No tears for Reagan
June 8, 2004 / http://tinyurl.com/558r6l
Excuse me if I don’t shed any tears over the passing of former President Ronald Reagan. While the news of the 40th president’s death brought on a flood of sentimentality over the nation’s media this past weekend, I could not help but recall what the Reagan presidency really meant for Black Americans. Similar to what occurred upon the death of Richard Nixon, amnesia has set upon journalists as they recall Reagan’s era; choosing to indulge in idol worship rather than serious reflection on the former president’s policies.
http://www.blackamericatoday.com/article.cfm?ArticleID=629

============

Ronald Reagan: The Great White Redeemer
http://tinyurl.com/6jljhm / June 10 2004
Only 12 years elapsed between the glorious military victory over the Confederate Slave States in 1865 and the definitive defeat of Reconstruction in 1877. In many important respects, the Reconstruction period was even briefer than that. By 1870, when the last of the southern states ratified the 15th Amendment to the Constitution, Tennessee had already rejected biracial democracy and installed an all-white “Redeemer” government. “Redemption” then swept through Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.
http://www.blackcommentator.com/94/94_cover_reagan.html

==================

Reagan's heart of darkness
June 9, 2004 / http://tinyurl.com/28ytj
PRESIDENT Bush proclaimed: "Ronald Reagan believed that God takes the side of justice and that America has a special calling to oppose tyranny and defend freedom." In the first three days of news reports on the death of the former president, not a single major American newspaper, television station, or politician has dared to exhume this counterpoint to the Reagan's legacy: "Immoral, evil, and totally un-Christian."
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/06/09/reagans_heart_of_darkness/

==================

Trent Lott, Ronald Reagan and Republican Racism
Dec. 14, 2002 / http://tinyurl.com/d9w75
Southern Strategy: The race question has haunted Reagan and the GOP for decades
The same could be said, of course, about such Republican heroes as, Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon or George Bush the elder, all of whom used coded racial messages to lure disaffected blue collar and Southern white voters away from the Democrats. Yet it's with Reagan, who set a standard for exploiting white anger and resentment rarely seen since George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door, that the Republican's selective memory about its race-baiting habit really stands out.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,399921,00.html

===============

Reagan, White As Snow
http://tinyurl.com/6lujee
Last week, as we’ve heard, the Republican presidential candidates praised the name and heritage of Ronald Reagan 40 times during the televised Show and Tell at the Reagan Presidential Library. That none of them mentioned Reagan’s legacy of white supremacy and support for apartheid is a little like invoking Jefferson Davis and not mentioning treason or slavery. Actually, a lot like it.
Ronald Reagan was a white supremacist to his very core, and left enough traces over his lengthy political career so that it’s evident for anyone who cares to look—which apparently few do.
Domestically, he opposed every legislative remedy for African Americans, betraying a meanness of spirit and an open racism. As Sidney Blumenthal wrote in The Guardian in 2003: / http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/05/08/reagan_white_as_snow.php

It is an American insult plain and simple.

The Martin Luther King, Jr. FBI File
http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/king.htm

==================

The Martin Luther King, Jr. FBI File
http://www.lexisnexis.com/academic/upa_cis/group.asp?g=147

"...Ronald Reagan and Republican Racism"

As usual from you, nothing could be further from the truth
---------------------------------------


Deyroy Murdock (a black journalist)

November 20, 2007 7:00 AM

Reagan, No Racist


In his memoir, An American Life, Reagan wrote: “My mother and father urged my brother and me to bring home our black playmates, to consider them equals…There was no more grievous sin at our household than a racial slur or other evidence of religious or racial intolerance.”

In 1931, Reagan was on Eureka College’s football team. One night, Reagan biographer Lou Cannon recalls, an Elmhurst, Illinois hotelier refused lodging to two of Reagan’s black teammates. Reagan invited them to stay at his parents’ home, where Mr. and Mrs. Reagan welcomed them. Reagan “and one of the players, William Franklin Burghardt, remained friends and correspondents until Mr. Burghardt died in 1981,” Cannon wrote Sunday.

As an adult, Reagan had a long history of bias-free fair-mindedness. As Cannon added:

As a sports announcer in Iowa in the 1930s, Mr. Reagan opposed the segregation of Major League Baseball. As an actor in Hollywood, he quit a Los Angeles country club because it did not admit Jews. In 1978, when preparing to run for president, Mr. Reagan opposed a California ballot initiative that would have barred homosexuals from teaching in the state’s public schools.

Ronald Reagan Jr. recalls the day at a California barbecue when his father dived into a pool to save a black child from drowning.

As president, Reagan named Samuel Pierce, a black man, as his secretary of Housing and Urban Development. While Pierce was outside Reagan’s inner circle, he was in Reagan’s Cabinet. In 1982, Reagan promoted Roscoe Robinson to become the Army’s first black four-star general. Reagan also helped place Clarence Thomas on his path to the United States Supreme Court by naming him chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Reagan’s critics may dismiss these appointees as “tokens.” Of course, they also would denounce Reagan for racism if he had zero appointees of color. Either way, Reagan loses.

Bob Herbert’s deceptions notwithstanding, on June 29, 1982, President Reagan approved a 25-year extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

‘‘The right to vote is the crown jewel of American liberties, and we will not see its luster diminished,’’ Reagan said that day. “Citizens must have complete confidence in the sanctity of their right to vote, and that’s what this legislation is all about.’’ He added: ‘‘As long as I am in a position to uphold the Constitution, no barrier will come between our citizens and the voting booth.’’

Reagan signed this measure at a White House ceremony attended by some 300 people including Senator Kennedy and bipartisan members of Congress. Civil-rights veterans were there, too, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson; Benjamin Hooks, then-president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Urban League president John Jacob; the Rev. Joseph Lowery, head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s widow, Coretta Scott King.

Krugman whines that “Reagan opposed making Martin Luther King Day a national holiday.” Earth to Planet Krugman: On November 2, 1983, President Reagan made Dr. King’s birthday a federal holiday, the first and only such honor for a black American.

As the Associated Press reported back then, “Reagan originally had expressed concern over the cost of honoring King with a national holiday, and said he would have preferred a day of recognition.” Also, when asked at a press conference if he agreed with then-Senator Jesse Helms’s (R., N.C.) claims that sealed FBI files implicated some of King’s associates as Communists, Reagan said: “We’ll know in about 35 years, won’t we?” Reagan telephoned Mrs. King to apologize for that comment.

Reagan warmly honored King at the White House.

“In America, in the ‘50s and ‘60s, one of the important crises we faced was racial discrimination,” Reagan said. “The man whose words and deeds in that crisis stirred our nation to the very depths of its soul was Dr. Martin Luther Kings Jr.”

Reagan added that King “awakened something strong and true, a sense that true justice must be colorblind, and that among white and black Americans, as he put it, ‘Their destiny is tied up with our destiny, and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom; we cannot walk alone.’”

After endorsing the measure before some 200 guests, Reagan handed his signature pen to King’s widow.

As UPI’s then-White House correspondent Helen Thomas wrote: “When it was over, the guests joined in softly singing, ‘We Shall Overcome,’ the battle cry that symbolized King’s struggle for racial equality.”

According to the Washington Post, Jesse Jackson, who attended the event, said of Reagan that day: “We’ve all had high and low moments, and this is one of his high moments.”

“It was a beautiful day, and a beautiful statement was made,” Coretta Scott King told reporters in the Rose Garden. “And the president spoke as president of all the people today.”

President Reagan named Lieutenant General Colin Powell America’s first black national-security adviser in November 1987. He served through Reagan’s second term and was a major player in Reagan’s diplomacy with the Soviet Union’s final leader, Mikhail Gorbachev.

“He was not only my boss and commander-in-chief, both in my capacity as a soldier, but also as his national security adviser,” Powell recalled on CBS News after President Reagan passed away in June 2004. “We became very good friends, both during the two years I worked with him and in the year after he retired, as I did with Nancy Reagan.”

Another of Reagan’s unsung achievements is his signature on the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988. This federal law green lighted the Indian casinos that dot America, from Connecticut’s enormous, eye-popping Mohegan Sun to the slightly more modest but still impressive Pechanga Casino in Temecula, California. Whatever one thinks of gambling, these enterprises earn billions for Indian tribes that had little beyond their traditions until Ronald Reagan freed them to capitalize on America’s betting jones. A true bigot would have let the red man stay poor and hopeless.

Krugman’s latest sludge bucket holds this lump of deep thought:

Reagan’s defenders protest furiously that he wasn’t personally bigoted. So what? We’re talking about his political strategy. His personal beliefs are irrelevant.

O.K., so Reagan loved blacks personally, but pushed us around politically to earn for himself and other Republicans the loyalty of bigoted white voters? So, let’s see: Reagan invited news cameras to capture him extending the Voting Rights Act in 1982 and signing the MLK holiday into law while sitting beside King’s widow in 1983. This clearly was part of Reagan’s effort to boost his standing among white bigots before seeking reelection in 1984.

And how about making Colin Powell America’s first black NSC chief and enriching Choctaws and Seminoles? Obviously, this was meant to galvanize white racists into electing Reagan’s successor, G. H. W. Bush.

“Why is this slur being floated now?” wonders Hoover Institution scholar Martin Anderson, Reagan’s long-time aide, chief White House domestic-policy adviser, and co-editor of several books documenting Reagan’s insightful, hand-written, speeches, and correspondence on public affairs. “I don’t know — maybe the 20th anniversary of Reagan’s departure from office, which is looming ahead, will show that his legacy is far more important than we knew. And that will be intolerable to a lot of people.”

Especially with the White House at stake, Leftist hacks like Paul Krugman and Bob Herbert will keep trying to smear Ronald Reagan as a racist. The obvious implication is that those of us who love America’s 40th president also are either racists or self-hating blacks.

These annoyingly immortal, liberal fantasies are just a steaming pile of lies.

"help us restore the
values that founded this great nation."

IF YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING FOR YOUR COUNTRY, BUY AMERICAN! HIRE AN AMERICAN!

IF YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING FOR YOUR COUNTRY, CREATE JOBS BY STARTING A SMALL BUSINESS SELLING WHAT AMERICA IMPORTS FROM ABROAD!

JOBS! LOOK AROUND, JOBS ARE EVERYWHERE!ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF OVERLAP--A FEW HAVE THEM ALL, AND EVERYBODY ELSE HAS NONE! DO ONE THING AND DO IT WELL.

For example, A TALK SHOW HOST(S) FLOWS RIGHT INTO ALL OF THE COMMERCIALS NOW. GET A LIFE! ONE IS NEAR 70! GIVE SOMEOBODY ELSE A LIFE, A JOB. A COMMERCIAL, AND, I CAN'T BELIEVE NEW YORK CITY CAN'T FIND SOMEBODY QUALIFIED TO DO THE SHOW IN NEW YORK CITY, BUT HAS TO BROADCAST FROM HIS PLACE IN THE DESERT IN ANOTHER STATE ALMOST ON THE WEST COAST (ADDED EXPENSE), AND INSTEAD OF ALL THIS PERSONAL, HIGH SCHOOL CRAP, ONE MIGHT DO BETTER TO TAKE A POINTER FROM DAVID BRINKLEY'S STYLE. JUST THE FACTS--NEWS! DON'T GIVE A DAM ABOUT YOUR PERSONAL CRAP IF A WEATHERMAN IS DOING THE WEATHER. GET PROFESSIONAL AGAIN.

A TALK SHOW HOST IS MUCH LIKE THE PEOPLE THAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT--THEY JUST WANT IT ALL, NOT TO SAY THEY SHOULDN'T MAKE MONEY. SOME RUN CHEESY CRAP. IT IS A SCAM.

And, stores cover every base they can. the working guy has to earn the money and pay for it and gets no service--self service. Gas, lotto, cigaretttes, salads, ice cream, hot dogs, milk....


Boats are a symbol of the sccess of the person. Where I am, as far as the eye can seee on the Hudson River, north or south, there are practically no boats of any type andy day of the week or weekend. Are the people with money just trying to get more?

JOBS! LOOK AROUND, JOBS ARE EVERYWHERE!ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF OVERLAP--A FEW HAVE THEM ALL, AND EVERYBODY ELSE HAS NONE! DO ONE THING AND DO IT WELL.

For example, A TALK SHOW HOST(S) FLOWS RIGHT INTO ALL OF THE COMMERCIALS NOW. GET A LIFE! ONE IS NEAR 70! GIVE SOMEOBODY ELSE A LIFE, A JOB. A COMMERCIAL, AND, I CAN'T BELIEVE NEW YORK CITY CAN'T FIND SOMEBODY QUALIFIED TO DO THE SHOW IN NEW YORK CITY, BUT HAS TO BROADCAST FROM HIS PLACE IN THE DESERT IN ANOTHER STATE ALMOST ON THE WEST COAST (ADDED EXPENSE), AND INSTEAD OF ALL THIS PERSONAL, HIGH SCHOOL CRAP, ONE MIGHT DO BETTER TO TAKE A POINTER FROM DAVID BRINKLEY'S STYLE. JUST THE FACTS--NEWS! DON'T GIVE A DAM ABOUT YOUR PERSONAL CRAP IF A WEATHERMAN IS DOING THE WEATHER. GET PROFESSIONAL AGAIN.

A TALK SHOW HOST IS MUCH LIKE THE PEOPLE THAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT--THEY JUST WANT IT ALL, NOT TO SAY THEY SHOULDN'T MAKE MONEY. SOME RUN CHEESY CRAP. IT IS A SCAM.

And, stores cover every base they can. the working guy has to earn the money and pay for it and gets no service--self service. Gas, lotto, cigaretttes, salads, ice cream, hot dogs, milk....


Boats are a symbol of the sccess of the person. Where I am, as far as the eye can seee on the Hudson River, north or south, there are practically no boats of any type any day of the week or weekend. Are the people with money just trying to get more?

I survived George Wallace, George W, and Jim Crow. I will survive Glen Beck. There will always be demagogues.

Though overall good, REAGAN DID NOTHING FOR THE FARMER!

BECK IF FULL OF CRAP THAT THE DATE IS A COINCIDENCE!

SUCCINCTLY, REAGAN DID NOTHING FOR THE AMERICAN FARMER!

Beck and his followers are entitled to have their day. As for the rest of us, let's hope that this assembly is large enough to have a big impact on the dittoheads in Congress and the Senate who are ruining this country with their all or nothing party platforms.
Perhaps we too can be motivated into taking our causes to Washington with more constructive rather than destructive ideas.

"help us restore the
values that founded this great nation."

IF YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING FOR YOUR COUNTRY, BUY AMERICAN! HIRE AN AMERICAN!

IF YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING FOR YOUR COUNTRY, CREATE JOBS STARTING A SMALL BUSINESS SELLING WHAT AMERICA IMPORTS FROM ABROAD!

"help us restore the
values that founded this great nation."

IF YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING FOR YOUR COUNTRY, BUY AMERICAN! HIRE AN AMERICAN!

IF YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING FOR YOUR COUNTRY, CREATE JOBS STARTING A SMALL BUSINESS SELLING AMERICAN MADE ITEMS WHAT AMERICA IMPORTS FROM ABROAD!

Signs at some tea party events, brought in by Anti-Tea Party Activists, have included pictures of Obama
embellished with a Hitler-style mustache,imagined racial epithets and
threats to Democratic officials.

There, I fixed it.

"Deyroy Murdock (a black journalist)"
Which means what?

Do we or do we not lock up criminals who believe people should be robbed/ killed/ rape basically criminals who violate a human rights? Then how could we give religious freedom to people who not believe in freedom of religion and violate human rights? We should then tolerate criminals as well, for it is their believe that one should take and not ask...

America is ignorant of Islam and in good faith we are allowing them to do as they wish. Building a mosque near ground zero is an offense and it is just sheer ignorance that those in good faith allow such events to take place. If in the Qur'an Muhammad tells of Allah being most merciful to believers but not to non believers, and that Allah can deceive, so should we allow ourselves to be deceived? Likewise, should we allow rapists, robbers, murderers free because it is their believe? Dr. Zakir Naik said that if a girl gets raped it is her fault...Is that what we should believe as well?

I suggest people educate themselves and understand that Allah begins by saying in the Surat that "Muslims are not to befriend a Christian or a Jew" Understand that this is not a misinterpretation by those reading it but that this is a fact. Of course here in America we all live for the American dream and refuse to believe that there are people out there who do not believe in unity. Sure you might meet a peaceful Muslim but I will also tell you that you might have just come across an ignorant one of his own teachings. Most of the one's I've come across say to me "I don't read my Qur'an" Yet you will find them praying 5 times a day. Thank whoever, because if they were reading they would most likely be terrorists.

If Mr.Glenn Beck is proposing to stand up against this, regardless of his faith, I say stand up against this offense. For do not be surprised if the consequences of continuing in ignorance, and allowing these people to do as they please, might mean an end to our freedom as we know it one day.

"Deyroy Murdock (a black journalist)"
Which means what?"


Which means...DUH!

Well Bill F.if you say "DUH" to my question hows this?

"Ron Paul on the mosque controversy
Congressman Ron Paul today released the following statement on the controversy concerning the construction of an Islamic Center and Mosque in New York City:

Is the controversy over building a mosque near ground zero a grand distraction or a grand opportunity? Or is it, once again, grandiose demagoguery? It has been said, “Nero fiddled while Rome burned.” Are we not overly preoccupied with this controversy, now being used in various ways by grandstanding politicians? It looks to me like the politicians are “fiddling while the economy burns.”

Oh you also want validity.

http://swerveleft.blogspot.com/2010/08/ron-paul-on-mosque-controversy.html

The debate should have provided the conservative defenders of property rights with a perfect example of how the right to own property also protects the 1st Amendment rights of assembly and religion by supporting the building of the mosque. Instead, we hear lip service given to the property rights position while demanding that the need to be “sensitive” requires an all-out assault on the building of a mosque, several blocks from “ground zero.”

Just think of what might (not) have happened if the whole issue had been ignored and the national debate stuck with war, peace, and prosperity. There certainly would have been a lot less emotionalism on both sides. The fact that so much attention has been given the mosque debate, raises the question of just why and driven by whom? In my opinion it has come from the neo-conservatives who demand continual war in the Middle East and Central Asia and are compelled to constantly justify it.

They never miss a chance to use hatred toward Muslims to rally support for the ill conceived preventative wars. A select quote from soldiers from in Afghanistan and Iraq expressing concern over the mosque is pure propaganda and an affront to their bravery and sacrifice. The claim is that we are in the Middle East to protect our liberties is misleading. To continue this charade, millions of Muslims are indicted and we are obligated to rescue them from their religious and political leaders. And, we’re supposed to believe that abusing our liberties here at home and pursuing unconstitutional wars overseas will solve our problems.

The nineteen suicide bombers didn’t come from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iran. Fifteen came from our ally Saudi Arabia, a country that harbors strong American resentment, yet we invade and occupy Iraq where no al Qaeda existed prior to 9/11. Many fellow conservatives say they understand the property rights and 1st Amendment issues and don’t want a legal ban on building the mosque. They just want everybody to be “sensitive” and force, through public pressure, cancellation of the mosque construction.

This sentiment seems to confirm that Islam itself is to be made the issue, and radical religious Islamic views were the only reasons for 9/11. If it became known that 9/11 resulted in part from a desire to retaliate against what many Muslims saw as American aggression and occupation, the need to demonize Islam would be difficult if not impossible. There is no doubt that a small portion of radical, angry Islamists do want to kill us but the question remains, what exactly motivates this hatred?

If Islam is further discredited by making the building of the mosque the issue, then the false justification for our wars in the Middle East will continue to be acceptable. The justification to ban the mosque is no more rational than banning a soccer field in the same place because all the suicide bombers loved to play soccer.

Conservatives are once again, unfortunately, failing to defend private property rights, a policy we claim to cherish. In addition conservatives missed a chance to challenge the hypocrisy of the left which now claims they defend property rights of Muslims, yet rarely if ever, the property rights of American private businesses. Defending the controversial use of property should be no more difficult than defending the 1st Amendment principle of defending controversial speech. But many conservatives and liberals do not want to diminish the hatred for Islam–the driving emotion that keeps us in the wars in the Middle East and Central Asia.

It is repeatedly said that 64% of the people, after listening to the political demagogues, don’t want the mosque to be built. What would we do if 75% of the people insist that no more Catholic churches be built in New York City? The point being is that majorities can become oppressors of minority rights as well as individual dictators. Statistics of support is irrelevant when it comes to the purpose of government in a free society—protecting liberty.

The outcry over the building of the mosque, near ground zero, implies that Islam alone was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. According to those who are condemning the building of the mosque, the nineteen suicide terrorists on 9/11 spoke for all Muslims. This is like blaming all Christians for the wars of aggression and occupation because some Christians supported the neo-conservative’s aggressive wars.

The House Speaker is now treading on a slippery slope by demanding a Congressional investigation to find out just who is funding the mosque—a bold rejection of property rights, 1st Amendment rights, and the Rule of Law—in order to look tough against Islam.

This is all about hate and Islamaphobia.

We now have an epidemic of “sunshine patriots” on both the right and the left who are all for freedom, as long as there’s no controversy and nobody is offended.

Political demagoguery rules when truth and liberty are ignored."

"Ron Paul on the mosque controversy
Congressman Ron Paul today released the following statement......"


You can't be serious. What is your point??? Ron Paul, above anyone else has always been known to be as far left as they come on foreign affairs, national defense and pre-emption to keep America safe, since his name was known. You couldn't have picked a worse wittness to prove whatever it is you think you are proving. You might as well team up with Ralph Nader

"It is repeatedly said that 64% of the people, after listening to the political demagogues, don’t want the mosque to be built. What would we do if 75% of the people insist that no more Catholic churches be built in New York City?"


And is this the side you are representing? Knowing full well that it is an accepted fact that no one on the opposing side of the Mosque has even suggested that Mosques shouldn't be built, then what does that say for you?
Are you a fear monger as well? The dialog has been completely about building on hallowed ground near the 9/11 disaster where thousands were slaughtered. Moving the Mosque several blocks is a horse of a different color than what your article charges.

Angry White Man by James Kirchick
The bigoted past of Ron Paul.

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

If you are a critic of the Bush administration, chances are that, at some point over the past six months, Ron Paul has said something that appealed to you. Paul describes himself as a libertarian, but, since his presidential campaign took off earlier this year, the Republican congressman has attracted donations and plaudits from across the ideological spectrum. Antiwar conservatives, disaffected centrists, even young liberal activists have all flocked to Paul, hailing him as a throwback to an earlier age, when politicians were less mealy-mouthed and American government was more modest in its ambitions, both at home and abroad. In The New York Times Magazine, conservative writer Christopher Caldwell gushed that Paul is a "formidable stander on constitutional principle," while The Nation wrote of "his full-throated rejection of the imperial project in Iraq." Former TNR editor Andrew Sullivan endorsed Paul for the GOP nomination, and ABC's Jake Tapper described the candidate as "the one true straight-talker in this race." Even The Wall Street Journal, the newspaper of the elite bankers whom Paul detests, recently advised other Republican presidential contenders not to "dismiss the passion he's tapped."
Most voters had never heard of Paul before he launched his quixotic bid for the Republican nomination. But the Texan has been active in politics for decades. And, long before he was the darling of antiwar activists on the left and right, Paul was in the newsletter business. In the age before blogs, newsletters occupied a prominent place in right-wing political discourse. With the pages of mainstream political magazines typically off-limits to their views (National Review editor William F. Buckley having famously denounced the John Birch Society), hardline conservatives resorted to putting out their own, less glossy publications. These were often paranoid and rambling--dominated by talk of international banking conspiracies, the Trilateral Commission's plans for world government, and warnings about coming Armageddon--but some of them had wide and devoted audiences. And a few of the most prominent bore the name of Ron Paul.

Paul's newsletters have carried different titles over the years--Ron Paul's Freedom Report, Ron Paul Political Report, The Ron Paul Survival Report--but they generally seem to have been published on a monthly basis since at least 1978. (Paul, an OB-GYN and former U.S. Air Force surgeon, was first elected to Congress in 1976.) During some periods, the newsletters were published by the Foundation for Rational Economics and Education, a nonprofit Paul founded in 1976; at other times, they were published by Ron Paul & Associates, a now-defunct entity in which Paul owned a minority stake, according to his campaign spokesman. The Freedom Report claimed to have over 100,000 readers in 1984. At one point, Ron Paul & Associates also put out a monthly publication called The Ron Paul Investment Letter.

The Freedom Report's online archives only go back to 1999, but I was curious to see older editions of Paul's newsletters, in part because of a controversy dating to 1996, when Charles "Lefty" Morris, a Democrat running against Paul for a House seat, released excerpts stating that "opinion polls consistently show only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions," that "if you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be," and that black representative Barbara Jordan is "the archetypical half-educated victimologist" whose "race and sex protect her from criticism." At the time, Paul's campaign said that Morris had quoted the newsletter out of context. Later, in 2001, Paul would claim that someone else had written the controversial passages. (Few of the newsletters contain actual bylines.) Caldwell, writing in the Times Magazine last year, said he found Paul's explanation believable, "since the style diverges widely from his own."

Finding the pre-1999 newsletters was no easy task, but I was able to track many of them down at the libraries of the University of Kansas and the Wisconsin Historical Society. Of course, with few bylines, it is difficult to know whether any particular article was written by Paul himself. Some of the earlier newsletters are signed by him, though the vast majority of the editions I saw contain no bylines at all. Complicating matters, many of the unbylined newsletters were written in the first person, implying that Paul was the author.

But, whoever actually wrote them, the newsletters I saw all had one thing in common: They were published under a banner containing Paul's name, and the articles (except for one special edition of a newsletter that contained the byline of another writer) seem designed to create the impression that they were written by him--and reflected his views. What they reveal are decades worth of obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry against blacks, Jews, and gays. In short, they suggest that Ron Paul is not the plain-speaking antiwar activist his supporters believe they are backing--but rather a member in good standing of some of the oldest and ugliest traditions in American politics.



http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=e2f15397-a3c7-4720-ac15-4532a7da84ca

I am convinced it is primarily rhetoric by certain people that is dividing this country and creating the division that is fueling the fires of unrest by their false witness. In their so called attempt to defend the rights of those they perceive, in their own perverted mind, as being trampled on, they often try to demonize well meaning people. This assault does not create peace but cements firm opposition.

Peace is achieved by understanding and communicating, not by taking sides or calling well meaning people names. Those sensitive to the Mosque for valid reasons are called Haters, Bigots and Racists. Those who color people that way are NOT by any means decent or peacemakers but dividers. Those who pick and choose to defend only the rights of one group or minority, instead of all those who are wronged, are not in anyway looking for unity but are creating division.

"The point being is that majorities can become oppressors of minority rights as well as individual dictators. Statistics of support is irrelevant when it comes to the purpose of government in a free society—protecting liberty"-Robert-Ron Paul

And here Ron Paul makes my previous point. In a free society made up of both honorable, decent people as well as oppressors, the majority cannot not always be the oppressor or always be wrong.

Did government protect the liberty of those in Arizona being kidnapped by illegals because of open borders? No, they chose to side with the minority against the majority.

Did they protect the rights of the majority who did not want to be forced into mandated Obamacare? No, they chose to side withe those in the minority.

What about the majority that said enough bailouts and stimulus, no 9/11 trials in New York, no cap and trade, less outsourcing of jobs, cut waste in government, etc. Do you think they will side with the majority on these issues?

The only ones being dictated to is the majority, by this government. The only ones who's rights and liberties are being effected is those of the majority. This statement, supposedly by Ron Paul, would have had more validity years ago but currently it is the majority that is being oppressed. This statement is out of touch with reality, much like the author.

For whom it may apply:

"Pay no attention to what the critics say... Remember, a statue has never been set up in honor of a critic!
Jean Sibelius (1865 - 1957), quoted in Bengt de Torne "Sibelius: A Close-Up"

Beck Can Dream Too:

August 27, 2010

When it comes to civil rights, liberals have been frozen in time since about 1965, rarely recognizing the progress America has made over forty-five years and never coming to grips with the fact that challenges remaining in that arena just might require different kinds of solutions than the sort of big government intervention that was employed four and a half decades ago. Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally [1] in Washington D.C. this Saturday should not be a racially polarizing event by any stretch of the imagination, but the Left’s obsession with Beck, it’s desperation to maintain a pliant victim class in America and the date of the event – the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream [2]” speech in 1963 – have combined to ensure that liberals will continue to play the tattered race card as often as possible in the run up to the rally.

“Whites don’t own Abraham Lincoln,” Beck said recently. “Blacks don’t own Martin Luther King. Those are American icons, American ideas, and we should just talk about character, and that’s really what this event is about. It’s about honoring character.” There is nothing about that statement that should cause any distress among anyone of good will. If liberals truly want to find common ground with the Right, that brief homage to the vision of a color-blind America is as good a place to start as any. Yet, what has been designed and billed as a rally to honor the men and women defending America and American ideals, has become a focal point for the many angry liberals who look at any idea emanating from the Right through racially-polarized glasses.

The off-the-chart liberals at Media Matters For America provide the most extreme example of this phenomenon. On an average day, the way that Eric Boehlert and his cadre of naïve, idealistic college kids obsess over the supposed hidden-meaning in every word that Beck utters is more than a little disturbing. As Beck’s rally grows closer, MMFA’s efforts to denounce him as a racially-motivated reactionary give new life to the phrase “frothing at the mouth.” For example, while seeking to disprove Beck’s claim that Dr. King’s dream has been distorted and perverted by progressives, MMFA’s Ben Dimiero penned a lengthy comparison [3] that juxtaposed Beck’s free market, small government philosophies against statements by King that espoused the kind of socialist, big government “solutions” that the Obama administration, MMFA and other liberals continue to champion.

In context, the fact that Dr. King looked to government to redistribute wealth and eliminate poverty by fiat during the 1960’s is hardly surprising. The idea that government was “the solution,” not as Ronald Reagan famously observed “the problem,” was as popular during that decade as it was in any other time in our history. Many starry-eyed Americans who believed that government could indeed create a “Great Society,” however, would grow disillusioned as they slowly realized that for every societal and economic problem government tries to solve, it creates that many more. As history inevitably repeats itself, a new generation of citizens is relearning the same lesson today.

Great ideas and the thinkers behind them must always be considered in the context of their time. Abraham Lincoln is not remembered for championing a plan to send African-Americans back to Africa, an idea that sounds barbaric today, but made sense to many people one hundred fifty years ago. The Great Emancipator’s legacy is rather built upon the fact that he set the nation down the long and sometimes painful road toward racial equality. A century after Lincoln took that tentative first step, Dr. King looked to the end of that road, employing some of the most powerful oratory in American history to express the lofty goal that he asked all Americans to embrace. It is that dream that we remember and revere when we think of Dr. King — not how he believed, like so many others at the time, was the best way to achieve it.

Ron Paul vs. Rand Paul on the mosque:

Monday, Aug 23, 2010


AP/Reuters


Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, is out with a strong new statement going after conservative critics of the Islamic community center near ground zero that implicitly criticizes his own son, Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul.

The background here is that Rand Paul has been on the record several times saying that, while he doesn't support any federal intervention, he does not think the so-called "ground zero mosque" should be built. "I think reconciliation is best promoted by -- instead of having a multi-million dollar mosque -- maybe having a multi-million dollar donation to the memorial site, would be better for all," he told the Daily Caller. (His opponent, Democrat Jack Conway, has said much the same.)

Now here's a taste of Ron Paul's scathing statement on the matter, which slams the position taken by many conservatives, including his son:

The debate should have provided the conservative defenders of property rights with a perfect example of how the right to own property also protects the 1st Amendment rights of assembly and religion by supporting the building of the mosque.

Instead, we hear lip service given to the property rights position while demanding that the need to be “sensitive” requires an all-out assault on the building of a mosque, several blocks from “ground zero.”

Just think of what might (not) have happened if the whole issue had been ignored and the national debate stuck with war, peace, and prosperity. There certainly would have been a lot less emotionalism on both sides. The fact that so much attention has been given the mosque debate, raises the question of just why and driven by whom?

In my opinion it has come from the neo-conservatives who demand continual war in the Middle East and Central Asia and are compelled to constantly justify it.

The whole statement is worth a read, and it highlights another issue that, unlike his father, Rand Paul has been conspicuously laconic on: the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan...........

The Sources of American Anger:

August 27, 2010

Barack Obama, the great healer, is proving to be the most divisive president since Richard Nixon.




Behind the anger over the Arizona immigration mess, the Ground Zero mosque, the economy, and the new directions in foreign policy are some recurring general themes that reverberate in each particular new controversy. In sum, they explain everything from the tea parties to the wholly negative perception of Congress to the slide in presidential popularity.

1. Two sets of rules. The public senses there are two standards in America — one for elite overseers, quite another for the supposedly not-to-be-trusted public. The anger over this hypocrisy surfaces over matters from the trivial to the profound. Sometimes the pique arises because the spread-the-wealth, we-all-have-skin-in-shared-sacrifice presidential sermons don’t apply to those who do the preaching, as in the president’s serial polo-shirted golf excursions or Michelle’s movable feast from Marbella to Martha’s Vineyard.

More profoundly, an Al Gore, a Timothy Geithner, a John Kerry, a John Edwards, a Charles Rangel — the luminaries who call for bigger government, higher taxes, and more green coercion — now appear to the public as disingenuous, living lives in abject contradiction to the utopian bromides they would apply to others. So too with the media. The opinion makers at a failing New York Times, Newsweek, or CBS lost readers and viewers not just because of changing technologies, but because of incessant editorializing in which the educated and affluent, the winners in our system, berated the less educated and less well off, the strugglers in our system, as bigoted or selfish or both.

How, for example, can Americans be asked to pay higher power bills in a recession to subsidize wind power, when the green Kennedy clan worries about windmills marring its vacation-spot view?

2. The bigot card. In reductionist terms, the public now accepts that when particular groups fail to win a 51 percent majority on a particular issue, they resort to invoking racism and prejudice — odd, when candidate Obama promised a new climate of unity and tolerance. Moreover, that disturbing trend has something to do with the president himself, who has injected racial grievance into everything from the Skip Gates controversy to the debate over the Arizona immigration law.

When the open-borders interests, or the gay-marriage advocates, or the adherents of the Ground Zero mosque cannot convince a majority of Americans that their agenda bodes well for the country, they almost instinctively fall back on the charge that America is xenophobic, homophobic, or Islamophobic. Yet the public infers that these charges reflect sour grapes rather than honest analysis: Had Arizona legislators or California voters supported the progressive agenda, then, as with the 2008 Obama victory, they would have been praised in Newsweek and on NPR for their moral sense and compassion. In short, the bigot card has played itself out and is now not much more than a political ploy to win an argument through calumny when logic and persuasion have failed.
3. The law? What law? Americans accept that they cannot pass legislation in violation of the Constitution. But they do not believe that a single judge can nullify the electoral will of millions without good cause. Thus in Arizona and California, there is a sense that judges who favor open borders or gay marriage are willing to use the pretense of constitutional issues to enact such agendas despite their current unpopularity. In a general landscape in which contractual obligations are nullified, as in the Chrysler bailout, and punitive fines are imposed quite arbitrarily, as in the BP cleanup, many believe the Obama administration applies the law in terms of perceived social utility. What is deemed best for the country by an elite few is what the law must be molded and changed to advance.

If there are, for example, not sufficient votes in the Congress to pass amnesty through legislative means, why not bypass federal law through a cabinet officer’s executive fiat?

4. The futility of taxes. We talk of returning to the Clinton income-tax schedules. Yet in the late 1990s, those hikes ended up, along with the Republican cuts in mandates, balancing the budget — without new health-care surcharges, or talk of a VAT, or caps lifted off income subject to Social Security taxes. Not now. The public recognizes that the advocates of higher taxes are not willing to make the sort of across-the-board spending cuts that once succeeded in balancing the budget. In other words, those who will start paying much more of their income to the government in the form of taxes fret that, unlike the 1990s, this time the additional federal revenue won’t balance the budget, and will be all for naught.

Worse still are two corollaries. First, we are in a ceaseless spiral in which each new tax increase will lead to justifications for more spending and thus to still higher taxes. Public employees, fairly or not, have morphed in the public mind from civil servants to pigs at the salary and pension trough, and from disinterested government workers to members of a liberal social movement that will perpetuate a federal agenda of race, class, and gender politics and higher taxes through payback bloc voting at the polls.

Second, there is a growing suspicion that this administration believes in a “gorge the beast” philosophy, the antithesis of Reagan’s “starve the beast.” In other words, redistribution may be a desired end in and of itself. If greater spending demands higher taxes, perhaps that is socially preferable, since income is an arbitrary construct predicated on some sort of social injustice. In turn, the remedy demands that the federal government impose an equality of result to correct the inequities of the cavalier free market that so unfairly pays some too much and others too little.

In short, are our taxes not merely paying for federal expenditures, but also quite justifiably serving to confiscate income that we did not rightfully earn?

5. Disingenuousness. There is also a growing belief that the Obama administration is advancing an agenda that it cannot be fully candid about, because that agenda does not command broad support. As a result, we are habitually asked to believe that what administration appointees or supporters say is not what they really mean, or at least was taken out of context.

Justice Sotomayor did not really mean that wise Latinas make better judges than white males. Van Jones did not really mean that George W. Bush was in on 9/11, or that white youths are more likely to be mass murderers, or that whites are chronic polluters of the ghetto. Eric Holder no more meant that Americans are cowards than one of Anita Dunn’s heroes really is the mass-murdering Mao. We should not believe that the top priority of the head of NASA is to advance Islamic outreach, or that the president himself thinks that police routinely act stupidly, stereotype, or arrest innocent people on their way to get their kids some ice cream. Imam Rauf did not really say that we created bin Laden, or that we kill more innocent Muslims than al-Qaeda kills innocent non-Muslims.

All this dissimulation started with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose mistake was not saying the outrageous things he said — Mr. Obama and the compliant media had contextualized his corpus of hate well enough — but finally insulting the media at the National Press Club. The former was seen as a misdemeanor; the latter proved a felony.

Do Obama supporters, then, reveal their true beliefs only in gaffes and unguarded moments, while filling their official statements and communiqués with pretense?
6. A culpable America? Finally, the public has added up the apology tours, the bowing, and the constant emphasis on race, class, and gender crimes, and concluded that this administration sees America, past and present, as the story of a culpable majority denying noble minorities their rights — period.

In addition, Obama and his crew see America in isolation, without comparison to the wretchedness that exists in so much of the world outside our borders. So a logical disconnect is never quite explained. If America is so xenophobic and culpable, why would millions of Mexicans or Middle Eastern Muslims wish to immigrate here — and what exactly is America doing to attract them that their own countries are not? If Michelle Obama felt that she could not be proud of America before Barack Obama’s accession, was it the free-market system that both provoked her ire and created the capital for her to jet to Marbella?

In other words, with the race/class/gender critique of the Obamians comes very little appreciation of the bounty, freedom, and affluence that they so eagerly embrace. Surely someone in the past — perhaps even white males — must have been doing something right for America to evolve into a place that our present-day critics apparently enjoy.

How will all this play out?

There are many millions of Americans who have a rising stake either in receiving reallocated federal money or in administering its distribution. For nearly half a century, the public schools have been telling millions of children that America’s preeminence is ill-gotten, based largely on exploitation of less fortunate others, here and abroad. So the country is divided, and a president claiming to be the great healer of our age is proving to be the most divisive chief executive since Richard Nixon — and, in the view of an increasing majority of Americans, by his own intent.

"Barack Obama, the great healer, is proving to be the most divisive president since Richard Nixon."

Bill, this article is excellent and right on point! It is precisely what I am feeling and what I have been saying.

There has been times that the government needed to rightfully go against the populace and side with the unpopular point of view but not this often.

It seems apparent that this group has an agenda and a method to achieving that agenda and if they cannot gain support by the public then the plan is to vilify, demonize, paint people as racists and bigots and distort the truth with selective media. When all this fails they use their power to over turn the voting public or to sue it's own. That is not Democracy.

In addition, they often exempt themselves from many of the same policies and laws they expect the public to obey, with an elitist attitude. This type of corrupt attitude is destroying the fabric of our nation but part of the plan is to never take responsibility or blame themselves, instead blame the majority.

"Bill, this article is excellent and right on point! It is precisely what I am feeling and what I have been saying."


Hopefully enough of the electorate will feel that way too so that we can reclaim our country, its principles as intended by its creators and especially the Constitution and its laws that have been selectively followed and purposefully misinterpreted by the gangsters in the White House and their gang member hoods in Congress.

its principles as intended by its creators and especially the Constitution and its laws that have been selectively followed and purposefully misinterpreted by the gangsters in the White House

----------------------

Bill I would HOPE you are talking about George Wrong Bush administration.

-------------------

Judge Andrew Napolitano says Bush and Cheney should be prosecuted for crimes against the United States Constitution.
Lies The Government Told You
Author: Judge Andrew Napolitano
http://tinyurl.com/ykdwxlc /
Judge Andrew Napolitano has created a great book with Lies The Government Told You. He has put into writing what many of us have long suspected…our government has been lying to use for years about almost everything it has ever done. If you think our government is crooked and power hungry, you will realize just how crooked it is when you read this book. Lies The Government Told You is scary as hell to be truthful. I didn’t find a single thing that I disagreed with. It’s almost unbelievable how far our Nation has moved from the Constitution. While I don’t watch much news anymore (I find most so called “journalists” to be either too frightened or too stupid to ask real questions that actually matter) I see enough to keep up with the major stories. I was glad to see Napolitano mention the failure of the national media as well in the book. Lies The Government Told You will really open your eyes to how broken our government is, not just because it’s virtually bankrupt, but because it fails to uphold the constitution and protect the very citizens that fund it. You will also learn that the Federal Reserve isn’t a “federal” entity. It’s a private corporation that controls all our money with little or no oversight. There used to be a joke that if Alan Greenspan happened to comment how nasty a rainy day was, the stock market would drop fifty points. It doesn’t sound far-fetched when you realize how much power the Federal Reserve actually has. I wold love to see this book as required reading in any government class. It truly does open your mind to the countless ways we as citizens have failed to protect our own freedoms by allowing such actions to occur time and time again. If you can still vote for most politicians after reading this, I can only hope they have also read the book. All Americans should be both shocked and ashamed at our government for these lies. We should remember these actions the next time we vote, though another big problem is the lack of choices on the ballot. Let’s be honest, how many times have you voted for the lesser of two evils? I highly recommend this book for everyone. If millions read it and understand how far we have fallen, maybe there is still hope that we can get our government and our constitutional rights back.
http://www.bookreviewsweekly.com/lies-the-government-told-you-by-judge-andrew-napolitano/

Cato is conservative and not a liberal think tank.


Power Surge / The Constitutional Record of George W. Bush
http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/powersurge_healy_lynch.pdf

Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence
Declaration of Independence from the War in Vietnam

Delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
April 4, 1967 / http://tinyurl.com/3fxtop

At Manhattan’s Riverside Church
Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent? Peace and civil rights don’t mix, they say. Aren’t you hurting the cause of your people, they ask. And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live. In the light of such tragic misunderstanding, I deem it of signal importance to try to state clearly why I believe that the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorate, leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/04/8096/

The Martin Luther King You Don't See on TV
It's become a TV ritual: Every year in mid-January, around the time of Martin Luther King's birthday, we get perfunctory network news reports about "the slain civil rights leader." http://tinyurl.com/2wy5du

The remarkable thing about this annual review of King's life is that several years — his last years — are totally missing, as if flushed down a memory hole.

What TV viewers see is a closed loop of familiar file footage: King battling desegregation in Birmingham (1963); reciting his dream of racial harmony at the rally in Washington (1963); marching for voting rights in Selma, Alabama (1965); and finally, lying dead on the motel balcony in Memphis (1968).

An alert viewer might notice that the chronology jumps from 1965 to 1968. Yet King didn't take a sabbatical near the end of his life. In fact, he was speaking and organizing as diligently as ever.

Almost all of those speeches were filmed or taped. But they're not shown today on TV.

Why?

It's because national news media have never come to terms with what Martin Luther King Jr. stood for during his final years. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2269

Glenn Beck’s Revival:

August 29, 2010

They came for many reasons — to see Sarah Palin, to pray, to hope, to socialize — but come they did. Hundreds of thousands of Americans gathered at the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday, lawn chairs and Gadsden flags in hand, to participate in “Restoring Honor,” a nonpartisan rally hosted by Glenn Beck, a Fox News host.

In a surprise appearance at the FreedomWorks conference in Washington on Friday, Beck had explained why he decided to spearhead what was, in many respects, an ecumenical revival. “My role, as I see it, is to wake America up to the backsliding of principles and values and most of all of God,” he told the assembled conservative activists. “We are a country of God. As I look at the problems in our country, quite honestly, I think the hot breath of destruction is breathing on our necks and to fix it politically is a figure that I don’t see anywhere.”

The following morning, as Beck’s event opened, soft piano notes swelled from gargantuan loudspeakers as images of America — purple mountains’ majesty, oceans white with foam — slowly streamed across the high-definition video screens positioned around the Memorial grounds. Then, to a great roar, Beck took the stage. “Something that is beyond man is happening,” he said, his voice echoing all the way to the Washington Monument. “America today begins to turn back to God.”

Beck’s opening theme, calling the assembled to embrace God and remember the traditional, foundational values of the country, was carried on by the ensuing speakers. Calls for unity and inspiration were ubiquitous, interspersed with history lessons, personal testimonials, sermons, and a bit of country music — John Rich and others performed. “For too long, this country has wandered in darkness,” Beck said, gazing out toward the reflecting pool. “This country has spent far too long worrying about scars and thinking about scars and concentrating on scars. Today, we are going to concentrate on the good things in America, the things that we have accomplished, and the things that we can do tomorrow.”

Beck’s healing message also included numerous citations of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech at the site 47 years ago to the day. Dr. Alveda King, a niece of the civil-rights activist, was a featured speaker. Palin, the former governor of Alaska, also addressed King’s legacy. “You have the same steel spine and moral courage as Washington and Lincoln and Martin Luther King,” she told the crowd. “It will sustain you, as it sustained them.”

According to Beck, the event raised over $5.5 million for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, a charity that supports veterans. Patriotic tributes to the men and women of the American military were frequent. Palin, who son Track currently serves abroad, said that she had “been asked to speak as the mother of a soldier and I am proud of that distinction.” She then told her critics: “Say what you want to say about me, but I raised a combat vet and you can’t take that away from me.”

Ultimately, however, it was Beck’s call for a religious rebirth that dominated. He urged the throngs to “recognize your place to the Creator” and to “realize that He is our king.”

“He is the one who guides and directs our life and protects us,” Beck said, his voice rising. “I ask, not only if you would pray on your knees, but pray on your knees with your door open for your children to see.”

Beck, Palin, Faith, Hope, and Charity:

August 28, 2010

Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.

Radio and television personality Glenn Beck today hosted hundreds of thousands of rallying citizens from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. In what was an amazingly apolitical rally, Beck and his fellow speakers focused on three themes: faith, hope, and charity.


The event, billed by its organizers “Restoring Honor,” harkened back to revered American leaders, from the Founding Fathers to Martin Luther King Jr., and religious figures, particularly Moses, whom he continuously referred to as “the man with the stick and burning bush.”

Offering a grim picture of where the country is today, while refraining from critiquing specific politicians or even particular policies, Beck hit a hopeful pitch, urging his minions to be more like the great Americans and religious figures he praised.

“Do we no longer believe in the individual, and the power of one individual?” Beck demanded. “No!” the crowd adamantly answered. “One man can change the world….That individual is you!”

“Pick up your stick and stand!” Beck commanded the crowd, suggesting that what can save America is a Moses-like figure, committed to God and caring for all who follow his lead.

Beck’s religious undertone was the current that carried the whole show.

The rally coincided with the day of Reverend Martin Luther King’s 1963 March on Washington. And many speakers, including Beck himself paid tribute to the civil rights leader who altered the course of American history through his peaceful civil disobedience and belief in God. Perhaps King’s most memorable speech, the “I Have A Dream” address, was delivered, also, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

King’s niece Alveda took the stage, in a move that will surely draw ire from Beck’s critics.

King thanked Beck for organizing this rally and “focus[ing] on honor and the content of our character, and not the color of our skin.” “The greatness of Martin Luther King was the faith he had in the American people,” Beck said.

The “Restoring Honor” rally granted numerous awards to former servicemen, as well as an unlikely recipient, Major League Baseball player Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals. Pujols received a “Hope” award, granted by his coach, Tony LaRussa, for his commitment to community service. “I want to thank God, for giving me this platform, as a baseball player,” Pujols said. “My job, as a believer, is to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”


And that’s what he did. And so did the subsequent speakers.

“Go to your churches, synagogues, and mosques!” Beck said, taking care to include men and women of varying faiths. “Yesterday is gone, tomorrow may never come, but we have today to make a difference.” The crowd applauded.

Beck was short on specifics, long on platitudes.

In a way, the rally today mirrored rallies held for then-candidate Barack Obama in 2007 and leading up to the election of 2008. Both this rally and many of Obama’s featured mesmerizing speakers, who chose to inspire audiences by rhetorically empowering them to take matters into their own hands.

While Beck’s rally emphasized belief in God, Obama’s generally emphasized himself as a savior of the American people. This, I believe, was the contrast the talk radio and television personality was trying to achieve. Beck’s rally, and the speakers who addressed the crowd, were continually thanking God and Beck for bringing such an inspiring crowd together.

Two attendees I spoke with, Lewis Rhoden and his son Brandon, had made the trip up just for this event from Polk County, Florida. The Rhodens had been on the Mall, reserving their prime seats, since yesterday morning at 5:30 a.m. Together, along with Beck, they watched the sun rise over the Lincoln memorial on Friday morning.

“We support what Glenn Beck is doing,” the older Rhoden told me, “putting God back in our nation.” Both Rhodens were excited by former governor of Alaska Sarah Palin’s speech. “She’s a positive role model for what we stand for,” Lewis said. But he wasn’t sure whether “she’s ready yet” to be president of the United States. The Rhodens weren’t sure whom they would support in the 2012 presidential election.

“Glenn Beck would be ideal,” Lewis told me. “He knows faith, the Constitution, and how government works. He knows it all.”

By saying this, Lewis conceded, Beck knows better than to run for president.

One thing is certain, though: Neither Rhoden would be supporting President Obama’s reelection bid.

Palin’s address to the crowd today was hardly political, especially for a once-time nominee for vice president. Not once did she mention Obama, Democrats or, even, Republicans. Instead, she addressed the crowd as a mother of a soldier.

Palin heartily thanked “America’s finest, our men and women in the military.” She called the military “a force for good” in this world. “And that is nothing to apologize for,” Palin said, in what was probably the most political moment of her speech, as it was presumably a veiled shot at Obama for what many perceive as a worldwide apology tour taken by the president.

Palin used her time to defend America’s war in Afghanistan. And honored those who had made the ultimate sacrifice in the fight for freedom.

Beck denounced those who call him a “fearmongerer” by likening himself to the iceberg-spotter on the Titanic. Beck, instead, asserted that he is trying to rescue America from a sinking ship. “We must, as a people, strengthen our spirit” and rise above, not go down, Beck said.

Only toward the end of the program did Beck refer to Democrats, Republicans, and independents. But it still wasn’t political. It was a unity call, imploring everyone to come together and unite to “restore honor.” It was a post-partisan moment. Similar, in a way, to Obama’s 2004 DNC speech, when the then-state senator from Illinois suggested that we should not remain isolated in a “red America” or a “blue America,” but should come together as the United States of America.

Beck announced that through his supporters he had been able to raise $5.5 million for this event. The crowd wrapped along the reflecting pool, shimmering out to the other memorials in the area and even around the back and far sides of the Lincoln Memorial, before thinning out near the Washington Monument.

The event lasted nearly three and a half hours on a hot summer day in Washington.

“America today begins to turn back to God,” Beck told the crowd at the beginning of the rally. Judging from the sizeable audience, and the enthusiasm that many supporters expressed, it’s pretty clear that hundreds of thousands wholeheartedly agree.

It was a good performance but, even Beck couldn't control himself from laughing tongue-in-cheek at his own performance at the times when he should have been most contrite. You should observe more closely.
The musical interludes were quite powerful, I can't say the same about Beck- GRADE- B-
...or Sharpton's rather poor attempt at a counter measure cloaked in MLK regalia. Too black, too resentful, too disjointed, no flow, ...nothing worth while. GRADE- D-

That's just the way I saw it, and "perception" is... in the eye of the beholder.
Cut & Paste-rs? Not so much.

It was a good performance but, even Beck couldn't control himself from laughing tongue-in-cheek at his own performance at the times when he should have been most contrite. You should observe more closely.
The musical interludes were quite powerful, I can't say the same about Beck- GRADE- B-
...or Sharpton's rather poor attempt at a counter measure cloaked in MLK regalia. Too black, not very inclusive, too resentful, too disjointed, no flow, ...nothing worth while. GRADE- D-
If this was The Dems playing the PC card at the expense of MLK shame on them.

That's just the way I saw it, and "perception" is... in the eye of the beholder.
Cut & Paste-rs? Not so much.

John, this is the second time on this subject that I fully agree with your comments and assessment. Beck is not an evangelist he is an entertainer and that showed through. Sharpton IMO, does not care in the least about uniting this country, only what benefits his cause which is self centered and not “all inclusive”.

The people and the message however were real. I thought of the whole thing as analogy of what is happening in this country. If we consider Beck’s rally as representing the majority voice in this country and Sharpton’s rally representing the minority voice. The leaders don’t appear to be sincere but the people are. Those at Sharpton’s rally calling Beck and company racists and haters simply because Beck called Obama a racist is a total injustice to all those that attended in good spirit. The hypocrisy is that if that makes Beck a racist, it also makes those saying that from the Sharpton rally a racist for doing the same thing.

Dishonored: The Real Racist Face of the Anti-Beck Left Exposed:

August 30, 2010

Agendas of the Left

YouTube user praterpost produced a fantastic video featuring tweets written by leftists during and after Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor rally last Sunday in Washington DC. It is a must watch for those who have yet to come to grips with the true nature of the Left, and the tactics it uses to destroy all those who dare espouse pro-freedom views.

An important – no, vital – point made by its producer is the racial hypocrisy and even the downright racism of progressives. They accuse Beck of racism, even though he hasn’t actually made a racist statement in, well, ever. If anything, the Fox News host is the anti-racist. He’s for freedom and liberty for all, not just for a selected few. Speakers at Restoring Honor included several African-Americans who have made a difference, among whom was Alveda King, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s niece. Somehow I can’t image the KKK asking her to speak at one of their events, can you?
That’s bad, but what’s even worse is that some of these merry progressive tweeps went on to say that rapper 50 Cent has more in common than MLK. Really, 50 Cent? The infamous gangster rapper? The man who raps about raping and beating up women, using drugs, and attacking the police for no other reason than that they represent the government? That sad excuse for a human being has more in common with MLK than Beck, a man who has a positive vision for his country and who loves his (multi-ethnic) country? You can only possibly say MLK and 50 Cent have more in common than the great civil rights leader and Beck if you look at one thing only: the color of their skins. And that means that you, leftists, not Beck, are the real racists here.

Watch it:

GOP Out to ‘Unprecedented’ Lead on Generic Ballot:

August 30, 2010

Somebody check if Nancy Pelosi is still smiling. From Gallup:

PRINCETON, NJ — Republicans lead by 51% to 41% among registered voters in Gallup weekly tracking of 2010 congressional voting preferences. The 10-percentage-point lead is the GOP’s largest so far this year and is its largest in Gallup’s history of tracking the midterm generic ballot for Congress.

The Republican leads of 6, 7, and 10 points this month are all higher than any previous midterm Republican advantage in Gallup’s history of tracking the generic ballot, which dates to 1942. Prior to this year, the highest such gap was five points, measured in June 2002 and July 1994. Elections in both of these years resulted in significant Republican gains in House seats.

Republican voters also enjoy a 25-point enthusiasm gap.

Only a low down racist peice of shit like Al Sharpton and some of the dumb peckerheads that post on this blog would take issue with someone holding a rally, in a national public park, on the anniversary day, that Dr King delivered one of his most famous speech's, 47 years ago.

You are entitled to your opinion,,,,,but

Only backward racist peckerheads would try to limit free speech in America.

It's 9/12 Again:
Rallies Expected Across the Country

Sep 10 2010

It's September 12th again this Sunday, and that means one thing: 9/12 rallies.

Last year, Glenn Beck launched a movement that, for months, organized and prepared for a big march on Washington, pulling off an event that drew a big crowd of Tea Partiers and disgruntled anti-spending crusaders to the National Mall. Media outlets estimated tens of thousands in attendance; supporters of the rally estimated closer to 1.5 or 2 million.


Dubbed "The 9.12 Project," Beck's stated goal for the rally was to "bring us all back to the place we were on September 12, 2001. The day after America was attacked we were not obsessed with Red States, Blue States, or political parties. We were united as Americans..." In the months leading up to September 12, 2009, local "9/12" groups sprung up across the nation; in the vast national network of small anti-Obama political groups, "9/12" groups pepper the broader Tea Party coalition.


This Sunday, the'll be at it again. FreedomWorks has been organizing, and The 9.12 Project has been promoting, another massive rally in Washington, DC. Permits for a 300,000-attendee event have reportedly been obtained, and a lineup of speakers--from Andrew Breitbart to Indiana Congressman Mike Pence--has been secured for Sunday afternoon outside the Capitol.


Other big rallies, which will likely draw thousands, are slated for St. Louis and Sacramento.


On top of that, countless smaller rallies are being planned elsewhere.


"These things are taking place all over the country," said Mark Meckler, a national co-coordinator of Tea Party Patriots, the largest Tea Party membership group in the country, which hosts a weekly conference call where local activists discuss and coordinate plans.

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