Dear Glenn Beck: We Cannot Restore Honor Without a Point of Reference

The so-called ‘ground zero mosque’ dust-up and Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally share many commonalities. Opponents of each effort lob assaults accusing supporters of undermining either the sanctity of the National Mall or the crater left by the felled World Trade Center. But where one event sought to reclaim a watershed moment in America’s civil rights movement with vague, vacuous tropes and a questionable agenda, another tries restore a message of integration and tolerance.

First, let’s look at what’s been said so far about the Islamic cultural center to be built at 51 Park Place in lower Manhattan.

When President Obama put his public favorability on the line to express his support for freedom of religion, critics and political candidates accused him of being “an elitist who is insensitive to the families of the Sept. 11 victims.”  Charles Krauthammer had this to say, and Newt Gingrich, a professor of history even if his politics won’t allow him to keep his facts in one row, said this.

A retired firefighter who escaped the collapsing towers said at an Aug. 22 rally, “This is not about religious freedom…All we are saying is don't build this mosque here at Ground Zero on our cemetery." One must wonder if he felt the same way a year ago when the New York Times first reported on the site, or if he minded that conservative stalwart Lauren Ingraham supported the interfaith complex back in December of 2009.  But others have made the point election season invites culture wars that weren’t an issue before.

Skip down Interstate-95 past New Jersey and Delaware this past Saturday, and you’d find anywhere from 90,000 to over a million people attending Glenn Beck’s event. The motives of the event are difficult to determine. Supporters of the ralley would point to the Mall being a natural choice for national reflection. Critics are less willing to look over the fact the event took place 47 years to the day MLK recited his famous “Dream” speech. Courtland Milloy writes:

If nothing has changed during the past 50 years, it's the profits to be made -- politically and economically -- by using blacks to startle whites out of their rational minds. Get them staring at scapegoats while you pick their pockets.

But regardless of motive -- patriotic, racial, financial, or all three -- Glenn Beck’s rally was short on substance and long on vacuous populist pablum. There is nothing inherently honest or sincere about the rage felt by thousands of people who gather to let ‘elites’ know they’ve been kicked around too many times. Election seasons displace reason and accountability, and it’s wrong to equate public gatherings with a volksgeist. The devil is in the details, and it’s difficult to know for sure what Glenn Beck’s reference point is for restoring this country.

For Beck, though, substance is less important than image, and it is image that links the ground-zero umbrage to Beck’s rally. Here is the man’s analysis of his event as he dissects the video footage:

At 9:59, what happened was there was a flock of geese that ran. It was a flyover, if you will. Someone caught it on tape. Here's the flyover. This was happening just as the opening music was starting. We wanted to have a flyover, but you can't fly over in the District of Columbia. It was perfect coordination and perfect timing. Coincidence? Maybe. I think it was God's flyover.

It was not supposed to happen. We couldn't get a flyover. We couldn't even get anybody dressed in a military uniform to present the flag. We tried for almost a year. We couldn't get it done.

Much of what he continues to say analyzes the imagery of his event according to some literary rubric. It’s as if the reflecting pool of the Mall was commandeered to put a mirror to liberal media’s face and announce, in fact, “No policies were discussed. No politicians were named. No elections were talked about. The event was completely apolitical. There was no anger. There was no hatred, violence. It'd be surprised if anyone even used a swear word…Martin Luther King was honored, not disgraced.”

So what was it? Proof a predominantly tea-party crowd could behave? It’s a strange obsession with ‘things as they appear’ that exposes why all of a sudden so people came out of the woodworks to protest the Park51 complex. And yet Park51 is the realization of an ideal, perhaps pursued by Beck’s rally but in no way met. The complex seeks to restore an honor evinced by a great man with a dream 47 years ago. That integration, tolerance, and striving for notions that transcend racial and socio-economic squabbles are the manna by which the United States should feed itself.  Perhaps next time Beck and company might consider titling their event “Striving for Honor.”—we’ve a long way to go before we can look fondly to the past. 

Mikhail Zinshteyn is a staff writer for Campus Progress. You can e-mail him at mzinshteyn@googlemail.com.

Related Stories

• New, Invasive Online Surveillance Bill Rears Its Head
• INFOGRAPHIC: House Republican Cuts for Kids by the Numbers
• GOP Proposes Cuts In Prevention To Keep Student Loan Interest Rates From Doubling
• During President Obama’s Visit, UNC Students Discuss #DontDoubleMyRate
• REPORT: The Cost of College Will Soar if Interest Rates Allowed to Double