Greetings and Salutations;

In case you may not know (perhaps from sleeping under a rock for the past month, considering the amount of publicity about it), comedians John Stewart and Steven Colbert held a rally on the Mall in Washington a couple of days ago. It was called “the Rally to Restore Sanity/Fear”, and, of course, had Colbert doing his great parody of the foaming at the mouth, Royalist, Conservative commentators, and, Stewart trying to be the voice of sanity. I did not see every minute of it, nor did I make it there in body, but I was certainly with them in spirit! There were several things about it that impressed me.

1) There was the fact that 200,000 people showed up and took part with great enthusiasm, with no more effort than a number of announcements on their respective shows, and some of the news stories generated from them. No mass-mailings, no having paid staffers go out and gather up folks, etc.

2) The rally was, as far as I know at the moment, totally trouble free. No yelling, no public disturbances, no injuries. Just a huge crowd of folks coming together to make a statement (or several statements) in a positive and humor-filled manner.

3) While some of the “Talking Heads” decried the fact that the rally was not “political enough”, I thought that it had some very serious and very good points interspersed with the humor of the day. Stewart, for example made a lengthy speech towards the end of the event pointing out that one of the major problems with today’s political discourse is that folks have gotten very thin skinned, and are too ready to pump forth out and out lies about their opponents in order to demonize them and get support for themselves. He used the analogy of a six or eight lane highway getting choked down to a single lane. All those cars coming up to the squeeze point have to co-operate, let some folks in front of them, and, in turn, be let into the line. As Stewart said, there will be a few twits who will blast up the outside lane, and, cut into line, but those are very rare. Those drivers compromise no matter if the person in front of them agrees with their political beliefs, or have opposite views. He also called on the Media to get back to calm reporting of the facts and to back away from the support of commentators, foaming at the mouth with rage, that drive wedges between parts of society. In short, he was calling for Americans to agree to step away from their radical and polarized views, and, seek a more centralist stance. While this might be impossible in today’s climate, not only was he able to articulate it very clearly but, obviously a lot of folks supported that view.

4) Many of the folks attending the event had wonderful parody protest signs, mocking the radical and inflammatory signs typical at these events. For example, one young lady was dressed in a “television” costume she had made. The screen of the set had the words “Keep Fear Alive – Watch Fox News”, in bright red, and surrounded by pictures of some of the more enthusiastic screamers on that channel. Another person had a sign that said “We have nothing to fear but fear itself – and spiders”…which I think would amuse my friend Jan, who has a bit of a phobia about spiders. Yet another person had a large sign that said “I really do not care for protest signs”. There were, I know, several more scattered around, but these examples are the only ones that spring to mind at the moment. I hope that there will be a record of these online somewhere as they all were quite witty and well done.

In closing, let me say that It is both heartening and disconcerting that America is in a place where the only voices that are speaking truth about the sad state of politics and the attitudes of the citizens are those of the Court Jesters. It is disconcerting because I know that many of the extremist commentators are quite intelligent folks who, if they were not making SO much money by holding their extreme views, would be much more balanced in their discussions. It is heartening because there ARE folks like Colbert and Stewart, who are willing and happy to turn the bright light of publicity and satirical commentary on the dark pits of lies and hate-mongering that seem to be the stock in trade of too many politicians these days.

Pleasant Dreams

Dave Mundt