RepublicanDirtyTricks
John Stewart's Penchant for False Left/Right Equivalency Conflates Passion with Propaganda
It’s a tragedy that two comedy programs, the Daily Show and The Colbert Report, are the closest thing today that America has to a 4th estate. That being said, as much as I appreciate the good work bit Stewart and Colbert do, I couldn’t help but be struck that the only thing the “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” really represented was the thought that if you are passionate about ANYTHING, you must be a radical.
Stewart’s penchant for pushing the FALSE left/right equivalency meme is a distortion of American politics – for all the joking - is no laughing matter.
Stewart earlier called the rally a "Million Moderate March." Glenn Greenwald wrote, “to counter what he called a minority of 15 or 20 % of the country that has dominated the national political discussion with extreme rhetoric.
He tarred both parties with that charge, mentioning both the attacks on the right against President Obama for being everything from a socialist to un-American and on the left against former President Bush for being a war criminal.”
But what if the inconvenient truth is that President Obama is NOT a Socialist (or un-American for that matter) whereas former President Bush IS a WAR CRIMINAL?
Stewart correlating a right-wing lie with something the majority of the world knows to be true makes the equivalency not just FALSE but dangerous - and plays into the hands of the powerful entities infesting the halls of power who have a vested interest in keeping the American People wedded to these distortions so as to allow the well-connected criminals to continue to walk free.
The main offender in the rally was the montage of images from the media that intercut images of Fox News/Glenn Beck, etc… with MSNBC/Olbermann/Schultz.
This may be Stewart’s way of appealing and appeasing right-wingers so they don’t feel as if they are entirely attacked by HIS rhetoric, but that tactic is self-serving, not engaged in with altruistic intentions for America.
The fact is, right wing policies ARE deserving of blame!
Just look at the last 100 years to see the fruits of their labors. Right wing policies serve only to create a wide economic gap between the people and the elite whom the Republican Party represent.
To report the truth about the Republican-sponsored decline of the middle class with PASSION is not the same as lying to the middle class to get them to support their own demise.
Conflating Olbermann’s or Shultz’s passion with Glenn Beck’s demagoguery does a disservice to the American People.
Sorry, Stewart. Exposing the right wing class war is NOT the same as right-wingers LYING, whipping up fear and appealing to the worst aspects of the human condition. It's JUST NOT. Keith Olbermann is NOT Glenn Beck just as Alan Grayson (another lefty who made an appearance in Stewart’s montage) IS NOT some nut who is crazy because he said, "Republicans want you to die quickly."
If you put Grayson's statement IN CONTEXT, you will see that Grayson was making a POINT about the lack of action and obstructionist tactics Republicans employ to ensure that Americans CONTINUE to DIE and go bankrupt when they get sick. That kind of unconscionable system CALLS FOR STRONG LANGUAGE. This is the reality facing the American People today and it's about time people stand up with a spine against the powerful forces of the big moneyed interests turning the government "into an appendage of their own affairs", as FDR said.
The IRONY is that Grayson is on the FRONT LINES displaying the courage Stewart constantly MOCKS Democrats for not having! Being a PASSIONATE lefty IS NOT the same as being a lying corporate shill trying to DECEIVE people into supporting the party turning the middle class into compliant serfs.
If FDR were alive today, perhaps we could ask him about the effectiveness of politely pleading with Economic Royalists to play nice with the Plebs... pretty please... with sugar on it... please be nice and let us have our middle class again.
Perhaps Stewart would have been offended at FDR when he took the Economic Royalist elite to the metaphorical woodshed and implemented the New Deal policies that CREATED the Middle Class - and stood up to their inflammatory rhetoric calling him Socialist, Communist, anti-American, by plainly and PASSIONATLY telling the America People what they were up against.
"We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace--business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me--and I WELCOME THEIR HATRED!"
Such strong LANGUAGE! Couldn't he have "toned it down?" Perhaps Stewart could intercut this speech with some of the Republican attacks on FDR in which they called him as Communist… you know… to be a good moderate… and by doing so, give the veneer of legitimacy to arguments that are made up of whole cloth.
I hope the rally serves it’s purpose and gets young people out to vote. Tragically, I believe that it has done damage to the truth…. Which as we know… has a well-documented liberal bias.
John Stewart's Penchant for False Left/Right Equivalency Conflates Passion with Propaganda
It’s a tragedy that two comedy programs, the Daily Show and The Colbert Report, are the closest thing today that America has to a 4th estate. That being said, as much as I appreciate the good work bit Stewart and Colbert do, I couldn’t help but be struck that the only thing the “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” really represented was the thought that if you are passionate about ANYTHING, you must be a radical.
Stewart’s penchant for pushing the FALSE left/right equivalency meme is a distortion of American politics – for all the joking - is no laughing matter.
Stewart earlier called the rally a "Million Moderate March." Glenn Greenwald wrote, “to counter what he called a minority of 15 or 20 % of the country that has dominated the national political discussion with extreme rhetoric.
He tarred both parties with that charge, mentioning both the attacks on the right against President Obama for being everything from a socialist to un-American and on the left against former President Bush for being a war criminal.”
But what if the inconvenient truth is that President Obama is NOT a Socialist (or un-American for that matter) whereas former President Bush IS a WAR CRIMINAL?
Stewart correlating a right-wing lie with something the majority of the world knows to be true makes the equivalency not just FALSE but dangerous - and plays into the hands of the powerful entities infesting the halls of power who have a vested interest in keeping the American People wedded to these distortions so as to allow the well-connected criminals to continue to walk free.
The main offender in the rally was the montage of images from the media that intercut images of Fox News/Glenn Beck, etc… with MSNBC/Olbermann/Schultz.
This may be Stewart’s way of appealing and appeasing right-wingers so they don’t feel as if they are entirely attacked by HIS rhetoric, but that tactic is self-serving, not engaged in with altruistic intentions for America.
The fact is, right wing policies ARE deserving of blame!
Just look at the last 100 years to see the fruits of their labors. Right wing policies serve only to create a wide economic gap between the people and the elite whom the Republican Party represent.
To report the truth about the Republican-sponsored decline of the middle class with PASSION is not the same as lying to the middle class to get them to support their own demise.
Conflating Olbermann’s or Shultz’s passion with Glenn Beck’s demagoguery does a disservice to the American People.
Sorry, Stewart. Exposing the right wing class war is NOT the same as right-wingers LYING, whipping up fear and appealing to the worst aspects of the human condition. It's JUST NOT. Keith Olbermann is NOT Glenn Beck just as Alan Grayson (another lefty who made an appearance in Stewart’s montage) IS NOT some nut who is crazy because he said, "Republicans want you to die quickly."
If you put Grayson's statement IN CONTEXT, you will see that Grayson was making a POINT about the lack of action and obstructionist tactics Republicans employ to ensure that Americans CONTINUE to DIE and go bankrupt when they get sick. That kind of unconscionable system CALLS FOR STRONG LANGUAGE. This is the reality facing the American People today and it's about time people stand up with a spine against the powerful forces of the big moneyed interests turning the government "into an appendage of their own affairs", as FDR said.
The IRONY is that Grayson is on the FRONT LINES displaying the courage Stewart constantly MOCKS Democrats for not having! Being a PASSIONATE lefty IS NOT the same as being a lying corporate shill trying to DECEIVE people into supporting the party turning the middle class into compliant serfs.
If FDR were alive today, perhaps we could ask him about the effectiveness of politely pleading with Economic Royalists to play nice with the Plebs... pretty please... with sugar on it... please be nice and let us have our middle class again.
Perhaps Stewart would have been offended at FDR when he took the Economic Royalist elite to the metaphorical woodshed and implemented the New Deal policies that CREATED the Middle Class - and stood up to their inflammatory rhetoric calling him Socialist, Communist, anti-American, by plainly and PASSIONATLY telling the America People what they were up against.
"We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace--business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me--and I WELCOME THEIR HATRED!"
Such strong LANGUAGE! Couldn't he have "toned it down?" Perhaps Stewart could intercut this speech with some of the Republican attacks on FDR in which they called him as Communist… you know… to be a good moderate… and by doing so, give the veneer of legitimacy to arguments that are made up of whole cloth.
I hope the rally serves it’s purpose and gets young people out to vote. Tragically, I believe that it has done damage to the truth…. Which as we know… has a well-documented liberal bias.