Jon Stewart announces "Rally to Restore Sanity"

[CmdrWilkens]

That would add 100+ miles to the trip Wilkens. I'm coming from the West not the east. I'm in the middle of the country. ATM I'm looking into the metro situation again. I forgot how far the Red line ran. Picking a hotel near one of the stations and taking a hotel shuttle over might be ideal. For roughly the same cost per night as well.

Coming in on I-70 central Howard County would probably be no more than 10 miles extra each way over the Rockville area but if you are coming in via I-66 then the Virginia suburbs and VRE would be a better choice...anyway it was just a thought exercise moreso than anything else. As for the Red Line, yeah there are some decently inexpensive places up further towards the end of the line and pretty much everybody offers free shuttles to the nearest stop.

[Lonestar]

I'll be going to ze rally.

[Lord Relvenous]

So how many crazy right-wingers go to Colbert's rally thinking its purpose is to uphold their warped and twisted views of the American way? I'd guess a significant number, judging by just how many right-wingers I know of who haven't figured ouy his show is a parody or just don't care and agree with him anyways.

Unfortunately, DC is way out of affordable for me. I'm scraping by as it is. Wish I could go though. Whoever goes, make sure to take lotsa pictures.

[ray245]

So how many crazy right-wingers go to Colbert's rally thinking its purpose is to uphold their warped and twisted views of the American way? I'd guess a significant number, judging by just how many right-wingers I know of who haven't figured ouy his show is a parody or just don't care and agree with him anyways.

Unfortunately, DC is way out of affordable for me. I'm scraping by as it is. Wish I could go though. Whoever goes, make sure to take lotsa pictures.

I wonder how is Jon Stewart going to deal with all the crazy right-wingers that is there thanks to Steven Colbert's rally.

[Molyneux]

I would go to this in a second, if I did not already have pressing plans for that weekend. I'm going to urge all of my friends to get there and take some pictures for me.

[Executor32]

I'll be there, one of my coworkers is organizing a road trip to spread out the cost between 4-5 people.

[Maj]

So how many crazy right-wingers go to Colbert's rally thinking its purpose is to uphold their warped and twisted views of the American way? I'd guess a significant number, judging by just how many right-wingers I know of who haven't figured ouy his show is a parody or just don't care and agree with him anyways.

I'm going to guess a small number. Stewart and Colbert were smart because they deliberately set the opposition to the Restoration of Sanity as Keeping Fear Alive.

People don't generally believe that what they're doing is evil. Very few people can look themselves in the mirror and be happy about saying, "I am a bad person." That's why they try to justify their actions in terms of something good. Glenn Beck's rallies are to restore honor and values, not screw over the poor, incite zealotry, and scare people into voting Republican.

No one wants to rally to "keep fear alive." That's bad. Why would you do that? That's what the terrorists do. By creating the definition of fearmonger as being the opposite of sane moderate, Stewart and Colbert headed off anti-protests and pretty much assured that most everyone who goes out for Colbert is there for the comedy, not the Conservative agenda.

[Temujin]

I don't know, there are a lot of conservatives still falling for his shtick.

[Anguirus]

I'm not particularly excited about this. Sure Stewart does an awesome job on his show, but he falls into the trap of dismissing political positions because they are too far off the mainstream, not because they are poorly reasoned. See this open letter.

He's a terrific entertainer, and more power to him if he upstages Beck and the other troglodytes, but hearing that Jon Stewart was hosting a semi-satirical political rally for American knee-jerk centrists doesn't make me want to drop everything and go to Washington. Shrug?

[General Zod]

I'm not particularly excited about this. Sure Stewart does an awesome job on his show, but he falls into the trap of dismissing political positions because they are too far off the mainstream, not because they are poorly reasoned. See this open letter.

He's a terrific entertainer, and more power to him if he upstages Beck and the other troglodytes, but hearing that Jon Stewart was hosting a semi-satirical political rally for American knee-jerk centrists doesn't make me want to drop everything and go to Washington. Shrug?

Who's dropping anything? I was thinking of going more for Colbert's march and because I'd never been to DC before so it made a great pretense to visit. Unfortunately it seems I can't afford it no matter how much I crunch the numbers.

[Temujin]

I'm not particularly excited about this. Sure Stewart does an awesome job on his show, but he falls into the trap of dismissing political positions because they are too far off the mainstream, not because they are poorly reasoned. See this open letter.

He's a terrific entertainer, and more power to him if he upstages Beck and the other troglodytes, but hearing that Jon Stewart was hosting a semi-satirical political rally for American knee-jerk centrists doesn't make me want to drop everything and go to Washington. Shrug?

Exactly what this country doesn't need is more so called moderate centrism.

As for the the left wing lunatics, I have been thinking a lot about these people. I caved into all the leftist propaganda about Iraq having nothing to do with 9/11, torturing people in Guantanamo and other war crimes carried out by Bush.

In other words she thinks factual truth is a lie now. Fuck her! She's nothing but another member of the mindless middle pulling out the same golden mean fallacy bullshit.

Sure there are some left wing loonies, but they are generally harmless and certainly not considered legitimate political canidates, unlike the right wing loonies that are considered legitimate political candidates, have actual power, and really can do harm.

[Mr Bean]

Who's dropping anything? I was thinking of going more for Colbert's march and because I'd never been to DC before so it made a great pretense to visit. Unfortunately it seems I can't afford it no matter how much I crunch the numbers.

Airfare or driving? If it's a hotel once you get there, there are plenty of places getting together to get Hotel spaces. If it's travel you might hit up the Rally's facebook page to see if someone is going you way via driving . Now if it's airfare then yes your screwed.

[General Zod]

Who's dropping anything? I was thinking of going more for Colbert's march and because I'd never been to DC before so it made a great pretense to visit. Unfortunately it seems I can't afford it no matter how much I crunch the numbers.

Airfare or driving? If it's a hotel once you get there, there are plenty of places getting together to get Hotel spaces. If it's travel you might hit up the Rally's facebook page to see if someone is going you way via driving . Now if it's airfare then yes your screwed.

Airfare. I live too far away to drive and I don't have a car anyway, it's just too short notice for me to afford it. (The hotel would have been the easy part.)

[Terralthra]

As for the the left wing lunatics, I have been thinking a lot about these people. I caved into all the leftist propaganda about Iraq having nothing to do with 9/11, torturing people in Guantanamo and other war crimes carried out by Bush.

In other words she thinks factual truth is a lie now. Fuck her! She's nothing but another member of the mindless middle pulling out the same golden mean fallacy bullshit.

Sure there are some left wing loonies, but they are generally harmless and certainly not considered legitimate political canidates, unlike the right wing loonies that are considered legitimate political candidates, have actual power, and really can do harm.

She's being facetious, dumbass. She's pointing out that while the extreme right is making shit up about Kenya and secret muslims and Hitler references, the left is quite accurately calling out war crimes, lies, and other genuine misdoing. That you can't detect obvious sarcasm is your problem, not hers.

[Anguirus]

I know that textual sarcasm/satire is tough to deal with sometimes, but the context (links on the page) should help.

[Bakustra]

You're misunderstanding the purpose of the rally, though, and what Stewart is saying. It doesn't help political discourse or the problem of partisanship for either side to make accusatory statements, regardless of the factuality of said statements. Even though "Obama is a socialist" is demonstrably falser than "Bush is a war criminal", using terminology like that cuts off reasonable discussion and alienates moderates. This isn't a rally for liberalism/progressivism, but a rally for a calmer political mood. The fact that this will benefit liberals, progressives, and greens is probably not why Stewart and Colbert are doing it.

In other words, making use of inflammatory language doesn't help no matter how right you are, when it comes to public discourse. The letter falls into that same problem- if one takes up the mantra of "war crimes war crimes war crimes", then do you really think you can convince people that are not already sympathetic of your aims? Frankly, if you want to fight the influence of the Tea Party, then you need to be coolly persuasive, as you're trying to convince rather than rally.

[Phantasee]

As a Canadian observer, I think I speak for most of us when I say, "You're doing it wrong." A rally for a calmer political mood is kinda backwards.

[Bakustra]

As a Canadian observer, I think I speak for most of us when I say, "You're doing it wrong." A rally for a calmer political mood is kinda backwards.

Well, it's not quite serious, though. I see it more as mocking the Tea Party phenomenon and how that got blown up by Fox News, but there is a semi-serious and valuable message there.

[Temujin]

I know that textual sarcasm/satire is tough to deal with sometimes, but the context (links on the page) should help.

My bad. I was at work and thus rather irritable and thus overreacted. I retract my statement.

[Ariphaos]

As a Canadian observer, I think I speak for most of us when I say, "You're doing it wrong." A rally for a calmer political mood is kinda backwards.

I suspect this rally has more to do with increasing turnout amongst his audience and their demographic, but his muted tone is certainly awkward.

[Liberty]

I see this as a kind of liberal progressive rally in disguise.

After all, the right wing has gone batshit crazy, and calling for an end of crazy means calling for an end of that.

[Crossroads Inc.]

For those going, I assume you will all take many many pictures?
I want to see stories of this posted here when you all get back

[Mr Bean]

For those going, I assume you will all take many many pictures?
I want to see stories of this posted here when you all get back

Oh Heck yes I will be taking pictures, hopefully video. Low grade grainy video of course. Just put money down for a room today as per plan. Checking in Friday night, leaving Sunday afternoon.

[Alphawolf55]

Jon is a self admitted socialist, he's not asking for centrism he's saying we should be calmer about how we deal with our opposition. Like instead of calling people Hitler, instead use signs as "I disagree with you, but at least you're not Hitler", he's calling out those who use fear as a political tool by claiming that one side wants death panels or the other side wants to leave old folks starving on the streets, rather then using logical conversation.

[UnderAGreySky]

Not that I disagree with most of your post, but

"Jon is a self admitted socialist"

really? First I'm hearing of this.