Rally like it's 1969

I am a little sad I couldn't be in Washington DC this past weekend for Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.  Some friends have emailed with great reports on the big day out, and looking at the news coverage, I'm heartened to see 200,000 average Americans stood up and voiced the sentiment of the overwhelming majority: "Calm Down, Folks."

Perusing the signs, which range from hilarious and random to poignant and eloquent, I think the rally-goers really did justice to the theme of the event.  The sad, ageless fact is that moderate voices are--by definition--almost never heard.  (the squeaky door gets oil)  The brash and outspoken make news, regardless of their accuracy or representativeness.  America' headstrong, abrasive image in the world scene is grossly unfair to the millions of Americans who keep their heads down and work hard, practice a personal and unobtrusive form of religion, vote as sensibly as they can given the information available.  This rally was a humor-driven showcase of the moderate.

Humor is key here.   Mr. Stewart and Mr. Colbert are excellently informed, satirical entertainers, whose lighten-up philosophy is refreshing by contrast with the fear-mongering and loud commentators of traditional "news" stations.  We citizens should not be misinformed or ignorant dullards, but likewise we cannot bring the high-stress of party politicking into our homes every time we switch on the tv, look at the internet, or read the newspaper.  "Maybe I need to be more discerning," Mr. Colbert told Mr. Stewart. "Your reasonableness is poisoning my fear." My generation gets some flak for thinking Comedy Central is a source of news, but I think we're just looking to take the edge off news with a good laugh.  As my dear friend Natalie once said, "If you don't laugh, it's disturbing."  We know what's going on, or some of what's going on; as much as we care to know.  And dwelling on it can only be painful or scary.  See the humor, carry on.

I'm very glad that the National Mall was chock-full of people standing for common sanity, laughing at the absurdity of it all.  I hope it was a blow to the egos of men (and women) who have made their fame and fortune bloviating a very niche viewpoint to a very rabid, loud, and small constituency.  We Americans, for the most part, are not those pundits or radicals, just as much as Arabs and Muslims are, on the whole, not strapped with explosives.

Choosing a favorite sign was a hard ask.  For timely humor and my personal bias, I was really enamored of the guy that showed up with a life-size stuffed coyote wearing a sign: "I am not a coyote, I'm you." He was poking fun, evidently, at Christine O'Donnell's recent "I didn't go to Yale, I'm you" campaign slogan. Which, personally, I found intensely offensive.

I also really appreciated the numerous people who pretended that they'd just sort of happened on the rally, and were confused about its purpose.  "Is this the line to buy Justin Bieber tickets."  "I came for the sex!"  "I would like more tortilla chips with my fajitas."  Non-sequitur humor as always appreciated.  So is irony/logical fallacy: "I am protesting the existence of protest signs."

But the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear was not about being disoriented, catty, plaintive, or overly intellectual.  It was meant to remind us regular people that there are lots of others like us, and we should be proud to band together as Americans under a different banner than the loud, visible, fear-mongering types who have co-opted the American brand.  "We live now in hard times," Mr. Stewart said, "not the end of times." We should keep our wits about us and our sense of humor intact. In the end, I think the rally was summed up best by one sign:

thanks to BuzzFeed.com for posting the originals of these sign photos, and thanks to the witty people who walked around DC carrying them on 31 October 2010!