Margie Robben

Last year on August 13, 2009 I wrote a political essay suggesting that the violent anti-government; anti-Obama mob movement had a three tier structure.  The top were the “rich and powerful” the middle, the “communicators”, and the bottom, the “action heroes”.  Holding fast to the imagery of my theory, I am reporting a SUDDEN CHANGE in the mob’s tactics.  From a fear-hateful and lying rhetoric, there is a switch to words of honor, morality, and love, espousing the values and sentiments of our great leaders, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jesus.

The “communicators”, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, who are on the Rupert Murdoch political Fox TV enterprises payroll, stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. yesterday, with prayers, speeches and religious music, showing reasonableness, love, compassion, and faith in the words and deeds of holy men. How can anyone fault that? But……. is the sudden change of heart a change of mob sinners repenting or is it the calculated politics of polling, knowing evil will not succeed in getting votes in November?

Holy is good. Holy is very good. But when Beck and Palin turn from fear mongering and lying rhetoric to “holy”, one is suspect. After saying Obama is a Muslim, he is an illegal President, not born in America; that his health care program sets up “death panels”, Obama is a racist, he hates white Americans, “don’t retreat, reload”, I am not convinced of a change to holiness.

Are the polls showing the American people don’t want a politics of violence, negativity and “just saying no” to everything?  Has the mob decided to change their message from one of evil to one of holy? I dare say “yes”. I dare say “dangerous”. I dare say “manipulation”. Manipulation of “holy” may get the mob in big trouble.

A new addition to my theory comes from the good work of historian Kim Phillips-Fein who discovered the identity of the tycoons who are funneling money into the mob’s pockets to pay for the communicating and the resulting demonstrating by the action heroes in the streets.

Another addition is Jane Mayer of The New Yorker who published an article last week pointing to the unknown side of the Koch Brothers. The philanthropists and boys of culture were discovered to be the founders of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation who have closely worked from the beginning of the Tea Party.  One of the Foundations award-winning bloggers called President Obama the “cokehead in chief.” These guys give money to cancer foundations while at the same time they lobby Congress to keep cancer causing substances in the environment so that they can make more money.

Frank Rich of The New York Times also got on board today with more discovery (8/29/10) in pointing out that Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks, a promoter of events at Tea Party rallies received $12 million from Koch family foundations. The list goes on and on.

The producers of the Tea Party Lincoln Memorial event of yesterday said Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin wanted to “reclaim the civil rights movement” yet Glenn Beck said it was a coincidence that he chose August 28, 2010 to stand on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial – the very same day Mr. King stood on to make his famous “dream” speech. Did civil rights also have to be reclaimed?

I believe America never lost its HONOR and America never lost its civil rights.  Why regain these things when you never lost them in the first place? It’s like searching for your lost baby when you were holding him in your arms all the time you were looking.

I believe individual people like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin may lose their honor or believe they are losing their civil rights. Maybe yesterday’s display was very personal for them. Glenn Beck looked teary about four times during his speech. But it was when Mr. Beck talked about the necessity of “tithing” and how happy he was that so many people contributed money to HIS day that he reminded me a little of the fraudulent, self-promoting recipient of great wealth through tithing, Reverend Jimmy Swaggart when he made his notorious, cry- baby TV speech before he was defrocked by the Assembly of God and sent to jail. But let’s not go there.

Let’s hope there will be a true change of heart and not a change in strategy in the mob’s rich and powerful, communicators, and action heroes. It will not be good for America if the change is just another attempt to manipulate America’s emotions to get their vote in November.

(written August 29, 2010)

Abortion!  I don’t know a woman who has ever had an abortion who didn’t feel badly that she had to have one.  To listen to the issue debated throughout America, you would think that women had no problem aborting.  To read the rhetoric and to see the anti-abortion crowd holding up their hateful signs you would think it was an easy decision to make. Yes or no. Abort or not abort.

It is not an easy decision for a woman to make. For some, the decision means life or death. To others it may be inconvenient. To others it may be a result of rape or incest. To others it may come at a time when a woman is still a child herself. And to a great many women it may be just one more child too many that she can’t handle.

Another part of the complexity is the potential father of the aborted baby. Does he want the abortion?  Will he help the mother nurture the child?  Was “sex” the extent of his commitment? Was the close encountering just another notch in his conquest belt and he did not expect a pregnancy?

Then…….you throw in fragility, physical illness, mental issues, no job, no money, no insurance…..and the decision mushrooms into a decision that no one but the woman can and should make.

It is positively okay for Sarah Palin and Pam Tebow, mother of Heisman trophy winner, Tim Tebow, to rejoice at their decision to bring a child into the world. Sarah says she thought about abortion first but then decided against it. Tebow’s mother was sick with a serious infection and was counseled by her physician to abort. She decided against it. There are many women like them. They thought they could do it despite what people may have said.  Other women decide differently.   They may have too many additional problems working against them.

Women are nurturing by nature. The God of all has given them the responsibility of carrying a child to term, delivering the child, and then nurturing the child until they reach adulthood. Women intuitively know when they can do something and when they can’t. They can make their own decisions. Everyone should leave them alone and stop with the “murder” rhetoric and “killing babies” signs they hold up during their anti-abortion marches.

We must have confidence in women to make their own difficult decisions. You can counsel, advise, or support, but you cannot decide for a pregnant women and tell her she has to go through with a pregnancy.  

To use abortion as a political issue is unconscionable. Holy people help and support. Holy people do not accuse, point fingers, and call women horrible names. Holy people have confidence that others will do what is right and only a woman will know what is right for herself.