The current political climate kinda reminds me of another time in American history...
""The politicians of the 1850s were acting in a society in which the traditional restraints that suppressed sectional conflict in the 1820s and 1850s " the most important of which being the stability of the two-party system " were being eroded as this rapid extension of mass democracy went forward in the North and South. It was an era when the mass political party galvanized voter participation to an unprecedented degree, and a time in which politics formed an essential component of American mass culture. Historians agree that political involvement was a larger concern to the average American in the 1850s than today. Politics was, in one of its functions, a form of mass entertainment, a spectacle with rallies, parades, and colorful personalities. Leading politicians, moreover, often served as a focus for popular interests, aspirations, and values.""
Of course, what ended the good times in the 1850's was the collapse of the Two party system. Believe or not, a Third Party has won an election in the United States. That party is now known as the GOP, or the Republican Party. Of course, the politics were so paralysed by the 1860 election, that those on the losing end of things were ready to believe the absolute worst about the victor.
Jon Stewart Isn't Funny Any More
Back in 2002 Jon Stewart was pretty darn funny. Heck, if it was a choice between laughing or crying -- I'd rather laugh. And Stewart was mad as hell -- and willing to poke his finger in the eye of the administration. Slowly, I found that he was the only voice I could manage to include in my daily news diet.
I'm beginning to wonder if this Is this really a Democracy any longer?
I've taken to listening to people on the Subway. Around me, as I ride to work, people talk about their children, about their jobs, about their love lives. The chit-chat about the day and the weather and life... mostly mundane things that make up daily life.
No one talks about the war. There's no talk about the economy, or the national debt, or the environment, or the number of soldiers who are dying around the world.
If a tree falls in the forest...
Now Jon Stewart seems exhausted. It's like he knows its no longer a laughing matter. Heck, for all his hard work to lampoon, expose, and humiliate the Bush Administration, it seems to make them stronger. The bigger the lie, the harder it is to truly believe its a lie. Bush wouldn't actually be trying to bankrupt the country... could he? Bush isn't actually trying to make the war so big, so inevitable that the Democrats won't have a way to wind it down. Could he really be that fatalistic in his vision of the future. Clearly, its not funny.
We're not talking about what's happening.
Today Frank Rich reminded me of what has been eating at me most. That in some way I've given up. I've stopped going to protest marches (do they have those any more?). I've stopped calling my congressman. I've stopped thinking that supporting a political candidate can make real change. I've resigned myself to the fact that I don't have the ability to make a difference, or change political tides, or have my voice heard.
I wasn't always this way.
At first, I thought that the Bush administration was engaging in a political coup. That the neo-con's would be seen for what they are, that the war profiteers and oil barons would be arrested, jailed, convicted. Stopped. But then 2004 happened. The passion, drive, anger and hope that fueled the election resulted in a strange ratification of the Bush Administration. You can accept any theory you want, that Kerry was a bad candidate, that there was voter fraud, that the media didn't do it's job as a watchdog, but -- as Jim Loftus, Kerry's Head Press wrangler, said in the gloom of the post election fallout -- "The Universe Hardly Cares."
Ugh. Right he was.
Now, 2006 arrives to set things right. And with great joy and feeling of accomplishment the Democrats win back both the House and the Senate. With great anticipation, i look forward to the righting of our democracy. The prosecution of those who knowingly lied to congress, who mis-led the UN, who pocketed billions of dollars in war proceeds as young men and woman died.
And so Frank Rich.
Wow. He called me a Nazi. Or a Nazi sympathizer. Or at least a Good German who shrugs his shoulders as if to say: "heck, i didn't vote for the guy."
I'm stung by the accusation. As a Jewish American the charge is deeply painful. Does that make Jon Stewart the court Jester? And what about the democrats?
With an election on the horizon (ok, its more than a year away -- but in my current political state of mind, I'm willing to believe that's right around the corner).
My deep sense of foreboding about the health of our Democracy reached a new low two weeks ago as I watched the Democratic Debate at Dartmouth from a hotel room in San Diego. One by one the Democrats acknowledged that the war had no end, that even in the abstract they couldn't imagine a timeline to end our misadventures in Iraq. Sure, not every Democrat said that. But the leaders of the pack, Edwards, Obama, and Clinton all did. We're staying. That's for sure.
So -- on November 5th, when I've gone to the polls and voted for Hillary (probably) and she announces a blue ribbon panel to begin to consider how we can begin to draw down troops over the next 6 years... and at the same time continue to pay blood money to mercenaries (oh, sorry -- 'contractors') who have some strange 077 license to kill... how will I look myself in the mirror.
My party will have the House, the Senate, and the White House. We'll have the political trifecta. And we won't be getting any further out of Iraq than we are now.
What will I say to Frank then?
And -- perhaps worst of all -- what will Jon Stewart have to laugh about?
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I understand the frustration of these past 6 years. But I know what the answer is. This country needs a leader (not a politician) to rise up out of the ranks and lead us into action against the Administration (impeachment) and the rest of the politicians (form a third party).
I think that we are all coiled and ready to spring but not sure of what to do. However if that leader appears we will all do our part to end this outrage now.
The only other possibility is that about 30 or 40,000 of us show up at the White House and throw the bum out. Anybody?
Hi HI moorfam from maddy03. Call me or email me and I shall happily assist in throwing the bum out. Can we remove Dick, too? Just a thought.
Oh, and Jon Stewart IS funny.
Steve, it's not about Jon Stewart being funny.
It's about you having lost your sense of humor.
Rush Limbaugh found plenty to talk about between 2000 and 2006, when Republicants had control over everything... sadly, he's still around... but Stewart will find plenty to talk about, I am sure...
Jon Stewart is wonderful and brilliant, and
HE DOES NOT MAKE BUSH and his thugs LOOK
STRONGER - HE SHOWS THEM FOR WHAT THEY REALLY
ARE - WAR CRIMINALS, COWARDS AND THE WORSE
ADMINSTRATION IN HISTORY!
I agree...nuff said. You go THISTLE.
I can see John's frustration lately, but nonetheless, love his angle and schtick.
hmmm
Colbert/Stewart 08?
Perhaps you can divest yourself of partisan favorship this one election and just vote for someone that isn't beholden to special interests, IS the champion of the constitution, and vote for Ron Paul.
former Dem for Ron Paul
What's the deal with people making Jon Stewart the whipping boy for every change in the political wind. Just as Republicans can't make war into peace by repeating it a thousand times a day, pundits can't make Jon Stewart not funny. We've read that only twentysomethings like Stewart, only Jews like Stewart, only potheads like Stewart. Which is to say, pundits fear and envy Jon Stewart. The rest of us, of all ages and walks of life, know he's brilliant.
The number of jokes, puns, innuendos, satires, parodies and lampoons of an emperor without clothes (Dubya) is limited.
What else can be said about Dubya in a comical context that hasn't been said before? Commentaries on new speeches and new gaffes perhaps but most are looking forward to January 20, 2009 more than November 4, 2008.
All this weeping and gnashing of teeth. Are we really just the bleeding heart liberals the right wingers accuse us of being? Who cares whether Jon Stewart can still be funny (he will be). Instead of wringing your hands and feeling sorry for America, go out and do something: make a contribution to a worthy green group or antiwar candidate, explain to a grocery bagger how putting one item per bag is bad for the environment, better yet - get some reusable grocery bags, write a guest column or letter to the editor, sell your car and buy a hibrid, write your congressperson, change out your light bulbs, start riding a bike to work, find little ways to fight corporate hegemony and the war machine.
WAY TO LAY IT OUT KUULRAY!
...thats what I'm talking about.
but, keep John Stewart, we need folks like this to neutralize FOX.
I think "funny" does not capture what Stewart, Colbert, but really anything subversive (Family Guy, South Park come to my mind) mean these days: They are sometimes the only manifestation for me that I am not alone in my fears that this country and the world is going to hell. They are signs of life, of other people feeling the same way. They are like oxygen.
Germans have a nice word "Galgenhumor," literally "the humor of the gallows." That's what Stewart does.
It's bad right now. Real bad. But this country--in contrast to Germany in the 1930s--has this great radical tradition, a language that the fascists can't take away.
Maybe this country will recover. But it will take a long time.
Maybe you should leave the cellar and take a trip around this wondrous country. Catch the happy people joking with each other in grocery lines, cops smiling at minor traffic boo boos, shiny and clean SUVs with shiny and clean kids riding in back seat restraints, filled stores, restaurants, sport arenas, manicured lawns around well looked after homes, re born cities with reclamation projects, resign your Moveonmoron membership, filled parking lots at churches, airplanes constantly taking off and landing, life-beautiful-life. Then turn on Stewart to see an awkward routine based upon smirking, eyes rolling and mocking, to cover a total lack of spontaniety talent.
The country's OK, with major problems yes, but filled with otherwise serious talented people intent of doing good. Try joining them, out of that dark cellar away from the dark dwelling democrats.
If the democrats are dark cellar dwellers are the republicans bats in the attic?
Good one Mad......brevity is the sole (yes, sole) of wit.
Works for me...
Ignorance is truly bliss then, huh?
Cause it's definitely smug and condescending though seriously misguided and intentionally obtuse.
Damn, wish I woulda added "comfortable."
YOu should get out of your upper middleclass neighborhood once in a while and see what the country is really going through. Debt is not the same thing as prosperity. Seriously, this is why we need Jon Stewart more than ever - the right wing keeps telling suckers that a little more credit will make life worth living. What a sad, shallow existence you must lead. Reality will inevitably catch up with you, though. It's only a matter of time.
Wooaahhh there insideout: I earned my upper, debt free existence built upon, of course, debt. But I prefer calling it -- LOAN -- INVESTING -- because of a good credit rating. And yes, dammit, reality caught up with me -- on the golf course.
Seriously, I know a little of what you speak. The country does have large problems, caused by us, as the politicians and unions gave us what we wanted. Time to hitch up the pants with the rest of the good people wanting to do the right thing, and be positive. Good luck to ya.
"Try joining them, out of that dark cellar away from the dark dwelling democrats."
what does that mean? are you saying that democrats in general are somehow 'dark dwelling'? Or are you referring to some subset of dems?
when the "joke" is more truth than the "fact", the humor is lost............we are there now.
after all of these years, we are numb to facts.
we are outraged-out.........i got nothin'
its gonna be a long haul to 1/20/09...........
and with no hope coming from any of the candidates for the job..........even hillary..........well there is not a whole lot to look forward too......
most of us do not have the wherewithall(is that all one word or...) anyway we can't just
pack up and move..........we are stuck here to
survive or not........at the whim of the corporatists, the money handlers,the power
mad and the greedy...........this must have been what the romans felt like right before the fall.........
that moment when they realized that "hey, this isn't the way it was spose to go.....the folks said if we just worked hard, and applied ourselves... got that training....were kind....
From the professorial tightrope, with your indulgence.
Seven deadly sins:
wrath
avarice
sloth
pride
lechery
envy
gluttony
Seven virtues:
prudence
fortitude
justice
temperance
faith
hope
love
Yeah, hypocrisy fills the air. But I recommend fortitude as a possible remedy. And justice may yet prevail, now that Alberto's spending more time with his family. W's run of luck has been unbelievable, but it can't last, I hope.
Never surrender.
If you are right Steve and I am not saying you are wrong then it is a sign that the forces of darkness and greed and hypocrisy have won..
The world in which these forces believe is gray dull and humorless as well as sexless...
The masses are to carry their misery on their sleeve it is required by there dark lords that those who have so much less are aware of how little they have and suffer..
What good is it for the elite to have so much more if they average individual with so much less is happy when these elite swine are in themselves miserable as greed is a disease and they will never have enough be is Dick Cheney or David Rockefeller their greed and thirst for more can never be quenched or satisfied..
So they must create misery in others and inflict suffering for them be feel that they have not wasted their short lives in the pursuit and service of greed..
To rob us or our comedians of humor is for them important, they are humorless and can't dance or keep a beat so they need to steal even those tender mercies from the rest of humanity
John is just showing his humanity he's one of us not them..
I call it "outrage fatigue."
Maybe this misplaced outrage should be directed toward the Democratic Party, especially our elected Democrats in Washington. That's where I'm placing it. And only yesterday, I signed a new Voter Registration form, changing my life-long party affiliation to Independent! That is my "PROTEST" to these "WIMPS" who do nothing while "ROME BURNS!" As to protest marches, I read somewhere last week, that this is our new form of "protest march." Our blogging on the internet, and our signing of petitions, (all of which I do continuously), is our "netroot" community's way of protesting. So, speak for yourself, sir. There is plenty of OUTRAGE on these boards! And this outrage is appropriately placed on the right people, and NOT on Jon Stewart, who is one of the funniest comedians I know!
Jon Stewart made a comment a few years ago that revealed how fatalistic he really is for all his biting satire. He commented that he thought the best satirists in modern history lived in Berlin in the 1930s. Then he said "And they sure showed Hitler, didn't they?"
We're all exhausted. Jon Stewart, an entertainer for gosh sakes, should not have to be the only source of "news content" in the media (yet studies have shown that his program has more serious content than the network news broadcasts). People on the subway should have something to say about the war, the economy, or the national debt. That they do not is hardly surprising in a nation where an entertainer is the source of hard news and the MSM is flacking for the real Nazi's in thw administration. Frank Rich is right, people don't care. The Democratic opposition is not so much clueless as bought and paid for by the same industrial complex that runs the Bush administration. So, democracy is dead and I ain't feeling too good myself. But it may just be bad enough that a third way can be found and a new political party can create a new coalition out of the exhausted majority that can rescue the nation from politics as usual. That hope still lives.
Well, I have experienced many of the same sentiments you write here, and somehow in my despair and anger for the Democrats, I watch Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, and other dem's I admire and try to simply stay hopeful....I have turned completely GREEN, though. Sorry Dem's, all of this do nothingness has JADED me a bit...
Then welcome to the wonderful world of Rudy
Won't be any worse than the wonderful world of Hillary, just more honest.
Steve makes some troubling points. It has become more difficult to be effective, and also more difficult to be cheerful. If any of the front runner Dems wins next year we will still have more of the same in Washington. All that will change is that Rush, Sean, Matt and Ann will put on their "away" uniforms and pretend it is 1999 again. I am not even sure the Dems can win next year unless we figure out how to sink the swift boat juggernaut.
This week we lost a million votes over the NASCAR smear, a thinly veiled lie that Dems are all snobs who hate real Americans. It worked. We lost. Period. It was not even close. Dems get blasted to hell even when the charges are false. Unless we figure out how to fight, we will continue to live the bad dream in which the sleeper fights the enemy without a weapon that works, or the Godfather scene, with liberals coming out of the bathroom with only our dicks in our hands.
All I can ask is that you don't give up. I also notice the difference between Jon Stewart's having been "funny" back then and "entertaining" now. And though we still need his entertainment to give us some light in this dark world, it's nonetheless hard to not give up. I don't give up because I see us as fighting for the sake of history. We won't win in the present, but if we continue our struggle, we will hopefully win the future, when, ideally someday, our country and world will have regained its sanity. That's why I continue the struggle.
Excellent words. So, tell me, how do you continue the struggle? What struggle are you referring to? I really,really want to know. I have contacted congressmen and women, signed petitions, sent money, debated on this blog and others, tried to educate my family and friends who seem to be living in a haze, handed out copies of the Constitution on Constitution Day, posted statistics on the death rate in Iraq on my office door. I even stop talking to my brother who STILL supports bush.
Repeatedly, on this blog and others, I have suggested that we begin boycotting cable TV until bushie is impeached. Imagine if 50% of americans cut off their cable and said they would only reconnect once bush was impeached. Not once has anyone even commented on the idea. Maybe it wouldn't make a difference but I bet it would get someone's attention. But, not even that simple sacrifice would be tried.
Tell me how to struggle.
Exactly. And, what isthe use in struggling if everyone is stuck in an either/or mentality. It's either GOP or Dem. They're both obviously rotten to the core.
Here's one thing that may help those of us who feel the same way.
Let's remember the awesome story of the founding of this country. How incredible, fantastic and inspiring are the events of the Revolutionary War and the writing of the Constitution. What profound concepts and what courage and what a leap of faith! This is the essence of America, and it is as good as it comes.
Our history is the irrefutable weapon against the authoritarians and bigots. Bush/Cheney/Limbaugh/Hannity are phony Americans-Philistines for those of a biblical bent. For example, this is not a Christian country-the history is undisputable. Washington, Jefferson, et al, saw the totalitarianism of the Puritans and rejected it. To cross the separation of church/state is patently un-American.
The power of this dark moment is the realization that our history empowers us to transcend it. Our first step is realize that this where the counter-argument starts-a moral argument of the highest order, supported by the most fundamentally American icons possible.
our founding fathers were rich white people, surrounded by indentured servants that were brought here, sometimes forcefully, to serve and take over this land from the natives.
they helped fight the british, too, and were heavily armed when the "democracy" was formed.
don't fool yourself. we live in a republic.
read:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Democracy_America/Democratic_Facade.html
Posted October 14, 2007 | 01:42 PM (EST)