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"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it."
- Noam Chomsky
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...
Jon Stewart's comedy news show The Daily Show is reportedly under fire from pro-Israeli groups for giving airtime to two pro-Palestinian figures on Wednesday night.
Stewart hosted Palestinian democracy activist Mustafa Barghouti and human rights activist Anna Baltzer, author of A Witness in Palestine, who explained the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the perspective of the Palestinian side.
According to a letter reportedly written by Baltzer and circulated by blogger Eric Johnson, the show "was overwhelmed with angry emails and phone calls prior to the appearance, and up until the last minute it seemed like they might cancel."
"During the taping the show had its only heckler in 11 years," Baltzer wrote. "The entire staff were very nervous and may come to regret the monumental decision (and not make it again) as they will surely be inundated now that the show has aired."
how about freedom of discussion...? how about freedom to debate major issues openly...? and how about a comedian tackling one of the most repressed topics in the world...? yay, jon stewart...
i've now passed through dubai almost a dozen times over the past year and probably spent half that many nights in dubai hotels... in no way do i claim that makes me an expert on dubai... at best, i'm a casual, but still a reasonably intelligent and perceptive observer... however, i've found that the article that is very briefly excerpted below to be an accurate reflection of my own assessment...
i strongly recommend reading the whole thing here...
[Dubai] is a city built from nothing in just a few wild decades on credit and ecocide, suppression and slavery. Dubai is a living metal metaphor for the neo-liberal globalised world that may be crashing -- at last -- into history.
my own snarky description of dubai has always been "las vegas without a sense of humor," and then i heard jon stewart's description: "dubai is the bastard child of las vegas and saudi arabia"... i think jon and i are on the same wavelength...
Reporters on Bush: "His rhetoric is exhausted" and he's "going through the motions"
seein' as to how bush has never been particularly interested in doing the REAL work of being president, being much happier to talk smack, show off, bully people, and strut, i'm surprised it's taken this long for the press corps to lose interest...
When White House press secretary Dana Perino appeared on “The Daily Show” last week, host Jon Stewart asked how she got the day off: “Did they not need press secretarying today?”
These days, with President Bush largely relegated to the sidelines rather than the headlines, it’s not surprising that Perino can knock off early.
Fewer than half the seats were filled in the White House briefing room that Thursday afternoon, when deputy press secretary Tony Fratto was even asked at one point if an upcoming economic speech by Bush would provide anything newsworthy.
“No,” Fratto replied, “you shouldn't look for new major announcements tomorrow.” Some laughter and grumbling followed among the press corps.
here are the money quotes...
“You can’t attribute it all to the presidential campaign,” said Julie Mason, White House correspondent for the Houston Chronicle. “[Bush’s] rhetoric is so exhausted. He rarely makes any news. It’s rarely worth anyone’s time to cover him like we used to.”
[...]
[Television analyst Andrew Tyndall] said that he felt it wasn’t so much the media disdaining the White House so much as Bush is now “going through the motions.”
my impression is that bush has been giving the same speech since he first took office, and it sounded "exhausted" even then... after it became obvious that a serious number of his brain cells were either dying or committing suicide, i have been incapable of understanding why anyone would pay any attention to him at all...
i've posted this youtube clip before, but it's time to trot it back out... the question now is the same question we've been asking for the past seven-plus years... what is wrong with this man...?
Hmmmm... I'm trying to connect "shock and awe" with sex
anybody care to help me out...?
Former Rumsfeld colleague Dr. Harlan Ullman, the US military analyst who devised the concept of "shock and awe," is apparently ready to testify he had sex with a woman from DC Madam Jean Palfrey's "Pamela Martin and Associates."
it seems to me the possibilities here are too rich to even contemplate... if jon stewart passes THIS by, he will forever after be diminished in my eyes...
i don't often laugh out loud, but this got me going...
jon stewart on paul wolfowitz' attorney. robert bennett...
Robert Bennett who represented Bill Clinton in the Lewinsky case, and is the brother of Bill Bennett, former drug czar under George H.W. Bush, father of President George W. Bush, who appointed Wolfowitz to run the World Bank, and this is the giant bed they all sleep in.
"On April 16,2007, you appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and discussed the leak of [former covert CIA Agent Valerie Plame] Wilson's identity," Waxman (D-CA) wrote to Andrew Card, the former White House Chief of Staff. "[White House Counsel Fred] Fielding's position appears to be that it is appropriate for you to discuss these matters on The Daily Show, but not before a congressional committee. You will not be surprised to learn that I take a different view of this matter."
ouch... inescapable logic, imho...
Card served as Bush's chief of staff from the President's inauguration until April 2006. In March, Waxman sought "an on-the-record interview regarding the disclosure of Ms. Wilson's covert identity and the White House procedures for handling classified information," with Card.
But the White House Counsel rejected the request because "former senior White House officials such as the Chief of Staff to the President have historically not been available to Congress to testify, or to be interviewed, about their activities in serving the President," according to the Congressman's letter.
why, oh why, oh why-o, can't we put these criminals occupying the white house out on the street - or, better yet, in jail where they belong...?
McCain has also won support from Alexander Haig and George Shultz, who served as secretaries of state under former president Ronald Reagan, and Lawrence Eagleburger, who was secretary of state under ex-president George H.W. Bush, father of the current president.
he IS in deep, deep trouble... as a presidential candidate, when people start laughing at you, you know you're cooked... however, this also reveals just how the entrenched, war-loving, power structure is wedded to somebody like mccain...
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