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GORDON L. WEIL: Talking about doing good or just doing good: a tale of two rallies

Two big crowd events took place last Saturday.

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One was Glenn Beck’s “Restore Honor” rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, and the other was the American Folk Festival in Bangor.

There were hundreds of thousands in Washington and tens of thousands in Bangor.

Beck issued a call for America to recapture what was “good” in American history. The Folk Festival exemplified what is good in America today.

It is hard to argue with the nostalgia Beck evokes when he reminds people of a simpler day when the United States was beyond doubt the world’s only super power. It is a bit more of a problem to call for a return to God in a country where almost 20 percent say they do not believe and the beliefs of many others are so varied.

If we set aside any political differences with Beck, even a skeptic or an opponent can share in his longing for the world as it was.

Beck is believable when he says that he was unaware that he had selected for his rally the anniversary of the famed Martin Luther King Jr. “I have a Dream” rally. That fact may have served to eliminate some partisanship and provide some inspiration for Beck’s remarks.

Beck says he wants to restore the “values and principles that made us great.”

Even if the Beck rally was not meant to send a coded message of support for a certain brand of politics — and Sarah Palin’s participation makes that hard to believe — the meaning of the rally is left to the listener’s view of what needs to be “restored” in America.

If you are an African-American or a woman or an older person, you probably don’t want to restore the country as it was in mid-20th century without voting rights, breaks in the glass ceiling and Medicare.

If restoring America means more personal responsibility instead of government action, it is hard to argue against that. But, leaving out the recent past when we have not had time to make reasoned judgments about many government policies, we need to know specifically what government programs should be eliminated and what should replace them.

If the government actions you oppose are only what has been done since Barack Obama became president, then restoring America amounts to nothing more than partisan politics.

Is one of our values that the majority rules? From 1789 to 1917, there was no need for more than a majority vote to do the business of the U.S. Senate. From 1917 until a few years ago, a vote to cut off debate, requiring a super-majority, happened once or twice a year. Now it happens once or twice a week. How about restoring the “principle” of majority rule?

We can debate such issues and try to identify and act on our principles and values. But that’s impossible when public policy and theology are mixed.

If you believe that God would oppose certain of Obama’s policies, and I disagree and support those policies, then you may see me not only as wrong, but bad.  You have a right to that belief, but the divisiveness it embodies means we cannot work together to restore “values and principles.”

In Bangor, with the exception of the barely visible appearance of at least one candidate for governor, there was no sign of the political divides in Maine or the country. Instead, there was a sense of community that reveals the best of American values.

Music from places as diverse as Nova Scotia, Appalachia, New Orleans, Korea and Iraq, invariably drew enthusiastic and happy crowds. People were eager to be exposed to cultures not often seen in Maine.

Was government out of the picture? Was the Festival left to the people? Like so much in our lives, the answer is yes and no.

The City of Bangor contributed. The National Endowment for the Arts, taxpayer-financed, contributed. With such help, the Festival would not have happened. But government could not have made it happen, either.

Maine businesses provided support. And scores of volunteers not only made the Festival happen but also ran a bucket brigade asking people to “kick in” to provide funding that will make the festival possible again next year.

And, according to the organizers, the performers appeared for less than their usual fees.

The Folk Festival will not make government work better. It showed a role for both government and individual initiative. Emphasizing what unites us, it brought people together to celebrate diversity without divisiveness.  

Gordon L. Weil, a weekly columnist for this newspaper, is an author, publisher, consultant and former international organization, U.S. and Maine government official.