Glenn Beck, Malcolm X, Reihan Salam and Reality

Like most Americans I ignored the "Glenn Beck Rally". I neither know nor care what Glenn Beck said. I know Glenn Beck. Like Sarah Palin it makes no difference what Glenn Beck says. Once you know Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin you know the face of Mussolini-like Fascism. That's the kind that creeps up on you. That you knew was fascism all along. But did not want to admit.

Now I do not know Daily Beast writer Reihan Salam but I know he looks too young to have been around when Malcolm X was shot. He is therefore qualified under our Constitution to say anything he pleases but to make a direct comparison between Glenn Beck and Malcolm X is hardly apposite or accurate.

Sometimes I think Web writers more or less figure their words will fade away so that it makes no difference what they say. Maybe so. Maybe I should let this go.

So let me just say that Malcolm never had a chance to decide what he would do. He was executed before he could fully process his remarkable conversion at Mecca. I saw him two weeks before he died. He was as far from being a Glenn Beck as I am or any other sane and ordinary American is. And before his conversion he was not into religious revivalism of any sort. He was growing out of the Black Muslim religious straitjacket just as he grew out of the criminal straitjacket as a very young man.

I did not attend the March on Washington though I am a Civil Rights veteran who worked with the likes of Diane Nash and John Lewis in Nashville in 1961 and elsewhere. I think such events are almost instantly turned into huge substitutes for the myriad actions that actually create change. We are great substituters.

So I had not the slightst interest in the Rally Saturday and I am relatively certain that Mr. Salam, who is further identified below, is wrong in suspecting that we will be hearing about Glenn Beck for a long time to come. Does anyone remember the name of the person behind the John Birch Society? That is about how well Beck will be remembered, and then only in a similar context.

In a spirit of fairness, I commend the entire Salam piece at the link below. I may have missed something.

Glenn Beck Rally: What He Has in Common With Malcolm X - The Daily Beast: "But something else is happening as well. Many commentators have noted that Glenn Beck scrupulously avoided political commentary during the rally. We're seeing early signs that this movement that Beck is building is about more than the midterm elections, and more than defeating President Obama in 2012. One gets the impression that Beck, like Malcolm X and many others before him, intends to lead a spiritual revival, if not a Great Awakening. Somehow I suspect we'll be hearing about Beck for many, many years to come.

Reihan Salam is a policy advisor at e21 and a fellow at the New America Foundation."

Abba's Way. Politics. "Glenn Beck, Malcolm X, Reihan Salam and Reality." Anyone who thinks Glenn Beck and Malcolm X are similar needs a ride in a time machine. Glenn Beck and Malcolm X share not a single trait.