Timely as ever

Marisacat put it well, Célinian ellipses, glorious [sic]s, and all:

I am supposed to be all whupset over Beck and Palin and dear neice Alveeda King just disporting themselves all over the Lincoln Monument, on today! of all days!… and I could not care less.

We have killed M L King off so many times, narrowed and tied him down to this one instance in his life, The March on Washington, the “I have a dream” speech, strangled him in his clerical collar… that if stupid over-paid white people (Beck makes 32 mil a year) want to do this… have at it.

As with Bush versus Obama, or Fox News in general versus CNN or MSNBC, the difference between Beck and any given "saner" media messenger is mostly just one of obviousness. Beck is obviously perverting King's "legacy," whatever that word means, which in its way is better than doing it subtly. I don't say not to get upset, if you feel that getting upset will be edifying for you or for others. I just suggest examining whether Beck upsets you more than anyone else who tries to place limits on radicalism, and if so, why. Then, get upset at everyone else.

If, as I see many people suggest, the teabaggers and the anti-mosquovites and so on end up inciting violence (and indeed they may already have, as with that taxi driver), it is a violence that was made available to be incited by the sickness of our cultural programming in general. If Beck is tapping into something, it's because someone put it there, the better to tap it later.

UPDATE: JRB says kind of the same thing as me, plus a lot more, better.