Jon Stewart’s Speech at Rally to Restore Sanity

Posted on October 31, 2010 by Brad Heap

Overnight Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert hosted their Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear at the National Mall in Washington D.C. 150,000 people attended to witness one of the most bizzare protests/rallys you will ever see. But despite this it was also one of the biggest rallys in a generation. The speech made by Jon Stewart at the end of the rally summed up the feelings of the day quite aptly, at the same time in very much Jon Stewart style:

I can’t control what people think this was. I can only tell you my intentions. 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. But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies.

But unfortunately one of our main tools in delineating the two broke. The country’s 24 hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems but it’s existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold it’s magnifying up to our problems bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected dangerous flaming ant epidemic.

If we amplify everything we hear nothing. There are terrorists and racists and Stalinist and theocrats but those are titles that must be earned. You must have the resume. Not being able to distinguish between real racists and Tea Partiers or real bigots and Juan Williams and Rick Sanchez is an insult, not only to those people but to the racists themselves who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate. Just as the inability to distinguish terrorists from Muslims makes us less safe not more. The press is our immune system. If we overreact to everything we actually get sicker and perhaps eczema.

And yet with that being said I feel good—strangely, calmly good. Because the image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false. It is us through a fun house mirror and not the good kind that makes you look slim in the waist and maybe taller, but the kind where you have a giant forehead and an ass shaped like a month old pumpkin and one eyeball.

So, why would we work together? Why would you reach across the aisle to a pumpkin- assed forehead eyeball monster? If the picture of us were true of course our inability to solve problems would actually be quite sane and reasonable. Why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution or racists and homophobes who see no one’s humanity but their own? We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is—on the brink of catastrophe—torn by polarizing hate and how it’s a shame that we can’t work together to get things done, but the truth is we do. We work together to get things done every damn day!

The only place we don’t is here or on cable TV. But Americans don’t live here or on cable TV. Where we live our values and principles form the foundation that sustains us while we get things done not the barriers that prevent us from getting things done. Most Americans don’t live their lives solely as Democrats, Republicans, Liberals or Conservatives. Americans live their lives more as people that are just a little bit late for something they have to do—often something that they do not want to do — but they do it. Impossible things every day that are only made possible by the little reasonable compromises that we all make.

Look on the screen this is where we are this is who we are. (points to the Jumbotron screen which show traffic merging into a tunnel). These cars—that’s a schoolteacher who probably thinks his taxes are too high. He’s going to work. There’s another car-a woman with two small kids who can’t really think about anything else right now. There’s another car swinging I don’t even know if you can see it—the lady’s in the NRA. She loves Oprah. There’s another car—an investment banker, gay, also likes Oprah. Another car’s a Latino carpenter. Another car a fundamentalist vacuum salesman. Atheist obstetrician. Mormon Jay-Z fan. But this is us. Every one of the cars that you see is filled with individuals of strong belief and principles they hold dear—often principles and beliefs in direct opposition to their fellow travelers.

And yet these millions of cars must somehow find a way to squeeze one by one into a mile long 30 foot wide tunnel carved underneath a mighty river. Carved, by the way, by people who I’m sure had their differences. And they do it. Concession by concession. You go. Then I’ll go. You go then I’ll go. You go then I’ll go, ‘Oh my God, is that an NRA sticker on your car? Is that an Obama sticker on your car?’ Well, that’s okay—you go and then I’ll go.

And sure, at some point there will be a selfish jerk who zips up the shoulder and cuts in at the last minute, but that individual is rare and he is scorned and not hired as an analyst.

Because we know instinctively as a people that if we are to get through the darkness and back into the light we have to work together and the truth is, there will always be darkness. And sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t the promised land.

Sometimes it’s just New Jersey. But we do it anyway, together.

If you want to know why I’m here and want I want from you I can only assure you this: you have already given it to me. You’re presence was what I wanted.

Sanity will always be and has always been in the eye of the beholder. To see you here today and the kind of people that you are has restored mine. Thank you.

A World that Stands as One

Posted on July 25, 2008 by Brad Heap

Yes, there have been differences between America and Europe. No doubt, there will be differences in the future. But the burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together. A change of leadership in Washington will not lift this burden. In this new century, Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more – not less. Partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity.

That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another.

The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand.

The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand.

The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand.

These now are the walls we must tear down.

Barack Obama – 24/7/8 Berlin.

Yet again Obama has managed to draw out a huge crowd. Over 200,000 this time – in Berlin. I believe that we are at a major crossroad in our recent history. We can choose, we can choose to continue down the same old path we have been on for the past few years. Or we can actually (well in the U.S. anyway) choose to make a change and elect a leader of the free world who practices what he preaces.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina – or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

Obama – A More Perfect Union, 18 March

If you get the chance make sure you watch the videos of both speeches. A true politican at work.

Nandor Tanczos Valedictory Statement

Posted on July 7, 2008 by Brad Heap

Powerful, powerful speech. The highlights:

NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) :
I was elected to this Parliament in 1999, and my life changed. I knew that it would. Unlike most members of the public, I had a pretty good idea of what being an MP was like. It was one of the reasons I hesitated to stand. I say “It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it.” It is an intense, 24/7 job. We digest enormous amounts of information, which is sometimes boring, and then we have to make decisions—decisions that affect real people. It means being constantly available to the media, to the public, and to the party. It means scrutiny of every detail of our lives—particularly for a dreadlocked Rastafarian. I stood, I guess, to demonstrate that we do not have to be of this world to be effective in it. Be true to oneself, whoever one may be, and take one’s seat as an equal, whether it is here in the House of Representatives or in the dust of the streets. So when a kid grabbed my arm on the dance floor and asked: “Hey, bro, what’s up in Parliament?”, I considered that to be an honour, because my purpose here has been to represent those who have had no voice here—those held in contempt by too many of us.

I came to Parliament thinking that the members were all a bunch of bastards, and I was wrong. There are many good people here. The very notion that all politicians are dishonest is misconceived, because if we think that politicians are all venal, then we expect nothing from them but venality. We should raise our expectations. We should expect more from question time than a bun fight. I have avoided question time for years if I have not had to be here to ask a supplementary question, because question time is the time when I am most ashamed of being a member of Parliament—question time and general debate—and members all know what I am talking about. We should grow up. This is our national legislature. We should treat it and the positions we hold here with more respect.

But I do not blame just the MPs. The buzzards who sit watching us from up in the press gallery, waiting for the next political corpse to pick over, are also to blame, because they will always report a fight, which is why the pugnacious Mr Peters always gets a headline. But if we stand to talk about anything real, most of them flap their wings and fly away—most of them. I thank the journalists who are here today for being here, too. Maybe corporate media ownership is to blame for the lack of analysis prevalent in the New Zealand media, or maybe it is just contempt for the audience.

…

Some people say that Guy Fawkes was the only politician to enter Parliament with honest intentions. I do not think that is true. Many, perhaps most, MPs enter with honest intentions, but we are compromised by this institution. How many times have Green MPs spoken in this House and had other MPs sidle over and tell us quietly: “We agree with you.”, but have then seen them silenced by their hopes for advancement, for promotion, or sometimes just to stay where they are? My mum used to say that we have to get into the system to change it, and it is true that we need good people working within it, but the danger is that the system changes us as much as we change the system, if not more. And that is why I am leaving after 9 years. For those members of the public who judge the behaviour of others by their own standards, I want people to know there are no perks coming to me. After 9 years it is time to cleanse my soul.

To all members of this House, from the most senior to the newest entrants, I pray for them that they remember the light that shines from within them so that they can light a path for themselves and for others. The problem is not how many people enter this place with honest intentions, but how many people leave with them intact. It is easy to slip. We become bloated by self-importance. People open doors for us, they clean our offices at night, they provide us with advice and support, and they wait on our decisions. I say many thanks to all the people who do that—the friendly security, the select committee staff, advisers, and cleaners. And my thanks go to the fantastic Green Party staff up there in the public gallery who are so critical to the work we do as MPs. You guys rock!

…

One of the first things I did on entering Parliament was buy a watch. Since then I have been shackled to the system. I have been cuffed to the prison bars of time, or at least to the prison that we make of time. This arbitrary Roman calendar disconnects us from the natural rhythms of life and of the planet. So today I remove that shackle, because when I look at the state of our rivers, our atmosphere, and our people I do not need a watch to tell me what time it is.

[Watch smashed with a panel-beating hammer.]