Thousands and Thousands of Sane People

[cal04]

By: Jim White
http://my.firedoglake.com/jimwhite/2010/10/30/thousands-and-thousands-of-sane-people/

Just wow. I had a tremendous time today at the Rally to Restore Sanity. The crowd was huge and entirely friendly. There were lots of creative signs, but people were very polite and lowered their signs when asked once the rally started. I did smell a little weed in the air now and then and saw a few folks sitting on top of traffic signals, but otherwise everyone present played by the rules. The musical guests were tremendous. By inviting Muslims Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens) to take part in the rally, Stewart did a nice job of putting faces to Muslims as opposed to fanning the flames of hatred by stating all Muslims are terrorists.

We were standing fairly close to the last video display board on the right as you face the stage, just a few yards toward the Capitol from Seventh Street. The rally website originally stated that the rally was planned for the Mall between Third Street and Seventh Street, but the crowd spread back toward the Washington Monument very far past Seventh Street. The folks back there had a very hard time hearing the early portions of the rally, but the sound was boosted significantly after many people chanted to turn up the sound.

The photo above shows how tightly packed the crowd was. I was at the Obama Inauguration. The crowd that day filled the entire Mall all the way from the Capitol to the Lincoln Monument. I don’t know how far back today’s crowd went, but the density of people today was at least as high as it was that day, if not higher. For much of today’s rally, we were virtually shoulder-to-shoulder. Off to my right, I did note a large white balloon. It was tethered to a string, and made me wonder if airphotoslive was there to do a crowd estimate like the estimate they were commissioned to do for CBS News at Glenn Beck’s rally.

But no matter how many people were there, Stewart has done our country a huge favor by pointing out that the people of America “work together to get things done every damn day.” Pointing back toward the Capitol, Stewart then said that the people in that building are the only Americans who don’t know how to work together. Also, sanity did win over fear today, with Stewart delivering the most forceful line of the day when he said “We live now in hard times, not end times.” For three hours today, America took it down a notch.

picture at link
if you click on it you can see it better

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Great article. Great pic. They truly were shoulder to shoulder..

[Demeter]

2. iT IS BETTER TO LIGHT A CANDLE THAN CURSE THE DARKNESS

Thanks, Stewart and Colbert.

[BobTheSubgenius]

3. I just love everything about this rally.....

...especially the huge attendance and the reports of positive, friendly behavior. It worked out better than I'd dare hope.

The only questionable note is the inclusion of Yusuf Islam. When he publicly supported the fatwa against Salman Rushdie. When he endorsed a death warrant for IDEAS, he went way beyond the pale, at least for me. Inexcusable. Maybe he renounced all that to the satisfaction of rally organizers. I dunno.

That chosen name thing is kinda weird. Would a born-again Christian or convert from another religion change their name to Bob Christianity? Perhaps this name was chosen for him and he had nothing to do with it. In that case, refer to the previous paragraph only.

[dalaigh lllama]

4. Someone mentioned that in an earlier thread and it was refuted

with links. I don't recall which thread I saw it on, but perhaps if you do a search you could find it.
And maybe the name change is just something Muslim converts do. Remember Cassius Clay became Mohammed Ali.

[handmade34]

5. Just wow

funny, that is exactly what I texted to people from there

there was a constant influx of people all the while I was there... all kindly and interesting

[katty]

6. most Americans are sane, it's their psychotic government

and one 'party' in particular, that prefers to live in the open ward and take everyone with them.