I'm not sure where all this anger is coming from.

[unapatriciated]

Yes. I cringed a little to see those on the left (that I agree with most of the time) in that montage. Jon also put himself there. Just like in daily life we can agree with some and not get enraged with those we disagree with.

At the end of the day we all manage to solve our problems and work together in our daily lives. I did not think the message was to stop fighting for equal rights, health care or any of the things we care about that need to change.

This closing statement and Jon's tunnel analogy sums it up "sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is just New Jersey"
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/7202185-jon-s...

I attended the rally and frankly I came away feeling good about my fellow man. I came away with hope not the despair I have been feeling for months. To see and speak to so many people who share my beliefs was uplifting and so not what we see 24/7 in the media,

btw it didn't hurt that the rally brought national attention and dollars to the need to restore our National Mall and more than half a million dollars to help our teachers teach.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/new-economy/2010/1030/Rally-to-Restore-Sanity-and-or-Fear-raises-big-money.-Who-gets-it

Each of the two original events, Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity and Stephen Colbert’s March to Keep Fear Alive, designated a single charity to be the recipient of their fund-raising efforts. Whether people are buying merchandise or just making a contribution, all the money is being funneled into nonprofit pockets.

Mr. Stewart designated the Trust for the National Mall as his charitable recipient, much to the trust's surprise. “In fact, when we first got the phone call, we thought it was a prank,” admits Caroline Cunningham, president of the trust. “It was an unexpected and wonderful surprise.”

Colbert designated his half of the money raised to:

Mr. Colbert – or as he prefers, The Rev. Sir Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, D.F.A. – selected DonorsChoose.org, a charitable clearinghouse where teachers can describe classroom needs and donors can pick which project(s) to fund.

On his Oct. 5 show, Colbert issued this invitation to his viewers: “Make your donation to show support of my march and to support America’s kids. And keep those donations coming, folks, because for every $100,000, I undo another button.”

Modest viewers might need to shield their eyes, because by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, more than 10,000 donors had contributed just over half a million dollars.

I saw thousands upon thousands of fellow Americans who care. That's what that rally gave me.

[Drale]

1. It comes from the MSM

if your told "you sucks" everyday 24/7 eventually you are going to start to believe it as well.

[unapatriciated]

3. and that is why the rally was important,

tens of thousands of us showed up to tell them how wrong they are.

[Bitwit1234]

8. Especially fox, Rush, Beck, Drudge, Malkin, Palin, Bachmann

and the all the tea bags and republicans who are "outraged" that a Democrat especially a black one at that won the last election.

[gateley]

2. Agree. I didn't understand people criticizing it before hand OR after!

The argument "they should be out GOTV instead" is not realistic. Not all of them would, plenty of them have been and went right back to it after the rally, and I think the event itself served as a GOTV push, promoting patriotism and showing that we all want the same things.

I didn't attend (you lucky dog) but just watching on TV gave me a shot of enthusiasm as I'm sure it did to countless others. What's to criticize about that?

It was an AMERICA! rally! What could be more perfect? :patriot:

[okieinpain]

4. i do too, helps to see other people like yourself. after watching

teabaggers 24/7 you start to think everyone is like that.

[unapatriciated]

6. It did help get out the younger vote.

I was up front surrounded by college kids who either voted early or planned to vote when they got home. Many of us had been there since 5am so we spent hours talking about issues and what was important to us. It was great to see so many who cared about their fellow man.

[gateley]

10. That's wonderful! nt

[MineralMan]

5. For some, the event was not sufficiently strident,

it seems. Thanks for posting this.

[unapatriciated]

7. Your welcome.

[zipplewrath]

9. The burden lies with the speaker

In the end, the burden lies with the speaker to be understood. Yes, the target needs to be cooperative to some extent. But Stewart should know well enough to understand the limits of what can be communicated to an audience of that size, in that context. If his message was missed, or misunderstood, he bears no small amount of responsibility for that failure.

I was a bit suspicious leading into this that there was going to be problems. His title, and his stated target was not progressives or liberals, and he stated as such. But that's much of his audience "base" to draw a metaphor. Who did he think was going to show up? Beck fans? Tea Baggers?

Jon likes to say we can disagree, without being disagreable. That's a nice sentiment, but that's not what's going on in this country and "playing nice" has demonstrably not worked.

I'm a bit older than Jon, but not much. But this is what I know. I grew up watching liberals "play nice". There was an entire "play nice" movement that was extremely nonviolent. They allowed themselves to be clubbed, beaten, and sprayed with fire hoses. They rode buses in "freedom rides" and literally got killed for it. They engaged the body politic, and were assassinated for it. Innocent children died when they bombed churches. And by the time the 60s were over, they had killed our leaders, and sent the children off to war. Oh, and they broke into our party headquarters, and our physciatrists office. They created whole departments of "dirty tricks".

It's not just the 24/7 news cycle. That's merely the modern version of their approach. And they are still killing us. Just ask Dr. Tiller's family. And ask the families of the fallen at which they had to listen to the hateful right wing protesters. I know Jon wants it to be different, but if I had a chance to talk to him, I'd explain, real careful, quiet, and nice, that he's wrong, and he's blaming the victims.

[unapatriciated]

12. I too grew up and participated in many of those non-violent marches

and I have a different take than you. I didn't see the victim blaming that you speak of. What I saw was many, many people young, middle aged, elderly, believers, non-believers, straight, gay and all ethnicities. We were interacting with each other for many hours (many of us had been there since the wee hours of the morning). There were well over 200 thousand people there and we all had one thing in common, we care about our country and fellow man.
As I stated above I cringed at that montage but it was only one part of the message not the total message.

This rally gave this 59 year old hippy hope that we will indeed manage to get through these very hard times.

[zipplewrath]

14. And not all parts were created equal

It only takes one turd to ruin the whole punch bowl.

The reaction to his message is affected by his apparent equivalence. And, as you suggest, especially to those outside of the context. The audience was wider than the mall, and surely Stewart knew that.

"...we all had one thing in common, we care about our country and fellow man"

And believe it or not, so did everyone at Beck's rally.

[TheKentuckian]

11. I utterly oppose the frame. It is an old toxic tool used to move the debate to the right

I love Jon, I doubt he has many bigger fans on this site but I don't accept the idea for any purpose in the current environment.

It is a concession to those who give nothing and take all they can reach and is therefore toxic level stupid.

There is no benefit to playing to the false equivalency lie.

[unapatriciated]

13. I didn't see him asking us to concede on issues that are important.

Equal rights, health care, poverty or the unemployed to name a few. What I understood was that there were more of us (who care about our fellow man) and to reach those that don't hold extreme views, we need to take it down a notch. That doesn't mean we stop fighting for those causes. You can point out where they are wrong without calling them douche bags and you will have a better chance of reaching some, not all, but some. We do this all the time in our daily lives, sometimes we change minds sometimes we don't. Sometimes it is the smallest voice that brings about the biggest difference. Those that are true bigots and racist will never change no matter how much we yell or how many insults we hurl at them.

The turn out showed the bigots and racists that there was a lot more of us than they realized.

[HughMoran]

15. Good analysis

Nobody likes criticism, but this was constructive criticism not to be confused with political message jockeying.