PHOTOS from the Rally to Restore Sanity and some perspective

I wanted to share some of my photos which seem to be different from the others I have seen so far, and also share a little perspective. It seems like those who take issue with yesterday's rally think that the spirit of compromise Jon talked about was tantamount to giving in to the enemy or giving up on our allies, that his call for a sane and rational political discourse leave no room for activism, for passion, or for fierce disagreement.

In my opinion, this is very far from the truth. If you were there, and listened to what was said, both in humor and in seriousness, the call was for the rhetoric to be dialed down. We are living at a moment in history where reality is being outshouted by the most ridiculous of demagogues. The real problems we face are being ignored and our focus is on the competition between politicians rather than what those politicians are doing in our names.

"If we amplify everything, we hear nothing."

To me, this was really the whole point. He wasn't chiding anyone for wanting a pony - he was just pointing out that living our lives being bombarded by 24-hour corporate sponsored for profit "news" is fucking up the national dialogue and convincing us that we are all enemies when most of us have a lot more in common than not.

Also, to address the apparent belief that most of the crowd was young - at least half of the people I saw (admittedly probably only about 10K of the total) were over 40. Many much older than that.











And my favorite amusing sign:



"I love civilized discourse more than Charlie Sheen loves hookers and blow." (Could not for the life of me get a clear shot of that one.)

people in Banana suits lol

nice res

what kind of camera?

and shoot :)

My height caused difficulty in getting photos lol - my 6'2" bf isn't so good with the camera so I did what I could. It was too crowded to get a good shot most of the day.

Yours were the only pics that made that clear.

Thanks.

so many I didn't get to because there were so many darn people... and lots I couldn't get a good shot of because I am short and people kept moving by :)

I believe the people there all just want to function within the realm of reality and have everyone deal with facts... enough hyperbole!

And since you were there, maybe you couldn't have seen it. At the end of the rally following Jon's closing speech, I saw that he was choked up, almost happily in tears. I believe the attendance number far exceeded their expectations. It couldn't have gone better, either.

Pure perfection, except for my shock to see Keith Olbermann & Ed Schulz included in a fear-everything type montage with Fixed News. For one, Fixed News lies to it's viewers; secondly, when Keith goes on a tangent, it's because the real monsters (in keeping with Halloween) are truly to be feared, if one values fairness & a sane government.

Thanks for your insightful post & especially the pictures!

heartened by the turnout and he did seem genuinely moved by it. It wasn't just the turnout either - everyone was wonderful. I have never seen a large crowd so polite and considerate before - everyone said excuse me, there was no shoving like you normally see in crowds. People really seemed to take the whole thing seriously and it showed in their actions.