Glenn Beck is calling for nonviolence: signed the pledge yet?
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My, oh my! Glenn Beck wants his viewers on FoxNews to sign Martin Luther King’s pledge of nonviolence, which he posted on his website on April 28, 2010! Until now, 50’000 have already signed up! I know that Glenn Beck is not representative of all Utah Mormons out there, but his shows are at least influential among many Mormons I know.
Glenn Beck, an unusual and unexpected latter day satyagrahi!? Do Mormons support this? Not surprisingly, LDS discussion forums like LDS Freedom Forum have picked up on the pledge and have debated it. If a Mormon like Glenn Beck can commit to this (not entirely sure, of course, if his understanding of nonviolence is the same as mine), could the Community of Christ do the same?
Here is an excerpt of his reasoning below:
But we have to be people who are nonviolent. We have to be people because that’s who we are. But they are painting us into something that we’re not. So we need to go the extra step, and I don’t think the extra step is to convince anybody because the media is going to do whatever they want. This is for us. As I read what Martin Luther King had people take, the pledge of nonviolence and the five principles of nonviolence, what he was doing was not sending a statement to the press that we’re not violent. That wasn’t the only goal there.
The bigger goal, I believe, was to ingrain these thoughts and these principles into people because when it gets hard, you have to have rock solid, something that you really, truly understand in your gut. Something that you know. It’s like Ben Sherwood says, you know, those who survive are the ones who have looked out at the plane and said if this thing did catch on fire, how the heck would I get out of here? You’ve made a plan. You’ve already war gamed it in your head. That’s what I think the pledge of nonviolence and the five principles of nonviolence was. So I’ve put them up temporarily now on my website, but I want you to read them and I want you to ponder them. And I’m going to ask you to do what Martin Luther King did with his people and that was sign your name to it. Sign your name to it.
This is unexpected, but welcome support for nonviolence as an effective tool for social change from a “fellow mormon”. I am not sure what to think of it as yet, as I am not that familiar with Glenn Beck and his current worldview (I thought the guy was just weird and not in touch with reality – and as far as I know we do not see eye to eye on politics) - and would therefore welcome your thoughts on the matter. Who is Glenn Beck and what does he want to achieve with this pledge? What’s the context here? Why does he perceive this move as necessary at this stage? Any US friends who can enlighten me?
The interesting part is his inevitable reference to the life and teachings of Jesus Christ in the pledge. This proves that our understanding of Jesus’ life and example ultimately leads us on the road to nonviolence. You will find the pledge below, in addition to the five principles of nonviolence that the pledge was based on, as posted on Glenn Beck’s website.
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Pledge of Nonviolence
1. As you prepare to march meditate on the life and teachings of Jesus
2. Remember the nonviolent movement seeks justice and reconciliation – not victory.
3. Walk and talk in the manner of love; for God is love.
4. Pray daily to be used by God that all men and women might be free.
5. Sacrifice personal wishes that all might be free.
6. Observe with friend and foes the ordinary rules of courtesy.
7. Perform regular service for others and the world.
8. Refrain from violence of fist, tongue and heart.
9. Strive to be in good spiritual and bodily health.
10. Follow the directions of the movement leaders and of the captains on demonstrations.
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The Five Principles of Nonviolence
1. Non-violent resistance is not a method for cowards. It does resist. The nonviolent resister is just as strongly opposed to the evil against which he protests, as is the person who uses violence. His method is passive or nonaggressive in the sense that he is not physically aggressive toward his opponent, but his mind and emotions are always active, constantly seeking to persuade the opponent that he is mistaken. This method is passive physically but strongly active spiritually; it is nonaggressive physically but dynamically aggressive spiritually.
2. Nonviolent resistance does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding. The nonviolent resister must often express his protest through noncooperation but he realizes that noncooperation is not the ends itself; it is merely means to awaken a sense of moral shame in the opponent.
3. The attack is directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who are caught in those forces. It is a struggle between justice and injustice, between the forces of light and the forces of darkness.
4. Nonviolent resistance avoids not only external physical violence, but also internal violence of spirit. At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.
5. Nonviolence is based on the conviction that the universe is on the side of justice. It is the deep faith in the future that allows a nonviolent resister to accept suffering without retaliation. The nonviolent resister knows that in his struggle for justice, he has a cosmic companionship.
May 17, 2010 at 4:30 pm
Glenn Beck is a current advocate of traits that have been vilified since the 1960′s; Faith Family & Country. His methods are of course controversial but because he is not a religious person in name only is why he is considered a threat. The Pledge itself will not be mocked because of its source, but Beck no doubt will be, just pay attention to what is actually the point of disagreement.
May 17, 2010 at 5:11 pm
Excellent article by Jim Wallis, the founder of Sojourners and one of those Glenn Beck have been criticizing for being Social Justice Christians, to be found at the following link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-wallis/glenn-beck-on-martin-luth_b_512949.html
May 18, 2010 at 3:47 pm
Glenn Beck is a former drive time radio comic who makes a living stirring up conservative emotion and passion through fear of liberals. I don’t think he’d deny that.
He would spout about how Obama is coming to take away your guns and we’d get individuals going on shooting rampages with messages saying “You want my weapons – this is how you’ll get them!” http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/06/11/museum.shooting/index.html
Beck rails against authority and comes up with odd conspiracy theories on how the administration is using census workers to get information on you in order to get your guns and take your freedom – and one of his fans responds by calling in a domestic disturbance and then shooting the police who respond.
http://www.adl.org/learn/extremism_in_the_news/White_Supremacy/poplawski+report.htm?LEARN_Cat=Extremism&LEARN_SubCat=Extremism_in_the_News
Beck warns of the FED and the IRS and how they are Communist, Marxist, Facist – and someone flies an airplane into an IRS building. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/us/19crash.html
So Beck might think it would be a good idea to stop talking about how the government is orchestrating spookiy conspiracies to take your guns and your money and your freedom – but again, that’s how he earns a living. So instead, he compares himself to MLK and spends a couple of minutes touting non-violence so that when people start accusing him of stirring up violence, he can have some plausible deniability.
It’s like putting a warning “not for use by children” on a hand grenade and then giving it to a 5-year-old.
May 18, 2010 at 6:09 pm
Thanks BWTC. That helps put some puzzles into place. My, oh my.
Like Tariq said at themormonworker.wordpress.com: “The more he makes these convoluted, irrational rants against the left, the more appealing the left becomes to most of the country”, and “he has absolutely no concern for consistency or clarity. If you’re looking for a prominent, well-known LDS example of Gandhian nonviolence, keep looking because it aint Glenn Beck, that’s for damn sure. He is like a drunk guy in a bar who says whatever crazy thing pops into his head, no matter how stupid or nonsensical it is, and, apparently, that makes FOX News alot of money so they keep paying him a fortune to do it”.
May 18, 2010 at 7:53 pm
I’m so glad I got my comment in first; it puts the ones following it into perspective.
May 18, 2010 at 10:33 pm
BTC:
It appears that you read many things about Glenn Beck but do not actually listen to Glenn Beck. (For example, you seem to be confusing Beck with the National Rifle Association; guns are rarely on Beck’s agenda.)
Beck does not see the world as conservative versus liberal, but as statist versus libertarian. He rails against statists of the left and against statists of the right because he believes that such a path will eventually lead to totalitarianism by EITHER the left or right. He advocates a return to limited government and warns that there are people who really are the proverbial “wolves in sheep’s clothing” using code words like “social justice” to grasp political power just as racists a generation ago used code words like “law and order”.
Look at Europe, Venezuala, Iran, Zimbabwa, or Russia long enough to concede the man has a point. We have not moved beyond the time when economic or political systems that seemed safely beyond such “old” thinking and safely in an enlightened era are shown to be surprisingly fragile against corrupt elites. Power still corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Today, we have to avoid playing the sucker’s game of “trust my elite instead of the other elite.” Beck is emphasizing non-violence just as Gandhi and King did, because he knows that if the populist political movements can be demonized as violent by the elites, the American people will choose one totalitarian side or the other.
What he believes about non-violence as a universal principle, I do not know.
Mormongandhi:
I am afraid your friend at themormonworker is also incorrect about why FOX News makes so much money. In the American electorate, Fox is watched by most of the country because it is closer politically and culturally to the center than are its alternatives. Roughly twice as many Americans will self-identify as conservatives than liberals. You can call him wrong, but it’s hard to call Beck extreme unless someone means “far away from me”.
May 19, 2010 at 3:31 pm
Ok Firetag – you say he emphasizes non-violence, I say he added it for plausible deniability. You say he “rarely” talks about guns and the 2nd amendment, I say he often does. You go find this quotes about non-violence, and I’ll find his quotes on guns and we’ll see who wins.
Beck is not libertarian – Beck is a self-described rodeo clown. He has found an audience that thrives on fear and exploits it.
May 19, 2010 at 4:31 pm
BTC:
I first began watching Glenn Beck when he was on CNN before he joined FOX. His was the one show my mother was sure to watch each day in the last months at home before she went into the Groves for hospice, and I wanted to make sure to be knowledgable enough about the topic of the day to have something to talk about in my daily calls to Independence.
I stuck around, so I have seen the majority of Beck’s shows. I know full well what he says, how he wears “rodeo clown” as a badge of honor precisely to mock the pretentiousness of those who preen because of their social status. I was there to watch the non-violence show. I was watching when he was condemning George Bush, and when he was condemning John McCain, as well as when he was condemning Barak Obama. Good grief, BTC, I’m old enough to remember what the SDS was before Jim Wallis left it and founded Sojourners. So I can think of worse past associations to have to explain than rodeo clowns.
I don’t ask you to listen to Beck; I have to force myself to read liberal commentary to try and stay open to see both sides. But please don’t ask me to believe your characterizations of Beck instead of my own lying ears.
May 19, 2010 at 5:07 pm
I’m not asking you to believe, I’m just pointing out to others that I think you are wrong.
You would have to watch a lot of shows to find Glenn Beck condemning George Bush (if he indeed did) and about half a minute to find him calling Obama a racist/facist/socialist. Methinks that false equivalency reveals the truth.
May 19, 2010 at 6:48 pm
BTC:
I HAVE watched a lot of shows. That’s my point. If YOU actually had, you would not be making that statement about not condemning Bush. Bush stopped being President almost a year and a half ago. Of course, Beck doesn’t talk much about Bush NOW. He was when Bush was president.
So you’re pointing out to others that, not having watched, you think I’m wrong about what I saw and heard Glenn Beck say? Not that you think the opinions Glenn Beck has are wrong — which is certainly a position that can be reasonably argued and doesn’t even need to be defended — but that you have decided what those opinions are because OTHER prople who ALSO wouldn’t be caught dead watching Glenn Beck told you what Beck’s opinions are?
May 20, 2010 at 2:38 pm
I’m not sure how you know how many shows I watch or how many of his radio shows I listen to. Beck did not bash Bush when he was president to any significant degree and certainly never called him a socialist/marxist/facist/racist.
You are trying to make Beck sound moderate by saying that he equally complains against both parties. I’m saying he doesn’t and that you are wrong. People can decide for themselves.
May 19, 2010 at 9:00 pm
I just want to thank Mark Gibson again for his initial comment, which in my mind is still relevant, whether or not we agree with Glenn Beck on his politics and show tactics: “The Pledge itself will not be mocked because of its source, but Beck no doubt will be”.
You wrote earlier FireTag: “What he believes about nonviolence as a universal principle, I do not know”. There is little doubt in my mind with what I now have seen of Glenn Beck that his call for nonviolence was in relation to the current political situation of Tea Party demonstrations, meaning that it was not really related to anything else. He was not calling for nonviolence as a new way of life for his viewers – that would be going against a lot of other things he says.
On the other hand, that’s what I am suggesting on my site latter day satyagraha for mormons in general, and Community of Christ members in particular. Gandhi and Martin Luther King cannot just be taken off the dusty shelf when it is suitable, necessary, and especially not for PR reasons (Glenn Beck refers to this as a potential bonus in his own reasoning), but rather as an integral approach to how one sees the world.
In that sense, social justice presents itself as a nonviolent alternative to structural violence, cultural peace opposes cultural violence and there is seldom, if ever, a right time to use direct physical or psychological violence. That is what makes nonviolence such a powerful tool – also in the face of violence.
Please see the following link for an academic rationale on the success of nonviolent conflict above violent conflict in achieving positive social change: http://mormongandhi.com/2010/05/18/the-strategic-logic-of-nonviolent-conflict/
May 19, 2010 at 10:42 pm
I would certainly agree that Beck’s call is specific to the movement to reign in a government which many believe has gone too far in placing its own priorities above the priorities of the voters.
May 20, 2010 at 2:39 pm
And of course, they beleive that not due to facts (these same “many” also believe taxes are out of control even though they are the lowest in decades) but because they listen to people like Beck who spout falsehoods at them all day.
May 20, 2010 at 4:08 pm
Simple question, BTC. You’ve never lied to me, and I have never lied to you. My best estimate is that I have watched the majority of the hour during more than two hundred shows on CNN or FOX. I have never heard his radio show except in clip. I don’t listen to radio except in the car, and I don’t drive any more.
How many Beck programs HAVE you watched in actuality, rather than only in clip from anti-Beck sources? I think that’s an important data point if you ask people to decide for themselves what he’s saying. Or they could just watch a few shows. A LOT of people do.
May 20, 2010 at 7:23 pm
Simple question for you FT – did Beck ever call Bush a racist/facist/marxist/socialist? If I didn’t watch the program that Beck said these things about Obama, but I read the transcripts, does that affect in any way whether or not he said them?
May 20, 2010 at 6:35 pm
You’re welcome, mormongandhi. Was Beck actually photographed wearing his missionary nametag or is it a CGI?
May 20, 2010 at 10:08 pm
We certainly seem to have a long path to walk before we learn to live in peace with each other.
May 20, 2010 at 10:23 pm
BTC:
I have never heard Beck call Bush a racist. I have never heard Beck call Bush a fascist. I have never heard Beck call Bush a socialist. I have never heard Beck call Bush a Marxist.
I have heard Beck call Bush (and most of the current Republican establishment) “progressive”, and spend many hours pointing out that progressivism is the trunk from which Fascism/Nazism and Marxism/Stalinism BOTH grew. (His thesis is that those extremes are what eventually happen when you mix human corruption with great power granted even by people who were genuinely trying to make things better.) It’s possible to buy a documentary from his website with some very impressive footage of major Nazi AND Marxist movements in the Depression-era US, both building power bases from the desire to improve the lot of the poor against the failures of Capitalism — until Hitler turned on Stalin and Europe’s idealists and innocents were consumed in the flames. Both committed genicide with malicious intent; people being starved by Stalin in the breadbasket of the Soviet Union to hide the failure of collective farming look remarkably similar to Jews being starved to death before being gassed in Hitler’s concentration camps.
Beck certainly gets across the idea that he thinks Obama is a Marxist. His preferred technique is to point out the shear number of continuing private associations and administration positions and money being given to people who proudly claim to be Marxist or Socialist. He backs the claims with speeches by Obama throughout his career (from Obama’s childhood as written in his autobiography through the current administration) specifically embracing these people, and groups, and then couples them with speeches in which those people themselves make the claims of being Marxist or Socialist, or in which those people directly call THEIR opponents racists or fascists.
Guilt by association starts to convince a lot of people when the associations grow more and more numerous, the policies and priorities are driven relentlessly in the face of majority public opposition in polls and subsequent elections, and the complaints are met with counter-demonization rather than refutation. (Obama really HAS had to throw associates “under the bus” as publicity about their behavior became politically untenable. He ultimately had to concede himself that those behaviors were indefensible.)
So I will rephrase MY question. How many hours of transscripts have you actually read?
May 20, 2010 at 10:31 pm
I meant to add that Beck also shows the same web of connections with the corruption of the two generation old Daley political machine that has seen numerous important Illinois and Chicago politicians in both parties go to jail.
May 21, 2010 at 2:39 pm
FT: and that’s the problem with watching too much Beck without wearing your tin-foil hat. It’s human nature to assume that the basic facts and premises upon which someone on television is basing their conspiratory leaps are at least true. In Beck’s case, they often aren’t.
And sure – Beck called Bush a progressive. When he was running for re-election? When McCain was running on a similar platform? Of course not – it was three weeks ago, and only done in order to bash Obama for continuing Bush policies. The fact that you’re trying to paint Beck some sort of non-partisan centrist by implying he criticizes Bush and Obama (or repubs and dems) equally, is telling of just how false that claim is.
May 21, 2010 at 5:09 pm
BTC:
I’m sorry you regard me as requiring a tin hat and continue to see the question in partisan terms of left and right without ever considering the thesis that I presented above. I find that disappointing, because it again demonizes Beck without actually stating that you don’t in fact know what Beck says, or what he was saying about Bush and McCain during the presidential campaign.
Ignorance about the arguments of your political opponents, whether or not you end up accepting them, is not virtuous. I’ll let my final word on this thread be the post I wrote at http://thefirestillburning.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/wired-world-views-preserving-the-others-truth/
May 21, 2010 at 8:29 pm
I do know what Beck says and I know for a fact what he said (and didn’t say) during the Bush/McCain presidential campaigns. And I think that is confirmed by your feeble attempts to draw a false equivalence and failure to support that equivalence with facts.
Beck is a dangerous person relying on falsehoods and cheap theatre to stir up the fearful for the sake of (a) money and (b) the Republican party.
May 27, 2010 at 11:51 pm
“Was Beck actually photographed wearing his missionary nametag or is it a CGI?”
I dunno about that photo, but it is odd and cool to see a yellow shirt with a suit and missionary nametag!
May 28, 2010 at 3:18 pm
Ahh – Beck making fun of Obama’s 11 year old daughter and her education. Classy.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201005280025
June 1, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Bullying a child (Malia Obama) publicly and saying the president of the US “hates black people” to stir up racial tension, while in the same talk stating that the presidentis not doing everything possible to stop the horrific devastation of the oil spill (which was made possible ONLY because of the Bush empire)because “not enough suffering has occurred yet” is NOT the action of anyone who believes in non-violence