I Have A Wet Dream

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs9etDCc0Fk

Salon reports that “a Beck-narrated video displayed on the massive screens attempted to co-opt King’s story, calling attention to the supposed similarities between King’s struggle and Beck’s own vision for the future.” We don’t know whether this is the video in question, but it fits the description.

0:00

Logo: “Restoring Honor”, Abraham Lincoln drawing

Tom Schaller of FiveThirtyEight, September 10, 2009: “Well into the 20th century, [South Carolina] was the state where black citizens observed the Fourth of July mostly alone. Why? Because — get this — the vast majority of whites preferred instead to celebrate Confederate Memorial Day, May 10, a practice that continued into the early 50s, which means there are some very senior South Carolina citizens who skipped a few Fourths back in their early years.”

0:28

Beck narration: “That day, 200,000 people, black and white, young and old, gathered across the National Mall to hear King’s words.”

Police estimated turnout for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom at 200,000. Organizers claimed 300,000.

Beck estimated 300,000 to 650,000 for Saturday’s event. (The event permit anticipated 300,000.) Michelle Bachman claimed a million. NBC estimated 300,000, according to the New York Times, but the MSNBC story itself reports “tens of thousands”. CBS hired an aerial-photography business that estimated between 78,000 and 96,000 attending.

U.S. population in 1963 was 189 million. Last year, it was 272 million.

0:42

Beck narration: “Many had struggled just to arrive.”

Beck tweet, August 21: “Over 1000 buses filled, more chartered.Sources say only event in recent history w such demand was Pres BO inauguration.”

The Wall Street Journal reported that crowd estimates for the Obama Inauguration “varied from a million to as many as two million people.”

0:53

Beck narration: “This was the day the American people would rise above politics, rise above the hate, and rise to the occasion.”

Speakers at Saturday’s rally included Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and MLK niece Alveda King, who said earlier this month, “We don’t want genocide. We don’t want to destroy the sacred institution of marriage.”

1:09

Sign in historical footage: “Race Mixing is Communist”.

Glenn Beck, August 9, 2010: “Back in Hawaii, according to President Obama’s first book, ‘Dreams From My Father,’ his mother Stanley Ann Dunham continued to direct young Barack’s attention and focus to the character and ideology of his communist, atheist, biological father, rather than toward the man to whom Dunham was re-married, Lolo Soetoro of Indonesia.”

1:40

Sign in historical footage: “We Want White Tenants in Our White Community”.

Salon: “A friend of mine walked the whole stretch of the rally and counted 27 African-Americans — three of them were onstage giving speeches. I could count the number I saw on my fingers.”

Sarah Palin, Saturday: “Look around you. You’re not alone.”

1:52

MLK quote: “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”

Glenn Beck, July 28, 2009: “This president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture …I’m not saying that he doesn’t like white people, I’m saying he has a problem. He has a — this guy is, I believe, a racist.”

2:05

Beck narration: “Martin Luther King held strong, while his detractors spewed hate.”

Glenn Beck, February 4, 2010: “He chose to use his name, Barack, for a reason. To identify, not with America — you don’t take the name Barack to identify with America. You take the name Barack to identify with what? Your heritage? The heritage, maybe, of your father in Kenya, who is a radical?”

2:44

Sign in historical footage: “We March for Effective Civil Rights Laws Now!”

Glenn Beck, July 23, 2009: “Everything that is getting pushed through Congress, including this health care bill, are transforming America. And they are all driven by President Obama’s thinking on one idea: reparations.”

3:57

MLK, 1963: “Let freedom ring.”

On the whole, this video could have been narrated by Morgan Freeman, and it would have been a fitting memorial. But we can’t help but think that another historic national figure arguing for the cause of freedom would have resonated more with the crowd:

“It’s another effort on the part of this president to dominate the country by force and to put into effect these uncalled for and these damnable proposals he has recommended under the guise of so-called civil rights. And I tell you the American people from one side or the other had better wake up and oppose such a program and if they don’t the next thing will be a totalitarian state in these United States.”

Ladies and gentlemen, Strom Thurmond.

Self-proclaimed civil rights leader Glenn Beck’s history of racially charged rhetoric [Media Matters]