Government workers: 'We need love too.'
| Los Angeles
Everyone knows the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear on the National Mall in Washington Saturday is a counterweight to Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor rally in the same venue back in August.
But betcha didn’t know there was another counter rally going on as well.
This one, “Government Doesn’t Suck,” is tackling the unlikely chore of offsetting last year’s rally right around the same time, called “Government Sucks.”
IN PICTURES: Who will be at the Rally to Restore Sanity?
The organizers of this year’s event, a Ning social network called GovLoop.com, represent some 35,000 government workers including everything from the Small Business Administration to the Internal Revenue Service to your friendly local Department of Motor Vehicles. If just the mention of those three names makes your face pucker like you’ve just smelled a gas leak near your furnace, you’re not alone.[Editor's note: The original version listed GovLoop.com as a Facebook community. It is a Ning network.]
“People hate government,” says GovLoop.com founder and president Steve Ressler.
But he says the troops have been called out to march Saturday to put a human face on the institution. They’ve come to town to push back against the apparently, widely-held assumption that, “we are all incompetent, lazy and overpaid,” he says.
He points to a recent Washington Post survey finding that more than half of Americans say they think federal workers get paid too much, and more than a third think they are less qualified than those working in the private sector.
About 100 of these folks are turning out in a pre-Stewart/Colbert rally event that begins 90 minutes before the Comedy Central festivities kick off.
They’ll be handing out nifty swag such as uh … lanyards and T-shirts, and carrying placards that proclaim “I am not red tape,” and “What if govt. was one of us?”
But is a gathering of the super hip, super ironic fan crowd that stays up from 11 p.m. to midnight – past the bedtime of most government workers – to watch Colbert and Stewart skewer every government worker in town, really the best place to make this case?
Yes, says Ressler. Because this is a largely young demographic and, he maintains, “the very ones whose attitudes we hope to change.” Public service, he says, is noble, meaningful work, and not all that long ago it used to be “the goal of the best and brightest.”
Back in the 1950s, right after World War II, he points out, the smartest, most-talented college grads in the nation flocked to serve their country. But that image has taken a beating over the years, and, he says, those of us who think we are doing “important, honorable work” want to bring that back.
One of those participating in this rally is Jack Bienko, who works at the Small Business Administration in Washington. He thinks Stewart’s rally is a good venue to argue their case.
“Humor is a great way to deal with important issues during stressful times, he says.
He and his wife, who is a federal auditor, are joining the effort to regain the confidence of the American public in government workers. He is enthusiastic about today’s event because he says now is a good time for that sector.
“There are job openings in the government,” he points out, “and we want to get that message out.”
