Stewart/Colbert Rally

[Viq]

I've seen that interview as well. I was mostly joking. Should he ever decide to run for office, I probably won't even be able to vote. Lousy South Korea not recognizing dual citizenship.

[Byrthnoth]

It was pretty huge and pretty cool. Attendance was estimated at 200k+ people.

I parked at the end of the green line and took the metro in. 9:30AM the parking lot was pretty much full and there was a line all the way around it waiting for the train. 2000 parking spaces. Getting back out was . . . difficult. Waited 2 hours to even try and I still ended up closer to a looot of strangers than I have been to most of my friends. It was european-rush-hour packed.

[kuronosan]

Ronald Reagan was an actor. 'Nuff said.

Great speech by Stewart, though.

[Pirian]

Was great, I will post my pictures later

[Komm Suesser Tod]

Ronald Reagan was an actor. 'Nuff said.

Great speech by Stewart, though.

He was like, a B actor though, wasn't he? Stewart has become rather well known, so I don't know if that's the most apt of allegories.

You know what's funny? All the conservatives disputing how many people were at the rally. They're like "they're were at the Marine Corps Marathon, not the stupid rally, morons!" Makes me laugh, and a little sad.

[Atreides]

most celebrities don't want to run for president becuase it means having to take a huge pay cut and disclose just how much money you've made/you're making.

Plus it doesn't seem like something that's in Jon Stewart's character, as someone who's made a good living as more of an outside observer capable of asking tough questions and criticizing our political leaders, a perspective he'd probably be too afraid of losing if he were to run for office.

[Dezso]

It reminds me of the Robin William's Man of the Year film. Comedian who made a living making observations of the President and government etc, but turns out he was better at guiding them by showing their faults than actually being a President.

Overall the movie was 'meh' at best, but sort of describes this.

[Athas]

Does anyone know if there are any comparative photos of Jon's and Beck's rallies, in terms of crowd size out there?

[Atreides]

fucking finally, an article from one of the big 3 news sites that actually gets the point:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/10/3...ex.html?hpt=T2

[Kuya]

The moderate/middle/center rhetoric really annoys me.

[Atreides]

they say it's non partisan

BUT IS IT??!?

[Byrthnoth]

Does anyone know if there are any comparative photos of Jon's and Beck's rallies, in terms of crowd size out there?

Beck's Rally was 87k +/- 10%

Stewart's was 215k +/- 10%

Stewart got 2-3 times more people, and he wasn't exactly urging people to travel cross-country to attend. His message was more like, "If it's convenient and you're feeling it's reasonable to go, we'd love to have you." Shit was packed, too. I can only imagine how many people planned to come via public transportation and never made it. I expected to get there by 10AM and ended up arriving at 11:30.

Edit: Oh yeah, Million Man March was ~400k. So ~half as much as that. Seriously the Rally would have had to be a March to get more people, because the only way for people to get there was walking. I've seen european metros at rush-hour that weren't as bad as DC was Saturday.

[SamanosukeShiva]

Ronald Reagan was an actor. 'Nuff said.

Great speech by Stewart, though.

and how'd that turned out? he undid what jimmy carter worked so hard to accomplish and single-handedly marched this country backward by becoming a corporate's puppet.

[Atreides]

For all they talk about how phenomenal he was Ronald Reagan probably wouldn't even be allowed to be a Republican today

[kuronosan]

and how'd that turned out? he undid what jimmy carter worked so hard to accomplish and single-handedly marched this country backward by becoming a corporate's puppet.

Woah woah woah, I wasn't commenting on how that made him a good president. I was commenting that he was in entertainment and he managed to become a politician.

It's hilarious to me how many associate Reaganomics as the single-handed reason we went back to being a powerful nation in the 80s, and continue to say we need another Reagan.

[Pirian]

I've seen european metros at rush-hour that weren't as bad as DC was Saturday.

Seriously. I was butt-buddies with somebody for a good 20 min. We arrived at the Shady Grove station at 9:30'ish, waited in line for 2 hour's to get money on our metro cards and finally go to the rally at 12'ish. The train was so jam-packed that the last 5 stops or so before the metro central station we really couldn't let anyone else on.

Actually at the rally was packed as packed could be too. I'll get the pictures up eventually, but huuuge crowds everywhere

[Tekki]

Want some lulz? Check out the Chicago Rally page. God it turned south fast....

http://www.facebook.com/Rallytoresto...63700793653345
http://www.facebook.com/Rallytorestoresanitychicago

My g/f is the president of a group at Columbia and we grabbed a handful to join the rally. There were a handful of these satellite groups organized across the nation with "Rally to restore sanity -insert city" with the intention to stream the feed with thousands enjoying the DC rally together. A few of the cities cut during the musical intermissions and had a few of their own speakers or local musicians.

Not Chicago. Granted the rally was organized by a single person (iirc a former theatre producer) and I commend her effort.. but the rally turned south quick after just a hour. Before the DC stream jumped on there was some music and excitement. Probably a 1000-1500 people gathered, including a large group of kids right in front dancing. Victoria and I thought it was pretty nice and noted that more people showed then we expected since it was organized primarily by one person, with only about 30 days to work with.

Then they simply cut sound off the feed halfway through The Roots and started playing some pretty terrible music of their own. Like real garbage. A midly funny duo with satiric musical scores, and a god aweful solo guitarist with some sort of "god will be a shame of you" and "go vote nov 2nd" song. It was mostly... ackward and not at all entertaining. When John Stewart showed up on the silent screen the crowd started yelling "audio" and pointing. The organizers seemed rather lost and stopped everything and finally got him on.

Everyone was buzzing and excited and it started getting really hilarious when Colbert brought out Ozzy. At this point I was thrilled, but then they cut the audio again and started doing their own thing. Honestly I wasn't toooo bothered. I figured they were going to do the same as other cities, cut during music and primarily show the speeches.

Thats when it started getting bad. They had some moderate speaker jump on stage and quite literally scream a very aggressive, profanity littered speech. The content and delivery would not have bothered me as much personally, but what bothered me were the number of kids brought to the speech. It simply wasn't appropriate. It felt like a plug, and worse, a plug that really shouldn't be blasted in front of the handful of kids right there standing at the stage.

Then it got worse. They had a another speaker, and a comedian as "host", and finally they had a very god awful comedian with that "lazy as fuck, i dont give a fuck, comedy style" try to entertain us. It finally fell apart during the next speaker. Not even sure what he was plugging, but it was again, during a point during the feed where John and Stephen were on speaking, but we were listening to this "thanks, can you do this" speech from a local guy that was going on and on. The crowd started yelling, then chanting audio. They got it on to hit the ass end of w/e John was staying then they cut it off again for their next speaker. Crowd rally got upset then.

Everyone was yelling, they finally turned off the feed and it just got stupid. What killed the rally was this shitty security lady that took a mic from the stage and yelled at the crowd. "You guys are being rude. If you wanted to watch this you could go the fuck home and watch TV at home. You guys are rude"

Well... thats when everyone left lol... The Benigans across the street started a viewing party on Michigan Ave and everyone one else "went the fuck home" to watch TV.

It was a sad display. I felt bad for the lady that organized the rally. But the nail on the coffin was the complete disregard for the feed (in which most people assumed would be shown) and the security guard yelling at the crowd.

That said, from what I watched when we got back to her place, I enjoyed.

[Tyche]

I'm assuming Tekki accidentally locked this, so I'm opening it back up unless there's some strange unknown reason he locked it.

[Tekki]

how the fuck do i keep doing that....

[Olo401]

Did anyone else meet the event volunteer guy that was a dead ringer for Glenn Beck? Apparently he's a professional celeb impersonator & everything - was handing out his business cards & doing free pictures with anyone who asked.. I managed to snap a couple photos & will upload them later today.