Jon Stewart’s totally awesome closing comments from the Rally to Restore Sanity:
Text to accompany the video:
I can’t control what people think this was. I can only tell you my intentions. This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith or people of activism or to look down our noses at the heartland or passionate argument or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear. They are and we do. But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies.
But unfortunately one of our main tools in delineating the two broke. The country’s 24 hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems but it’s existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold it’s magnifying up to our problems bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected dangerous flaming ant epidemic.
If we amplify everything we hear nothing. There are terrorists and racists and Stalinist 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 Rick Sanchez is an insult, not only to those people but to the racists themselves who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate. Just as the inability to distinguish terrorists from Muslims makes us less safe not more. The press is our immune system. If we overreact to everything we actually get sicker and perhaps eczema.
And yet with that being said I feel good—strangely, calmly good. Because the image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false. It is us through a fun house mirror and not the good kind that makes you look slim in the waist and maybe taller, but the kind where you have a giant forehead and an ass shaped like a month old pumpkin and one eyeball.
So, why would we work together? Why would you reach across the aisle to a pumpkin assed forehead eyball monster? If the picture of us were true of course our inability to solve problems would actually be quite sane and reasonable. Why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution or racists and homophobes who see no one’s humanity but their own? We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is—on the brink of catastrophe—torn by polarizing hate and how it’s a shame that we can’t work together to get things done, but the truth is we do. We work together to get things done every damn day!
The only place we don’t is here or on cable TV. But Americans don’t live here or oncable TV. Where we live our values and principles form the foundation that sustains us while we get things done not the barriers that prevent us from getting things done. Most Americans don’t live their lives solely as Democrats, Republicans, Liberals or Conservatives. Americans live their lives more as people that are just a little bit late for something they have to do—often something that they do not want to do—butthey do it. Impossible things every day that are only made possible by the little reasonable compromises that we all make.
Look on the screen this is where we are this is who we are. (points to the Jumbotron screen which show traffic merging into a tunnel). These cars—that’s a schoolteacher who probably thinks his taxes are too high. He’s going to work. There’s another car-a woman with two small kids who can’t really think about anything else right now. There’s another car swinging I don’t even know if you can see it—the lady’s in the NRA. She loves Oprah. There’s another car—an investment banker, gay, also likes Oprah. Another car’s a Latino carpenter. Another car a fundamentalist vacuum salesman. Atheist obstetrician. Mormon Jay-Z fan. But this is us. Every one of the cars that you see is filled with individuals of strong belief and principles they hold dear—often principles and beliefs in direct opposition to their fellow travelers.
And yet these millions of cars must somehow find a way to squeeze one by one into a mile long 30 foot wide tunnel carved underneath a might river. Carved, by the way, by people who I’m sure had their differences. And they do it. Concession by conscession. You go. Then I’ll go. You go then I’ll go. You go then I’ll goOh my God, is that an NRA sticker on your car? Is that an Obama sticker on your car? Well, that’s okay—you go and then I’ll go.
And sure, at some point there will be a selfish jerk who zips up the shoulder and cuts in at the last minute, but that individual is rare and he is scorned and not hired as an analyst.
Because we know instinctively as a people that if we are to get through the darkness and back into the light we have to work together and the truth is, there will always be darkness. And sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t the promised land.
Sometimes it’s just New Jersey. But we do it anyway, together.
If you want to know why I’m here and want I want from you I can only assure you this: you have already given it to me. You’re presence was what I wanted.
Sanity will always be and has always been in the eye of the beholder. To see you here today and the kind of people that you are has restored mine. Thank you.”
Good speech. Heartfelt. No teleprompters. I liked it. I also appreciate what he said about Sanchez, Williams and TEA Partiers. I doubt my friends on the left will take it to heart but it’s good to hear.
I think the theme was good. Whenever we as Americans come together we kick butt. Right now the USS America lacks direction and we’ve got two oars in the water paddeling in different directions.
I just heard some of Stewart’s speech on the news. Sounded really good. I’m glad they had a nice day for this!
Jon sounded darn right presidential and in my humble opinon (as well as my arrogant side) he really really had some good words.
He and Colbert did a great skit on the extremes of both right and left. There were no winners there.
but back to the keystone address; WOW!!
My brother told me there was no cell service for hours. The cell towers just got hammered.
Stewart:
Is this true? Has the media, in particularly 24/7 cable, made us less civil and just plain meaner?
Do we really know more or do we just know more of what someone wants us to know?
Fox and friends this morning is talking about the rally. They don’t get satire, apparently. In several parts, they totally missed the point. They also thought the above speech was Stewart telling the audience to go out and vote. I never heard that. Voting was not mentioning.
Stewart has long advocated more productive discourse in the media and in politics. Fox and Friends fed exactly what Rally was about…and that is not a compliment.
Maybe Faux News would rile me up so much if they understood issues and aimed for accuracy. They don’t. Their assessment of Jon Stewart and the rally is living proof. They pride themselves on pulling the thread of the truth out of a story and spinning it to suit their political message. That’s just dead wrong and setting ants on fire with the magnifying glass.
They talked about some ofthe signs being rude and attacking the right. Well duh…is that really a news flash to anyone? UFB
I was there, I got on the Metro at Vienna around 9:30 after waiting in an express cash line for 30min. I got to the Mall at about 10:30. The train was so packed, no one else could get on, and at every station outside of the district, the platforms were packed with people dressed in suits, tie dye and other costumes, all pretty much had one destination yesterday.
I got within comfortable hearing distance of the last set of speakers and TV’s, thinking that that the crowds would be thinner back there if the event turned out to be what the media predicted. I figured I could sit on the grass and comfortably watch the rally. I was wrong, there were so many people, we had to stand the whole time, shoulder to shoulder, starting about an hour before the actual activities began.
The stage events themselves were well recorded, so I’ll save the reporting on that.
Contrary to popular lies, 4 service members did a stunning rendition of the national anthem and as far as I could tell, the 4,000 people comprising my audible hearing distance were very respectful and cheered when it was complete.
When the Myth buster’s ran their experiments with trying the human wave and having us all jump at once, that was the first point where the magnitude of what we were doing moved me. You could feel the ground shake all around, you could feel the vibes of collective energy as you joined in the wave of thousands of raised hands. White hands, brown hands, yellow hands, pink hands, green, purple, blue and tie dyed henna hands raising up to the sky all at once in front of the Capital.
When you calculate the numbers of people who bothered to come to the rally in DC, the numbers attending the satellite rally’s across the country, the number of American’s who watched the rally on TV, the numbers of people who watched it live, or will watch the web clips over the next few months…
all these people in this country and around the world…
having a good time…
restored my sanity.
God Bless America, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert
What about your friends in the right? Will they stop calling people like me a communist?