The folks on Reddit who are pushing for Stephen Colbert to hold a “Restore Truthiness” rally in Washington DC in response to Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally are putting their money where their mouths are. In order to not be seen as yet another meaningless internet petition, they’ve rallied to donate to DonorsChoose.org, a charity that has one Mr. Stephen Colbert on the board. And in less than a day, they’re at $115,000.
See, anyone can join a reddit or Facebook group or sign a petition. It takes, like, one minute and doesn’t demonstrate much effort. So the rally movement has been looking for ways to show that they’re serious, that they’re willing to lift a finger to make this happen. And an idea has just been hatched: pony up some cash to one of Stephen’s favorite charities.Stephen Colbert is a board member of a non-profit called DonorsChoose.org. It’s a place where schoolteachers can make a request for the supplies they need and aren’t getting. As the name suggests, donors get to choose which specific teacher they want to support (lazy donors can just let the charity decide). If “Restore Truthiness” can raise a large sum of money, it will be a fantastic show of strength. And even if it fails as a publicity stunt, it’ll still make a difference in our world.Speaking of stunts, we at reddit would like to do our part to help propel this cause: Hillary Clinton’s been helping DonorsChoose raise money since 2008. So far, she’s been able to raise $29,945. That’s good, but we think the reddit and ColbertRally.com communities can blow that number away in less than a week. So as an added incentive: if we do just that, reddit has convinced a certain anonymous investor to throw in another $1000 on top of that.
It’s pretty amazing, really. Here’s a bit from their call to donate:Obviously, they didn’t think it would be as successful as it has become, as they blew Hillary Clinton out of the water in a matter of hours. As of this writing, the tally is at about $115,000 and climbing.
At this point, this rally might actually happen. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have been doing an ongoing bit about out-announcing each other’s imminent announcement, teasing an announcement about the rally. But according to yesterday’s NY Mag cover story on Stewart, it’s something that they’ve been looking into. (“There’s discussion of a possible Stewart-Colbert public event, a parody of Beck’s Restoring Honor rally. ‘Maybe we would do a March of the Reasonable, on a date of no particular significance,’ Stewart says.’) Clearly, such a thing would take a whole lot of planning and organization, so it makes sense that the hosts would be stalling for time while they get their ducks in a row.
And you’ve got to give these internet organizers credit: they’re not just another “Million Strong for an Unrealistic Goal” group on Facebook. They’ve put up over $100,000 for charity, and rally or no rally, that’s something that the Colbert Nation can be pretty proud of. [via]
