The Million Moderate March

After what has seemed like an eon of ill tempered and bizarre politics in the US, where any crazy accusation can be leveled at the administration with a straight face at last, the middle ground has a champion. Jon Stewart (of the wonderful Daily Show) has called 'The Million Moderate March', and about time too.

Also known as the 'Rally to Restore Sanity' it's aim is to provide an antidote to the increasingly frantic rhetoric of the Tea Party right. Rightly it's aimed to bring in moderate Republicans, sick of what's happening to their party, as well as the left.

In America the national discourse can, at times, seem dominated by those who are happy to label President Obama a Nazi, Muslim or Communist in every other breath, and where plain and simple lies are becoming common currency (like the idea that the health reforms included death panels, which genuinely terrified simple minded people). Any move to create more space for real political dialogue and marginalise these voices must be welcome.

Stewart described the march on his show as "a clarion call for rationality". Their slogans wont necessarily be as slick as the right's though because they say "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."

Of course, there is a simultaneous rally in the same place. 'Keep Fear Alive' which says "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. They want to replace our Fear with reason. But never forget -- "Reason" is just one letter away from "Treason." "

The march takes place on October the 30th in Washington DC and I'm wishing it the best of luck.