While I regularly watch The Daily Show and think its political satire is second to none, the Rally to Restore Sanity that will be held on the Mall in Washington D.C. tomorrow is problematic on many levels. Of all the critiques I’ve seen, Daniel Denvir over at Alternet best captured my sentiments:
When he announced the rally, Jon Stewart made a concerted effort to appear politically unaligned, screening clips that imply an equivalence between the wacky right and the wacky left. As Jon Stewart has it, the problem is “loud folks” and a tone of political debate that has become untempered: too many crazies yelling and screaming, comparing people they don’t like to Hitler.
But yelling is not just a matter of loud noise expelled through the human throat. It matters what’s being yelled. When it comes to the Republican Party — and Democratic fellow travelers — they are shouting in favor of corporate exploitation and war.
The Tea Party far right leans on made-up things, also known as lies — “ground zero” Mosque, illegal immigrants purposely causing highway accidents, death panels killing grandma — to win political power. The left has a different problem. We could have used a little more hysteria in recent years, as Wall Street robbed Main Street and the most powerful military on earth invaded multiple countries. Instead, a real anti-war movement never materialized to challenge one of this nation’s most violent presidencies. The people “who have shit to do” that you cited as your fan base, Jon Stewart, should have been out in the streets protesting and putting our 1960s radical parents to shame. But we’ve got “shit to do.” On the Internet, I suppose.
Rather than writing off Code Pink as crazies, which is unfair, Stewart would have been much more constructive if he had acknowledged that they are right to be upset with the ongoing wars that have cost so many lives, but challenged their tactics.
I agree that screaming “war criminal” at government officials isn’t a wise approach strategically and will not likely draw many new people into the peace movement. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as soon as possible.
Moreover, I was very disappointed when Stewart made the argument that most Americans are legitimately just too busy to protest. It really reminded me of the folks who think they are clever and original when they tell demonstrators to “get a real job.”
The truth of the matter is that activists are often some of the hardest working people, participating in protests and other forms of political action on top of their day jobs and family obligations, because they believe it important to speak out and challenge power when it is abused. That sentiment and the true dedication of so many activists to building a better world themselves should be held up as a model for what is necessary to have a healthy democracy, not dismissed and insulted as a waste of time.
This article was originally published on WagingNonviolence.org.
Comments
Sounds like someone is bitter about not having a real job.
And a heck of a lot of protesters just do it for sh*ts and giggles.
What media source are you watching? I take them all in, and according to the majority of the networks the tea party is a loosely-held group of people mostly on the political right (includes some left too) that feel that taxes are too high and that government has grown too large. There is no "leader" in the tea party, so how are you able to pen such unambiguous "lies" that the tea party supposedly leans on? You do realize that they are named after the Boston Tea Party- a revolt caused by England's excessive tax on colonial tea, right? Does your "Independent" news column serve anything other than to paint those you disagree with as extreme and push YOUR political agenda? This column doesn't sound independent at all.
dislike
Article fail.
how much did they raise for charity ? over half a million. you are begging for 5 bucks to keep your trash site going. taking to good with the bad of the Internet, it gives losers like you someplace to vent and act like you are something.
Yeah, massive unemployment makes people without real jobs losers, thinking its wrong to destroy an entire country that never harmed us is fanatical and everything is good in America. USA! USA!
Fucking liberals.
Huh? Were you at the rally? If you simply TALKED to the 'normal' people at the rally you would have a better idea of what the rally was about.
No, I don't mean the kids that show up to anything that looks like 'fun' and smoke up.
I'm talking about the majority of us that showed up to make the point that we exist and we won't be drowned out by the loud, obnoxious accusations made by the extremists that terrorize their own country using freedom of speech as their weapon.
We all have faults, no one is 100% perfect but why do we go as far as calling people Hitler? Why do we go as far as saying we want to burn the holy book of another religion? Why do we go as far as making up things just for shock and awe? So much for honest debates.
Over at Big Hollywood John Nolte makes a similar (albeit much angrier) point about Stewart's rally. He claims that he prefers the mess of the 24-hour news cycle because it symbolizes democracy. He also claimed that he would prefer the likes of Keith Olbermann to Stewart because Olbermann, while he vehemently despises the man, is at least honest unlike Stewart. Stewart in his opinion needs to "man up" and enter the fray. I personally think that Stewart made a cohesive point. The media does tend to award the least intelligent people if they are able to drive in viewers (Olbermann, Beck, Moore, Malkin, Alex Jones ect.). Stewart is not perfect but I think he and Colbert are a bit more median than are the loudmouths. Nolte is, in my opinion, an angry loudmouth as is Olbermann. While there is an argument for the "house divided" ideology, I think that the news media has gotten a bit too fractured, and angry. What do others think of this?
"I was very disappointed when Stewart made the argument that most Americans are legitimately just too busy to protest."
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Nothing against YOUR activism efforts, but it's a pretty sound argument that most Americans are legitimately just too busy to protest.
I agree that you (Yayaa and conan) that exposing the sensationalism and fear-mongering of the corporate media is needed, and no one does a better job than Stewart and Colbert. And in that effort, I think the rally was important and much needed.
Where I disagree with the rally was in how Jon Stewart in promoting it on his show lumped together activists on the right and left, and wrote them all off as crazy. Like I said, while I don’t agree with some of the tactics of Code Pink, for example, I do think there is more merit to their arguments than the average Tea Partier.
Also, by arguing that real Americans don’t protest because they have “shit to do,” implies that protesters are often there because they don’t have anything else to do, which I found insulting. Many activists that I know sacrifice much of their free time for their political work and sometimes their safety as well.
It's about understanding the value of activism. And while some people probably are too busy to protest, perhaps if they appreciated how getting involved politically could improve their condition they would make time for it.
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