The Rally had to be the highlight of 90% of American University student's weekend. Many of us woke up earlier than 1 pm on a Saturday morning; still others woke up before the metro even started. Some crazies even camped out. Unfortunately, I don't think it was worth the hype.
Now I can say I was within 200 ft of Cat Stevens, Ozzy Ozbourne and of course Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert, but there wasn't much 'rally' to the Rally to Restore Sanity. It was more of a performance.
OK maybe getting 150,000 people to do the cheek pop at the same time was pretty cool.
The real 'rally' began at the last 30 minutes when Jon Stewart donned his suit and Colbert...dragged up his own podium and self-puppet. The debate was over being rational when it comes to viewing news. Learn bias. Notice it and understand its falsity. Don't necessarily believe some radical newscaster's false connection between Muslims=Terrorists. Here is part of Jon Stewart's closing speech:
"There are terrorists and racists and Stalinists and theocrats, but those are titles that must be earned. You must have the resume. Not being able to distinguish between real racists and tea partiers, or real bigots and Juan Williams and Rich Sanchez is an insult -- not only to those people, but to the racists themselves, who have put forth the exhausting effort it takes to hate. Just as the inability to distinguish between terrorists and Muslims makes us less safe, not more."
It's a great message and it's very funnily stated (which is typical of Stewart) but it's also a message that most of the audience has heard before. If anything, it was just a reminder.
Still, to get this same message one doesn't have to camp out a 3 am in 40 degree weather and stay standing for another 12 hours--one just has to watch 3 minutes of Glenn Beck.
So was the rally worth it?
No comments:
Post a Comment