What's Political ...

Of course there was that Glenn Beck rally yesterday. It was held on 9/12 last year, because he wanted to link it to 9/11(/01), but Beck also has 9 values and twelve principles, or nine principle and 12 precepts, or some damn thing. But this year, 9/11 falls on (as apparently Beck called it) "the sabbath". Beck did not want to make the faithful come to a rally on a Sunday. So Beck looked around for another day, and 8/29/10 was the day that fit everybody's schedule. Just happened to be the anniversary of Dr Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. Oops, just a coincidence, says Beck, I had no idea. But what the heck, while were doing a rally, lets do it at the Lincoln Memorial, like King did. Let's talk about how Beck's people are taking back the Civil Rights movement. Let's say that African Americans don't "own" Martin Luther King (because anyone who complains about someone owning someone is being hypersensitive).

Beck tells us the rally would be non-political, and Beck's supporters say that it is so. Instead there was religion, apparently. Christianity, of course, obviously. But not politics.

I didn't pay attention to Beck's rally (at least in listening to the text), but I watch the Daily Show when I can. One day, perhaps last Monday, they had a story about a mosque (actually another frickin' civic center) in a place called Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Seems residents there are afraid of this civic center. Now there has been a fire and gunshots at this place.

Is there a connection between Glenn Beck's religious message and America's sudden revival of animosity towards Islam? A connection with the sudden equation of all of Islam with terrorism? I haven't heard one mention of Osama bin Laden, and almost nothing about al Qaeda.

You tell me what the connection is. What the cognitive dissonance is.