showdown over the status of Taiwan.

So the Pentagon had a few issues to deal with in the Pacific and needed someplace to put the Marines, since the Okinawans were seemed to have become a bit touchy. Hawaii said ‘sorry"’, California said ‘nope’. Solution: Guam. Why Guam? Why not? It's a territory and so you don't have the pesky problem with a foreign government getting all up on its hind legs about 'sovereignty' and such. And its not like there's a state governor with Constitutionally reserved rights and powers to contend with.

So, the Department of Defense came up with a plan not only to relocate 8,600 Marines from Okinawa to Guam, but also to beef up the military presence on the island to offset strategic moves by the Chinese which had tipped the balance of power slightly away from the unchallenged dominance in the Pacific which the US believes is its right. So in addition to the Marine invasion, DOD plans to provide additional live-fire training sites, expand the already ginormous Andersen Air Force Base, create berthing for a nuclear aircraft carrier, and erect a missile defense system on the island.

Great plan. What's the beef?

Well, first off, you may note the part about nuclear aircraft carriers and missile defense systems.  If you are a citizen of Guam,enjoying the bountiful natural beauty everywhere around the island (or at least enjoying that part of the island not owned by the US Department of Defense,sitting behind military security fences), why would you ever agree to be made a greater target of Chinese military attention due to a buildup of manpower and hardware that has nothing to do with protecting you from anyone?

Secondly, if there has to be a buildup, why does the Department of Defense and the US Government indicate that it may have to condemn significant amounts of privately owned land belonging to Guamanians?  The US DOD already owns 1/3 of the total land on the island. This is the far and away the greatest percentage of land under the control of the US Military in any US state or territory where there are military bases. And yet DOD says it has no choice but to increase its footprint on Guam, even though it cannot say by exactly how much.

Worse yet, much of the land and ocean resources DOD says it must have is are environmentally important or culturally crucial. For example, the firing range (actually a firing range complex) the military says it must build are to be built in Pagat, on of the most culturally significant sites in Guam for the Chamorro people.  Here is what GuamPedia has to say about the significance of Pagat:

Pågat (which means to counsel or advise in the Chamorro language) is an important cultural resource for the Chamorro people; the indigenous people of the Mariana Islands. The archaeological site contains the remnants of a large latte village that is believed to have been a part of a larger exchange network.

The area has been included on Guam Register of Historic Places as well as the National Register of Historic Places, since 1974. These designations by the Guam Department of Parks and Recreation and the US National Park Service attest to the historic significance of the site.  In 2010, the National Trust for Historic Preservation  included Pågat  on America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.

So, why Pagat? Why does the US Military need this particular piece of real estate? No one seems to have a good answer. But Leevin Camacho, a member of the We Are Guahan coalition, may be on to a lead:

Best wishes and GOOD LUCK to the Pagat Protesters.

TERRORIST ANCHOR BABIES! We must repeal the 14th Amendment NOW!

Not kidding.  Really an issue raised on the floor of Congress. Nope, not a joke.  If we don’t change the 14th Amendment we are leaving the national vulnerable to the attack of ALIEN TERROR BABIES!

See it for yourself here:

I have no further comment.

iGoogle

Oops! We Butchered Someone’s Reputation…Again: The Right Wing Echo Chamber, Mainstream Media, Shirley Sherrod, and ACORN

Sometimes it’s best to let the dust settle on a “story” before entering the fray.

From a little distance, the story of the forced resignation of USDA employee Shirley Sherrod begins to resonate with eerie familiarity with another recent story about the mishandling of “news” from dubious sources. The pattern is worth taking serious note of, but first some background.

Last month, the mediaverse was all awhirl over the story of Shirley Sherrod who was forced to resign from her position as Georgia State Director of Rural Development for the USDA after conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart posted a heavily edited video excerpt of Ms. Sherrod’s speech at an NAACP event.

To briefly recap highlights of the sad series of events, Breitbart took a 43 minute video and edited it to about 2 minutes, retaining just enough clips to make it appear that Ms. Sherrod was confessing/boasting to the NAACP audience that she had once used her authority as a USDA official to discriminate against a white farmer who’d come to her seeking help for his failing family farm. 

Breitbart's edited version

The video went viral, FOX went apeshit, the chatterati went all ‘let’s get serious about this outrageous case of reverse discrimination’, the NAACP said it was outraged by Ms. Sherrod’s speech and actions and called for her resignation, and the Obama administration made a big public show of shoving her out the door, and then…

Well, even if you don’t know the details of this particular episode, you can easily guess what happens next…The video was revealed to be essentially phony.

Mr. Breitbart, sympathetic to the cause of teabaggers everywhere, had been angered by the NAACP’s call for the Teaparty to renounce racist elements within the “movement” (really, must we dignify this mess by calling it a movement? Unless we have in mind something scatological…), so he decided to “prove” that the NAACP is a racist organization with his video.

AND IT WORKED.

The same day Breitbart posted his carefully edited video, FoxNews.com news gave it the full rightwing echo chamber treatment; they breathlessly reported that "days after the NAACP clashed with Tea Party members over allegations of racism, a video has surfaced showing an Agriculture Department official regaling an NAACP audience with a story about how she withheld help to a white farmer facing bankruptcy." (The use of the word “regaling” is a nice touch, see, because it not only points out--falsely as it turns out…oops!--Ms. Sherrod’s bigotry, but also cleverly imputes to the whole NAACP audience her alleged anti-white discrimination--since they were apparently “regaled” by her account of stiff-arming some poor struggling farmer just because of his hated white skin.) Rightwing pundit and frequent contributor to the Catholic journal First Things, Jim Hoft, weighed in on his blog with this even-toned and temperate observation: “The former civil rights group known as the NAACP does not just invite anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan and radical America-hating Marxist Jeremiah Wright to speak at their event, they also invite government officials who hate whitey, too.” (Nice job, Jim; you managed to get all the race-baiting stories of the last 3 years into one sentence!) Of course, the ever-professional Drudge Report couldn’t resist piling on with its own headline highlighting the alleged racism “evident” at the NAACP: “SHOCK: Video Suggests Racism At NAACP Event.”

By the time the full video was released, it was all over but the phony mea culpas from the media for not fact-checking the story before running with it, and the hollow apologies from the Obama Administration, the NAACP (who had condemned her alleged acts of discrimation before seeing the full video), and from the vast array of media outlets and pundits to Ms. Sherrod for unwarrantedly smearing her reputation.

Full 43-minute video of Sherrod's address

In one of this circus’s funnier moments, House Minority Robotman and Official Congressional Gasbag, John Boehner, criticized the sloppy journalism involved in the coverage: “It’s unfortunate that whoever laid this out there didn’t lay out the whole story, as opposed to a part of it…They only put a little piece of the story out there and people make judgments and they rush and they make bad decisions.” *

This would all be a comi-tragic story of the plight of a mistreated government employee…

HOWEVER…

Note that in all of this, although the story would eventually evolve into a tale of the “tragic mishandling” of the whole affair as it relates to the fate of Ms. Sherrod, the initial target of the smear is not Sherrod, but the NAACP.  Breitbart wanted to publically slap the crap out of the NAACP for daring to call out the teaparty’s racist rhetoric and image mongering. For some, maybe the pattern here is beginning to sound familiar…

Here we have another rightwing blogger-hacktivist using heavily edited video excerpts to smear an “enemy” organization. Again, the target organization is one that represents the interests of minority folks. Again, the target organization is one that has been a successful opponent of rightwing policy and politics.  Picture getting clear yet?

Remember ACORN?  You would only be able to access ACORN in memory now, since it was dismantled in the aftermath of a fullbiltz media attack based on a set of videos so phony they screamed SCAM from the first time the Official State Inquisitors at FOX began thier 24/7 coverage of the bogus story of ACORN workers offering assistance to sleazy characters involved in apparent acts of crime. Let’s take a moment to recall the almost laughably obvious bogusness of the video-taped “sting” on ACORN upon which Fox “News” was basing its entire “gotcha” storyline about corruption at the “leftist” organization.

It’s almost as if  part-time hactivists and fulltime (right)wingnuts,Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe were daring the rightwing media to call them out for the amateurishness of their attempt at a “sting”… But, no, the echo chamber just went into a feedback loop so profound you couldn’t watch TV for a week without seeing this white, capitol hill-intern-looking dork all dressed up in what he imagines to be “pimped out” urban drag (apparently after getting pointers from watching 70s era copdramas like Starsky and Hutch) strutting into ACORN with his streetbitch and appearing to get helpful advice from ACORN people on how to set up a successful child-prostitution ring.**

And, just as in the Sherrod/NAACP scandal, by the time anyone got around to putting out the real story and showing the exculpatory portions of the video that O’Keefe had carefully edited out (portions that demonstrated that ACORN workers had in fact worked to thwart O’Keefe’s fictional criminal plans), ACORN had spent a ton of money defending itself, lost its donor base, been stripped of its government contracts, and dissolved itself as an organization.***

To recap: progressive organization with long track record of success in fighting the man gets targeted by conservatives; “independent” rightwing pseudo-journalists produce phonied-up video evidence of evildoing by the target group; the rightwing media machine amps up the story, and after the damage has been done, all the rightwing vigilantics gets exposed as fakery. 

A few important differences: (1) in the NAACP scandal, the original storyline—an attempt to “expose” the NAACP as a racist organization—got lost in the human-interest story of the fate of a government employee; (2) the mainstream media went out of its way to sing the mea culpa song about their irresponsible treatment of Ms. Sherrod, while in the ACORN story, the media's post-fuckup focus was on the bad deeds done by O’Keefe and the dubious legitimacy of "independent" bloggers as "real" journalists, with little acknowledgement of how the "real journalists" had bought the whole scam wholesale and whose "legitimacy" was deliberately leveraged by the rightwing machine to successfully destroy ACORN; (3) the NAACP still exists and its reputation as a social justice institution remains intact within the mainstream media; meanwhile the truth that ACORN was shamefully slandered and wrongfully—sinfully—driven out of business has only been grudgingly acknowledged;the general media zeitgeist surrounding the downfall of this once effective tool for poor folks fighting city hall and the predatory lending practices of financial institutions large and small has a disturbing ‘well they had it coming anyway’ vibe to it—as if it amounts to some sort of comeuppance.

While the NAACP episode was undoubtedly full of pain and humiliation for Ms. Sherrod, she probably does take some satisfaction from the fact that her reputation has been vindicated; just as CitiBank, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, et.al. no doubt take satisfaction that ACORN’s has not.

* Note that Boehner’s spray tan makes his face appear to be the same color as the wood paneled wall behind him.

** Note that in O'Keefe's edits, ACORN workers, who would almost always be residents of the neighborhood, appear to buy these clown costumes with no comment or trace of suspicion...

*** While there are many reasons to have serious issues with ACORNs ethical practices, many of the chapters, especially Baltimore and Houston, were fighting the good fight and keenly attuned to needed reforms within the organization.  Those reforms will now not take place, of course, and neither will the good work of the ACORN lay-staff.

Paul Burneko - Outlook Web Access

More Left-on-Left Crime, or How to Insure Low Turnout for Democrats in 2010, by Robert Gibbs

In response to Whitehouse spokesweenie Robert Gibbs’ recent infantile diatribe against the “professional left” (?), David Frum observed, “Repub pols fear the GOP base; Dem pols hate the Dem base.” Frum has it right.* Indeed, this a longstanding pathology within the Democratic Party and among progressives/liberals more generally.

While conservatives generally keep a sharp weather-eye to their right in order to see which way they should set their rhetorical (if not policy) sails, mainstream liberals almost always look to THEIR right for the same purposes; seeing only dangerous reefs and seductive Sirens to be assiduously avoided to their left, liberals are always tacking to the right to stay near the "realistic" (i.e. not threatening to the status quo) center.

Consider the kidglove treatment the teapartiers receive from most mainstream conservatives and the establishment GOP. With a few notable exceptions, the conservative establishment is tying itself in knots trying to figure out how to harness the energy of this rightwing phenomenon. And this is a factional splinter group that routinely voices rhetorical outrage at the establishment GOP and mainstream conservatives for their lack of rigorous commitment to their (lunatic) version of core conservative principles. Moreover, the whole far-right teaparty phenomenon was cooked up by a number of conservative movement insiders and heavyweights themselves.

Compare this with how the liberal establishment has long treated critique from its left.

• Bill Clinton administered a public pimp-slapping to the unions on his way to passing NAFTA with no protections for workers in NAFTA countries and no provisions for penalizing violators of international labor law or agreements. (And then he did it again with even greater malicious gusto in his recent support of the odious Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas.)
• Ralph Nader (along with the now moribund Green Party) was thrown on the pariah heap of history by Dems and mainstream liberals who still claim Nader is to blame for the success of Bush II’s 2000 campaign. Apparently we are to ignore the laughable ineptitude of then-centrist Al Gore’s campaign in which he conceded so much policy argument to his opponent the Bushistas had to frame him as a pathological exaggerator as a means of differentiating their candidate. (Note that Nader is still considered a leftwing fringe crank despite the fact that in 2000 and ever since he has been the consistent, and often lone, voice sounding the alarm about the very regulatory vacuum that led to the economic meltdown; being proven right has never helped the left gain legitimacy with the mainstream liberal establishment.)
• The Democrats in office treat MoveOn.Org like a downstate cousin who gropes the bridesmaids at the wedding reception—despite the consistent, effective support the group and its 3 million-plus members have provided candidates and progressive causes. Rather than the treatment given the teaparty’s deliberately provocative (and often hysterical) rhetoric by mainstream Republicans, Democrats seem to look for opportunities to outdo rightwingers in bashing the organization and publicizing their “outrage” at the organization’s media-determined “missteps” (remember the whole bogus outrage over the “General Betray-Us” ads?).
• Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation is routinely invited on Sunday panel shows like ABC’s This Week to be set up as the silly and unrealistic leftist in contrast to more “reasonable” liberal voices at the table. Back when George Smugandunctuous was hosting This Week, you could see him and Will competing to see who could look more condescendingly annoyed when vanden Heuvel was speaking.
• Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman and leftwing author Naomi Klein are treated like lepers in mainstream liberal circles despite having done great work in warning the world that the Bush Administration was lying about WMDs, connections to Al Qaeda, yellow cake and all the rest of the Iraq invasion propaganda. Again, being right is no help to those on the left.

And this is the short list of examples of how mainstream liberals and the Democratic party despise the left.

And now Gibbs thinks he’s doing Democrats some sort of good by suggesting that Obama critics from the left “ought to be drug tested”? Apparently Gibbs is annoyed that we on the left don’t show more gratitude for the victories. Bob should remember that we aren’t in this for Obama victories; we voted for this guy to get victories for the progressive cause and social justice and to reignite the movement to make government an effective tool to advance the interests and needs of working class Americans. On these fronts, the progressive left is justifiably disappointed; Gibbs sees this disappointment as “crazy.”

For example, Gibbs mocks the left for its foolish dissatisfaction with Obama’s health reform; he says we will only “be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare.” You're right...We’re sorry, Bob, we’ll all be satisfied that the Administration caved to the likes of Joe Lieberman and watered down the only major health legislation we’ll see for another generation in a craven and failed attempt to attract a few votes from the Gentlemen from Anthem, Aetna, and Pharma. That was riveting theater and a real motivational spectacle for progressives throughout the country.

We’ll also be satisfied by a complete failure to get decisive, unambiguous victories on unemployment, strong financial regulation, climate change, and energy policy. We know the Republicans and the Bush gang left you guys with a catastrophic economic situation; that must make it awfully difficult to CONTROL THE FRIGGIN’ TERMS OF DEBATE! That’s sort of your job, isn’t it BOB? Defining the terms of policy debates? How would you grade yourself and the Obama team on that so far?

So, maybe instead of sniping at the left, whining about the lack of gratitude for your (mixed at best) record of achievement, and sending out senior Democratic Party Parade Float, Bill Clinton, to rally support for Democrats, you could put on your big boy pants and fight for the goddam progressive agenda.

Or maybe you guys are kinda liking the idea of a Republican congress with a strong number of liberal democrats to "stand up to" so as to help you triangulate with the GOP for legislative “compromises.” Dick Morris, pick up your phone.

This whole ongoing drama of the left getting beat up by the mainstream liberals and establishment dems is a shame-filled experience. Its like being in an abusive relationship. What would you say to a friend who repeatedly helped the spouse get dressed up to go out only to find out they were being left home while spouse went out on a date with someone else…then got backhanded in the mouth for complaining? What would you advise a friend with so little self respect?

I still have my 2008 Obama bumper logo. It’s coming off my car today.

* This is the first, and hopefully only, time I have uttered such words regarding Frum.

Paul Burneko