Until the whole country hears us loud and clear.
Last year, on September 12, my family and I traveled to Washington, DC to join a million other like-minded liberty loving Americans in the biggest and most epic protest I (and most of the people there) had ever seen. We were raging mad about out-of-control and overly intrusive federal government and we were celebrating the constitution and the ideals of the founders.
Shortly after that march, Glenn Beck announced he would host a similar gathering on the steps of the Lincoln memorial on August 28 2010, the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s famous March on Washington, and his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. The goal was turning this country around and bring it back to the ideals upon which it was founded. I just returned from this gathering. What I saw today was much, much different from what I saw last year.
Basically, we went to America Church….. (Click link for the news story)
This rally had zero to do with politics and everything to do with the American people returning to God as a culture and reversing the lack of national pride that most Americans have been conditioned over time to exhibit. In the months and weeks leading up to the event, he urged people not to treat this as not just another tea party protest. I remember him saying, “Leave your signs at home, and make sure bring your children.” And it wasn’t a protest. It was just a gathering of God-fearing, freedom-loving patriots.
One of the main things I believe Mr. Beck set out to do was show a contrast between the false stereotypes about the TEA party and the truth. Lately it seems the loudest accusation against the TEA party is racism. It would be very easy for the mainstream media to show images of hoards of old angry white men and call racism, even though nothing could be farther from the truth. To fight against this, Beck invited the niece of MLK, Alveta King to speak. Her speech was almost a sermon! She was followed by another black lady who sang about rebuilding the Twin Towers, and then by a small black gospel choir singing about “standing together in unity.” It honestly felt like it was one big black church service. It was GREAT! Beck never said this was his intention, but I can just imagine he did this to contrast the image being protrayed by the news media. It’s hard to call a group racist when one of your speakers is a relative of the greatest civil rights leader in American history.
The overall message came across to everyone in attendance: we cannot fix American politics until we fix the American people, and to fix the people, each of us must look to God (the judeo-christian one), ask for forgiveness and do our best to love our neighbor. Once we do this, once we fix the root of the issue, the rest is just details.
