R2RS/KFA

[filkertom]

Depending on whether you're a Stewart fan or a Colbert fan, today is the date of either the Rally To Restore Sanity or the March To Keep Fear Alive. Should be fascinating, especially the coverage, especially that (if any) of Faux News. And there are hundreds of local rallies across the country.

So: sanity or fear? (Call of Cthulhu players need not answer; we know you want both, in their proper measure.)

Comments

[alverant.livejournal.com]

Sanity of course. Reason brings us forward, fear holds us back.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Sanity, in general.

Now got the livestream of the Washington rally on because I woke up too late to get to the NYC version.

[jcbemis.livejournal.com]

watching on CSPAN

Fear.

[mythdude.livejournal.com]

Fear will keep the local systems in line...fear of this space station!

[theturbonerd.livejournal.com]

Fear is the mindkiller.

For Stewart, this is a warning. For Colbert, this is a benefit.

[pjhandley.livejournal.com]

Look, I'm all for "Fear" and "Sanity", however I feel that this year's election is doing a fine job of the Fear part. We'll see how the Sanity part works out.

[sillyfox.livejournal.com]

Sanity, please.

[banjoplayinnerd.livejournal.com]

Sanity of course.

The rally was awesome. Who would have thought that Ozzy Osborne and Yusuf (tafka Cat Stevens) would ever have even been in the same room, much less sharing a stage?

[gorgeousgary]

More Sanity here. Although, having actually gone to the rally, I can't really claim to have much of it.

As for Ozzy and Yusuf, I commented to the_sheryl, "I never thought I would wind up counting 'heard Ozzy perform live' among my list of life achievements."

[dragon-avatar.livejournal.com]

you already called it Tom. ^.^ His tentacles reach ever closer to the surface.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Speaking of Cthulhu...

What's the difference between chicken and lead?

"That is not lead which can the Colonel fry".

[tcgtrf.livejournal.com]

If you're not afraid, you really don't understand what's likely to happen during the next fifteen years.

The problem is staying sane while facing the fear and using that sanity to maximize the outcome for your family and friends.

That said, I adore Stewart. I admire the way that he, a comedian, had the nerve to go after a sitting President and call him out on his failures. That took serious gonads, dude, and about time someone on the Left did it effectively.


Tom T.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

As you say -- the idea is the same as it always is with fear: you can succumb, or you can not succumb. (I always got annoyed with the line in The Wizard of Oz that confuses courage with wisdom. It's confusing cowardice with wisdom.)

[dbcooper.livejournal.com]

I think it's possible to confuse stupidity with bravery, though, and that may be the concept that gave the screenwriters (or was it Baum himself?) the phrase used.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

I'm glad that Stewart went after Obama too.

Now, my politics aren't nearly as left as Jon's, or for that matter, most of the folks who comment here. Then again, if you use a baseball "left field / right field" analogy, I'm probably somewhere between the scoreboard and the Goodyear Blimp. (Which probably also applies to a lot of folks here.) But I'm not going to criticize Obama *on his performance* for doing something I don't like, *if he didn't say he was going to work towards doing what I'd have liked.* I can bitch about his policy in that case -- but that's to be expected. But I *will* call the President out for not doing something he *did* promise, or for not doing it as well as it could have (and needed to have) been done. And THAT is what Stewart did, at least the parts I heard.

On a mostly unrelated note, I admire Colbert for being willing to be the fall guy for certain parts of the rally. And kudos to The Artist Formerly Known As Cat Stevens and to Ozzy for handling their cases of opus interruptus with such aplomb... bonus funny points for the mashup.

[fredhuggins.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on your last paragraph, except where you say that Stewart is on the Left. The Daily Show doesn't support one party's ideals over another, it goes for the jokes wherever they may be found. I don't know Stewart's personal politics, but his passionate criticisms against both sides' polarizing partisan rhetoric (not to mention his frequent criticism of the current administration) lead me to believe that he's a hard moderate. People only THINK he's a leftist because he's spent eight of his twelve years on Comedy Central mocking a such an extremely right-wing administration.

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

Back from the DC rally. Tired. Barely heard or saw stage. Huge crowd.

Awesome.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

Sanity, for the most part.

My favorite bit of the whole thing? Colbert's first Fear Award... to *NPR* who forbade all of their employees from attending.

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

Actually, saw a couple of pro-Cthulhu signs at the rally. I see a serious run in 2012. :-)

[fredhuggins.livejournal.com]

What I appreciated about the rally, more than anything else, was how much they went out of their way to make it non-political, or at least non-partisan, and how specifically they directed their satirical axes at the fearmongering cable news culture (of both sides) rather than at any politicians. Not that it'll have much effect, though: those who wish to see Jon Stewart as a propaganda-spewing hard leftist will continue to do so. I'm extremely buoyed by the fact that the crowd, by conservative estimates, was nearly TWICE the size of Glenn Beck's Restore Honor rally. That's the problem with extreme alienating partisanship - it's not nearly as sexy as welcoming peace and love.

Right now Beck is hard at work in his underground bunker, scribbling furiously at his whiteboard, trying to connect Jon Stewart to Mao Tse-Tung...

[cscottd.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid of sanity... which is, of course, the only sane approach.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

Fear.

Because it's getting nearly impossible for Colbert to out-crazy the REAL conservatives.

[dysprog.livejournal.com]

Just got back from DC.

Some more serious content would of been nice. And some of the music wasn't my cup of tea. I would have swapped some of it out for Tom Smith if given the option. (In particular "For Us All" and "Everything is Dangerous" would have been thematically appropriate) But the "No Ones More American" number aas perfect.

I feel like I was promised a steak dinner and got a hot fudge sundae. Now it WAS a really tasty sundae. But I wanted steak.