GLENN BECK BRINGS IN AN UNHEALTHY, UNHAPPY, AND SOMETIMES VIOLENT CROWD TO DC

We have been out and about for a few days, so we are a little late on our Glenn Beck/Al Sharpton rally coverage. Luckilly, Lady Liberty’s Lamp is on the ball with their assesment of last Saturday, and we must say Glenn Beck’s rally was truly the greatest honor that could be given to Martin Luther King Jr. on the 47th anniversary of his “I Have A Dream Speech”. A month after MLK gave that speech, noted conservative James J. Kilpatrick, a regular at the National Review at the time, said in his article “The Hell He Is Equal” (which by the way was pulled from the Saturday Evening Post because the Birmingham bombing that killed four black girls in church just happened) that, “…the Negro race, as a race, is in fact an inferior race.” And ten days after James J. Kilpatrick died at the age of 89, another conservative white man rallied other white people along with people of color who would put up with him to say that they were inferior to Martin Luther King, Jr! Sure, it was phony posturing so conservatives can say they weren’t racist, but even that was a sign that what Martin Luther King work was not in vain! Sadly, it was also a sign that work needed to be done because truth of the matter is that those who came out to the rally at the Lincoln Memorial did not come in the spirit of unity and social justice as those who participated in the 1963 March on Washington. If they were going to do that, they would have participated in the rally that Al Sharpton put together, and they made sure that no matter what Beck was pulling that day, black people – particularly the ones he didn’t like – will be heard. This link comes with a few videos from the day including a special one from Lady Liberty’s Lamp themselves. We will have ours up shortly, but with Nazis running around in banana suits, you will have to excuse us for the tardiness. CORRECTION: You also have to excuse us for not adding the Lamp’s video that we wanted you to see. We’ve just added it now. Sorry about that!

Lady Liberty’s Lamp

THE ULTIMATE VIDEO!!!!

The LLL/Town Hell Posse could only be amazed at the high number of unhealthy, unhappy and aggressive people who turned out to help “Restore Honor”.
It’s almost a good thing Glenn Beck didn’t schedule a march, because he’d have been sued by the families of the nearly 100,000 heart attack and stroke victims among the roughly 100,000 who believed they Restored Honor on Saturday.

It was at this rally that the folding camp chair would become symbolic and synonymous with your slackly-rallying Teabagger.

The Unhealthy and Unhappy Made Up for the Majority of the Crowd

Right Wing Watch has their report:
Beck’s Big (Yawn) Event, #1

The Glenn Beck fans on my subway car after today’s rally were a subdued bunch. They didn’t seem energized by having spent time with their idol and many thousands of fellow fans. Why not?
“It was kind of boring,” said one. “It wasn’t what I expected,” said another. “It was good,” one said with an unenthusiastic shrug. “He had some good speakers.” One recalled someone sitting near them grumbling, “I didn’t come all this way for an awards ceremony.”

As shown in the video above there were some people who quietly came out to oppose Beck and friends and met with violence, but they were not the only ones.

Our comrade who is a street journalist was attack by a woman who tried to punch his camera and here is a photo of her:

Nasty Tea Bagger Who Punched Street Journalist (click on photo for video)

(Click on Photo for Video)
Or you can view it here
         
From street journalist:

One of the teabaggers trued to smash my camera, earning a fist-to-fist punch in return. One of her friends tried to call the cops while I rode away laughing-straight to the 20,000 strong Al Sharpton “Reclaim the Dream” counterprotest. Too bad that wasn’t Sarah Palin herself! Rest of the article HERE

Various activists from the left were quietly and politely handing out flyers. We were able to get PDF’s of these flyers:

First Flyer:

Thomas Paine’s “Agrarian Justice” is a little known (by right-wingers, at least) piece where he argues that wealthy property owners should be levied with a heavy estate tax to pay into a fund to support the poor, elderly, and handicapped.

 

Second Flyer:

The Open Letter to Glenn Beck was written by AK Press after Glenn Beck misrepresented an AK Press book about the Greek riots on his show as being by and about communists using anarchy in their favor, instead of by anarchists and about anarchists.

 

Flyers in PDF: beckdrop

Meanwhile a few blocks away…

Al Sharpton Organizes March to Honor Martin Luther King

Al Sharpton and a plethora of guests held a rally at Dunbar High School in Northwest DC on Saturday, where they sought to honor the
legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic march on Washington.
Speakers touched on a number of topics, ranging from labor rights, DC statehood and gains in the civil rights struggle and pointed out that Dr. King’s civil rights work tied varying struggles together so that everyone could succeed. Most speakers decried Glenn Beck’s rally as a cheap stunt and an irrelevant exercise.
The attitude of the rally was best encapsulated by National Action Network’s Chairman W. Franklyn Richardson– “It’s all right with me that they’re at the Mall today–because WE are at the White House!” Sharpton reminded the crowd not to get sucked into confrontations with heckling teabaggers, telling them to smile and say “It’s not about you.
It’s about Dr. King.” The march– which stepped off late– packed eight city blocks as it snaked from Northwest DC to the future site of the Martin Luther King memorial where Martin Luther King III delivered a short speech.

More photos of both rallies HERE and HERE

Discussion about turnout still abounds on the internet, but both rallies pulled strong numbers. Our estimation puts Glenn Beck’s rally around 100,000 and Sharpton’s rally around 50,000.