Sanity Shutdown

I wanted to live-blog from today’s Sanity rally, sho nuff. Or at least Twitter. But there were so many people (200,000?) and probably almost as many cell phones packed into Washington, D.C.’s National Mall, and the traffic simply overwhelmed the carriers. Or AT&T, at least. No Twitter, no texts, no emails, no saving to Movable Type, no nuthin’.

“I’ve been hanging out inside the so-called special guest area at the D.C. Stewart-Colbert Sanity/Fear rally,” I wrote to a friend this morning. “It’s about 11 am, and the show, such as it is, doesn’t start for another hour. I can see the stage from where I’m standing, about 150 yards away. Cool breezy weather. Most are standing, some sitting on grass.

“How many thousands are here? You tell me. I’m in the thick of a total liberal feel-good Woodstock happy zoo. It’s fun. Everyone’s in an easy, amiable mood. Mostly 20 and 30 somethings. Almost no boomers or 40ish GenXers. In my section, that is.

“The special invited guest area is no picnic in the Hamptons, but at least it’s semi-close to the stage. It beats the shit out of the hoi polloi area, that’s for sure. Regular Joes are waay back and behind all kinds of trucks and tents and other obstructions. It’s like the Kansas City stockyards back there. So the elite area is at least some kind of okay thing.”

Except the friend never got the email.

I know I wrote earlier I don’t really agree with the Sanity Rally’s attitude, but it was very, very nice to be with so many cool people, all of them into the idea of chillin’ friendly and not demonizing the Tea Partyers. It just felt good to be putting out so much in the way of calmness and kindness and to have the sword in the sheath.

The right should be demonized, of course. They should be made to suffer in any way possible as long as it’s legal. The right doesn’t know from fairness or reasonableness. They’ve been doing everything they can to stall or undermine President Obama from the first day he took office. Righties understand one thing — pain. Stick it to them hard, and then harder, and then still harder. And once they’ve begun to whimper and beg for the beatings to stop, then you really let ‘em have it. That’s the only way to treat them. You have to use the whip and the stick and the club.

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21 thoughts on “Sanity Shutdown”

  1. Had a great time at the rally, it was just awesome to associate with absolute strangers that resonated a cool vibe the entire day

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  3. The right should be demonized, of course. They should be made to suffer in any way possible as long as it’s legal. The right doesn’t know from fairness or reasonableness. They’ve been doing everything they can to stall or undermine President Obama from the first day he took office. Righties understand one thing — pain. Stick it to them hard, and then harder, and then still harder. And once they’ve begun to whimper and beg for the beatings to stop, then you really let ‘em have it. That’s the only way to treat them. You have to use the whip and the stick and the club.

    I love you too, Jeff.

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  5. I was back on 7th Street and it was an extremely wide age range from my 17 month old daughter to other peoples’ grandparents. It was an amazing mix of people and we were barely able to see the video screens (or hear the stage) yet it was elbow to elbow standing room. Nobody broke out their lawn chairs and used the foot rests like the Glenn Beck crowds.

    Fox News and conservative pundits are going to fight the number, but for those of us caught in the mall, it was bigger than the crowd showing up to see the Redskins play in Maryland.

    It was a huge crowd. And as we were leaving in the futile attempt to find a better view, there were still thousands streaming off the Metro wanting to get into the vast sea of humanity. it was a Woodstock that didn’t require you to get muddy.

    And in the end, it restored my faith that generations that grew up reading Mad Magazine, watching Monty Python movies and repeating lines from the first 5 seasons of SNL can hang out without turning into a bunch of angry douchebags. Even though I’m finally seeing what was there thanks to DVRing, I’m still thrill to know that my head is a dot in the crowd shot.

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  7. I was severely underwhelmed. I got there at around 10:30 or so, and the place was packed. Me and my friends were blocks back, and had to take a spot on the edge of the crowd, around 4th or 5th street. After the first 30 minutes of the rally turned into a Roots and John Legend concert, we said “fuck this shit, it’s way too cold to stand around and watch this from a TV, especially if it’s going to be a concert. We can do that in the dorm.” So, we grabbed some beers and watched the rest of the rally in the dorm.

    And from what I saw, I was a bit disappointed. Stewart and Colbert were not on their game for this rally. For something that they had a month to plan for, it was not as funny as I thought it was going to be. The only redeeming part of the entire rally was the ending speech Stewart gave.

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  8. Was the point of this rally just to prove to the world once and for all that Stewart/Colbert fans are even bigger idiots than Beck fans?

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  9. That’s right, Mr. F, they invited a guy who supported the killing of Salman Rushdie merely cause he wrote a book.

    That’s your sanity.

    Does the Left have no shame? Can you imagine if a right wing rally invited some guy like that? Such hypocrite fucks.

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