If we amplify everything, we hear nothing
I went to the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear last weekend. (Luckily I think Sanity won.)
I found out about the possibility of going from a friend of mine whose brother and sister were going. My friend couldn't go because of prior commitments, and the sister ended up not being allowed because she's only 13, so left was her brother who is 21. My friend suggested I go with him, which at first sounded like insanity (and we're talking here about a Rally to Restore Sanity!) but eventually I could think of many reasons to go and pretty much no reason not to. I managed to get the day before off work so we could drive down, arranged a stay with the lovely behindpyramids, planned gas, metro station trips, time to leave, what I would need to take, and there you are. An amazing trip to a huge rally in DC, all for less than $200. So. Worth it.
So I went. We left at 6:30AM on Friday, went straight across Kentucky, then up through West Virginia and Maryland before making our way down into DC itself. We made a couple detours, such as the time when we were promised a "Biscuit World" restaurant a mile from a given exit, only to make it five miles down a road in the middle of nowhere in West Virginia before realizing the sign was a vicious lie and Biscuit World was not there and having to turn around. Or the time we were nearly at the Maryland/DC border, and the GPS kept attempting to direct us down a road that was completely closed off for construction. We had to ask a random passerby at a 7-11 for directions before forging onward and hoping my GPS automatically switched to an alternate route when we entered DC (which it did) and three wrong turns and 45 minutes later we arrived at the home of behindpyramids, exhausted but excited for the following day. After meeting wyndsung and her friend Madison, and having a late but lovely dinner of scrambled eggs (I discovered spinach pasta is not to my liking), I crashed.
On Saturday, the metro was insane (again, ironic considering the rally name). Though, really, I suppose it could have been worse. People were very very civil, it's just that the subway train itself was packed like sardines. I forgot the subway had seats until nearly everyone got off at the Smithsonian station and I went "oh wow! there were actually people sitting down!" and then "oh hey! WE could sit down!" so we did.
Quicker than expected we ended up at the rally, and we got as close to the stage as we could before having to back up some to the closest screen because we realized getting to a point where we could see the stage itself was not going to happen. And we were there two hours early.
One of the best parts of the rally was the signs. The one I had, made by Scott (the friend's brother) had been suggested by Jon Stewart himself when he announced the rally on his show: "I disagree with you, but I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler." When the huge screens at the rally showed that clip, I fervently held up my sign and the portion of crowd behind me that could see it cheered. Some of my other favorite signs included:
Pluto is a planet.
My president is black, this sign is blue.
Impeach Churchill
The 1950s called; they want their racism back
Sanity does not equal apathy
Then the rally itself. I started to narrate a blow-by-blow of the rally, but you can find that anywhere on the Internet. Musical guests from Yusuf (formerly known as Cat Stevens) to Ozzy Osbourne, from Kid Rock to Sheryl Crow, and from John Legend to the Roots. R2D2 and Kareem Abdul Jabar. The MYTHBUSTERS (can you tell who I was excited about? They tested how long it took us to do the wave and also tested to see if us all jumping at the same time would cause a minor tremor-type thing; it did not but we were apparently 100 times stronger than the force of a car hitting a brick wall at 35mph.). And of course Stephen Colbert and the AMAZING Jon Stewart. (Again, can you tell who I was more excited about?)
But what I really want to talk about is what it was like to be there live and what I took away from it.
Being there live was surreal and mind-blowing. When they showed the first aerial shot of the crowd, it was hard to believe that my friends and I were a tiny group of dots somewhere amidst all those other dots, right at that moment. The crowd estimates at the time were 150,000 (according to the Mythbusters) and now are at more like 200,000. The idea that I was a part of something that big, something that I felt was so important was exhilarating. And the whole rally- the musical guests and Stephen Colbert's antics and the video montages- all led up to Jon Stewart's speech at the end which really summed up not only the rally, but I think the view of many many people in the crowd and in this country. I remember that in his announcement of the rally last month, Jon Stewart commented that we hear in the media the views of the 10% on the extreme left and the 10% on the extreme right, but what about the other 70-80% in the middle? Where are they? It's not because we don't care, it's because (as he phrased it on his show) we have shit to do. As the sign I mentioned above says, sanity does not equal apathy. We care. But the media and Washington have blown everything out of proportion so that there's always the new thing to fear or the new thing to be angry about or the new thing that is causing the end of America as we know it, and so many people trying to say that we as Americans do not and cannot work together to accomplish anything, that we are divided and this country is falling apart. But they are wrong. "We live in hard times, not end times," said Jon Stewart. "...if we amplify everything, we hear nothing....we can have animus and not be enemies."
On the way through Kentucky around 7:30 in the morning that Friday before the rally, Scott and I somehow got to talking about a pretty controversial topic in local politics- the idea of building a new bridge across the Ohio River from Indiana to Louisville due to the huge traffic jams across the 3 existing bridges during rush hour. Said bridge would be paid for by pretty hefty tolls on those three bridges. As someone who lives in Indiana and works in Louisville, I am for a new bridge but fairly opposed to the idea of having to pay $6 in tolls every day just so I can go to work. Scott is for the tolls and the bridge. "I can certainly see the need for the bridge and the need to pay for it," I explained. "And if they had a discount, say, for people who commute to work across it- a card or something for frequent bridge travelers, I'd be okay with that." Scott responded back that he could certainly understand the inconvenience of paying so much for a toll every single day just to get to work. And then he smiled and said "And look at this! We disagree and yet we're being reasonable and sane! We can see each other's point of view and have a rational discussion about it." Just another example of how it is possible for us to work together even when we have differences in opinions. Yelling and name-calling and fear-mongering gets us nowhere. It dehumanizes "the other side" when really, there shouldn't even be "the other side." It should just be people, working together, trying to come up with solutions to the problems of people who probably care a great deal more about having affordable health insurance or even having food on the table, than about whether or not a Democrat or a Republican was behind it.
I went to the rally to stand up and be counted as one of the 70-80% in the middle. We may not be heard as often as the 10% on either side, but it's the middle ground people who are actually working together to get things done, because we are willing to listen to each other and make compromises.. "We work together to get things done every damn day. The only place we don't is here [in Washington] or on cable TV. Americans don't live here or on cable TV.....Impossible things get done every day that are only made possible by the little, reasonable compromises." At least 200,000 people agreed with Jon Stewart enough to come from all over the country to stand up with him for sanity and reason, against fear and hate, and that's why I wanted to be a part of it.
I found out about the possibility of going from a friend of mine whose brother and sister were going. My friend couldn't go because of prior commitments, and the sister ended up not being allowed because she's only 13, so left was her brother who is 21. My friend suggested I go with him, which at first sounded like insanity (and we're talking here about a Rally to Restore Sanity!) but eventually I could think of many reasons to go and pretty much no reason not to. I managed to get the day before off work so we could drive down, arranged a stay with the lovely behindpyramids, planned gas, metro station trips, time to leave, what I would need to take, and there you are. An amazing trip to a huge rally in DC, all for less than $200. So. Worth it.
So I went. We left at 6:30AM on Friday, went straight across Kentucky, then up through West Virginia and Maryland before making our way down into DC itself. We made a couple detours, such as the time when we were promised a "Biscuit World" restaurant a mile from a given exit, only to make it five miles down a road in the middle of nowhere in West Virginia before realizing the sign was a vicious lie and Biscuit World was not there and having to turn around. Or the time we were nearly at the Maryland/DC border, and the GPS kept attempting to direct us down a road that was completely closed off for construction. We had to ask a random passerby at a 7-11 for directions before forging onward and hoping my GPS automatically switched to an alternate route when we entered DC (which it did) and three wrong turns and 45 minutes later we arrived at the home of behindpyramids, exhausted but excited for the following day. After meeting wyndsung and her friend Madison, and having a late but lovely dinner of scrambled eggs (I discovered spinach pasta is not to my liking), I crashed.
On Saturday, the metro was insane (again, ironic considering the rally name). Though, really, I suppose it could have been worse. People were very very civil, it's just that the subway train itself was packed like sardines. I forgot the subway had seats until nearly everyone got off at the Smithsonian station and I went "oh wow! there were actually people sitting down!" and then "oh hey! WE could sit down!" so we did.
Quicker than expected we ended up at the rally, and we got as close to the stage as we could before having to back up some to the closest screen because we realized getting to a point where we could see the stage itself was not going to happen. And we were there two hours early.
One of the best parts of the rally was the signs. The one I had, made by Scott (the friend's brother) had been suggested by Jon Stewart himself when he announced the rally on his show: "I disagree with you, but I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler." When the huge screens at the rally showed that clip, I fervently held up my sign and the portion of crowd behind me that could see it cheered. Some of my other favorite signs included:
Pluto is a planet.
My president is black, this sign is blue.
Impeach Churchill
The 1950s called; they want their racism back
Sanity does not equal apathy
Then the rally itself. I started to narrate a blow-by-blow of the rally, but you can find that anywhere on the Internet. Musical guests from Yusuf (formerly known as Cat Stevens) to Ozzy Osbourne, from Kid Rock to Sheryl Crow, and from John Legend to the Roots. R2D2 and Kareem Abdul Jabar. The MYTHBUSTERS (can you tell who I was excited about? They tested how long it took us to do the wave and also tested to see if us all jumping at the same time would cause a minor tremor-type thing; it did not but we were apparently 100 times stronger than the force of a car hitting a brick wall at 35mph.). And of course Stephen Colbert and the AMAZING Jon Stewart. (Again, can you tell who I was more excited about?)
But what I really want to talk about is what it was like to be there live and what I took away from it.
Being there live was surreal and mind-blowing. When they showed the first aerial shot of the crowd, it was hard to believe that my friends and I were a tiny group of dots somewhere amidst all those other dots, right at that moment. The crowd estimates at the time were 150,000 (according to the Mythbusters) and now are at more like 200,000. The idea that I was a part of something that big, something that I felt was so important was exhilarating. And the whole rally- the musical guests and Stephen Colbert's antics and the video montages- all led up to Jon Stewart's speech at the end which really summed up not only the rally, but I think the view of many many people in the crowd and in this country. I remember that in his announcement of the rally last month, Jon Stewart commented that we hear in the media the views of the 10% on the extreme left and the 10% on the extreme right, but what about the other 70-80% in the middle? Where are they? It's not because we don't care, it's because (as he phrased it on his show) we have shit to do. As the sign I mentioned above says, sanity does not equal apathy. We care. But the media and Washington have blown everything out of proportion so that there's always the new thing to fear or the new thing to be angry about or the new thing that is causing the end of America as we know it, and so many people trying to say that we as Americans do not and cannot work together to accomplish anything, that we are divided and this country is falling apart. But they are wrong. "We live in hard times, not end times," said Jon Stewart. "...if we amplify everything, we hear nothing....we can have animus and not be enemies."
On the way through Kentucky around 7:30 in the morning that Friday before the rally, Scott and I somehow got to talking about a pretty controversial topic in local politics- the idea of building a new bridge across the Ohio River from Indiana to Louisville due to the huge traffic jams across the 3 existing bridges during rush hour. Said bridge would be paid for by pretty hefty tolls on those three bridges. As someone who lives in Indiana and works in Louisville, I am for a new bridge but fairly opposed to the idea of having to pay $6 in tolls every day just so I can go to work. Scott is for the tolls and the bridge. "I can certainly see the need for the bridge and the need to pay for it," I explained. "And if they had a discount, say, for people who commute to work across it- a card or something for frequent bridge travelers, I'd be okay with that." Scott responded back that he could certainly understand the inconvenience of paying so much for a toll every single day just to get to work. And then he smiled and said "And look at this! We disagree and yet we're being reasonable and sane! We can see each other's point of view and have a rational discussion about it." Just another example of how it is possible for us to work together even when we have differences in opinions. Yelling and name-calling and fear-mongering gets us nowhere. It dehumanizes "the other side" when really, there shouldn't even be "the other side." It should just be people, working together, trying to come up with solutions to the problems of people who probably care a great deal more about having affordable health insurance or even having food on the table, than about whether or not a Democrat or a Republican was behind it.
I went to the rally to stand up and be counted as one of the 70-80% in the middle. We may not be heard as often as the 10% on either side, but it's the middle ground people who are actually working together to get things done, because we are willing to listen to each other and make compromises.. "We work together to get things done every damn day. The only place we don't is here [in Washington] or on cable TV. Americans don't live here or on cable TV.....Impossible things get done every day that are only made possible by the little, reasonable compromises." At least 200,000 people agreed with Jon Stewart enough to come from all over the country to stand up with him for sanity and reason, against fear and hate, and that's why I wanted to be a part of it.