Liberal groups rally at Lincoln Memorial 'to bail out the American people'

 

The “One Nation Working Together” rally spanned four hours and included a variety of speeches, poetry and music built around a common theme of liberalism. Speakers repeatedly told the audience that a Republican takeover of Congress would cause disastrous consequences for the country’s middle class.

 

“We need America to deal with the issue of jobs. We bailed out the banks. We bailed out the insurance companies and now it is time to bail out the American people,” the Rev. Al Sharpton said in his remarks.

 
Actor Wendell Pierce urged the crowd to harbor "a great dissatisfaction” heading into the November elections.

"Let us be dissatisfied until those that live in the outskirts of hope are brought into the center of daily security," Pierce said.

 

Organizers estimated the crowd at close to 200,000 -- the National Park Service no longer provides crowd estimates, and most agencies reported the crowd to number in the thousands but not extending as far as Glenn Beck's August rally -- with national director Leah Daughtry calling the event “true democracy and good old-fashioned organizing at work.”

 

“This is an important moment in the progressive movement, as each person returns home and continues to rally our fellow Americans,” Daughtry said. “We head to the ballot box in November and re-commit ourselves to our common future.”

 

The coalition of pro-union groups has called for Congress to extend unemployment benefits and mortgage assistance to laid-off workers, as well as stronger support for public education and bankruptcy laws. Sponsoring organizations for Saturday’s event totaled more than 400, including the NAACP, the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union.

 

The crowd included residents from nearly every state, many of whom assailed conservative pundit Beck’s own recent rally at the location.

 

“He talks as if he’s never worked a day in his life,” said Robin Pennington of Glenmont, Md., who runs a bakery in the Washington suburb. “There’s no way to tell if he understands what it’s like to be a member of the working middle class.

 

“I came today to try and counter that, to say that this election matters. Otherwise this country is going to wake up on Nov. 3 and start stepping backwards.”

 

“This is about job creation, justice for all and education,” said Ken Roos, a local union leader from Concord, N.H. “It's important for the people to speak, rather than the PACs and the corporations."

 

Beck himself had lambasted Saturday’s rally on his Fox News show this week, urging Americans, “Do not allow them to get away with the lies.”

 

“Do not allow them to say that we are just 'one nation, working together.' 'We're just trying to put America back to work and putting America back together.' These people, a lot of them, have fought their entire life to destroy America,” Beck said.

"This march is about the power to the people," MSNBC host Ed Schultz told the crowd Saturday. "It is about the people standing up to the corporations. Are you ready to fight back?"