When the Wealthy and Powerful Do What's Right

It doesn't happen often, that the wealthy and powerful in this country step up and do what's within their power to benefit our nation.

But today, at the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear at the Mall in the Nation's Capitol, even the sponsors did the right thing.  This was a magnificent charity event to benefit the Washington Mall -- the people's mall -- which has been in decline since the 80's, when the powerful decided that money should not be spent on the rest of us, and capital improvements on roads, bridges, and our great Capitol were none of their concern or responsibility.

With their usual mix of humor, hipness, modesty, satire, and talent and energy, the Stewart production made this rally an historic event, for many reasons.

They did not just meet at the Nation's Capitol to rally for their cause, their cause was the Nation's Capitol.

The celebrities were not just the famous but those who were heroic in ways in which we all could be heroic if we so chose to be.

And the message, from Father Guido Sarducci (maybe you could give us a sign, or maybe not...), to the duelling duets of Yusef/Ozzie Ozbourne and Stewart/Colbert, to the Fear Awards to the media who were not allowed to attend, to Tony Bennett's America the Beautiful, to Stewart's final plea to think for ourselves, and work together to make this country work, did just that.

And I hate commercials.  And I hate advertisers.  I knew 9/11 was serious because there were, for a few days, no commercials.  We began to lose NPR when they began to be controlled by advertisers (Garrison Keillor, how could you???)  But Stewart found advertisers that were willing to put the message first, and I will do something I guarantee I will never do again.  The advertisers were:  LG, Reese's, and VW.  They sponsored the rally, live, on Comedy Central, for those who could not attend, without commercial interruption, and with limited identification during the program.

Jon Stewart ended by saying, "I know that many of you made a great effort to be here today, and I want you to know that everyone involved with this project worked incredibly hard to make sure that we honored the effort that you put in and gave you the best show that we could possibly do...."

When capitalists look to those who provide them their great wealth and power, and see the obligation it entails, our Nation will have the means to move forward again.