Glenn Beck’s Rally

Depending upon who you listen to, between 75,000 and 300,000 people showed up to hear Glenn Beck speak.

I interpret the message as let’s go back to the good old days of Jim Crow and women in the kitchen. I’m not sure why they just don’t dress in KKK sheets and hoods. Come to think of it, they might as well just put swastikas on their banners.

Make no mistake about it, this is American Fascism. Sinclair Lewis warned that when fascism came to America it would be wrapped in a flag and carrying a bible. For these people freedom means making certain that everyone looks like them, thinks like them and lives like them. If you’re not white Protestant Christian then, as far as they’re concerned, you should be respectful of your betters and do what they tell you, when they tell you.

Any Blacks, Hispanics or Catholics that support this idiocy might as well start digging their own graves. I needn’t worry about Liberals or Atheists; we’re smart enough to see the specters of the Fuehrer and the Grand Wizard peering down upon this with approval.

This is the result of fear. The world is changing, has been changing and will continue to change. The current generation in the United States is caught up in one of those great evolutions of society that sort of creep up on people from time to time.

The American dominance in the world is fading. The U.S. has not kept up with social, educational and industrial developments elsewhere in the western world. We have fallen behind in a number of areas and the working and middle classes are feeling the effects.

People are afraid. They have a right to be afraid. Unfortunately rather than face the issues realistically, people tend to look for someone, or something, to blame and a fast easy solution.

The demagogues offer both. In Germany in the 1930’s it was all the fault of the Jews and Hitler promised to restore Germany to her rightful place by promising everything to everybody. The unemployed would have jobs, the Capitalists profits and the army a return to former glory.

In the U.S. in the 2000’s it’s all the fault of turning our backs on “traditional American values” and Right Wing Conservatives, with the help of Jesus, will make it all better. Notice that they never tell you how other than somehow they’re going to reduce government size and power. They’ll also probably reduce taxes on the rich so you sorry SOBs can someday have some prosperity trickle down. Of course I wouldn’t hold my breath.

The fact of the matter is the last thing Right Wing Conservatives in power can afford is a government reduced in size and power because they are dependent upon authoritarian control to make certain that everyone looks like them, thinks like them and lives like them.

I find it amusing that these are the very people that are most willing to scrap the Liberal Democracy that is at the foundation of “traditional American values.”

So what happens now? I would like to think that the vast majority of Americans aren’t being taken in by these assholes but I know better than that. The average American is an idiot and would quite happily give away his political freedom to a Fascist Demagogue as long as it doesn’t appear to immediately inconvenience him.

Crap, that means stepping up the workouts in preparation for the civil war that is sure to come. I wish I was a bit younger.