The opposing rallies came about when Stephen Colbert introduced the term “truthiness” poking fun at the absurdity of mainstream news media regarding the upcoming mid-year elections.
It didn’t take long for ‘Restoring Truthiness’ to gain grassroots movement, kicked off by random strangers creating a Facebook group which then led to a website ColbertRally.com to convince Colbert to lead a ‘Restoring Truthiness’ Rally! They even had a palatable goal in mind to help convince the host and Comedy Central that they were committed - to raise money for charities such as DonorsChoose.org – a non-profit donation site that directly supports teachers and classrooms across America which is one of Stephen’s favourite charities.
The movement itself is loosely a parody of conservative news commentator Glenn Beck’s ‘Restoring Honor’ rally to “restore honor in America”. Now, Stephen has obliged, but with a more palatable goal in mind - So far, over $US265 000 has been donated, with the show hoping to raise $500 000 by October.
Not to be outdone, Jon Stewart from ‘The Daily Show’ announced his opposing ‘Rally to Restore Sanity’ .
Jon and ‘The Daily Show’ will lead the first-ever ‘Rally to Restore Sanity’ on the National Mall in Washington D.C on October 30 — a movement of "people who have been too busy to go to rallies" while ‘The Colbert Nation’ is calling on all freedom-loving patriots to challenge ‘The Daily Show by marching on the Mall at the same time to help ‘Keep Fear Alive’ .
’The Daily Show’s mission statement on the site www.rallytorestoresanity.com/ read:
“Ours is a rally for the people who've been too busy to go to rallies, who actually have lives and families and jobs (or are looking for jobs) -- not so much the Silent Majority as the Busy Majority. If we had to sum up the political view of our participants in a single sentence... we couldn't. That's sort of the point. Think of our event as Woodstock, but with the nudity and drugs replaced by respectful disagreement.”
Meanwhile, at www.colbertrally.com/ Colbert leads the war-call with:
“America, the Greatest Country God ever gave Man, was built on three bedrock principles: Freedom. Liberty. And Fear -- that someone might take our Freedom and Liberty. But now, there are dark, optimistic forces trying to take away our Fear -- forces with salt and pepper hair and way more Emmys than they need. They want to replace our Fear with reason. But never forget -- "Reason" is just one letter away from "Treason." Coincidence? Reasonable people would say it is, but America can't afford to take that chance.”
We’ll keep you posted! In the meantime, check it out at www.rallytorestoresanity.com/ and www.colbertrally.com/
Copyright : Comedy Central New Zealand