Glen Ford writes at Black Agenda Report:
Will established civil rights groups physically confront Glenn Beck’s Tea Party crowd for control of the Washington Mall on August 28? Can the NAACP and labor unions figure out how to hold a March for Jobs in October while pretending that President Obama bears no responsibility for economic woes? No, and Yes. Although there will be no physical fight, jousting with cardboard “cracker” villains like Beck and Rush Limbaugh allows civil rights leaders to appear valiant while avoiding confrontation with real Power in the White House.
We are glad, in principle, to learn that the NAACP and the National Urban League are fighting mad about anything. The object of the organizations’ wrath is media racist Glenn Beck, the FOXtrooper, as evil a mouthpiece for reaction as ever sucked air. National Urban League President Marc Morial announced to a gathering of the National Newspaper Publishers Association that he and other civil rights leaders had every intention of booking the Washington Mall to commemorate the 47th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, only to discover that Herr Beck had already reserved the space. Outraged at such sacrilege, Morial vowed to “bring together all people of good will, not just Black people, on August 28 to send a message that Glenn Beck's vision of America is not our vision of America.”
Rev. Al Sharpton said “there is no way in the world that I am going to allow him to have more people there than us“ and called for “every Black person in the country” to come to Washington to prevent Beck from hijacking “Dr. King’s dream.”
Morial’s counterpart at the NAACP, Ben Jealous, declared that the August 28 face-off with Beck’s Tea Partyers, if that is indeed what is planned, would serve as a “leverage” for an October 2nd March for Jobs originally proposed by the NAACP and the 300,000-strong SEIU Local 1199 United Healthcare Workers East. The October demonstration has since been endorsed by the AFL-CIO and a host of other organizations.
1199 spokesman George Gresham put a telling spin on organized labor’s involvement in the proposed March for Jobs. "I always thought we just can't put President Obama into office, but we have to be constantly out there to support the change we believe in," he said. "I remember what Franklin Delano Roosevelt told the labor movement about reforms: 'Go out and make me do it.'" Gresham, who says he first suggested the march, considers it a counterweight to pressures on Obama from the Right.
Does this mean that NAACPers, Urban Leaguers and labor organizers are all going to show up on August 28 to physically contend with Beck’s Tea Partyers for possession of the hollowed ground on the Mall? Not a chance, if for no other reason than President Obama would not approve, and you can be certain that labor and established Black organizations will do or say nothing to discommode Mr. Obama, no matter how much he disrespects their constituencies. ...>more
