Dolt of the Century and New Levels in Douchebaggery
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It’s hard for me to imagine that there are enough stupid people to watch Glenn Beck because I know a fair number of conservatives and none of them are stupid enough to watch him other than for the humor of watching a jackass be a jackass.
Today’s edition is the best yet:
How dare John Lewis compare himself to a Civil Rights Activist?
Seriously?
On May 20, the Nashville riders were back in Birmingham where there were no incidents. Then all of the Freedom Riders traveled on to Montgomery where a mob of men, women and children carrying baseball bats, tire irons and bricks met them at the terminal. As the riders departed from the bus, the angry gang swarmed, beating the passengers. They attacked SNCC activists John Lewis and Jim Zwerg, who both sustained severe injuries. When White House observer John Seigenthaler attempted to protect two of the Freedom Riders, Susan Wilbur and Susan Hermann, an attacker knocked him unconscious.
He is a man of God with incredible resolve and a patient practitioner of non-violence:
Did your belief in nonviolence ever waiver? Did you ever question the method?
John Lewis: As a participant, and even today, I have never ever questioned the method, never questioned this idea, this concept of passive resistance. I believe in nonviolence as a way of life, as a way of living. I believe that this idea is one of those immutable principles that is nonnegotiable if you’re going to create a world community at peace with itself. You have to accept nonviolence as a way of life, as a way of living. I thought I was going to die a few times. On the Freedom Rides in the year 1961, when I was beaten at the Greyhound bus station in Montgomery, I thought I was going to die. On March 7th, 1965, when I was hit in the head with a night stick by a State Trooper at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, I thought I was going to die. I thought I saw death, but nothing can make me question the philosophy of nonviolence.
Or want to retaliate?
John Lewis: No, I cannot and will not retaliate. We grew to respect the dignity and the worth of every human being. When we were harassed by Sheriff Clark in Selma or Bull Connor in Birmingham, when I was being beaten by an angry mob in Montgomery, you try to put yourself in the place of the people that are abusing you, and see that person as a human being, and try to do what you can to win that person over, to change that person. In a sense we all were victims, victims of a system.
Let me ask about March 7th, known as Bloody Sunday. What was going through your mind when you saw the array of State Troopers on horseback, and you and Hosea Williams at the front of that line walked into that?
John Lewis: As we started walking across the Alabama River, across the Edmund Pettus bridge, I really thought that we would be arrested and taken to jail. I was prepared to be arrested, and I was wearing a backpack, and in this backpack I had two books, an apple, an orange, toothbrush and toothpaste. I thought we were going to go to jail. I wanted to have something to read, something to eat, and since I was going to be in jail with my friends, colleagues and neighbors, I wanted to be able to brush my teeth. And we get to the high point, highest point on that bridge. Down below we saw the Alabama State Troopers, the Sheriff’s Deputies, members of Sheriff Clark’s posse, and when Major John Claude said, “This is an unlawful march.” I think he said, “I am Major John Claude of the Alabama State Troopers. This is an unlawful march. You will not be allowed to continue. I give you three minutes to disperse and return to your church.” And I think Hosea Williams said, “Major, will you give us a moment to pray?” And before we could even get word back, he said, “Troopers advance.” I knew then that we were going to be beaten. And you saw these men putting on their gas masks and they came towards us beating us with night sticks, pushing us, trampling us with horses, and releasing the tear gas. I became very concerned about the other people in the march, because I thought I was going to die. I just sort of said to myself, “This is it. This is the end of the road for me. I’m going to die right here on this bridge.” And to this day, 39 years later, I don’t know how I made it back across the bridge, through the streets of Selma, back to that little church that we left from, but I do recall being back at that church that Sunday afternoon.
It was Brown Chapel AME Church. When we got back, the church was full to capacity. Several hundred people on the outside were trying to get in to protest what had happened. Someone asked me to say something to the audience, and I stood up and said, “I don’t understand it. President Johnson can send troops to Vietnam but cannot send troops to Selma, Alabama to protect people whose only desire is to register to vote.” The next thing I knew I had been admitted to the Good Samaritan hospital in Selma.
I don’t have many heroes. I understand humans to be imperfect beings who may perform amazing feats one moment and be a weak human the next. John Lewis is one of my few heroes. When he’s called racial epithets by buffoons he calmly continues walking. He probably will get a good laugh out of Beck’s incredible ignorance, but make no mistake about it, the man has earned the right to walk like the civil rights hero he is anytime he wants.
