Rally to Restore Sanity

It's great to see democracy in action. Yesterday the Rally to Restore Sanity showed just that. Yes it was hosted by two comedians (but how does one actually classify Glenn Beck). But I think it proved a point that there are many people who want the hyper-rhetoric toned down.

Here's part of what Jon Stewart said in closing out the rally from USA Today:

So 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 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 politico-pundit- perpetual-panic 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, bring them into focus, illuminating issues -- 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. …

Not being able to distinguish between real racists and tea partiers, or real bigots and Juan Williams or 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. ...

That being said, I feel 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 funhouse mirror, and not the good kind that makes you look slim and maybe taller, but the kind that gives you a giant forehead and maybe an ass shaped like a month-old pumpkin. We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is, on the brink of disaster, torn by polarizing hate. …

The truth is, 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. ... We know that as a people if we're going to get through the darkness and back into the light, we have to work together. ...

And sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn't the promised land, it's just New Jersey, but we do it anyway.

Here are a couple of videos from the Rally to Restore Sanity







This last one is all of Jon Stewart's final statement: