WASHINGTON — Several hundred thousand people rallied at the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday to hear U.S. conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck call on Americans to “turn back to God” and traditional values.
The “Restoring Honor” rally, which was organized by Beck and featured former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, had been touted in advance as primarily a tribute to American troops and their families.
But Beck, one of the most popular and polarizing figures in right-wing politics, devoted much of his keynote speech to a plea for religious rebirth in a nation he warned is experiencing one of the darkest periods in its history.
“Something beyond imagination is happening. Something that is beyond man is happening,” Beck said to a throng of supporters who filled the National Mall from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to the foot of the Washington Monument.
“America today begins to turn back to God.”
Though there was no official crowd estimate, the rally ranked as one of the largest gatherings on the National Mall since an estimated two million people crowded the vast green space for the inauguration of President Barack Obama on Jan. 20, 2009.
It also served as a platform for both Beck and Palin, who have emerged as two of Obama’s harshest critics and champions of the anti-tax Tea Party movement.
Both Palin and Beck, however, eschewed overtly political themes in favour of more general appeals to patriotism, love of country and faith.
Though they did not mention Obama, the two conservative leaders cast the United States as a nation adrift and in needed of a fundamental change in direction — which they said could only be achieved if Americans embrace values espoused by its founders and heroes.
“Here today, at the crossroads of our history, may this day be the change point,” Palin said. “Look around you. You’re not alone. You are Americans!
“You have the same steel spine and the moral courage of Washington and Lincoln and Martin Luther King. It is in you. It will sustain you as it sustained them.”
Palin, whose son, Track, served in Iraq, said she was there to speak not as a politician but as the mother of an American soldier.
“I’m proud of that distinction. You know, say what you want to say about me but I raised a combat vet, and you can’t take that away from me,” Palin said.
“Though this rally is about restoring honour for these men and women, honour was never lost,” she added. “If you look for the virtues that have sustained our country, you will find them in those who wear the uniform, who take the oath, who pay the price for our freedom.”
The former Alaska governor served as something of a warm-up act for Beck, who has used his platform on Fox News host to portray Obama as a socialist who has a “deep-seated hatred for white people.”
Ahead of the rally, Democrats predicted the event would be a “blatantly political” attempt to motivate conservatives ahead of this fall’s congressional midterm elections.
Beck said “for too long, this country has wandered in the darkness.” But he never mentioned the upcoming campaign and, in a bid to demonstrate the rally was non-partisan, banned people from carrying political signs.
He infused his own remarks with an evangelical fervour and an appeal for the crowd to entrust their lives to God.
“Realize that He is our king. He is the one who guides and directs our life and protects us,” Beck said.
The Saturday rally triggered a wave of criticism from civil rights activists because it was held on the 47th anniversary of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
King made his appeal for racial equality and harmony at the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28, 1963, during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
In a bid to counter Beck’s rally, black civil rights leaders held their own march through Washington to a site near the National Mall where a memorial to King is being built.
“Somebody said, ”˜Why y’all marching? Why are y’all rallying?’ They call us trouble makers,” said Rev. Al Sharpton, who accused Beck of trying to “hijack” King’s legacy.
“But now the folks who used to criticize us for marching trying to have a march themselves. We come because the dream (King had) has not been achieved. We made a lot of progress, but we still have a long way to go.”
Beck said the timing of the event was a coincidence, but both he and Palin made several references to King during the three-hour event.
At one point, organizers played excerpts of the civil rights leader’s most famous speech on giant TV screens erected for the rally.
The crowd was largely white and many wore T-shirts in support of the Tea Party.
“Honour has been lost (in America). People don’t get their word and are getting away from God,” said David Joiner, a Jacksonville, Fla., resident who came to the rally dressed as Abraham Lincoln.
“We were built on Judeo-Christian principles and I think our country needs to get back on track.”
While the roster of speakers strove to avoid politics, those attending the rally were less reticent in sharing their views on Obama.
“I think he is a Communist,” said Lily Wright, a Tea Party activist from Texas.
“He is going straight, like a freight train, taking over as many enterprises as possible to be government owned. The next thing he is going to do is start taking homes and property as government ownership.”
Johnny Ferguson, of Lake Jackson, Texas, said the size of the crowd showed that conservatives are carrying the momentum heading into November.
“Obama is a socialist, a fraud and a liar,” he said.
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