This quote from a sign at Saturday’s Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington, D.C. seems to sum up the big difference between Democrats and this new batch of Republicans. I do think there is something in the nature of a Republican voter that attracts them to the party to begin with (as holds true for Democrats as well). To be sure, it’s not all evil and intolerant, indeed, there are times when tax breaks and spending cuts are necessary--we are not, however, currently in one of those times. But beyond the economic policies that separates the two parties’ view of the world, there is a new right wing element to the GOP that seems to overtly appeal to the kind of person who views opposition as someone who needs to be stomped out.
The rhetoric this election has gotten so violent and ugly, and the noise from the cable news so loud and abrasive that many of our more “sane” voters have turned off to the entire process. The way many Republicans get elected these days is ensuring that Democrats don’t come to the polls. Keeping them feeling resigned and defeated before Election Day is a good way to accomplish that. Make them feel that they are the target, the minority, and an angry mob awaits them…
If you just watched cable news, you’d easily believe this to be true. But Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert had an inkling that their viewership was representative of the vast majority of our country/electorate—SANE, REASONABLE, TOLERANT, PATRIOTIC, BUSY AMERICANS.
A month ago, when Arianna Huffington made her foolishly generous offer to give rides from NYC to D.C. to anyone who wanted to go to the rally, I knew this was a very important event, one that might actually “return us all to sanity” and so, signed my husband and I up without even asking him. The problem was, he had to personally confirm his own reservations through his own email, so I had to use some fancy sweet talking to get him to agree to get up at 4 a.m. to go to Queens on a Saturday and spend the day crushed in between hundreds of thousands of strangers. But oddly, he put up very little resistance and barely even tried to get out of it later.
I really didn’t know what to expect in the weeks, then days, ahead. Even Stewart and Colbert revised the agenda from dueling rallies to one rally that made room for people who were both reasonable and a bit afraid. I understand their need to de-politicize the audience as much as possible, but there was no confusing this rally’s participants with Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh fans. As one sign aptly put it, “Reason has a well-known liberal bias.”
Four A.M. Comes Early When You Can’t Sleep.
I am still one of those people that really can’t believe that the Democrats are going to lose the House tomorrow. Obviously, I could be wrong, but there is something very heartening about seeing 10,000 people, maybe more, waiting in an empty parking lot of a post-season baseball field for a team that hasn’t won a pennant in 10 years. When Gary and I left the house, there were still Friday night revelers coming in. In fact, I too had not slept a wink, though I did try to get to sleep at 10:30 (When my body knows it HAS TO get up at a very early hour, it decides to stay awake to ensure I don’t miss the important alarm). I suppose I also had anxiety and stress from the unknown journey, which in my youth invigorated me, but now, causes angst and apprehension. The news of the terrorist plot the day before didn’t help but frankly, my fear of physical danger came from a paranoid reaction to the right wing--exactly why I needed to attend this rally.
Our cab reached a standstill at the approach for the Citifield exit as it joined hundreds and hundreds of fellow cabs and other vehicles heading for the same destination—it’s a testament to Arianna’s influence that there was a lighted highway sign saying “Rally,” pointing toward the exit. We joined the dozens of other passengers who got out of their cabs on the highway and walked nearly a mile off the ramp and around the stadium to find the throngs of people snaking around in some sort of line with no perceptible beginning or end. There is NO WAY we are all departing by 6 a.m. as promised…We, like most other people, randomly joined the line, which much to our delight happened to be very near the beginning. Departure time: 6:15.
The bus ride epitomized the nature of the attendee. Quiet, catching up on needed sleep, tending to reading or recording their journey on FB or blogs. Our bus there was a bit on the Spartan side, with a driver who seemed to have lost his way on many of life’s highways. So it was no surprise when he decided to take a short cut to RFK and became hopelessly lost in Southeast D.C. When we finally arrived at RFK, finding the appropriate parking lot was too much to ask, so we all held a mutiny and got off to get on the Metro to the Mall. Along with several thousand other people in line to buy a metro pass.
Destination Sanity
Not too worse for wear, we did finally arrive at the Federal SW station at about 1 p.m. or so, and came upon the Mall via 4th Street. Initial bottleneck gave my poor hubby and I a bit of a claustrophobic fright, but we managed to squeeze through onto the sideroad near the Air and Space Museum and came upon the famous porta-potties sponsored by Larry King and other friends and associates of Stewart and Colbert. That’s when we really started to get a sense of how many people were at this thing. Diverse was definitely the best description—all ages, very representative of this country. And though decidedly liberal leaning, there were plenty of moderate republicans and independents in the crowd. But very little wackitude overall; instead lots of witty and understated signage and a smattering of satirical costumes.
We stood at a barricade, still a bit irritable from our trip and not quite comfortable in our surroundings, when one of the high points of the rally for me completely changed our mood. After Sam Waterston read a lovely poem, Jon Stewart introduced a singer names “Joseph” also called “Yusef” and then a soft-voiced man broke into “Peace Train.” Awesome, Cat Stevens…though even I thought, hmmm, is this smacking too much of hippy stereotype? Well, Stephen Colbert would have NONE of that feel-good music and so, interrupted Cat/Yusef, and proclaimed he had another train to catch, and the conductor had a message for the audience: “All Aboard!” followed by the familiar guitar riff of “Crazy Train” and then Ozzy took the stage. After some dueling Peace and Crazy Trains, resulting in the destruction of both, leaving the rally temporarily trainless, the O’Jays pulled their “Love Train” into the station and the audience went wild. Here’s a link to You Tube of that special moment:
Though we were comfortable, and not at all crowd-crunched where we were standing, we did have trouble hearing and so like the youngsters we once were, we climbed the barricades to get between the speakers into the heart of the crowd. It really wasn’t that overwhelming to get through, people being polite and reasonable and all. Seeing the stage or even the screen was impossible for me, at 5’4”, but my 6’4” husband had no problems enjoying the action on the stage. This same height deficiency hampered any attempt at getting good photos of the crowd or even signage, and posting/texting/phoning updates or contacting my husband’s sister with whom we intended on reconnoitering was impossible with 200,000+ I-phones, blackberries and other handheld devices all vying for limited bandwidth.
So I’m sorry for the lack of photos, but you can find plenty online--I did see quite a few signs worth noting—among my favorites (besides the one referenced by the title of this writing):
"I'm Somewhat Irritated about Extreme Outrage," and
"I want a sandwich."
Sanity Prevails over Fear
The remaining hour or so of the rally was light, fun, rational, save Stephen Colbert’s fear-filled media montage which nearly put an end to Jon Stewart, until we the audience coaxed him back to life. Jon bestowed several Sanity Awards on reasonable citizens, including, Jacob Isom, the kid who grabbed the kerosene soaked Koran and saved it from an impending Texas-style burning, Detroit Tiger’s pitcher, Armando Galarraga, who so classily accepted the umpires bad call that cost him a perfect game, Mick Foley, who promised to inflict a world of pain on anyone caught bullying kids at school, and Velma Hart, who expressed her frustration to President Obama at having to constantly defend him and his policies. Colbert countered with his Fear Awards, all presented to major news organizations for banning their reporters from attending the rally out of fear of appearing biased.
Other highlights—Kareen Abdul Jabbar standing next to R2D2, a giant among Muslims and a good-hearted diminutive robot—there to assuage Colberts’ unnecessary fear of all Muslims and robots.
The only lowlight for me were the Kid Rock/Sheryl Crow duet, particularly after the build-up Jon Stewart gave in the intro—you’d think it was Bruce or U2 about to take the stage. But still, you have to give the Kid credit for writing what was really a lovely little ballad.
Jon Stewart gave an incredibly powerful and appropriate speech at the end—it would take too long to summarize its key points, but really, it does boil down to the fact that we can’t let the noise from the media and a few very bad people (who Jon Stewart said have worked very hard on their racist or Nazi resumes, so you can’t just dilute their evil and intolerance by calling random people racists or Nazis or crazy) derail our country. We are getting things done, and life is very much like trying to get into the Lincoln Tunnel. You go one at a time, letting in your neighboring vehicle with the Mormon Jay-Z fan and the Mexican Swedish housewife and the Gay NRA member, etc. It’s really only a few assholes who ride the shoulder and try to cut in.
Two quotes worth noting:
“This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith, activists or to look down on the heartland. We live, now, in hard times, not end times”
“The country’s 24-hour political pundit, perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems but its existence made solving them that much harder. If we amplify everything, we hear nothing.”
Here’s the speech and transcript from HuffPo:
13 Hours of Travel for 2 hours on the Mall? A Resounding WORTH IT!
Nothing could have wrapped up an appropriately youthful and moderately liberal sane event than the young-at-heart Tony Bennett singing “America, the Beautiful.” 84+ years old and still soothing us with that cool voice. There’s a reason he resonates with young people, and no more fitting an ending to a rally that attracted almost 250,000 young people and the young at heart, who still have the energy and hope to make this country better.
We skedaddled back to RFK on the Metro and managed to get right onto an Academy bus, that repaid us amply for our more bedraggled trip down. Comfort and speed, and the best part, an impromptu stop in Manhattan, saving us another up to 2 hours of travel back to our East Village apartment. I have to profusely thank Arianna Huffington for her generous accommodations and free food—I failed to mention above the coolers of cold drinks, yogurt and pistachios on each bus! I have no idea what this cost her, but seriously doubt it was tax-deductible!
Overall, by attendance and energy alone and the fact that this event got my husband and I willingly out of bed at 4 a.m., I still have to believe that the Democrats may have the philosophical edge in this country—but the only way that results in winning elections is actually getting out and voting! Vote tomorrow, NO EXCUSES!!
