Epress.am News from Armenia
On the eve of Halloween, just days before a potentially seismic US election, Sarah Wanenchak marched on Washington to deliver a message of fear to the American people.
Walking purposefully along the length of the National Mall, Wanenchak held a sign over her head that revealed a terrible truth: “Obama is a Secret Zombie – Show Us Your Death Certificate.”
And, yes, it was a joke.
The 26-year-old grad student from Philadelphia was among a throng of Americans who gathered Saturday for the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, an event that spoofed political mega-rallies even as it turned into one itself.
Hosted by comedian-satirists Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, the two-hour rally provided an outlet for Americans who have grown frustrated with a hyper- partisan political and media culture that often drowns out respectful debate in the country.
At times serious and silly, the rally served as an emphatic counterpoint to conservative talk show host Glenn Beck’s Aug. 28 “Restoring Honor” rally, which cast America as a nation in moral decline and in need of a spiritual re- awakening, reports Postmedia News.
“I can’t control what people think this was. I can only tell you my intentions,” Stewart, the host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, said in a 13-minute speech that closed the event.
“This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith, or people of activism, or to look down our noses at the heartland, or passionate argument, or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear. They are, and we do,” he said. “But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies.”
For the better part of its 120 minutes, the rally was pure satire. Stewart played the straight man seeking sanity in public discourse while Colbert — in character as a bombastic conservative host — promoted fear.
Later, Colbert walked on a stage followed by a giant “Fear Puppet” and played video clips of hyperbolic cable TV broadcasts warning viewers about the dangers of everything from bed bugs to terrorism to fecal matter on hotel remote controls.
When Colbert said Americans should fear Muslims, because they “attacked us” on 9/11, Stewart responded that there are “plenty of Muslim people that are not bad, and that you would like, and who are fine.”
Enter Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the former Los Angeles Lakers basketball star, who grabbed a microphone and said: “A real friend understands that no matter what religious position someone plays, we are all on the same team.”
In his closing speech, Stewart expressed some hesitation about bringing a sober message to a comedy show.
“I know there are boundaries for a comedian, pundit talker guy and I am sure I will find out tomorrow how I have violated them.”
But he forged ahead anyway, taking broadsides at what he called the “24- hour politico pundit perpetual panic conflictinator” of cable television news.
“If we amplify everything, we hear nothing,” Stewart said. “The image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false. It is us (seen) through a funhouse mirror.”