I wanted to go to the rally the moment it was first announced but unfortunately I'm on the other side of the globe. I haven't had the chance to see any clips either.
Rally to Restore Sanity or Fear, On Now! Discussion and Rating
- Thread starter Nowhere Man
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I started watching around 1:30 and really enjoyed it. There were some slow parts but it was good and I quite respected the points Stewart and Colbert were making.
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/47265
Comedy Central has put up videos of the rally thank god
http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/rally_to_restore_sanity_and_or_fear/index.jhtml
Comedy Central has put up videos of the rally thank god
http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/rally_to_restore_sanity_and_or_fear/index.jhtml
I caught the last hour and a half on the C-SPAN delayed broadcast after reading here that it was on. It was cool, and I really liked Stewart's closing speech. It's so refreshing to hear a voice of moderation, someone reminding us that Americans are supposed to have a diversity of views and it doesn't make us enemies, just people trying to find our own paths toward a common goal of living together in a safe and prosperous nation. I loved his analogy of the drivers cooperating to get into the narrow tunnel, all these different people slowing down and letting each other take their turns, with the jerks who cut in and disrupt the smooth merging being in the minority.
And my goodness, I never realized quite how tall Kareem Abdul-Jabbar actually is.
And my goodness, I never realized quite how tall Kareem Abdul-Jabbar actually is.
I think it's just Stewart being that short 
Don't start that in here.
I think it's just Stewart being that short
Well, I was going more by his size relative to Colbert. Both hosts barely seemed to come up to his rib cage.
I've now watched the streaming videos of the parts I missed before. The Mythbusters segment was pretty weak from a Mythbusting standpoint, though I guess it was more just about rallying the crowd. (Adam's gonna catch hell on the fan sites for perpetuating that myth about waves going in different directions in different hemispheres, even though he was joking.) I liked the jumping bit, though.
Nowhere Man
Commodore
Stewart's logic was actually the opposite. He admitted that just because the majority of a crowd is white, doesnt mean they are racist. I am paraphrasing, but it was in the first 5 minutes of his "speech".
Agreed, he was mocking the suggestion a crowd is automatically racist if it's not diverse.
Right. It wasn't his own logic, it was a send-up of the "logic" of the media pundits he routinely criticizes. He was saying that if a crowd is too heavily white, some pundits will denounce it as racist, and if a crowd is too full of minorities, other pundits will dismiss them as wanting handouts or special rights. So he was joking that the crowd was a perfect sampling of the demographic makeup of America and thus should pass muster with the pundits. Though of course -- and it's sad to have to explain a joke -- he was really pointing out the folly of the pundits in trying to find some caricatured, sensationalist spin on everything, to dumb everything down and force it into their prepackaged partisan scripts, rather than honestly reporting the complexities and nuances of an event.
A quarter million people on The Mall is insane. I mean, wow. Just looking at the size of the crowd you could see that it was a nutty event. As for the diversity, when you're looking at a quarter-million people packed into a space I think it's hard to make any reasonable diversity determinations. It'll be interesting to see if any (real) polling was done to see what the "diversity" of the crowd was. I think when you're comparing tea party rallys od dozens or hundreds and not seeing much diversity to a rally of a couple hundred thousand and trying to make diversity determinations based on the color of a person on the screen who's face is a pixel wide is a bit tougher.
I need to watch the rest of the rally when the "meat" of it began but what I saw of Jon's speech was good (I'm not much entertained by Colbert's shtick so I stopped watching when he came on and took a nap. I'll watch the rest later). I just wish Stewart's message of moderation would permeate more into the political culture which has just gotten insane over the last year or so.
I need to watch the rest of the rally when the "meat" of it began but what I saw of Jon's speech was good (I'm not much entertained by Colbert's shtick so I stopped watching when he came on and took a nap. I'll watch the rest later). I just wish Stewart's message of moderation would permeate more into the political culture which has just gotten insane over the last year or so.
Well, for a while there it looked like moderation was catching on, considering that a presidential candidate who was a champion of moderation, conciliation, and pragmatic problem-solving won out over a candidate who parroted a more extremist line (and abandoned his own once-admirable record of moderation and pragmatism in so doing). Unfortunately, the extremists reacted to their defeat by getting even more extreme and confrontational.
Nowhere Man
Commodore
I guess i'll comment since I started the thread. I sorta forgot, oops. I think it was excellent from start to finish. There were a few slower moments, but nothing to cry over. Colbert stayed in character, but you could tell he too believed in what John was attempting to convey. The actual speech was absolutely on point. It was exactly what I needed personally because I too have been sort of swamped myself with politics and political thought that has gone overboard at times. It made me take a look at my own self. I also believe it is something that the country as a whole needed to hear. The post 9/11 world has gotten our panties in a bunch, but it's not the end of the world. The turn out shows that there are more people who think reasonably and rationaly, but may not agree totally rather than unreasonably "tea party" types. That is not to say that all tea partiers are bad or don't have any good ideas, they do, but Mr. Beck would have you think that there are more of them than us. Glen Beck's rally was an, "i'm better than you" sort of rally, John's rally was sort of a, "lets all just chill" rally. It reminded me of the spirit of Woodstock. I am 31 and was not alive back then, but I've always believed in that spirit that Woodstock expressed. Perhaps those old hippie ideas aren't dead, they have just been transformed. Perhaps those old hippies aren't dead either. The only thing I wish John would have done was asked people to vote, not tell them who to vote for, but just vote. I know it's not his place, bit still it would have been nice. The last time a speech moved me like that was Obama's inaguration. John Stewart, you have my vote.
Nowhere Man
Commodore
Midterms are always a bitch for the party in power when the economy is fracked. Obama has a lot of work to do to regain my vote, but i'll give him his two years, I owe him that much. Not closing Quantanimo was a big loss of brownie points for me. Also, not coming out strong for the public option was another one.
Obama has my vote in 2012 no matter what. Right now I don't see any way the Republicans are going to win me over.
Yeah, but you'd think people would remember which party fracked it up in the first place. President Obama stressed over and over again that repairing that damage would take a lot of hard work and patience. It's only been a measly two years. How could anyone reasonably expect everything to be perfect so quickly, especially with the Republicans in Congress stubbornly refusing to cooperate with fixing the problems?
I just got a letter from my insurance company telling me that my health insurance premium may be going down shortly. That sounds like progress to me.
But, but. Obama promised change. 
Why doesn't he just wave his magic wand and make it happen?
Granted the fillibuster-happy minority has been trying to stall any progress or change at every turn, the Democats hardly took their "Super Majority" and did anything with it. They were much more like: "WE WANT TO DO THIS!!!" :turns to the minority and says meekly: "That okay with you?"
Granted giving power back to those who mostly caused this mess in the first place, and their message, platform, and players aren't anything new; isn't smart, but that's why the undecided voters are a weak bunch of lemmings. They've bought into the rhetoric, are afraid of T3H Socialism and are leaning to the other side now.
Why doesn't he just wave his magic wand and make it happen?
Granted the fillibuster-happy minority has been trying to stall any progress or change at every turn, the Democats hardly took their "Super Majority" and did anything with it. They were much more like: "WE WANT TO DO THIS!!!" :turns to the minority and says meekly: "That okay with you?"
Granted giving power back to those who mostly caused this mess in the first place, and their message, platform, and players aren't anything new; isn't smart, but that's why the undecided voters are a weak bunch of lemmings. They've bought into the rhetoric, are afraid of T3H Socialism and are leaning to the other side now.
Anyway, getting back to the rally, isn't it awesome that Jon Stewart used the corbomite bluff? And then he and Colbert geeked out over the episode and Uhura being in the wrong costume?
Nowhere Man
Commodore
But, but. Obama promised change.
Why doesn't he just wave his magic wand and make it happen?
Granted the fillibuster-happy minority has been trying to stall any progress or change at every turn, the Democats hardly took their "Super Majority" and did anything with it. They were much more like: "WE WANT TO DO THIS!!!" :turns to the minority and says meekly: "That okay with you?"
Granted giving power back to those who mostly caused this mess in the first place, and their message, platform, and players aren't anything new; isn't smart, but that's why the undecided voters are a weak bunch of lemmings. They've bought into the rhetoric, are afraid of T3H Socialism and are leaning to the other side now.
AS far as the filibuster goes, they get scared at the threat of filibuster. Most of the time they don't even filibuster, I think they should force them to filibuster. Show the American people how rediculous they are acting. The Republicans seem to get their members in line, why can't the Democrasts. All they really needed this whole time was 50 votes plus The VP.
As far as the problem we're in goes, to be fair, the blame goes all around. These policies go back as far as Nixon and the same basic economic policy has been perpetuated from President to President. Carter was the only one to have any real diference. Reagan of course amplified what Nixon started, but not once did Alan Greenspan get replaced, yet he knew this buble would burst eventually. I have a sneaking suspicion that the Congress as well as the President knew it too.
We live in a mixed economy anyway and are not really arte capitalist. There is no free market. By definition we already live in a Socalist state. Socialis is defined as a form of government in which a strong central government plays a strong role in regulating excisting private industry and directing the economy,although it allows some private ownership of productive capacity.
I'm pretty happy with Obama so far. No problem working for his reelection at all.
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