The Rally to Restore Sanity

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Ragorn
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The Rally to Restore Sanity

Postby Ragorn » Sun Oct 31, 2010 2:21 am

Very fun. Some musical guests, various bits of stand-up comedy, the usual shenanigans of Colbert and Stewart. The crowd was a lot more age-diverse than I anticipated, I figured it would skew under-30 but it was a pretty mixed bag. Most of the signs people held up were much more comedic than political.

The rally lasted three hours, and it wasn't until the last 20 minutes that Jon Stewart requested to be serious. The message of his speech was the same message he's always delivered... for people to stop letting the media manipulate them with hyperbole, fear, fake concern, and skewed statistics. That Americans are not the fiercely divided, strictly partisan, angry-and-ready-to-ignite powderkeg that the media so desperately wants you to believe we are. That at the end of the day, we all tend to pretty much like each other, and we all work pretty well together most of the time. That nobody in real life honestly believes the people around them are unhinged racist extremists... those attitudes are reserved for what you see on the internet and on cable TV. And everyone should learn to separate Muslims from terrorists, Tea Partiers from racists, immigrants from vagabonds, and people of faith from radical fundamentalists.

It was a pretty good speech, and sharply apolitical. No endorsement of any candidate or policy. No call to arms, no urge to vote, no overt or implied threat of what might transpire should The Wrong Party get too many votes. Just a call to chill out, have a beer, stop comparing people to Hitler, and realize that times are tough but not apocalyptic.

There were some troublemakers around the rally... most notably, activists from MoveOn and Media Matters who I guess got confused and thought this was a Democratic political rally. At one point, some people raised a sharply anti-Republican sign in the crowd in front of us, and they were shouted at until they removed it. There were one or two anti-Glenn Beck signs. And the couple groups of right-wing protestors, with megaphones and signs of their own, largely being ignored. It was a very polite crowd, and most of us weren't there to be lobbied.

Good times. Good rally. Good message.
- Ragorn
Shar: Leave the moaning to the people who have real issues to moan about like rangers or newbies.
Corth: Go ask out a chick that doesn't wiggle her poon in people's faces for a living.
Teflor Lyorian
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Joined: Sat Oct 30, 2010 9:39 pm

Re: The Rally to Restore Sanity

Postby Teflor Lyorian » Sun Oct 31, 2010 6:14 am

Unfortunately, shouting "calm down" isn't really a message, but it was an entertaining use of the National Mall.

Awesome opportunity, however, for a mainly young and DC centric crowd to come out and see some live music and some A-list celebrities. The Crazy/Peace Train bit was interesting, would have liked it to go on to some sort of mashup, but hey, might be asking too much from something that was free.
"You see, the devil haunts a hungry man.
If you don’t wanna join him, you got to beat him."
- Kris Kristofferson (To Beat the Devil)

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