Don't Get It Twisted, Glenn Beck Is No MLK

I still haven't quite figured out what to make of Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally, which is why it has taken me so long to post my thoughts about the event.

Initially, my plan was to immediately vent my outrage over Beckfest, since I was sure I would have plenty of easy and very nasty targets to pillory.

However, from the television snippets of the rally I watched on the day of the event and the news reports I read subsequently,  Beckstock wasn't the over the top,  in your face,  race-baiting,  Obama-hating,  don't tread on me, right-wing political orgy I and many others had expected.

Still, I'm at a loss to accurately describe the Beck rally, or explain exactly what it was attempting to accomplish.  The nearest I can come is to call it a Holy Ghost tent revival meeting on steroids, spreading a "take our country back" gospel bankrolled by the ultra-right wing, billionaire Koch brothers.

While I don't know exactly what Beck's mass gathering was, I do know what it wasn't, which is to say -- it fell far short of being the second coming of the 1963 March on Washington as touted by Beck and others.

Sure Beck, he of the uber-ego and the nutty socialism, communism, Kenyan revenge theories,  would have you believe his rally in Washington at the end of August mirrored in intent and purpose that  iconic march of 47 years earlier. He even went so far as to suggest that he and his supporters were  taking up where Martin Luther King Jr. left off and were  laying claim to the mantle of the civil rights movement.  But I'm here to tell you people: Don't drink the Kool-Aid.

Glenn Beck has a dream alright and it has nothing to do with brotherhood, equality or compassion for your fellow man.

Beck's Restoring Honor rally is as similar to the 1963 March on Washington as the National Mall's  Reflecting Pool is to the Atlantic Ocean.  Beck's shallow agenda, mainly aimed at ushering President Obama out of office, was devoid of the depth of the original March on Washington, which sought to heal America's deep racial wounds and inspire her to remake herself and live up to her promise of justice and equality for all.

Sarah Palin, one of the keynote speakers at Beck's "nonpolitical rally,"  put their march in perspective: "This a not about transforming America but restoring American and restoring her honor."

While Beck wants to wrap himself up in the spirit of the 1963 march, he intentionally neglects to use its complete title: March for Jobs and Freedom.

Did you notice that word -- JOBS. For King and the quarter of a million other folks who converged on the nation's capital that steamy August day 47 years ago, securing economic justice was just as important as securing racial equality.

Beck, in attempting to hijack the 1963 march, would have folks believe that the civil rights activists of the 1960s were not interested in economic justice. He has tried to convince anyone willing to listen, and too lazy to educate themselves, that petitioning the government for legislation addressing unemployment, failing schools, inferior housing, a living wage, didn't top the laundry list of demands of King and the other civil rights leaders.

If Beck took  the time to simply read history instead of trying to rewrite it (on his little blackboard),  he would know and understand. There's a little document, the original program of the March for Jobs and Freedom that outlines the 10 demands of the marchers in 1963.  As a matter of fact the last four demands dealt specifically with jobs and employment, including demand No. 7 that called for a "massive federal program to train and place all unemployed workers -- Negro and white -- on meaningful and dignified jobs at decent wages."

I didn't hear anybody at the Beckapalooza demand that the federal government put this country's 15 million unemployed to work earning a living wage.

Yet another element of Beck's rally that stood in stark contrast to the 1963 march, was the crowd.

First there was a dramatic difference in turnout. While some have greatly exaggerated (lied about) the size of Beck's gathering,  CBS News estimated the crowd to be 87,000.  I admit that is an impressive number,  but that is nowhere near the 250,000 that showed up in 1963.

However, the biggest difference  between the crowd that converged on the nation's capital in '63 and Beck's congregants was diversity. When I recently spoke to Rep. John Lewis (D-GA.) and several of the original 1963 march attendees, the one thing they all spoke of with awe was the diversity of the crowd. Lewis noted that blacks, whites, Catholics, Jews, young and old locked arms and marched along D.C.'s Constitution Avenue to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. News reports from the day estimated that at least 25 percent of the crowd was white.

Except for the entertainers and that shameless Alveda King, who did the buck and wing on the Beck stage last week, black and brown faces were all but absent from the Restoring Honor rally.

I don't hold it against Beck that he decided to stage his event on the anniversary and on the spot of King's iconic "I Have A Dream" speech. That's his right as an American. But I will call him out, and best of all paraphrase his own words: Stop "distorting" and "turning upside down" the true intent of the civil rights movement.

Photo Credit: Andrew Aliferis