Sunday, August 29, 2010

Exclusive From Fox News: Beck Reflects on 'Restoring Honor' Rally

 



Radio and TV host Glenn Beck said Sunday he doesn't want to retract his controversial charge last year that President Obama is racist, but does want to amend it since reading more about "liberation theology."

"I have a big fat mouth sometimes and I say things, and that's not the way people should behave," Beck said, adding that he regrets saying a year ago that Obama has a "deep-seated hatred for white people" because it's not accurate.

"I didn't understand, really, his theology," Beck a Fox News host, told "Fox News Sunday." "I think that it is much more of a theological question that he is a guy who understands the world through liberation theology, which is oppressor and victim."

Beck described liberation theology, which teaches that salvation for the individual is dependent on salvation for the collective through economic and social justice, as the message that was preached by Obama's ex-pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

"I'm not judging (Obama) for that," he said. "I'm not demonizing it. I disagree with it."

Beck, who is Mormon, said most Christians don't believe in liberation theology.

"That is a direct opposite of what the gospel is talking about," said Beck."It's Marxism disguised as religion."

Beck spoke after hosting his "Restoring Honor" rally in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, which attracted hundreds of thousands of Americans. Beck said the event, meant to honor the U.S. military, was not supposed to be political, and for the most part, politics were left out of the conversation.

"The message I was trying to send was be your highest self and stand in the burning bush, stand in the fire, because that's the only thing that's going to save us," he said. "I've come to the place where I believe there's no way to solve these problems, these issues ... unless we solve it through God, unless we solve it through being our highest self, and that's a pretty tall order."

But Beck said the message of the event was that Americans should reclaim the nation from politics.

Beck added that he never intended the event, scheduled on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, which was also held at the Lincoln Memorial, to be about civil rights.

But many of his critics claimed he was trying to usurp the civil rights message by holding the rally on Aug. 28. A counter-rally to commemorate the speech, organized by Rev. Al Sharpton, also attracted thousands to the nation's capital on Saturday.

Beck, 46, noted that he wasn't alive yet when King delivered his speech or the civil rights movement was in full swing, and he grew up in the Pacific Northwest, which wasn't a hotbed of civic activism during his youth.

But he said he believes that people of faith are proponents of "equal justice," the broad message of the civil rights movement. He also said he thinks it's a "good thing" if he has done damage to "racial politics" as some of his critics claimed.



"Race should not be in politics. Race is a negative that is a heart condition honestly," he said."The real agenda should be equal justice.

"People of faith ... believe that you have an equal right to justice, that is the essence, and if it is not the essence, than we've been sold a pack of lies."

Beck, who described himself as a "hard-living, hard-drinking," ignoramus until he decided to clean up his life 15 years ago, brushed off suggestions that he should run for president. He said he has "zero desire" to hold the office and warned against using popularity as a measurement of the right candidate for the job.

"If that's the case, then we should either elect Billy Graham or Paul McCartney," he said, adding, "We should be looking for people with ideas. The country is in trouble and I don't see a political solution. I think both parties have sold their souls."

Beck noted that the Founding Fathers warned that if people turned from God, the country would be at risk.

7 comments:

  1. If Democrats had doubts about the voter unrest that threatens to rob them of their majority in Congress, they needed only look from the Capitol this weekend to the opposite end of the National Mall.


    It's where Ken Ratliff joined tens of thousands of other anti-government activists at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial for conservative commentator Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally.



    "There's gotta' be a change, man," said Ratliff, a 55-year-old Marine veteran from Rochester, N.Y.



    Neither Democrats nor Republicans can afford to ignore the antiestablishment fervor displayed Saturday during Beck's rally that took on the tone of an evangelical revival.



    Billed as a nonpolitical event, it nevertheless was a clarifying moment for those curious as to what clout an anti-Washington sentiment could have on midterm congressional elections in November. The gathering was advertised as an opportunity to honor American troops. But it also illustrated voters' exasperation — and provided additional evidence that Democrats in power — as well as some incumbent Republicans — may pay the price when voters go to the polls.



    The tea party is essentially a loosely organized band of anti-tax, libertarian-leaning political newcomers who are fed up with Washington and take some of their cues from Beck. While the movement drew early skepticism from establishment Republicans, these same GOP powerbrokers now watch it with a wary eye as activists have mounted successful primary campaigns against incumbents.



    The Beck rally further demonstrated the tea party activists' growing political clout.



    If the GOP is able to contain and cooperate with the tea party, and recharge its evangelical wing with Beck-style talk of faith, it spells the kind of change Ratliff and others like him are searching for.



    The promise of change helped President Barack Obama win the White House in 2008, but could turn against his fellow Democrats this year. Americans' dim view of the economy has grown even more pessimistic this summer as the nation's unemployment rate stubbornly hovered near 10 percent and other troubling economic statistics have emerged on everything from housing to the economy's growth.



    That's been a drag on both congressional Democrats and the president. While Obama has shelved his soaring campaign rhetoric on change, Beck has adopted it.



    At Saturday's rally, the Fox News Channel personality borrowed Obama's rhetoric of individual empowerment from one of the then-candidate's favorite themes on the 2008 campaign trail.



    "One man can change the world," Beck told the crowd. "That man or woman is you. You make the difference."



    Or change Washington. And while Beck didn't say so, that means change the party in power.



    His followers got the message.



    "A lot of people want our country back," said Janice Cantor. She was raised a Massachusetts Democrat and is now a North Carolina tea party activist.



    Beck's religion-laden message was a departure from most tea party events, which tend to focus on economic issues.



    Beck, who speaks openly about his Christian faith on his radio and cable news shows, relied heavily on religion during his speech, perhaps offering up a playbook for tea party activists and Republicans this November.



    Earlier, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin urged the gathering to change the course of the nation, although she said "sometimes our challenges seem insurmountable."



    "Look around you," she told the crowd. "You're not alone."

    ReplyDelete
  2. The ANT
    AND THE
    GRASSHOPPER

    This one is a little different ...
    Two Different Versions ...
    Two Different Morals
    OL D VERSION

    The ant works
    hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

    The grasshopper
    thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

    Come winter, the ant is warm
    and well fed.

    The grasshopper has
    no food or shelter, so he

    dies out in the cold.



    MORAL OF THE OLD STORY:



    Be responsible for yourself!






    MODERN
    VERSION

    The ant works hard
    in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house
    and laying up supplies for the winter.

    The grasshopper thinks the ant
    is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

    Come winter, the shivering grasshopper
    calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be
    allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.

    CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN,
    and ABC show up to
    provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper
    next to a video of the ant
    in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
    America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

    How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper
    is allowed to suffer so?

    Kermit the Frog appears
    on Oprah
    with the grasshopper
    and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green...'

    ACORN stages
    a demonstration in front of the ant's
    house where the news stations film the group singing, “We shall overcome.”

    Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright
    has the group kneel down to pray for thegrasshopper's sake.

    President Obama condems the ant
    and blames

    President Bush, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the
    Pope
    for the grasshopper's
    plight.

    Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid
    exclaim in an interview with Larry
    King that the ant has
    gotten

    rich off the back of the
    grasshopper,
    and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

    Finally, the EEOC drafts
    the Economic Equity &
    Anti-Grasshopper Act
    retroactive to the beginning of
    the summer.

    The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number
    of green bugs and,
    having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the GovernmentGreen Czar
    and given to the grasshopper.

    The story ends as we see the grasshopper
    and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just

    happens to be the ant's old house,
    crumbles around them because thegrasshopper doesn't maintain it.

    The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.

    The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken
    over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and peaceful, neighborhood.

    The entire Nation collapses
    bringing the rest
    of the free world with it.


    MORAL OF THE STORY:


    Be careful how you vote in 2010.



    I’ve sent this to you because I believe that you are an ant

    not a grasshopper!

    Make sure that you pass
    this on to other ants.

    Don’t bother sending
    it on to any grasshoppers
    because they wouldn’t
    understand it, anyway

    ReplyDelete
  3. What We Need Now Is A Good Ole Overbite/Madcow Rally At The Memorial And Lets See Who Shows Up.

    My Guess Is There Would Be More Police Than Rally Supporters.

    There Would Also Be A Great Display Of Paper Mache Heads And People With Tin Foil Hats.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I heard over 1.6 million people were there. That is awesome.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Jesus, i laughed my balls off. 1.6 million, you mean 1.6 hundred thousand.

    Chris, he didn't call Obama a RACIST!! You told me and everyone so. So how can Beck regret something he never said?????

    ReplyDelete
  6. Joe Better Be Careful With Laughing To Hard Cause You Going To Need em In November.

    Im Not Sure Where You Fall With Socialized Insurance But If Your Not Covered You May Have More Ball Room Then You Need! Just Dont Do A Polka While The Band Is Playing A Waltz.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Broken record, another chorus of November.

    ReplyDelete

Please keep it clean and nice. Thank you for taking the time to post you thought. It means a lot to me that you do this.