Some interesting things on the upcoming Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Keep Fear Alive, taking place October 30 on the Mall in Washington, DC have been coming up lately.
Over 200,000 people have signed on as attendees on the Rally’s Facebook page. The Huffington Post has agreed to provide free transportation to and from the rally from NYC and already has over 10,000 riders signed on. Many news organizations– NPR, the Washington Post, the NY Times, ABC, CBS and others- have forbade their employees from attending, citing this as a political rally of the Glenn Beck/Tea Party sort.
I suppose this restriction is customary for political rallies athough I am not sure this qualifies as a completely partisan gathering. The very idea behind this rally is to put aside partisanship and get the wider population reengaged in the political system so that the more extreme and vocal fringe groups don’t dictate our national conversation.
Jason Linkins of the Huffington Post has a good article on these restrictions and how the media will cover the rally. In it he talks about how the media is almost proud of the way in which they “fetishize the stupidity” of these most extreme groups, giving them coverage without ever questioning their content. When was the last time you ever heard a news reporter ask a probing question (and is so, get an answer) of one of these candidates who make grand statements about how they would change Washington but only offer vague references as to how they would accomplish it?
That term. fetishize the stupidity, has stuck with me over the last couple of days. It says so much about how we have come to value the absurd rather than the sane, about how we are all more attracted to the side show than the mundane. Unfortunately, solutions are usually of the mundane variety, requiring work and sacrifice and a unity of will. And until the media realizes that, they will always fetishize the stupid, wallow in ignorance and make arbitrary restrictions on their employees, fearful that they might find some sanity.
Redtree Times 
>>The very idea behind this rally is to put aside partisanship and get the wider population reengaged in the political system<<
If you say so.
I'm afraid this is a media event disguised as a populist event. As such, it is the ultimate example of fetishizing the stupidity. It's just that, in this case, the audience (a term that has replaced "the citizenry") thinks they're too cool, too hip, too aware of self-referential irony, to be stupid. Alas, they're not.
The fact that this faux-rally is being held on Halloween Eve is not coincidental.
You may be right. It is certainly a media event and there are certainly a large number, perhaps the majority, of those who will attend only for that reason. These are those who fall into that “too cool, too hip…” category. There certainly is a level of stupidity there. But there are a number of people who feel as though there has been a lack of rational and civil discussion on the issues that concern our country and if it takes a faux-rally with entertainment value to bring this to the forefront, so be it.
And while it may be a fetishizing of stupidity in itself, I will take it any time over a media that that has expanded the feelings of intolerance and anger that seem to be peaking at this time.
Hmmmm…
It says so much about how we have come to value the absurd rather than the sane, about how we are all more attracted to the side show than the mundane…
I can’t help asking: what’s this “we” stuff?
I’m old enough to remember when nurses almost universally breezed into hospital rooms asking, “And how are we today?” Eventually I got tired of it and started saying, “I don’t know how you are, but I’m feeling just fine.”
I know plenty of folks who are struggling to maintain sanity in the face of increasing absurdity, and who treasure the “mundane” realities of home, family, work and faith.
They’re not much interested in sideshows of any sort, whether it’s a self-styled Jonathan Edwards with apocalyptic leanings or a couple of comedians playing to an audience bussed in by HuffPo.
It seems to me that until the media learns to recognize the work and sacrifice happening all around them, we’ll not hear much about it in press reports.
Sorry. I sometimes wander in the realm of the editorial “we”. But your comment is to the point of what I was so poorly saying, especially with your final sentence. Most folks want to live quiet, undramatic lives. I know that I do. But it does seem that the collective “we” gravitates toward absurd and the hyperbolic, even if it has little to do with our own day-to-day lives. Maybe that’s why the media is so hesitant to sell virtues like sacrifice and effort that are needed at this point, instead focusing on the sideshow and giving the public the best of the worst— reality television and bad behavior all around.
But I will be more careful about the “we.” I don’t like including myself in that group any more than you do.