Glenn Beck is NOT Martin Luther King Jr

It has been refreshing to see the push back in some of the mainstream media in the US mostly CNN and MSNBC against the misleading narrow-minded and politically motivated screed of Fox News especially.

The kind of misleading commentary you see promoted in the ultra-right wings in the States these days is so emblematic of the tensions of the 60 and 70s I lived through in terms of race, violence, the Viet Nam war, Watergate, civil rights movements- and the list goes on.

Well here is another piece of clarifying push back on the Internet.  Glenn Beck is planning to take his hate encouraging screed to speak on the same steps on the same day that Martin Luther King Jr delivered his "I Have a Dream" message of hope and courage.

Glenn Beck is NOT Martin Luther King Jr. NOT by any stretch of the imagination.

http://glennbeckisnotmartinlutherkingjr.com/?utm_source=alternet

We Canadians should not be smug about this stuff.  It is socially, politically and economically rooted from the past Bush-Cheney administration.  That Bush-Cheney political culture and philosophy is alive and well in the brain trusts and back rooms of the Harper Conservatives.  Why else would they waste $2B on G20 "security," arrest hundreds of innocent people in the process, other than intimidation.  And now we see them and stifling an independent gun registry review for 6 months while they proceed to mislead us on the costs and consequences of the gun registry.

These and others and other examples of how badly we are being governed in Canada are not the big lie that Weapons of Mass Destruction Bush-Cheney used to perpetrate the Iraqi War.  It is, however, the same dishonest, disrespectful and corrupted character flaws of politicians who place personal political power above their sworn duty to provide good government.

We need to return to responsible, informed, active citizenship if we are to ensure this kind of creeping and creepy totalitarianism does not become normative political behaviour.  We need to take action and that demands time, attention and courage.  We need to make a commitment to reaffirm our rights and restore our democracy by seeking out servant leaders with goals of the greater good through good governance - not just the gamesmanship and spin of getting and keeping political power we see dominate politics today.

Alberta, like Canada, needs a progressive political alternative to counteract the swing to the right we see happening in the political culture of Alberta and Canada.  If you, as an informed and engaged Albertan, want to see a more progressive political culture in the Next Alberta register now for RebootAlberta 3.0 at www.rebootalberta.org.