Thanks to Jon Stewart for the Rally to Restore Sanity
It is no secret that the bipartisanship in America has become a full-fledged war between the Democrats and Republicans. The respective armies have been ceaselessly attacking the ideals of the other with harsh words and false accusations of hyperbolic proportions. But, amongst the proverbial gunfire is a revolutionary event that stands alone in its promotion of reason over degradation: Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity.
Jon Stewart is the host of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, a satirical news program that expresses an alternative and comedic viewpoint on present-day politics, pop culture, and the like. One political analyst that Stewart consistently pokes fun at is the overly right wing Fox News host Glenn Beck, who decided to have a “Restoring Honor” rally on Aug. 28, 2010, at the National Mall in Washington D.C. (the same date and place that Martin Luther King, Jr. made his “I Have a Dream” speech 47 years ago).
Beck, a man who has been known to refer to President Obama as a socialist, Nazi, and a Satan-worshiper, claimed that the purpose of the rally was to recognize “our nation’s founding principles of integrity, truth and honor.”
In response to this event and the increasing popularity of the fanatical anti-tax Tea Party movement among American conservatives, Stewart announced on his Sept. 16 program that he will be organizing a “Rally to Restore Sanity” at the National Mall on Oct. 30, 2010. Stewart says that the main purpose of the event is to assemble “the people who’ve been too busy to go to rallies, who actually have lives and families and jobs,” and those Americans among us who believe, “the only time it’s appropriate to draw a Hitler mustache on someone is when that person is actually Hitler.”
By staying true to this reasonable outlook, Stewart suggests that participants in the rally carry appropriate signs. Some suggestions of sensible phrases to put on the signs include, “I disagree with you, but I’m pretty sure you’re not Hitler,” and “9/11 was an outside job,” in order to counter the absurd ideas of present-day conspiracy theorists.
I couldn’t agree with this event more. It is frankly ridiculous that certain towns in our democratic country have created billboards that assimilate our president to Karl Marx and Adolf Hitler. Today it seems that Republicans are using the word “socialist” to describe all of Obama’s undesirable actions, regardless of whether or not such an accusation actually applies in the situation.
And it’s not just the Republicans. Must we forget that, only a few years ago, Democratic protesters throughout the nation carried signs emblazoned with George W. Bush’s picture next to the leader of the Holocaust?
What has our society come to? What can be the one remedy for this continuous mayhem? The answer is reason. That is why I fully support Jon Stewart’s cause in creating the “Rally to Restore Sanity.”
Although I do not have the ability to fly to Washington D.C. on Oct. 30, I will certainly be supporting the movement. After all, such a brief glimpse of sanity in this clearly divided society does not come around all that often.