I Was Sane for a Day

First let me preface this by stating that I am 63 years young and (to my knowledge) have never attended a rally. I guess I have always felt that no one cares about my cheer. Well, I happen to love the intelligent and funny humor of both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert...so I did attend the Rally for sanity and/or Fear on the Washington DC Mall on October 30th.

(For those few readers of mine who live in other countries these two men are very popular comedians on cable TV's Comedy Channel and have been making fun of the inaccuracies and exaggeration of news and politics on both sides of the aisle for several years. They end up hitting the truth on the head with their commentary. They lean liberal but are pretty careful not to affiliate with any candidate or party and consider everyone fair game.)

Officially from Jon Stewart the purpose of this rally: "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."
There were celebrities and funny skits and singing, but the goal was to remind people that discussions of our disagreements begin with dialog...not shouting at each other or calling each other names.  Even violence was recently brought to light again when a supporter of the newly elected Senator Paul Rand brought a women to the ground at a rally and several men began punching her and one even put his foot on her neck!  Senator Rand refused to acknowledge the violence.


"According to the best estimate, using aerial photos from Jon Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity," approximately 215,000 people attended the event.   The estimate was made by AirPhotosLive.com.  That company is considered the most reputable as they publish the methodology behind their estimate, and also release the aerial photos they used to come up with their numbers. Others simply tend to use the non-scientific method of "I think" in coming up with their estimates. This company was commissioned by CBS News to come up with the estimate, and also has been hired by the Pentagon to do crowd size estimates."  


The Metro said they had sold over 300,000 tickets by 2:00PM and we could not get on and had to WALK 7 miles from our start point because the metro was packed by  11:00 AM. MANY of us walked. Later the D.C. metro posted this table after the event.  Over 825,000 rode that day...and many walked or drove!


Of course, some people will say that Washington, DC is liberal and that is why the numbers are so high, but this doesn't negate the rallies that took place in other cities across the nation nor the fact that the people I met and talked to....about 20 of them were 50/50 in terms of living in-district or even nearby.


BUT having written all of this above, the theme of this rally seemed to agree with this statement by social scientist Robert Putnam in USA today article:  

Our research for American Grace makes very clear that whereas religion and politics in the public arena are highly polarized, in our private lives Americans are much more tolerant and comfortable across religious lines.

Now more even than in the past, many of our most intimate relations, including our marriages and our "go-to" friends whom we count on in a crisis, cross religious lines, including the line between "religion" and "no religion."

But the angry public debate gives everyone on all sides of the issues the impression that we are in a no-holds-barred struggle of good versus evil. We are a lot less divided than we think we are, and that mis-perception is itself a big part of the problem.

Here are a few photos of the event and in my next post I will write about the people I met.

We had to walk from Ballston on the far left (no pun intended) 

to the far right of the map on the mall.  Shared a cab when we reached Georgetown.

 I am so in shape! (Click on photos if you want.)

There is the Washington Monument...only a few more miles to go, swim?

This was as close we could get.  Crowd was about 60% under thirty and 30% over up to

us oldies but goodies.  Mostly white but enough diversity to make me happy.  Mostly liberal

but also some conservatives...all moderates.

Tony Bennett (on the jumbotron in the lower right) sang God Bless America at the end.  

I never thought I would have the opportunity to  hear him live

and all our sacrifices were well worth it.

Here is the end of the rally about two blocks from the mall.  

Plenty of taxis around but not a taxi available for miles!  It was a real

love fest as absolutely no one ended up shouting or in anger or drunk
or on pot that I could see.