"Sanity Restoring Rally" in Retrospect

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My wife and I were thrilled to attend the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear in October 2010.  Since then, periodically, we looked around for a DVD of the event, but there were none to be found.  (Possibly the organizers were sensitive to accusations of having staged it for commercial reasons.)  But recently, we found a video-recording of the TV coverage of the event and watched it.

A lot of it was more fun to watch live, I have to admit.  But a lot of it did stand up to time: the MythBusters guys, for instance.  Though the fellows were a lot of fun to watch, it was kinda lame; the audience-participation stunts that they did were pitched at a warm-up for a spelling bee event, I thought.  I guess it follows that it was certainly pitched at the right level.

It was wonderful to see Cat Stephens (Yusuf Islam), Guido Sarducci, Tony Bennett, Sheryl Crow, and Sam Waterston, who read a brilliantly zany poem attributed to Stephen Colbert.

But, as I reported in the original post, what impressed me in the faces of the people in the crowd on the video, just as it impressed me on the faces I saw around us, and the the voices I heard, was the niceness and decency and eagerness to cooperate, and to be seen reaching out and embracing everyone.  It was a mass hug waiting to happen.

Can niceness and willingness and friendliness make a better America for us all?  I really don't know.  Somehow, the paranoia of the bad days of 2010 has died away, and the harsh voices on both the left and the right are being regarded with disapproval.  I know more names worthy of disapproval on the Right: Rush L, and the gentleman with the manic conspiracy theories, whose name I should look up later, and Ann C.  These voices have most definitely softened, and are no longer viewed with the same adoration as they were.  Throughout the country, there is an awareness that vicious diatribes are no longer useful and welcome.  Sarah Palin is not presently a major force to reckon with, but Mitt Romney could easily be persuaded to sign her on, I suppose.

Did Jon Stewart achieve this softening of rhetoric?  Did the Occupy movement absorb some of the fury that was expressed so harshly two years ago?  We can never know, but I for one needed to know that I was not alone in the alarm I felt, and from what Jon Stewart said that day, it seems that he needed to know, too.  And we all found out.

As the elections come closer, the voices will become harsh once again.  The campaign workers are desperately looking for sound bites which can be lined up for TV and radio, clever ways in which the false steps on both sides can be capitalized upon for negative publicity.  Men and women with striking voices are being auditioned on both sides, to voice over the unflattering videoclips that warn voters against trusting the candidates for one reason or another.  Just don't watch.  Make up your mind about the needs of the country and the society as dispassionately as possible, and refuse to be swayed by psychological warfare.  People are getting darned too good at playing games with our heads.

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