A little compilation to forward in retaliation to all your “Gud Bless Thu Yu-Ess-Aye” relations & acquaintances:
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
Lame-as-F@#k Congress | ||||
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This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Republican Venality, Assholes, Outrage
A little compilation to forward in retaliation to all your “Gud Bless Thu Yu-Ess-Aye” relations & acquaintances:
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
Lame-as-F@#k Congress | ||||
www.thedailyshow.com | ||||
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Comments are closed.
TR
Fuck and yes.
kimp
That was awesome.
Ash Can
Good for him! It needs to be said. Too bad he’s one of only a very few people in the media willing to say it.
dmsilev
Just finished watching that clip. If Republicans had any sense of shame, it’d be brutally effective. If.
dms
Lee
This is why I hate the way TDS does their links.
You cannot link to the segment you want. You can only link to the entire ‘act’ (not sure of the TV terminology) of the show.
I would post a link on FB to the ‘First War on Chirstmas’ from last week if I could post just that animated bit.
Buck
SNAP!
agrippa
@dmsilev:
Republicans have no shame.
Democrats are, well, Democrats.
Maody
All kinds of right in there. I heart Jon Stewart.
danimal
I need a cigarette.
ETA: No, I don’t smoke.
DanF
How are we losing to these fuckers?
rreay
Holy shit. I think the Assholes tag isn’t quite strong enough.
geg6
Well, much as I am quite turned off by Jon Stewart ever since his ego-driven I-love-the-center-which-is-always-the-best-course-for-everything-period rally, he’s absolutely correct about this.
I never want to hear another goddam word from a GOPer about 9/11. Not one fucking word.
satby
How come CNN can’t do what John Stewart does every time one of these lying sacks o’ shite opens his mouth?
Michael
You said it wrong. It’s “God Blay-us thuh Yew-Ess-Aaaaay”
Captain Haddock
@satby:
Because you don’t become the “most trusted name in news” by reporting, you know, news.
General Stuck
please, someone tell me again that republicans winning elections has much to do with democrats not messaging good enough. How do you message against blatant, out in the open, non stop middle fingers to America and it’s citizens by these creeps. If voters in this country can’t decide for themselves these shitheads are out to fuck them morning noon and night, then there is nothing anyone can say that would make one bit of difference. The wingers don’t even try to hide it anymore, and you would have to be blind deaf and dumb to not get what they are up to, seems to me. You get the government you vote for.
Cheryl from Maryland
Major chops to the Daily Show team for the fabulous montage of clips of GOPers citing their support, with the country music and then the giant buzz off noises for “NAY” emphasizing the GOPers horrible two faced lies.
Lisa
@General Stuck: This.
cleek
@geg6:
that wasn’t what the rally about.
what you hate is something you invented.
pablo
Pure Brilliance. Jon Stewart and his crew are a national treasure!
I wish MSNBC or CNN wiuld buy the right, and simulcast it. (but NO editorial control!)
gene108
@DanF: Because there are still enough racists in this country that get disproportionate votes, i.e. Congress was designed to over represent rural / small states, in our government.
Watched C-SPAN’s Washington Journal this morning. The first topic on open phones was for Republicans to call in regarding Michael Steele getting another term as RNC chair.
Two white men called in and flat out said they don’t like black people and know blacks aren’t as capable as whites. They also said Republicans can’t get the black vote and shouldn’t try. They also pointed out how much white America has done to help black America and they wished black America would show more gratitude.
Democrats, after all, are the Party that courts the black vote and secretly gave reparation payments to blacks via welfare and other Great Society programs, including Affirmative Action. To top it off, the Democrats put a black man in the White House.
Do you still wonder why we lose the those guys? At some level, a portion of white America would rather make sure they stay poor, so long as blacks and now Hispanics are poorer. This is very ingrained into our culture.
What was interesting were a Hispanic and African-American caller, who wished the GOP would have more minority representation and backed Michael Steele because the facts are the GOP retook the House, while he was chairman.
The Hispanic voter was interesting, because he was a Democrat and found out about what the Republicans did to promote Civil Rights from 1866 to the Nixon Administration (Nixon after all got things like Affirmative Action off the ground), along with their economic policies, which appealed to him and he changed his Party identification.
It was an interesting summary about people’s views on politics and race.
geg6
@cleek:
Nope, sorry. I watched it and both watched and read several interviews he gave about it. His stupid speech at the end, especially, told me that he’s no different than David Broder when it comes right down to it. Colbert was the only one of the two of them who actually had a point worth listening to. Stewart is an ass. Who can be funny and on point sometimes, most especially when it comes to the media. But an ass nonetheless.
Sputnik_Sweetheart
@gene108:
Yes, because black Americans should thank us for giving them freedom (never mind that we took it away from them in the first place). We also allow them to sit at the front of the bus now. What more do those people want? Talk about ungrateful.
/sarcasm
cleek
@geg6:
i was there. he never once said “the center is always right”. the point was that the screamers who dominate our national discourse are hurting our country.
burnspbesq
@dmsilev:
You know better than that. We all know better than that.
Sasha
Of course, if any Democrat tries to use this vote against Republicans in an ad or some-such, the GOP will respond by saying that the Dems are politicizing 9/11.
It’s only a matter of time.
Zifnab
So much win.
Nick
@satby:
Because Obama won’t use the bully pulpit…or something
satby
@cleek: Yeah, I was there too, and the crowd was (mainly) there supporting the idea that the crazy that passes for national discourse in this country didn’t represent what normal people want. That reasonable people can disagree without demonizing each other. It wasn’t about being “in the center”.
Nick
@Sasha:
or the networks won’t air it, will conveniently say they have no more rom in prime time and air it at 1 am
Stillwater
@General Stuck: If voters in this country can’t decide for themselves these shitheads are out to fuck them morning noon and night…
Exactamundo, Stuck. I’ve said this before, but … you can’t really blame the snake-oil salesman for trying to sell his shit. At some point you have to blame the rubes who continue to buy it thinking they’re getting a good deal.
gene108
@burnspbesq: The GOP is all about winning at any cost. Shame doesn’t win elections. If an emotion won’t help you win an election, why bother having it?
Zifnab
@Sasha:
Who the fuck cares? That’s exactly what we say when they use 9/11 on every fund raiser letter and Christmas Card. Let the GOP whine.
“Oh no, we can’t hit them or they’ll tell teacher”. They’ll run to FOX News and cry their eyes out. That doesn’t mean you don’t throw the big punches.
piratedan
@cleek: and in that respect he’s wrong, while Olbermann and Maddow are yakking on the left, they’re using the facts to hammer home their messages versus the made up bullshit that you see on Faux every friggin night and for Stewart to indicate that there is some equivalency there between the two is simply untrue.
I like Stweart, he has a great show and a top flight staff and is exceptional in calling out bs that is constantly in play from the right. If he wants to take on the left, he should feel free to take on Ms. Hamsher and her firebagging crew instead of trying to equate KO with the Beckinator.
geg6
@cleek:
You know what? Sometimes the screamers are right. And if any country needs some screaming at, it’s this one. I don’t buy his false equivalence between the two sides, I don’t buy his false premise that anyone who yells (especially anyone yelling who is left of center, without a giant media conglomerate to amplify and disseminate their ideas) is wrong to do so. I don’t buy that Keith Olbermann is just as damaging to America as Rush Limbaugh.
You might, and that’s fine for you. Personally, I’d rather keep screaming in the hope that someday, someone will actually hear me and actually let me and people like me have our say, calmly and clearly. But that never happens and doesn’t look like it’s ever going to. So in order to keep trying to break through the FOX propaganda and the false equivalences of Jon Stewart, I prefer to keep screaming. Perhaps one day my screams will be heard above the din.
Ana Gama
@General Stuck:
Benen points out that NBC, ABC and CBS completely bypassed reporting on this blocked vote.
It’s really not about the Dem’s messaging failure (although that doesn’t help), but how do you make the “news” organizations report the news?
Why aren’t the lefty screamers screaming at the news orgs about this failure to report? That might actually accomplish something.
Alwhite
“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” Yet another maxim turned on its head by the Confederate Party.
Updated:
Patriotism is the FIRST refuge of a scoundrel.
El Cid
I don’t think this was the first time Republicans denied passing bills in support of 9/11 reponders. I can’t recall it having the slightest detectable political ramifications at all.
I’d like to believe that if the billion dollar ‘news’ media went after this story 24/7 for a week or something, maybe as much as the ‘terror ground zero mosque’ and the months of absolute masturbatory worship of THE SURGE, it could make a difference.
I don’t really feel that way at the moment.
Sentient Puddle
@geg6:
Which was in reply to @cleek:
I’m going to go with cleek on this one. I think you’re making up that whole “false equivalence” thing just to hate it.
Alwhite
@Ana Gama:
Because !EVERYONE KNOWS! The media has a liberal bias! So the only way the media can make up for that is to slant everything to the Confederate side. Even then they are still not fair & balanced.
More than anything (except possibly that the majority of voters are morans who not only don’t pay attention they also can see very well) this is why Dems are losing. More than a milquetoast Obama, more than the Blew Dogs caucus more than money and messaging. The media is either unwilling or unable to be honest brokers of facts.
ThresherK
Didn’t The Daily Show scoop the Big 3 on this story? Did the broadcast networks even cover it at all?
@satby: I’d love to see Stewart and Colbert go after the media more often. After all, if the CNNs and big threes were doing their jobs, Stewart might well be out of his. If one of the other “actually trying to be” news programs got to stuff like this, on a regular basis, it would steal two sources from Stewart and Colbert: The “hack political stuff” would have been on the news in the early evening, and the mushy middle media would itself be less of a target.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@General Stuck:
Nothing is going to be done about anything wrong in/with our country until disaster has done it’s job. If you look over our history it’s clear that we have a record of doing nothing, very little/not enough of something or something that will not do anything to fix the problems except enrich a few ‘important’ people. Disaster can be looming, staring us right in the face, and all we can do is talk/argue about it. Our government doesn’t perform very well unless there is a total and complete collapse from whatever the problem is. Shit has to hit the fan before politicians really try to fix it.
‘Hey, the engine may be losing oil but it’s still running at full tilt so I guess we have time to discuss, argue and ‘study’ what exactly is causing the leak without stopping to find it and fix the problem once and for all’.
We need to hit a brick wall and bring the car to a stop so we can get someone to work on it.
We have a few forward thinkers in our government but most politicians and upper level government workers are not forward thinking, they ‘live in the now’. Their MO is to feed the public stuff like ‘we have to think of what we are leaving our children, grandchildren and make sure we ‘do the right thing for them’, all the while taking everything they can to feather their beds and make life as comfortable as possible for themselves and theirs.
That is why I really think we need the Repubs to regain control, with good majorities in both houses of Congress and even hold the Presidency. Let them finish driving the car off the cliff and only then will the people start to understand who has been destroying the country along with the planet. People need a rude sounding wake-up bell rung long, loud and clear before they ‘get it’.
My family has family and friends overseas (not ‘internet friends’) and they frequently tell us that our country has gone insane. They have no problem laying out what a mess we are in and they do it far better than most Americans ever could. I tell them that and they don’t understand how it can be that way.
Easy, I tell them, it’s called divide, conquer, restrain and impoverish.
Thanks to our political parties, we waste time fighting with each other over government while nearly everything the government touches goes to shit. We are too busy trying to scrape something together to survive, or are out living the good life and not giving a shit about anybody else because we are too busy thinking only of ourselves. They view our country as a people who can get shit done when we need to but lately we generally don’t because of infighting and a lack of any real political urgency, even if people are injured, starving and dying all around the country or world. They think most Americans are obese, lazy and selfish, nothing like our countrymen from the past, and that our government reflects that same change.
I can’t really argue with them, in too many ways they are right. We are one fucked up country and getting more fucked up every day. I hate saying it but I don’t think we are going to pull out of it no matter what our government attempts. The system is broken and we need complete failure before we can move forward and actually start to solve problems. Yes, if that happens a lot of people are going to suffer but right now a lot of people are already doing so and nothing is really being done about it.
jwb
@General Stuck: It’s not a messaging problem so much as a media problem. If you have a couple billion dollars lying around to buy up media properties and a stream of billions of dollars to keep them running, you can solve the messaging problem.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
The sad thing about this piece is that the people who could most benefit from this piece are the least likely to ever see it. So if, like me, you have Facebook friends who are of a different political ilk, post it to your page. Just ask them to watch it and point out that he’s not bashing all conservatives–just the fuckheads in the Senate who deserve it.
Sasha
@Zifnab:
You misunderstand. I’m not advocating not bringing the issue up — I’m preemptively being appalled at the GOP accusing Democrats of politicizing 9/11 after Repubs used it as political bread and butter for a decade.
jwb
@Nick: Do you have any stats on network practice of placement of political ads?
geg6
@Sentient Puddle:
Because Stewart didn’t make any false equivalences among the left and right? Or just because you and Stewart and cleek don’t like it when people aren’t all make-nicey-nicey?
Sorry. I don’t agree. I know what I heard and I’m not the only one who heard it.
gene108
@Sputnik_Sweetheart: Sad part is, so many people don’t think it’s snark. They really do believe the West African slave trade did people favors.
WereBear
And that, in a nutshell, is why we are so screwed up.
What amount of “messaging” is going to overcome that kind of propaganda by omission?
Maody
@Odie Hugh Manatee: This, but to add: I lived overseas and my late husband was French. Just about everyone thinks of themselves first, no matter the country. The rich in France have turned it inside out as far as Paris goes. In essence, you are right about what other non-american people think of us – the U.S. is the insane asylum for sure.
I hate that we have to drive over the cliff for something to get taken care of. Maybe it’s true. One thing for sure, OT, is that there are just too many people in the world and the corporate or state overlords can only see the end of their nose.
jwb
@Alwhite: My guess is that it has more to do with ownership and corporate control of media companies, the demographics of those who still watch television, and perhaps the buying habits of corporate advertising departments. It wouldn’t surprise me, for instance, to learn that CEOs order their ad departments to buy excessive ads on Fox and conservative shows to help keep them in business, though I have no evidence that they do so.
gene108
@Ana Gama:
That would involve a coherent and coordinated strategy between the movement Left and the Democratic Party, which means one or the other or both sold out and so will lose their cred.
Stillwater
@jwb: It’s not a messaging problem so much as a media problem. If you have a couple billion dollars lying around to buy up media properties and a stream of billions of dollars to keep them running, you can solve the messaging problem.
I disagree with this. One of the lingering myths on the left is that if only the conservatards got better information, instead of the standard MSM lies and such, they would clearly leave the Grand Ole Party. IMO, this isn’t so. The folks who inhabit that dark world are immune to facts or argument of any kind. They have their beliefs, and they’re sticking to em.
Sputnik_Sweetheart
@gene108: That’s why I added the sarcasm tag. It is sad that snark and sincere stupidity are so hard to tell apart these days.
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
@cleek: Right, because when Anthony Weiner was screaming at the house about this bill a few months ago, he was hurting the country.
So Stewart is just a tone troll?
TDS has slipped in its writing for months now, The jokes are told in a political context, but they aren’t political jokes, they’re mostly toilet humour about politics. Colbert has jokes that are political and very funny and biting.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
@geg6: You’re not the only one who heard what they wanted to hear, or more likely what they expected to hear. That happens all the time. I’m not often in agreement with cleek, but he’s right on this one.
Stewart does play the false equivalencies game from time to time, but he didn’t at that rally, and that metaphor you’re so disdainful of, the people going into the tunnel, was actually a pretty damn good one if you get into it. He was talking about how we manage to solve problems, we manage to work around each other for little issues all the time and we don’t demonize each other. But once we talk about politics, it seems we turn the other person into the second coming of Hitler, and why? Because of those assholes who are screaming up the shoulder of the road like they’re better than everyone else like their shit is more important, like we don’t have places we’d rather be than in traffic. They’re the ones driving our discourse right now.
And yes, there are times and places for screamers–when you want to set the outer bounds of a conversation, they tend to do that. But if you want to actually get something done, you have to talk, and you can’t talk to someone you think is a monster, because the only rational thing to do to a monster is to hit it with a lit torch. Conservatives aren’t monsters–they’re just wrong most of the time. But you can convince someone to change their mind if you talk to them. It doesn’t often happen if you scream at them and call them names.
jwb
@Odie Hugh Manatee: “Thanks to our political parties, we waste time fighting with each other over government while nearly everything the government touches goes to shit.” Hah, not even our parties. We do well enough all by ourselves, thank you very much. Just look over this blog. We’ve been fighting pretty hard ourselves over whether Obama/Blue Dog corporate centrism or the Republican crazy are the bigger threat to the nation’s welfare. If the engaged left can’t even figure out which should be the priority political target, what hope is there for the vast group of the more or less politically unengaged for sorting it out.
Ana Gama
@gene108:
Sigh.
Must be Obama’s fault.
cleek
@piratedan:
Olbermann is a hyperbolic jackass. no, it’s true.
you might like his message, but he’s sloppy with facts and hyperbolic with his rhetoric.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Sentient Puddle: He may not have said “the center is always right” but he was pushing the false equivalency thing hard. Specifically on this issue, he said repeatedly, to Terry Gross among others, that the Democrats and the GOP were equally to blame for the first responders bill going down in the House. I haven’t been able to watch Stewart since that whole rally thing. He was at once sickeningly full of himself and afraid to take on Beck directly, which was pretty obviously the inspiration for the whole thing.
Xenos
@jwb: Fox News burned through 500 million dollars before it turned a penny of profit. Murdoch is probably going to kill the Wall Street Journal in the end, after spending 5 billion dollars to take control of it.
It takes serious money to buy a propaganda organ with national circulation and exposure, and nobody on the left is willing or able to do it.
ThresherK
@Stillwater: One of the lingering myths on the left is that if only the conservatards got better information, instead of the standard MSM lies and such, they would clearly leave the Grand Ole Party.
I’ve never seen it as fretting over low-information consumers of low-information media; they will never return any affection. To me it’s about isolating the contagion so the actual persuadable middle doesn’t keep consuming a “non-partisan” news product that doesn’t, ultimately, trace back to Matt Drudge, America’s Assignment Editor. Buying a network may be hyperbole, but what is going to get the mainstream media off the Rush-Politico-FoxNews carousel?
WereBear
Nothing. That takes big bucks.
We have to encourage people under 50 to get their news from more trustable outlets; to a great extent, they already do that.
It’s the people who grew up with Uncle Walter who can’t believe the nice news people are lying to them.
And, coincidentally, they are easy to scam. Hmmmmmm.
Sounds like an audience made for television!
cleek
@Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac:
i barely recall the Weiner bit. but i do know that Weiner is a long time friend (college roommate, IIRC)of Stewart’s, so maybe that was a little friendly nudge.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Maody:
Oh, I agree that ‘everyone does it’ when it comes to taking care of yourself first. That’s a basic survival instinct everyone is naturally wired for. It’s just that our country has taken it to whole new level and with a much stronger ‘immediacy’. It takes a thinking person to understand that polluting the planet will result in leaving our heirs a stinking shithole that they will have to dig themselves out of and to know that we have to do something to prevent that. It takes a thinking person to live within the boundaries of their environment, sacrificing now for a gain that only future generations will enjoy.
The problem is that we have few thinking people when compared to the stupid people who only want to live for the moment, to get that instant gratification boost NOW. All of this ‘stuff’ we have on our planet is there for them to take and they are going to take it before someone else does. Screw the future generations, we need to party hearty now!
That attitude is what will destroy us and why we will not fix anything until disaster has struck. As bad as it is now, there are lots of people out there who are still living pretty damned good. As long as they are doing well, nothing will change for those less fortunate. We need suffering to reach a critical mass, so to say, before our ‘bomb’ will go off.
I have a feeling we won’t have to wait too long.
Sentient Puddle
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I need a source on this. If I were to guess, I think it’s more likely that he merely assigned some blame for how Democrats handled it procedurally, and didn’t actually say that they’re both equally to blame.
jwb
@Stillwater: It’s not the believers you worry about, it’s the so-called low information voters and the politically disengaged, those who pick things up here and there rather than going out and looking for the information. At this point, there is no effective way for a Democratic message to reach them, except perhaps through entertainment programming—which tends to be reactive, oblique to the point at hand, and often painfully slow and so mis-timed. By contrast, there are plenty of ways for conservative talking points to reach them because conservatives control most of the major media access points, and none of the major media is left of the almost center-right New York Times.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@jwb:
I would argue that most of the arguing on this blog is because of those same political parties and the divisiveness that is sown by them and the factions within them.
Divide and conquer, it works. The only thing that brings a divided and conquered people together is a disaster of epic proportions.
We need one, or more, stat. Nothing else will work.
jwb
@Xenos: I agree. No one on the left has been willing or able to do what it takes to build the propaganda infrastructure to battle the immense propaganda infrastructure of the right. I don’t know that engaging in a propaganda war is a winning answer for the left, so I won’t criticize the left’s failure to invest in media. But it is a large why the left always gets reamed over and over in the messaging game. You can’t hope for anything more than sporadic success playing the game of media messaging when the other side owns the board and gets to set the rules of the game.
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
@cleek: Stewart went after the Democrats because the democrats expected that 2/3rds vote on health care for 9/11 responders and they didn’t get it. (the dems did this so the repubs wouldn’t modify the bill to add poison pills). Expecting a 2/3rds vote on health care for 9/11 responders shouldn’t be something to be mocked, and it wasn’t the same as the republicans who voted against it, like stewart tried to say at the time. It’s this kind of moronic equivalence that bugs me about stewart.
catclub
@Alwhite:
Hat tip: Ambrose Bierce ‘The Devil’s Dictionary’
satby
@Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac:
Well, yeah, it is when the opposing party has said clearly in every forum available to them that they intend to oppose everything. Which the Dems should have anticipated and tried to work around better, which I thought was Stewart’s point.
jwb
@Odie Hugh Manatee: But are we being divided or are we dividing ourselves? Without evidence that a substantial amount of criticism from the left is bought and paid for by right wing sources, it’s hard to argue that we are being divided by something exterior to ourselves. You can argue that both parties are more or less controlled by the corporations and that this serves to divide us—and I would concur with that position—but that still does not answer the question as to why the left is so sharply divided as to whether the more pressing enemy is the corporate control or the crazy on the right. I see that as the fundamental division of the left, and what keeps us from coming together to better advance our agenda—or even decide what counts as an advance of our agenda.
gene108
@Stillwater:
People don’t do things based on facts. We aren’t rational Vulcans. We do things because of our emotions.
The Left just doesn’t seem to be able to make the connection to people, between their idea and how it will make someone feel better about themselves, the future or anything for that matter.
For example, most people have health care coverage through their employers. They do not feel the problems the uninsured go through. They aren’t ever going to feel it. Many people aren’t sensitive folks, who worry at night, how some poor schmuck will make ends meet. This doesn’t mean they are greedy, but that people aren’t inclined to think about things that don’t immediately affect them.
Liberals typically make the push for universal health care coverage as being about a noble goal of helping the less fortunate. For many people, this doesn’t carry much emotional resonance or only works, if there’s some shocking tragedy that jolts them out of their routine.
In all the years, since President Clinton’s attempt at health care reform, the Left has done very little to convince people to feel that they will benefit from universal coverage. The Right on the other hand is all over making people feel scared silly about universal coverage, because it would result in rationing care, death panels, etc.
I don’t know why the Left doesn’t understand this or doesn’t try to make the pitch to peoples feelings. They often seem indignant they would actually have to sell their ideas people, the way a car salesman has to sell you on their product versus their competitors.
There seems to be a belief that the liberal ideas are just superior and once implemented, people will just clammer for more, so they just need to pressure the politicians and not work on getting Americans behind their ideas.
Zifnab
@Ana Gama:
Start your own multi-billion dollar news organization using your fortune accumulated in Australia and England. Then hire on every dead beat debutant, mustachioed meat head, and cocaine-fueled pretty-boy willing to pimp your message on a national stage.
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
@satby: But Stewart Blamed Democrats for republican tactics. The republican house said they had the votes and then failed to bring those votes when the vote came. That’s what Weiner was so angry about was, I think it was King who said he could get the votes, and then didn’t. So, Dems need to be more thoughtful about republican obstructionists who lie about what they are going to do.
geg6
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
This exactly. Can’t bear to watch him at all any more. He’s no better than the very media and pols he loves to rag on. He’s become another emperor with no clothes, just like the rest of them.
Colbert, OTOH, is still awesome.
harlana
Re: screaming – When your house is on fire, there is nothing wrong with screaming.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@jwb:
I said that both the parties and factions within those parties are causing this division. Examples are you have the Repubs turning the public against the Democrats, then you have the teaparty fighting against the old guard. On the left you have the same thing (sans the Dem pols demonizing of Repubs) but with more factions, which usually weakens the left more so than any division on the right.
Republicans have it simple with their followers and their messaging/demonizing. Democrats don’t have that luxury because their followers/detractors are more disparate and fractious and can’t be pushed into doing anything effective on a large scale.
You could say that the right has a teaparty to deal with and the left has a bunch of their own flavors of tea parties to deal with. While the Repubs are demonizing the left, the left is busy demonizing itself too. I thought the left was the ‘smarter’ side of politics but I discarded that idea long ago. You can be so smart that you stupidly fuck everything else up in your pursuit of your smart goals. The left excels at this. I wish the right would do the same thing but they are too stupid, one faction against the old guard is enough for them.
A binary choice, black or white, just like the lizards like it. We on the left should be so lucky.
jwb
@geg6: on the other hand, Colbert has also traditionally had a substantial conservative following, so go figure.
gene108
@ThresherK:
A disciplined and persistent mass movement, which keeps pushing an agenda is needed to reach people.
The anti-war movement regarding military intervention in Iraq, for example, wouldn’t be a good example because the time frame for it to be effective and get attention was very short, when compared to the timeline Bush & Co set for going to war, despite massive protests.
I don’t know what would be an effective example people on the Left would agree to. I would’ve said pushing for universal coverage would be a good example of something that the Left kept front and center, in American politics after many deaths. The reaction from the Left over not getting it done via single-payer or a public option makes me question this assumption a bit.
But, generally, if you keep pounding away at issues, you can rally support behind your cause, despite the influence of entrenched, vested interests in maintaining the status quo.
The Right is doing this with their attacks on the need to cut Social Security, in order to balance long term budget short falls. Despite failing spectacularly to privatize Social Security, in 2005, they are still plugging away at it.
RosiesDad
@Ash Can: And he’s not really in the media; he’s a charter member of the fake media.
Suck It Up!
@Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac:
well he certainly didn’t help anything. in the local news the scene was treated as a typical day in our dysfunctional government. no calling out of republicans.
cleek
@Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac:
yes, he does occasionally fall into lazily calling false equivalence where there are clear differences. and it bugs me, and i often yell at the TV when he does it. but i can forgive some of them because understanding the differences would require that he spend more time reading political blogs than writing jokes. he is, after all, a comedian. that he’s one of the best sources of news on TV says more about the rest of TV than it does about him. and, he’s right far more often than not. he’s a net-plus for liberalism, and for media criticism and for the country as a whole.
and (to nobody in particular…) getting mad at him because he doesn’t echo the lefty blog consensus on every detail is really fucking stupid – especially when it comes from people who spend all day here yelling at people for not being 110% pro-Obama, always, no matter what. is he our ally ? yes. does he do good things? yes. is he better than most? yes. do we want him on our side? yes. ok then, let’s forgive his lapses and trumpet his victories.
/rant
jwb
@Odie Hugh Manatee: What I find interesting about the teabaggers, at least the group who sips lattes at the local coffee shop, is that the anger is never lodged internally at the Republicans. They may be disappointed in their pols and even vehemently disagree with what they are doing (like making deals with Obama on the tax plan and selling themselves to the corporations and banks), but their anger is directed wholly outward toward democrats, liberals and especially Obama. Consequently, divisions on the right have, so far at least, not tended to fracture the coalition. The teabaggers seem very angry with the corporations and bankers, however, and if anything proves the undoing of right wing unity, that might be it.
gene108
You guys do realize, Republicans / conservatives, branding the media “liberal”, was done in the 1960’s and hammered into the mainstream by the Nixon Administration?
I mean calling the press nattering nay-bobs of negativity really was an attempt by the Nixon Administration to bully the press and make sure they took hippy-punching seriously.
The Republicans have been screaming “liberal media bias” for decades and sometime in the 1980’s and early 1990’s, the media looked at itself and said, if one major faction of this country has this criticism, than there might be something to it and we should recheck how we report things.
The advent of “serious” right-wing news sources, such as The Washington Times and The American Spectator, just accelerated the media’s beat the MSM into submission by the creation of the “fair and balanced” Fox News network.
Getting the MSM to lap up right-wing talking points didn’t happen over night. It’s been consistently worked on for decades.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@jwb:
Teabagger ire cost the Repubs the Senate this year. Yes, their anger is mostly directed outward but they are diverting some of it inward in an attempt to steer the party their way. The rich old boys will try to pull the usual strings but they may have problems with the baggers in this regard.
Yes, I do hope the teabaggers start to do more damage internally but their hate of outsiders will probably unite themselves and the old guard every election cycle, as usual. That they cost the Repubs the Senate is good news. I hope they keep their crap up and start to eat their own.
Then the left can offer them advice on how to properly season and saute their own before chowing down for a meal.
Laura W.
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
For you. Been on my iPod forever. And every time I hear it, I just wonder:
Some of them knew pleasure
And some of them knew pain
And for some of them it was only the moment that mattered
And on the brave and crazy wings of youth
They went flying around in the rain
And their feathers, once so fine, grew torn and tattered
And in the end they traded their tired wings
For the resignation that living brings
And exchanged love’s bright and fragile glow
For the glitter and the rouge
And in the moment they were swept before the deluge
satby
@Suck It Up!:
See, that is (part of) the problem> I loved Weiner’s rant, put it on my Book of Face wall; but I’m much more plugged into the political scene than most people I know. Most people just see dysfunctional government, and hear the anti-tax, anti-government media tsunami and don’t understand any context to any of it. Add in the outright lies that never get corrected and we have the outcome we have now.
Yeah, people have a responsibility to be better informed, but they think they’ll become better informed by reading biased newspapers and watching CNN and NPR. We know they won’t, but they don’t.
trollhattan
Zounds, TDS strikes again. Not that anybody “important” will see it.
But this brings up next Wingnut Christmas, the tenth 9/11 anniversary. A constant drumbeat about Republican post-9/11 fail between now and then could perhaps poison their favorite well, possibly sparing us a bit of what’s otherwise going to be a ghoulish nationwide display of wingnuttery.
jwb
@satby: Actually, I think we’ve reached the point where if people are getting their news from just mainstream media (watching CNN; listening to NPR; reading the NY Times), they are probably worse informed than if they were simply uninformed.
burnspbesq
Yo, fellas:
Didn’t you get the memo? When Pope Geg the Sixth speaks ex cathedra on matters of belief, she is by definition infallible.
jwb
@trollhattan: Obama should claim it and make the Republicans oppose it. David Broder won’t be happy, but who the fuck cares.
BruinKid
Yep, I diaried this over at the GOS with the full transcript for those that are at work, or are deaf.
This video clip NEEDS to go viral.
RosiesDad
@cleek: @geg6: It seems to me that what gets Stewart more than anything else is fear-baiting hyperbole. Which is why Fox News is the target of his ire on a much more regular basis than anyone on the left.
And the reason Rachel got the interview–and why Terri Gross got an hour and a half with him earlier in the fall–is because they are not prone to hyperbole.
Further, while I think that Jon occasionally falls into a false equivalence trap, it’s a pretty rare occurrence. He is not usually pitting one side against the other for balance or any other reason.
And Colbert is awesome but what he does is entirely different; he’s playing the character of a hyperbolic conservative idiot. I remember when Russert interviewed him on MTP and asked him if he let his kids watch his show. He said that he didn’t because he was worried that they would not be able to distinguish their father from the character he plays on his show. I was impressed that this was something he thought about.
piratedan
@cleek:
When Olbermann is sloppy with his facts, he issues corrections (just like Maddow) and I will grant you that his hyperbole is there, then again, so is my outrage with what has gone down in the last 10 years.
Please let me know when Fox issues a retraction or a clarification on anything that they’re spinning.
geg6
@cleek:
I just won’t watch him any more, not that I did every day anyway (usually caught him on OnDemand). My local news is more important and edifying to me than Jon Stewart, mainly because of the weather reports. Plus, as I mentioned above, I find Colbert about a thousand times funnier and more on point.
And the fact that conservatives actually fall for and are fans of Colbert’s act just shows what genius it is.
geg6
@burnspbesq:
Oh, go say a novena or something.
asiangrrlMN
This is all kinds of awesome. The rally, not so much. The excerpts I saw and heard rankled me. He equated the birthers with the truthers without pointing out that only the former actually have any traction in this country. And in his final speech, he said (and I am paraphrasing), “There are some who think the Teabaggers are racist”, implying they aren’t. He also ridiculed the firing of Sanchez and Williams, which also rankled. I still adore him, but the rally fell flat to me.
The problem is, no matter how much he exhorts people to be more civil, it’s just not going to happen. And, as pointed out upthread, most of the people who are far-right (and far-left) do not want to be challenged as to what they know they know. That’s why this clip, as good as it is to watch, won’t change a damn thing. Republicans will still use 9/11 as a prop, and they will still get away with it.
Cerberus
@Ana Gama:
They’re not?
I mean, maybe we’re talking about FDL here, I don’t know since I don’t really go there, but every other left-leaning and liberal blog and organization I know has been ranting about media capture, media as a tool of dominant narrative, and bad media in general for years, even decades.
Feminists have been ranting about bad media and how it continues to poison analysis since at least the release of Backlash, black organizations have talked about how media is designed to heighten racial tensions and avoids focusing any positive focus on their issues since at least the days of Malcolm X, communists and other leftist economics types have been ranting about media capture and the way it’s used to delegitimize what the rich consider dangerous ideas since at least the Gilded Age.
And all the blogs I read have had a good bit devoted to media analysis and noting its capture for a good long while now, the few scragglers mostly jumping on board in the comically obvious Iraq War run-up when the media outlets were so busy creaming their pants on new war reporting techniques that they forgot to report that it was all also transparent bullshit.
I don’t think I’ve seen a lefty blog go without a week, regardless of the topic usually on display without having to mention something related to media bias.
And of course, this particular site is no exception.
The left has been “screaming about” these sorts of things for awhile now. The reason its not really coming out in force with regards to this specific incident is burn out.
It’s the same damn story, and so many lefty orgs and blogs have been writing for awhile in media’s role in helping the Repubs and conservaDems blackjack their “pet” issues into a shallow grave already.
That and I think many are still processing the level of sheer gall and are being completely broken by it.
If the Repubs can be this cartoonishly villainous and our media so captured it refuses to break with its “both sides” mentality, what hope is there for gradually easing ourselves out of the hole?
It’s depressing is what it is.
Ryan Cunningham
They milked 9/11 for all its political value and tossed the dry husk aside to take up “fiscal responsibility.”