On Friday, Oct. 29, I flew from Daytona Beach to Washington D.C. to meet my stepson from New Mexico, my son from New York City and his friend from San Diego. They are 40ish with two graduates of Princeton (one an attorney) and one from Cal State. I am a Temple U person and I am 72. We were meeting to have a small weekend reunion and attend the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. I have been to many concerts with large attendances, but I have never attended a “rally.” In all of my experiences, this rally was the most memorable day that I have had in my life.
The \rally was held on the National Mall. However, the stage was reversed compared to other events that are held in front of the Lincoln Memorial. The stage faced the Lincoln Memorial and the rally goers viewed the capital that was behind the stage.
The majority of the people were young in the mid twenty to the fortyish people. I was next to a couple from Richmond that were in their late fifties. The people that I had the opportunity to speak with were college educated. One lady about thirty who was from VA worked as a scientist for the state department. She was a graduate of Smith.
If you are not familiar with the organizers I encourage you to take the time to view their shows on Comedy Central (locally on Brighthouse cable channel 66, 11 p.m. nightly). Jon Stewart hosts the Daily Show and Stephen Colbert hosts The Colbert Report (pronounced Colber Repor)
They are modern day satirists, with a slant to the political. This is not a new approach. There was Ben Franklins “Poor Richard’s Almanac, Will Rogers, Mort Sahl to name a few. Jon Stewart calls his show “Fake News’. Not unlike The Onion or The Borowitz Report.
The interesting thing is that a lot of young people do not listen to the nightly news as their parents have done in the past. They get their news from Stewart’s “Daily Show” and Colbert’s “The Cobert Report.”
I went to the rally as I believe the majority did, because they are the middle-of-the-road-type people who are working at their retirement, job or looking for a job or caring for the home and children and just dealing with daily life. They normally do not get off of their duffs to do the rally stuff.
This rally was to rein in the hate, fear, and partisanship and to make an appeal for civility.
CBS reports that there were an estimated 220,000 who attended. I was there and I believe the numbers.
The rally started with the group “Roots” that got the rally off to a rocking music start. Then Jon Stewart welcomed everyone and mentioned, in a very funny approach that other rallies made claims of the number attending. He had his “fake reporters” (fellow comedians on his show) in the audience and they would ask the person to say his number, first name and state. So Samantha Bee, on of the reporters placed the mike in front of the first person to start. He said, “Number one, I am Jim and I am from Ohio.”
It went on from there for about four people until Jon announced that it would take to much time. Cobert in the mean time is shown on a screen in back of the stage, saying he is in a cave under the stage.
Colbert was the “Restore Fear” part of the rally.
On the screen he is shirtless with a black cave background not unlike the Chilean miners. He finally agrees to come up and does so in the same type of tube called the “Fenix” that brought up the miners. This included the hole with steam coming out and guards with reflective orange on their jackets.
No one that I spoke with had any idea of what to expect. I was able to print out a schedule that was presented to the park service. It was a time schedule with TBA in most of the three-hour rally.
A military singing group the “4 Troops” sang the National Anthem. And the benediction was given by - I think you must have to be over 50 to remember him -- Don Novello. He is better know as Father Guido Sarducci of Saturday Night live. He asked God to show some sort of a sign “likea lightning or a flocka geese” as to what is the best religion. He called out the religions with no sign from God. When he made a reference to "Roman Catholic," he tapped the mike and asked, “Is this thing on?” So there was humor pointing out that fear is something that we can over come if we discuss our problems civilly including religious differences.
Then there was the music intermixed with the humor. There was a duel with Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) and Ozzie Osborne, “Peace Train “ and “Crazy Train” respectfully. They each started their song only to be interrupted by either Colbert or Stewart. At the end Osborne and Stevens embraced. Then the O’Jays came out and did “Love Train.”
So all was well with sanity overcoming fear. Other performers included John Legend, Kid Rock, Sheryl Crow, Mavis Staples and Jeff Tweedy. To my surprise a guy older than me, Tony Bennett, sang "America the Beautiful.
Stewart announced that he was giving out medals for reasonableness and Colbert had the “Fear” Awards. Stewart gave medals of reasonableness to Armando Galarraga, the Detroit Tigers pitcher who forgave the umpire who blew his perfect game this summer with a last-inning bad call at first, pro wrestler Mick Foley, Velma Hart, for a civilized exchange with President Obama during a town hall meeting, and Jacob Isom, the Texas man who snatched a Koran from the hands of an evangelist preacher threatening to burn it.
Colbert handed out "Fear" Awards to CNN's Anderson Cooper's tight black t-shirt, even though Cooper was not there, for the likes of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and news organizations like National Public Radio, ABC and the New York Times who banned employees from attending the rally.
At the end, Jon Stewart gave a wonderful closing speech. Walking to the Metro with the throngs of rally goers I got a feeling that things were different. It is time to be kind to each other and work together to solve our nation’s problems. I am going to endeavor to do this.
Here is Jon Stewart's speech:
"I can't control what people think this was. I can only tell you my intentions. This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith or people of activism or to look down our noses at the heartland or passionate argument or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear. They are and we do. But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies. But unfortunately one of our main tools in delineating the two broke. The country's 24 hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems but it's existence makes solving them that much harder.
"The press can hold its magnifying up to our problems bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected dangerous flaming ant epidemic. If we amplify everything we hear nothing.
"There are terrorists and racists and Stalinist and theocrats, but those are titles that must be earned. You must have the resume. Not being able to distinguish between real racists and Tea Partiers or real bigots and Juan Williams and Rick Sanchez is an insult, not only to those people but to the racists themselves who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate. Just as the inability to distinguish terrorists from Muslims makes us less safe not more. The press is our immune system. If we overreact to everything we actually get sicker and perhaps eczema.
"And yet with that being said I feel good—strangely, calmly good. Because the image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false. It is us through a fun house mirror and not the good kind that makes you look slim in the waist and maybe taller, but the kind where you have a giant forehead and an ass shaped like a month old pumpkin and one eyeball.
"So, why would we work together? Why would you reach across the aisle to a pumpkin- assed forehead eyeball monster? If the picture of us were true of course our inability to solve problems would actually be quite sane and reasonable. Why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution or racists and homophobes who see no one's humanity but their own?
"We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is—on the brink of catastrophe—torn by polarizing hate and how it's a shame that we can't work together to get things done, but the truth is we do. We work together to get things done every damn day!
"The only place we don't is here or on cable TV. But Americans don't live here or on cable TV. Where we live our values and principles form the foundation that sustains us while we get things done not the barriers that prevent us from getting things done. Most Americans don't live their lives solely as Democrats, Republicans, Liberals or Conservatives.
"Americans live their lives more as people that are just a little bit late for something they have to do—often something that they do not want to do — but they do it. Impossible things every day that are only made possible by the little reasonable compromises that we all make.
"Look on the screen this is where we are this is who we are. (points to the Jumbotron screen which show traffic merging into a tunnel). These cars—that's a schoolteacher who probably thinks his taxes are too high. He's going to work. There's another car-a woman with two small kids who can't really think about anything else right now. There's another car swinging I don't even know if you can see it—the lady's in the NRA. She loves Oprah.
"There's another car -- an investment banker, gay, also likes Oprah. Another car's a Latino carpenter. Another car a fundamentalist vacuum salesman. Atheist obstetrician. Mormon Jay-Z fan. But this is us. Every one of the cars that you see is filled with individuals of strong belief and principles they hold dear—often principles and beliefs in direct opposition to their fellow travelers.
"And yet these millions of cars must somehow find a way to squeeze one by one into a mile long 30 foot wide tunnel carved underneath a mighty river. Carved, by the way, by people who I'm sure had their differences. And they do it. Concession by concession. You go. Then I'll go. You go then I'll go. You go then I'll go, 'Oh my God, is that an NRA sticker on your car? Is that an Obama sticker on your car?' Well, that's OK -- you go and then I'll go.
"And sure, at some point there will be a selfish jerk who zips up the shoulder and cuts in at the last minute, but that individual is rare and he is scorned and not hired as an analyst. Because we know instinctively as a people that if we are to get through the darkness and back into the light we have to work together and the truth is, there will always be darkness. And sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn't the promised land. Sometimes it's just New Jersey. But we do it anyway, together.
"If you want to know why I'm here and want I want from you I can only assure you this: you have already given it to me. You're presence was what I wanted. Sanity will always be and has always been in the eye of the beholder. To see you here today and the kind of people that you are has restored mine. Thank you."
For a national perspective, here is a link to the event as covered by Vanity Fair: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/10/the-rally-to-restore-sanity-andor-fear-can-an-anti-rally-rally-really-work.html