Glenn Beck supporters gather for his "Restoring Honor" rally on the National Mall on August 28, 2010. Photo courtesy of FlickrCC/theqspeaks.

As one who has been vilified by Fox News commentator Glenn Beck, I had to tune in Saturday and listen to his speech in Washington, D.C. (almost as one who cannot help but to look at a car accident as they drive by on the freeway). During his “revival,” Beck gave his usual banter regarding the beauties of Capitalism and runaway consumerism, the dangers of anything with the word “social” in it, and how we should fear the coming financial apocalypse by “battening down the hatches” and “get everything you can while the getting’s good.”

However, it was not his usual verbosity that gave me pause — that caused me to be in “shock and awe,” if you will. It was his statement on civil rights:

We are the people of the civil rights movement. We are the ones that must stand for civil and equal rights. Equal justice. Not special justice, not social justice, but equal justice.

Equal justice? Standing up for Civil Rights? How can Glenn Beck — a man who makes millions of dollars as a purveyor of fear and, in a McCarthy-esque fashion, labeling those who disagree with his point-of-view (including us progressives) as “Marxists” and “Nazis” — even begin to talk about equality or justice while there still exists the poor, the homeless, the falsely accused, and the disenfranchised within our own backyard (much less the world)?

Credit: FlickrCC/Chaz_Wags.

I once worked for a small greeting card company in Berkeley, piecework packing cards into plastic bags: $7 for a box filled with twelve-card bags. After a while, I became quite efficient and could fill almost two boxes in an hour. The owner, however, was outraged at what my hourly wage had become and moved to cut it.

Clearly she had earlier decided she could afford $7 a box, but now, apparently, the idea of a mere worker getting a decent wage was more than she could stand. Disgusted and furious, I left as soon as I could find another job.

Little injustices like that and far bigger ones are the reasons we have a labor movement. It has been a long, long, bitter struggle for workers to have a small share of democracy at work. Their rights are won and then eroded or circumvented.

Now, so many people work 12-hour shifts or wildly fluctuating hours; several part-time jobs or full- plus part-time jobs that the eight-hour day and forty-hour week, designed for rest, human development, and Sabbath, are moving out of range once more. It’s symptomatic that few American workers could tell you what May 1 is about.

Two weeks ago Sojourners’ Jim Wallis,  the most prominent social justice evangelical in the country,  responded to Glenn Beck‘s outburst about social justice Christians (which Valerie Elverton-Dixon wrote about on Tikkun Daily):

Beck says Christians should leave their social justice churches, so I say Christians should leave Glenn Beck. I don’t know if Beck is just strange, just trying to be controversial, or just trying to make money. But in any case, what he has said attacks the very heart of our Christian faith, and Christians should no longer watch his show. His show should now be in the same category as Howard Stern. Stern practices pornography and Beck denies the central teachings of Jesus and the Bible.  So Christians should stop watching the Glenn Beck show and pray for him and Howard Stern.

Beck got angry and promised Wallis that the hammer would “pound over and over through the night” on “your cute little organization and the cute little people who work for you.” Yesterday, after Beck explained at greater length what he understood social justice to mean, Wallis wrote a substantive reply on his blog. Today Wallis has asked his readers and supporters to comment on whether he should launch a campaign he has been planning for over a year, called A Million Christians For Social Justice.

The delightfully wacky HCR (Health Care Reform) circus caravan rolls on.

As of March 11, 41 Senators had either signed or issued statements of support for a letter to Harry Reid initiated by Alan Grayson and the PCCC urging passage of the Public Option through reconciliation. For the first time, the Public Option is looking like a very real possibility.

Only three Dems have come out absolutely opposed (not including Liebermenace who, perhaps as a ploy to reinvigorate his flagging attentometrics, is playing coy). The Dems can lose up to six fence-nesters and still pass the Public Option. “And how,” you might be tempted to ask, “has Alan (The-GOP-healthcare-plan-is-die-soon) Grayson, an outspoken House Freshman, managed to get 41 Senators to support his letter despite White House efforts to back-burner the entire endeavor?”

Simple! The PCCC conducted a series of statewide polls demonstrating tremendous support for “socialized Medicine” among Democratic and Indie voters!

Gotta luv that guy! Maybe Rahm should try to twist his arm in the shower. Or at least poke him in the chest.

Cropped from a photo of "pro" and "anti" Glenn Beck protesters in Beck's hometown of Mt. Vernon, Washington, outside the venue where Beck received the ceremonial key to the town. Credit Erna-Louisa, Wikimedia Commons.

I just got this email from my friend Taylor Eskew in New York. She’s a Quaker, an engineer, my neighbor for years, a fun person and a good person.

I have no idea how to start this for real but. . .

If you are as disheartened by the tone and content of many of the demonstrations, upset by carrying guns in public places, and wondering what to do about it . . .

How about boycotting Fox?

I just received this from the people at Color of Change (above: photo from their website):

Glenn Beck was just on the cover of TIME magazine. Instead of telling the truth about Beck–that he repeatedly race-baits, lies and distorts the truth–TIME raises the question of whether Beck represents a legitimate voice in American politics.

It’s absurd, and it’s not just TIME. In article after article, reporters seem afraid to call out what Beck is actually doing, and they often neglect to mention the very real backlash against Beck, including the fact that more than 62 companies have stopped advertising on his show.

You can help. In just a few minutes you can write and submit a letter-to-the-editor to papers in your area and help the media tell the whole story. We’ve got a tool that makes it very easy and gives you tips for writing your letter. Just click here to get started.

Van Jones (right side of photo) resigned last night after an onslaught of attacks led by Fox News’ Glenn Beck.

Being involved in the peace movement, and specifically the anti-war movement, since soon after September 11th, I’ve had many opportunities to hear amazing people speak. Van Jones was one of those people. The first time he spoke he was promoting “books not bars,” a movement to consider alternatives to the prison-industrial complex that cost so much money per prisoner and provided such dismal outcomes. He talked about models being used in other states and countries that dealt with youth crime but, instead of turning out adult criminals at the end of imprisonment, were turning out productive citizens who didn’t end up in jail again. Wow! He showed both the immediate economic incentives for trying these models (the cost per offender was cut in half) and the long-term social incentives, we ended up with productive citizens and the rest of society ended up safer.