The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear was a refreshing breadth of fresh air. As a registered independent it felt like this was the first rally directed at people like me. Who would have thought that at a place where over 200,000 people huddled together en masse that the shouting between the far left and right would stop, if only for a moment.
The closing speech by Jon Stewart (embedded below) was brilliant. Using merging traffic as a testament to the fact that we can and do find a way to get along despite our differences was especially moving. The experiments conducted by The Mythbuster guys were amazing. First they created variations of what had to be the largest human wave ever, then they tried to create a seismic tremor by having everyone jump all at once. It worked, kinda. The duel between Flower Power artist Yusef and the Prince of Darkness Ozzy Osbourne was really entertaining and kept the centrist theme alive. I thought this rally would just be more of the same rhetoric wrapped in sheep’s clothing, instead it was a moment to remind us that we can disagree without being disagreeable.