I had come to Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally from two thousand miles away seeking some sort of reconciliation for my feelings of constant outrage against the government-ruler mentality I had grown to know my entire adult life.
Back Story: Anger had dogged me since the Vietnam War and big government’s “Great Society” dependency program, announced in 1964. My teen mind saw the Great Society for what it was—a liberal LBJ power grab that enlarged government’s reach into millions of private lives—all the while sending tens of thousands of young Americans to die for an undefined war in an ill defined cause; only to leave battlefield victories of ten years to a final communist takeover.
Anger festers, sometimes quietly. To me our government had become the thing of thriller novels and movies; the bad guy, to be feared, unprincipled, and without honor. Now forty years later, seeing so much waste, fraud, ineptitude, and corruption, I have felt I could no longer wait on politicians who cause the madness to fix it; I must peacefully dissent.
So I have been protesting for two years. But irritation can only carry you so far…
August 28: Seeking personal peace from the constant protesting spirit inside, I found the words Beck coined for the event, “Restoring Honor,” resonating deeply within me.
Vilified by the left-wing media who delight in vulgar and demeaning slurs against all-American “non-community-organizer-run” Tea Party citizens—and with the NAACP and their race-baiting preachers of the “civil rights industry” deriding a gathering which hadn’t taken place yet—citizens of all races spontaneously joined together, fulfilling Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream speech of 47 years prior.
The atmosphere of trust, akin to a giant church picnic, found people camping overnight for the best lawn chair seating. Games, laughter, meeting and greeting pleased the purposes announced by Glenn Beck—restoring honor first in ourselves then country, and respecting the price paid specifically by Special Forces families in the loss of their loved ones—whose only peace now is the destiny found in an early tomb.
After: After several hours of videotaping, interviewing, and sharing a beautiful Saturday in the nation’s capital with positive and courteous Americans from every state, I walked toward the Ford Theatre, site of Lincoln’s assassination, for some private reflection.
On the way to the Ford Theatre I admired the architecture and historical references found on every block of the “people’s capital.” I wondered how anyone in power could sully the intent of the namesake; Washington, with lies, distortions, and calculated power grabs—the stuff of status quo politics and all I had ever witnessed with one exception; the eight years of Ronald Reagan.
Yes, I felt Washington was not Obama’s, the Democrats’ nor the Republicans’. It wasn’t the bureaucrats’, nor the lobbyists’, nor the powerful media elite’s town this day; but my town.
And there were big commercial winners—pursuers of the American dream.
Of those winners in DC benefitting from the purchasing power of the happy mob were water vendors. Thirsty, and happy to pay the $2.00 for Coca-Cola’s ice-cold Daisani brand tap water in a 16-ounce bottle, I stopped for a second on a street near Freedom Plaza.
Ben Franklin’s statue graces a corner nearby and is my favorite founder—perhaps because Ben worked with words and wit to change America. I took a photo of the cast iron visage of the freedom-loving author, and then turned to the ubiquitous curbside yellow vending station, filled with snacks and sodas and expensive water.
“You go to Beek protest?” the aged Vietnamese vendor asked.
“Not Beek. Beck. Not protest. Celebration,” I answered with a smile and two bucks.
“Cebration? What’s a cebration?”
“Sell-a-bray-shun,” I pronounced. He repeated back, “Sell-a-bray-shun. What mean?
“Protest, angry. Celebration, happy.”
“Oh! Like party! What kind party?”
“American celebration. Freedom, liberty, God.”
“I like freedom. I like America,” the white haired Vietnamese man finished.
I smiled, bid him farewell, and repeated to him, “American celebration not protest,” and left for Ford’s Theatre. The men and women who gave the Vietnam War their lives gave this man a dream and he was living it.
I pondered this chance encounter as I left my resentments and protesting behind for a day. On this day I didn’t do as much as Beck to teach others, but one man learned the difference between celebrating and protesting.
Now if the radical left and the race-baiting hangers-on to civil rights injustices of a bygone era could join the American celebration, what a dream that would be.
James Michael Pratt is a New York Times bestselling novelist and non-fiction author, CEO of PowerThink Publishing, public speaker, Op Ed writer for The Daily Caller, and Founder of Reagan Revolution 2. Email: james@powerthink.com.