Obviously I have a problem with some of the ideas behind the rally. Of course I do, because I'm kind of its enemy. I'm a pundit, a rabble-rouser, the man trying to instil fear and anger into people. But I can take my lumps and find the things I do agree with.
I agree that fear is dangerous, as are those who thrive on fear, who manufacture it and sell it for their own profit. The same goes for those who make and sell division simply for the sake of division. As we saw back in 1947 division and fear are the tools of tyranny and oppression. Extremism is also dangerous, in any form. As John said in his intelligent and moving closing speech, it is through the little concessions that we not only make the struggle of our lives bearable but that we also accomplish great things and that when everything is extreme, nothing is extreme. The very problem of not being heard becomes only worse when everything becomes a critical issue. The real life and death issues becomes lost in a media where everything is beat up into a life or death issue.
My point of diversion, if you will, is simply to hope we do not forget that there ARE life and death issues. And that in taking time out to remember that all our so-called monsters are in fact men, we do not ever forget that just because they are men does not stop them from being monstrous. That although we must be ever-careful not to paint the devil's horns on everything and cast ourselves as the righteous soldiers aimed at destroying that evil, there are times when those devil horns fit and shying away from that fact lets people escape the true condemnation they deserve.
There are so many who use the cover of defusing the argument or calling for sanity to do just that, to dodge the appelations placed upon them without responding to them. There are those who are offended when they are called racists or bigots, and accuse those who apply the label as not helping the process with such extreme accusations. But the classifications fit and the very reason we use that kind of language is to drive the point home, to point out that by their views (or indeed, their inaction or silence) they consent, assent or actively pursue ideas which are monstrous and outcomes which are abusive, oppresive, inhumane, unfair, and very often, outright deadly. I don't call John Howard a murderer or children to make myself feel righteous (although I admit that can and often is part of the fun), I do it so that the world never forgets that he was a murderer of children.
And I disagree strongly with Stewart's suggestion that the asshole who comes up the turnpike and butts is only a rare abberation. He's right that the truly anti-social hater is rare (or uncommon) and that there's a difference between Fred Phelps a very nice person who is a bit startled by gay marriage...but in action, in effect, there IS no difference. It is the casual racism, the timid bigotry, the general tendency for the world to go slow and keep an even keel because we've all got to get to work and look after our families - it is these things, just as much as the madmen and hate-mongers, that keep the suffering ongoing, that let tyranny and oppression breed. Again, this is precisely WHY we must call bigotry what it is, that we must show people for the demons they are, so that they realise the suffering they are part of, and the hatred they permit.
What's more, the idea that racists and bigots are "bad people", extreme and alien creatures, and that normal people just could never be like that is a truly terrifying one that is seen everywhere these days. The insane National Organisation of Marriage has on its talking points page a way to respond to questions, viz:
1. Are you a bigot?
A: “Do you really believe people like me who believe mothers and fathers both matter to kids are like bigots and racists? I think that’s pretty offensive, don’t you?
There's that terrifying insanity, the idea that "people like me" could be "like bigots and racists". Because bigots and racists wear sheets and live in compounds. No, they really don't. They're you, they're me, and of course it's offensive. We intend to offend you for your poisonous views and tiny little minds.
BUT.
While the Rally to Restore Sanity risks doing just this - dividing the world into the extremist who is crazy and the regular people who aren't (and Stewart even invoked the working schlub idea) - it did manage to make a bigger point at the same time, which was the opposite of that idea. The idea that the bigots are you and me is the same idea of that all our monsters are also men. And that in a pluralist society we need division, and disagreement and should never turn opposiing ideas into throughtcrime or taboos. And that free men must pull in all directions - but not pull each other to pieces over divisions which can be better fixed with discourse and democracy. That, after all, is the whole point of democracy: the defying of Mao Zedong's idea that change only comes from the barrell of a gun.
We must never forget that. We must not turn things into battles and wars where they can be avoided because in the end, everyone loses. And because wars are too easy. Recently the Tea Party have been accused of showing up for pretty much any right-wing cause under the sun and thus having no real definition; what's happening in what happens in the left all the time, where you have a mobile and active activist movement who are joiners, and show up for everything even remotely near their wheelhouse. And that happens because people want to fight battles, as often and as loudly and as simplistically as they can, without actual thought. Deep down, we all want the Electric Monk so we don't need to read, listen, and think, we can just believe, and show up - and fight.
But this weekend two hundred thousand Americans stood up against that idea. And to do that, they had to have thought about it, because I'm sure most of them had to be politically aware. They had to mediate their attendance with their other, probably strong but certainly aware political views. Even if they didn't, they stood up for thought over belief. For discourse over slogans. For facts over factionalism. For the whole picture, not the flag on top. For choosing for yourself instead of following the herd. And against simply showing up and shouting because your team says so, which, whatever your side, is no help to anybody. Apathy is dangerous, but blind, hate-filled obedience is no solution.
Once, some clever people asked "what if they gave a war and nobody came?". I applaud Stewart for his new version: "what if they held a political rally, and nobody came?"
Well, I do know what that's like, I support refugee rights. But you know what I mean.
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