Saturday's empty "Rally to Restore Sanity"

chris hedges...

The celebrities from Comedy Central and the trash talk show hosts on Fox are in the same business. They are entertainers. They provide the empty, emotionally laden material that propels endless chatter back and forth on supposed left- and right-wing television programs. It is a national Punch and Judy show. But don’t be fooled. It is not politics. It is entertainment. It is spectacle. All national debate on the airwaves is driven by the same empty gossip, the same absurd trivia, the same celebrity meltdowns and the same ridiculous posturing. It is presented with a different spin. But none of it is about ideas or truth. None of it is about being informed. It caters to emotions. It makes us confuse how we are made to feel with knowledge. And in the end, for those who serve up this drivel, the game is about money in the form of ratings and advertising. Beck, Colbert and Stewart all serve the same masters. And it is not us.

sitting here in buenos aires, i tuned in to the rally briefly on the c-span internet live stream and experienced an immediate, negative and very visceral reaction... the only way i can describe it is that seeing colbert and stewart on the platform at the national mall was shockingly, jarringly out of context... somehow, they just didn't belong there... it was like they had decided to combine their respective television shows and take them on location, only they weren't doing their shows, they were doing this totally contrived shtick that was neither funny nor engaging... just by watching, i somehow felt manipulated... about three minutes was all i could stand so i closed the window...

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