Stuart Connelly's Blog, page 4
August 26, 2010
Martin Luther King, Jr. and Glenn Beck's 'Restoration of Honor' Rally
As nearly anyone with an even passing interest in Fox News knows, Glenn Beck is convening a "Restoration of Honor" Rally at the Lincoln Memorial this Saturday, Aug. 28, in Washington, D.C., in front of the Lincoln Memorial. His rally is schedule to occur at the same place, 47 years later to the date, of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's "I Have A Dream" speech to more than 250,000 people assembled at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Mr. Beck summons us to "come celebrate American by honoring our heroes and our future."
For some time it wasn't clear whether Mr. Beck scheduled his rally to coincide with the
Anniversary of Dr. King's historic address by design or accident, but the fact that Dr. King's
niece Alveda will be appearing with him on the steps speaks volumes . Beck says it is a "non-political event that pays tribute to America's service personnel and other upstanding citizens who embody our nation's founding principles of integrity, truth and honor." Until otherwise indicated, we take him at his word.
I have already heard comments on the cable television political news shows criticizing him for holding his event at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial on the same date where the March on Washington took place. There may or may not be a valid basis for criticism. It does not appear so from the words used to describe his event. Only the reality of actions taken and words spoken this Saturday will show whether such criticism was valid.
In his website invitation to persons to join him in Washington, Beck reminds us
that "throughout history America has seen many great leaders and noteworthy citizens change
her course." He writes "It is through their personal virtues and by their example that we are
able to live as a free people."
Indeed, I agree on that point. Beck and his followers have a unique opportunity to commemorate Martin Luther King, Jr. as an extraordinary example of one of America's "great leaders and noteworthy citizens," who by enabling our country to peacefully end American apartheid, changed our nation's course for us to live as a free people. The substance of Dr.King's speech 47 years ago at the Lincoln Memorial was a plea to America to "Restore its Honor." Or, in the words of Beck, "to restore the values that founded this great nation."
In collaboration with Stuart Connelly, I recently completed a book, describing the original "March On Washington" event, in real time, for today's generation. Titled Behind The Dream: Inside The Speech That Transformed A Nation, published by Palgrave Macmilloan (out on January 4, 2011), we provide a firsthand, never-before-told, story of the behind the scenes, discussions of the organizers of the MOW and a detailed description about the backstage discussions of the organizers of The March and a detailed description of the
preparation and delivery by Dr. King of his famous speech. We recommend our book to Beck and his followers to refresh their recollection of the magnitude of the great debt our nation owes to Martin Luther King, Jr. for his efforts, in Beck's words, to restore America's honor and the "the values that founded this great nation."
Those of us who worked on convening the "March On Washington" during July and August 1963 are envious of the technology now available to organize and coordinate such an event. In our book I comment on the possibilities of how much more effective our rally 47 years ago at the Lincoln Memorial would have been had we had the use of the internet and various mobile technologies. A review of Beck's "Restoring our Honor " website makes one muse, what if we had had this kind of communications tool available to us as we planned and
executed the 1963 March on Washington?"
Beck, Sarah Palin and others who are summoning people today to join them to restore the honor of America, whether intended or not, are following in the footsteps of Dr. King. He spoke prophetically about their generation. Indeed, he had a "Dream" that young Becks and Palins, when they became adults, would join hands not only with members of their "Tea Party," but, all Americans of goodwill, regardless of their race, color or ethnicity, to restore the honor and values enshrined in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
Civil Rights leaders who justifiably stake a "proprietary" claim to the legacy of the March on Washington and Dr. King's "Dream" 47 years ago should reach out and extend the hand of fellowship to Beck and his followers. We have set the bar extremely high for
all protests on the federal government. In his choice of date and location, he is clearly holding
himself to a serious set of standards. Subject to eventual content of the program planned on this anniversary date, we should, in the tradition and legacy of Dr. King, welcome and extend a hand to him and all persons who are committed to social justice, equality and restoring the honor of America.
Those of us who are blessed by longevity and privileged to have played a strategic role in the success of our "March on Washington" at the Lincoln Memorial where Beck plans to assemble his followers should be especially proud of our efforts. It was through our example and those of more than 250,000 of our multiracial brothers and sisters that summoned our fellow citizens to restore our nation's honor and values upon which our country was founded.
The Lord works in mysterious ways, and he has wonders to perform. Accordingly, we extend the hand of fellowship to Beck, Palin and their followers this weekend, and ask them to symbolically join hands with us to recommit ourselves to Dr. King's "Dream."
For some time it wasn't clear whether Mr. Beck scheduled his rally to coincide with the
Anniversary of Dr. King's historic address by design or accident, but the fact that Dr. King's
niece Alveda will be appearing with him on the steps speaks volumes . Beck says it is a "non-political event that pays tribute to America's service personnel and other upstanding citizens who embody our nation's founding principles of integrity, truth and honor." Until otherwise indicated, we take him at his word.
I have already heard comments on the cable television political news shows criticizing him for holding his event at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial on the same date where the March on Washington took place. There may or may not be a valid basis for criticism. It does not appear so from the words used to describe his event. Only the reality of actions taken and words spoken this Saturday will show whether such criticism was valid.
In his website invitation to persons to join him in Washington, Beck reminds us
that "throughout history America has seen many great leaders and noteworthy citizens change
her course." He writes "It is through their personal virtues and by their example that we are
able to live as a free people."
Indeed, I agree on that point. Beck and his followers have a unique opportunity to commemorate Martin Luther King, Jr. as an extraordinary example of one of America's "great leaders and noteworthy citizens," who by enabling our country to peacefully end American apartheid, changed our nation's course for us to live as a free people. The substance of Dr.King's speech 47 years ago at the Lincoln Memorial was a plea to America to "Restore its Honor." Or, in the words of Beck, "to restore the values that founded this great nation."
In collaboration with Stuart Connelly, I recently completed a book, describing the original "March On Washington" event, in real time, for today's generation. Titled Behind The Dream: Inside The Speech That Transformed A Nation, published by Palgrave Macmilloan (out on January 4, 2011), we provide a firsthand, never-before-told, story of the behind the scenes, discussions of the organizers of the MOW and a detailed description about the backstage discussions of the organizers of The March and a detailed description of the
preparation and delivery by Dr. King of his famous speech. We recommend our book to Beck and his followers to refresh their recollection of the magnitude of the great debt our nation owes to Martin Luther King, Jr. for his efforts, in Beck's words, to restore America's honor and the "the values that founded this great nation."
Those of us who worked on convening the "March On Washington" during July and August 1963 are envious of the technology now available to organize and coordinate such an event. In our book I comment on the possibilities of how much more effective our rally 47 years ago at the Lincoln Memorial would have been had we had the use of the internet and various mobile technologies. A review of Beck's "Restoring our Honor " website makes one muse, what if we had had this kind of communications tool available to us as we planned and
executed the 1963 March on Washington?"
Beck, Sarah Palin and others who are summoning people today to join them to restore the honor of America, whether intended or not, are following in the footsteps of Dr. King. He spoke prophetically about their generation. Indeed, he had a "Dream" that young Becks and Palins, when they became adults, would join hands not only with members of their "Tea Party," but, all Americans of goodwill, regardless of their race, color or ethnicity, to restore the honor and values enshrined in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
Civil Rights leaders who justifiably stake a "proprietary" claim to the legacy of the March on Washington and Dr. King's "Dream" 47 years ago should reach out and extend the hand of fellowship to Beck and his followers. We have set the bar extremely high for
all protests on the federal government. In his choice of date and location, he is clearly holding
himself to a serious set of standards. Subject to eventual content of the program planned on this anniversary date, we should, in the tradition and legacy of Dr. King, welcome and extend a hand to him and all persons who are committed to social justice, equality and restoring the honor of America.
Those of us who are blessed by longevity and privileged to have played a strategic role in the success of our "March on Washington" at the Lincoln Memorial where Beck plans to assemble his followers should be especially proud of our efforts. It was through our example and those of more than 250,000 of our multiracial brothers and sisters that summoned our fellow citizens to restore our nation's honor and values upon which our country was founded.
The Lord works in mysterious ways, and he has wonders to perform. Accordingly, we extend the hand of fellowship to Beck, Palin and their followers this weekend, and ask them to symbolically join hands with us to recommit ourselves to Dr. King's "Dream."
February 24, 2010
Peek-a-boo: Technology and Translucency
I'm currently writing a book with a man who was illegally wiretapped by the FBI for more than seven years. Now reading that statement, you may be thinking this co-author of mine seems paranoid or perhaps delusional. But the records exist: I've seen the transcripts of hundreds of telephone conversations, the FBI stamps marked "TOP SECRET," the J. Edgar Hoover signatures on the memos to Robert Kennedy explaining why it's imperative that, in this particular case, the law of the land has to be ignored.
So this man -- a taxpayer, a law-abiding citizen, a lawyer -- was relentlessly spied upon by the people in charge of the American Dream. The adults. At the time, my friend had his suspicions. But the real proof that he wasn't simply suspicious and overly-cautious didn't come for another fifteen years. A Freedom Of Information request exposed the truth in the form of boxes and boxes of wiretap transcripts and surveillance photographs.
We've talked about the invasion over many writing sessions, that nauseating feeling that accompanied the incontrovertible discovery that all his comings and goings, all his conversations were observed, parsed, and discussed in the DC corridors of power.
Now my co-author can joke about it. When he writes his memoirs, he says with a laugh, it'll be as if he had a secretary taking his dictation around the clock, except the government footed the bill. But what is happening with privacy in this country is no laughing matter. Staggering leaps in technology undreamed of in Hoover's era have made the ability so see into each of our lives almost too easy for those in authority to resist. And with the alleged threat of terrorism looming all around us, it continues to be virtually unpatriotic to point out this simple fact: eroding privacy in the name of safety is in actually a chipping away at one of the cornerstones of America itself.
Not far from where I live there is a lawsuit boiling over. A Pennsylvania public school district created a "laptop in every lap" program (clever!) and gave out computers for all their students to use at home. The district is one of the wealthiest in the country, and it's very likely that a huge majority of home have computers for the school-age children to you, but you can't go around installing spyware in people's computers. Much easier to hand out your own.
That's right, each computer was sent home with the capability for the school district to remotely and invisibly turn on the webcam and observe whatever is in front of the computer. The school claims this was put in place only to help retrieval in the event of a lost or stolen computer, but somehow they had one of things active when they saw one of their students apparently taking a large number of pills. Parents were alerted, bedroom doors yanked open, the district's panic alert was elevated to saffron.
This student's life was disrupted because in someone's off-site opinion he seemed to doing something dangerous and illegal, a claim which goes exactly nowhere in explaining whatever school board version of probable cause made them activate the webcam in the first place.
As a result, look at the breakthrough sociological data we've garnered: 1) kid eat candy; 2) private property is not school property; and 3) people confronted with direct invasion of privacy sue.
You can file this under "education," of course. See, a school's duty is to arm children with the basic skills for real life. One of those survival skills is to be highly skeptical -- the Trojan horse wasn't just a lovely and decorative gift.
Like rape, invasion of privacy is a crime that isn't really about what it seems to be about on the surface. How does a person ever feel comfortable again when they learn they've been exposed without their permission or knowledge? How can you make a victim whole again after that?
You can't.
We live in a country where privacy is melting away bit by bit. In the interest of what? Safety, honesty? Drug prevention? If we live in a dangerous world where candy looks like pills, what else are we supposed to do but jump to conclusions, invade a private home with a video camera, call up people's parents? For starters, you could let people put what they want in their mouths when they aren't your responsibility or on your property.
I can think of at least twenty reasons why even if the kid was popping fistfuls of Oxycodone it was none of the school district's business. Since when does public school have anything to do with private life? Are students now signing contracts that contain a morals clause?
You're a school board that wants to make sure it gets its laptop back? How about taking a credit card deposit refundable at the end of the semester? It works for Avis.
* * *
Here's a fun drinking game: flip through the cable channels sampling random "Law & Order" episodes and take a shot every time a detective checks some suspect's EZPass record to see if they were or were not where they said they were on the night in question. I promise, you won't be sober for long. Okay, the EZPass gotcha might mean more to lazy TV writers than any of us non-crime committing Americans, but there's still something to be said for just going on a drive where no one knows where you are. Maybe not even you. Again, the gift of zooming through tollbooth lines exacts a ethereal, almost unnoticed price. They know where you are. It probably doesn't matter, but it's worth a thought.
Smartphones that can turn into listening devices, GPS navigators that can act as tracking devices, web cams that show school boards people eating Mike & Ike's in real time. It's all part of a trend. I'm not one for the old slippery-slope diagnosis I find it hyperbolic and scraping up against common sense -- I eat steak, but I don't feel I'm a few mere uneasy steps from becoming a cannibal. Still, in this instance, slippery feels right. If a school, for the good of education, can watch you through your webcam just to make sure you're not cheating on your term paper, what's to stop your insurance company, for the good of corporate cost control, to watch and see if after that car accident your neck has a better range of motion than it appeared in your doctor's office.
Some will say if you've got nothing to hide, why worry? But the truth is actually the inverse of that argument. We're hiding when we're in public. We play at ourselves and do so very carefully. We anticipate what our subtext says and who will pick it up. We posture, we angle. We package and sell a version of ourselves in work, in dating, in society. We judge and are judged in return.
But you can't keep that up forever. Alone, we can be ourselves at last. We can let our guard down and relax. On the phone with a real friend, we can share things we'd never say if other people were listening in.
Are those not American values?
Those who aren't quite as suspicious of the motives of those in charge might suggest that the people in power only focus on the bad apples. I answer that point by returning to my co-author, who was monitored twenty-four hours a day by the FBI for years. So, what was the clear and present danger this man presented to the United States? If J. Edgar Hoover wanted him, he must've been a pretty bad cat. He wasn't the quarry; he was in the crosshairs merely because he was a close friend and confidant to a man our government was concerned might somehow destroy the fabric of this country.
Dr. Martin Luther King.
Stuart Connelly is a screenwriter and novelist.
So this man -- a taxpayer, a law-abiding citizen, a lawyer -- was relentlessly spied upon by the people in charge of the American Dream. The adults. At the time, my friend had his suspicions. But the real proof that he wasn't simply suspicious and overly-cautious didn't come for another fifteen years. A Freedom Of Information request exposed the truth in the form of boxes and boxes of wiretap transcripts and surveillance photographs.
We've talked about the invasion over many writing sessions, that nauseating feeling that accompanied the incontrovertible discovery that all his comings and goings, all his conversations were observed, parsed, and discussed in the DC corridors of power.
Now my co-author can joke about it. When he writes his memoirs, he says with a laugh, it'll be as if he had a secretary taking his dictation around the clock, except the government footed the bill. But what is happening with privacy in this country is no laughing matter. Staggering leaps in technology undreamed of in Hoover's era have made the ability so see into each of our lives almost too easy for those in authority to resist. And with the alleged threat of terrorism looming all around us, it continues to be virtually unpatriotic to point out this simple fact: eroding privacy in the name of safety is in actually a chipping away at one of the cornerstones of America itself.
Not far from where I live there is a lawsuit boiling over. A Pennsylvania public school district created a "laptop in every lap" program (clever!) and gave out computers for all their students to use at home. The district is one of the wealthiest in the country, and it's very likely that a huge majority of home have computers for the school-age children to you, but you can't go around installing spyware in people's computers. Much easier to hand out your own.
That's right, each computer was sent home with the capability for the school district to remotely and invisibly turn on the webcam and observe whatever is in front of the computer. The school claims this was put in place only to help retrieval in the event of a lost or stolen computer, but somehow they had one of things active when they saw one of their students apparently taking a large number of pills. Parents were alerted, bedroom doors yanked open, the district's panic alert was elevated to saffron.
This student's life was disrupted because in someone's off-site opinion he seemed to doing something dangerous and illegal, a claim which goes exactly nowhere in explaining whatever school board version of probable cause made them activate the webcam in the first place.
As a result, look at the breakthrough sociological data we've garnered: 1) kid eat candy; 2) private property is not school property; and 3) people confronted with direct invasion of privacy sue.
You can file this under "education," of course. See, a school's duty is to arm children with the basic skills for real life. One of those survival skills is to be highly skeptical -- the Trojan horse wasn't just a lovely and decorative gift.
Like rape, invasion of privacy is a crime that isn't really about what it seems to be about on the surface. How does a person ever feel comfortable again when they learn they've been exposed without their permission or knowledge? How can you make a victim whole again after that?
You can't.
We live in a country where privacy is melting away bit by bit. In the interest of what? Safety, honesty? Drug prevention? If we live in a dangerous world where candy looks like pills, what else are we supposed to do but jump to conclusions, invade a private home with a video camera, call up people's parents? For starters, you could let people put what they want in their mouths when they aren't your responsibility or on your property.
I can think of at least twenty reasons why even if the kid was popping fistfuls of Oxycodone it was none of the school district's business. Since when does public school have anything to do with private life? Are students now signing contracts that contain a morals clause?
You're a school board that wants to make sure it gets its laptop back? How about taking a credit card deposit refundable at the end of the semester? It works for Avis.
* * *
Here's a fun drinking game: flip through the cable channels sampling random "Law & Order" episodes and take a shot every time a detective checks some suspect's EZPass record to see if they were or were not where they said they were on the night in question. I promise, you won't be sober for long. Okay, the EZPass gotcha might mean more to lazy TV writers than any of us non-crime committing Americans, but there's still something to be said for just going on a drive where no one knows where you are. Maybe not even you. Again, the gift of zooming through tollbooth lines exacts a ethereal, almost unnoticed price. They know where you are. It probably doesn't matter, but it's worth a thought.
Smartphones that can turn into listening devices, GPS navigators that can act as tracking devices, web cams that show school boards people eating Mike & Ike's in real time. It's all part of a trend. I'm not one for the old slippery-slope diagnosis I find it hyperbolic and scraping up against common sense -- I eat steak, but I don't feel I'm a few mere uneasy steps from becoming a cannibal. Still, in this instance, slippery feels right. If a school, for the good of education, can watch you through your webcam just to make sure you're not cheating on your term paper, what's to stop your insurance company, for the good of corporate cost control, to watch and see if after that car accident your neck has a better range of motion than it appeared in your doctor's office.
Some will say if you've got nothing to hide, why worry? But the truth is actually the inverse of that argument. We're hiding when we're in public. We play at ourselves and do so very carefully. We anticipate what our subtext says and who will pick it up. We posture, we angle. We package and sell a version of ourselves in work, in dating, in society. We judge and are judged in return.
But you can't keep that up forever. Alone, we can be ourselves at last. We can let our guard down and relax. On the phone with a real friend, we can share things we'd never say if other people were listening in.
Are those not American values?
Those who aren't quite as suspicious of the motives of those in charge might suggest that the people in power only focus on the bad apples. I answer that point by returning to my co-author, who was monitored twenty-four hours a day by the FBI for years. So, what was the clear and present danger this man presented to the United States? If J. Edgar Hoover wanted him, he must've been a pretty bad cat. He wasn't the quarry; he was in the crosshairs merely because he was a close friend and confidant to a man our government was concerned might somehow destroy the fabric of this country.
Dr. Martin Luther King.
Stuart Connelly is a screenwriter and novelist.
