Jon Stewart hosted the Rally to Restore Sanity today. I would have given anything to be there, but unfortunately could not attend. Which was in my opinion put on spectacularly well, from the music and flow of the rally, to the undeniably brilliant message. I did not believe it to really be a parody of Glenn Beck's rally.
As I sit here at this very moment, there are absolute straight fucking lunatics on Fox fucking News who are saying as I write this, that the rally had absolutely no message, and I sadly quote: "that the crowd was just a bunch of hippies who tomorrow morning are gonna wake up, take last night's leftover drugs while real Americans go their jobs and think absolutely nothing about the utter stupidity that this rally promoted." I'm sorry Fox News, I guess tomorrow I have to wake up and take my drugs, and that on tuesday although I am a registered voter, I may as well not go vote because I am not a real American.
One small point that I would like to bring up that you have clearly ignored, that this rally and Beck's rally were both supposedly not political rallies. I agree that they were both not outwardly political but did have huge political undertones. Fox News is by far the most watched news station in the country. Where as per night Jon Stewart bring in millions and millions less people than your supposed news shows bring in. Glenn Beck managed to pull about 78000 people to his rally. Stewart got in excess of 200000. So you decide which personality speaks to more people.
Quick side note on why I wish Glenn Beck would just stop doing anything on television anymore. I witnessed with my eyes, not under the influence of LSD, Beck take the slogan that Obama used on the campaign trail of "YES WE CAN." After looking at this Glenn said that back on some old Nazi literature on the very back page, the same three words were printed. Glenn went on further to say that this meant that anyone who used this slogan along with Obama was a Nazi. So I guess what Glenn Beck is implying is this. Birds fly south for the winter, sometimes my grandparents go to Florida during the winter. Therefore, my grandparents are birds.
The show was put on by comedians yes. But to me comedy does not make a message any less viable. All comedy is, is a vehicle for bringing the absurdities of our everyday life to the surface, and say "Hey look at this!" I would argue that good comedy/and parody sends a better message than so called "rational arguments" do every time it is delivered. Think for yourself, do you recall your favorite comics routines, or a political leaders speeches more readily. Using parody as a means to make a point, if done well, often makes such poignant observations on everyday life that so often falls by the way side of people who believe whatever they are told, and allow themselves to stop thinking.
At the end of the rally, Jon Stewart gave a fantastic speech about what he believed the rally was about. So that tomorrow everyone can over react to everything he said, and implicitly state that his intentions for his own rally are wrong and that's not why he really had it. ANYWAY....(I will be quoting a lot of it in this next part so yeah. If that's a problem, fuck off, I'm surprised you made it this far anyway if you even bothered to read this bullshit. Lord knows I wouldn't waste my time.)
Stewart started by saying, "So, uh, what exactly was this? 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 the main tools in delineating the two broke. The country’s 24-hour politico-pundit-perpetual-conflictinator did not cause our problems, but its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold its magnifying glass 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 flaming ant epidemic. If we amplify everything, we hear nothing."
This was in my opinion, the best point made in his entire speech. 24 hour news networks, be it Fox, CNN, or whomever, all they do is take one thing that the side they are not blatantly for totally over react to it. This constant blowing out of proportion of everything, makes it impossible to see what is really happening in this country, and therefore also impossible to ever see the real issues and tackle them.
Stewart went on to say; "The press is our immune system. If it overreacts 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 and racists and homophones 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 (Washington D.C) 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 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 they do not want to do. But they do it, impossible things every day that are only made possible through the little, reasonable compromises we all make"
This really drove the point home of what they were trying say. That the news networks and politicians of this country are always implicitly stating that we are a disjointed people who are unwilling to work together and full of hate and discord. When in reality this cannot be further from the truth. People make compromises and work together all the time to get things done. While the idiots in Washington are unwilling to compromise, and new networks blow this unwillingness to compromise out of proportion, thereby making it even more impossible to get anything done ever. And just for the fuck of it, here's the remainder of the speech.
"Look, look on the screen. This is where we are, this is who we are. 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 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 and 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 the mighty river, carved by people, who I’m sure, by the way, 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? Uh, 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 what I want from you, I can only assure you this: You have already given it to me. Your 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."
At this point I am about out of things to say. I think Stewart said everything I would have said. If you actually made it this far, and at this point, I'm sure you haven't I can pretty much say anything that I want to. YOUR UGLY! See? It doesn't matter, cause no one reads this shit anyway.
-J Swavely
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