The Speech Glenn Beck Meant to Give

I was inspired by Glenn Beck’s speech at his “Restoring Honor” rally in Washington to write the speech he intended to make:

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all mega-corporations with legions of lobbyists are created more than equal to anybody.”

I have a dream that the Yalie son of a Houston oil magnate can walk hand in hand with the daughter of a Wall Street hedge fund operator on the white sands of Southampton while evading inheritance taxes.

I have a dream that from the glorious Pacific to the bountiful Atlantic the Castro will become gayless and Greenwich Village will become free of feminism.

I have a dream that the Republican Party will come up with one new idea, any new idea, even if it is a rerun of one of Rush’s or my ideas, just to show that it isn’t completely brain-dead.

I have a dream that the young white guys playing with rifles at survivalist retreats in northern Michigan, that the middle-aged white guys playing Minuteman with guns at the Arizona border, and the older white guys frolicking at the Bohemian Grove, playing with whatever they play with, will keep people of different races or religions in their place.
I have a dream that the Supreme Court will vote 5 to 4 to revoke the statehood of Hawaii—but not Alaska—vindicating you Birthers out there.

I have a dream that Rupert Murdoch and the Fortune 500, thanks to another Supreme Court vote of 5 to 4, will be free to buy the Senate, the House and the White House at a Sotheby’s auction, without elections or public financing of campaigns.

I have a dream that oil spills in the Gulf, mining in West Virginia, egg farming in Iowa and predatory lending in every state will keep evading oversight.

I have a dream that all our children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the content of their character, but by the size of their stock portfolios.

I have a dream that the former lily-white golf clubs of Georgia and the lily-white boardrooms of Halliburton will not be tainted by people of different races or religions.

May corporations get the American people and “government of the people, by the people and for the people” (Lincoln had it wrong) off our backs.

From the newsroom of Fox to the boardrooms of our corporate masters, let freedom ring.

Thanks to Justice Roberts Almighty, the tea party and the GOP, we’ll be free at last!

Arthur Blaustein is the chair of the editorial board of the Progressive Book Club and author of “The American Promise—Justice and Opportunity.”