Stewart and Colbert Plan Competing D.C. Rallies 696
Lev13than writes "In a direct retort to Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have announced competing rallies on October 30th. Stewart plans to host a 'Rally To Restore Sanity' on Oct. 30 on the National Mall in D.C. for the Americans he says are too busy living normal, rational lives to attend other political demonstrations. Colbert, meantime, will shepherd his fans in a 'March To Keep Fear Alive.' 'Damn your reasonableness!' Colbert said. 'Now is not the time to take it down a notch. Now is the time for all good men to freak out for freedom!' Stewart, meanwhile, has promised to provide attendees with signs featuring slogans such as 'I Disagree With You But I'm Pretty Sure You're Not Hitler' and 'I'm Afraid of Spiders.'"
Re:LOLZ (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not mandated. You're free to bring your own signs, but they'll have some if you're not funny. And thank God for that, because most people are not funny. Sadly, people that aren't funny and people that think they're not funny have a very small overlap on the Venn diagram, so we'll still be forced to read some very unfunny things.
Re:Kudos (Score:5, Interesting)
Uh. Good for him?
Seriously, how is that remotely relevant to the current thread of conversation, exactly? The GP strongly implied that Stewart and Colbert only attack the right on their shows, suggesting they are partisan. I illustrated that this is clearly not the case (at least not to the extent he/she is suggesting... obviously they are left-wingers, but they certainly don't pull punches if the democrats give 'em good material to work with).
You then bring up Glenn Beck for reasons I can't really fathom... so, can you explain yourself, or are you just retreating to trolling because you lost the argument?
Re:Probrem! (Score:4, Interesting)
"Glen Beck is serious."
I wouldn't take Beck so seriously. He's a carnival huckster who's tapped into a segment of the population who don't exactly care to tow the liberal line. So what? Beck was an alcoholic morning dj for a very lone time. He then discovered "God" and success and went the Limbaugh route. If you watch him for any length of time on his show he makes incredible, "sky is falling" assertions about crazy things he reads in the news, interviews conspiracy theory cranks, and says "Now watch this..." (referring to conspiracies and strange events around the world), and the very next night is on to some other conspiracy. And it all ends up being a big nothing. Watch him, sooner or later he'll retire, and that will be it. Then you've have some new guy (or gal) come in that you'll feel you have to be careful about. Its all a big media circus nothing designed to keep you worked up. Your best defense against these types is to simply ignore them.
Re:Probrem! (Score:1, Interesting)
Actually Jon Stewart and his show are absolutely hilarious. Everyone knows it's satire, and everyone knows he has a political slant; he's a self-described progressive. He provides welcome comic relief to the often depressing and outrageous turn of events in this country. He has also ripped into the hypocrisies and inadequacies from his "own side," but obviously people are going to tend to see the machinations of the "other side" as more nefarious. If you want satire with a different slant, you may find something better elsewhere. Also, yes, Jon Stewart has waxed philosophical on his role as a modern-day court jester, willing to "speak truth to power" through humor, so you are right that it isn't just laughs without meaning or purpose.
Let's get our political opinions from entertainers (Score:4, Interesting)
What do Beck, Stewart and Colbert have in common?
They're entertainers, not political scientists.
I don't want actors writing mission critical code for our spacecraft, and by the same token, we the voters shouldn't get our opinions from people who are paid to make us laugh, not make us see truth.
If you want to know what's wrong with democracy in America, it's that a huge mass of useful idiots (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot) are voting wherever their emotional impulses lead them, at the behest of a few privileged media elites.
That's not politics, it's mob rule.
Re:Kudos (Score:0, Interesting)
No Stupid we are the middled-aged taxpayers who are working two jobs trying to keep our head above water while the likes of Rand Paul, O'Reilly, Beck, Cantor, McConnell, Bachmann and Palin keep trying to steal what little we have worked for all our lives. We find the bald faced lies that that these fools keep pushing tiresome and find that calling these a**hats an a**hat is actually humorous.
Re:Probrem! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Kudos (Score:1, Interesting)
"Batshit crazy"
That phrase sounds a bit over the top, but it turns out the latest darling of the Tea Party, Christine O'Donnel, was into witchcraft at one point:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/The-Vote/2010/0920/Latest-challenge-facing-Christine-O-Donnell-witchcraft-TV-clip [csmonitor.com]
Idiocracy is coming true right before our eyes.
Re:Kudos (Score:3, Interesting)
Funny that you believe that President Obama is moderate right.
I would put him as left but not a left wing nut.
That is the problem the left and right wingnuts seem to be screaming the loudest.
And now that our news services have become more entertainment then news they feed them.
Conflict sells. Cooperation solves.
We have too much selling and not enough solving.
Re:"Competing" like WWF (Score:3, Interesting)
how can you take either seriously?
I think you're missing something.
Re:Kudos (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Kudos (Score:4, Interesting)
b) despite a lot of promises, no conservative President has **ever** brought America smaller government anyway
This is probably the primary fact motivating the tea party. Note that the first 'victims' of tea party activism were all actually Republicans who didn't live up to the 'small government' name.
Personally I'm interested to see how the tea-party responds when they realize cutting government size means cutting programs you like. It's easy to say 'smaller government' but how serious are they about it really?
Re:Probrem! (Score:3, Interesting)
Really? Because the show I saw was levelling the same accusations at *both* sides of the American political spectrum. As an outside observer, US political discussion is laughable; it's fear-mongering soundbite after soundbite. Everything is about how terrible the other side is and how they'll sneak into your house and kill your children unless you make sure they don't get into power. There's nothing intelligent about it and the news networks simply parrot the talking points they're given by the parties' PR guys, occasionally having a pair of representatives on to shout at each other for 2 minutes by way of "debate".
Honestly, if there's one thing they need right now it's some sanity.
Re:Kudos (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally I'm interested to see how the tea-party responds when they realize cutting government size means cutting programs you like. It's easy to say 'smaller government' but how serious are they about it really?
It'll be beautiful.
Here's some quick math so you will be able to appreciate it:
The US brings in about $2,500 billion through taxes, tariffs, et cetera.
The US Federal Budget is around $3,500 billion.
Four department budgets, Defense, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, constitute around $2,500 billion of the budget. (It's a bit less, so feel free to tack on interest paid on the debt to that, I just don't have the number handy.)
This means they can cut everything, including their favorite target, the Dept of Education (at $50 bil...now see why I kept writing those zeros?), except those items, and STILL have a deficit.
Oh, and then they want to cut taxes even more.
I'd love to see ANY politician go on national television and watch them say "We're cutting Defense, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security." They'd be pilloried so fast, you'd hear sonic booms.
Re:Kudos (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, and Clinton also got us in and out of Kosovo and Bosnia without a single American soldier dying in combat. Not. One. But conservatives still hold onto the notion that Liberals are willing to callously disregard the lives of soldiers. Woo.
Re:brilliant (Score:3, Interesting)
>>>Rest assured, the majority of Americans are either going to work, or looking for work, and don't have time for panicking or freaking out like a few celeb's and their dominions. Most Americans just want a decent job and time with the family. Throw in reasonable taxes and gas prices, most everyone is happy. The freakshow on TV is a very small minority. >>>
False. Recent polls show over 60% of Americans disapprove of Obama's accomplishments.
That's as high as the disapproval was for Bush. To claim the average american is just fine-and-dandy-and-happy, is simply not true.
I think you misread what the GP was trying to say. GP was saying that IF Americans had a decent job, time with family, and reasonable taxes and gas prices, then they would be happy. I'm pretty sure that the GP was not trying to say that Americans necessarily had all of that at the time.
The point is that most Americans want a few simple things, but instead the "freakshow on TV" ends up spinning the debate into a much more extreme showdown between viewpoints that don't really match what the "silent majority" actually feel.
Re:Kudos (Score:3, Interesting)
Stewart and Colbert are pretty clearly liberals, but they are willing to criticize Democrats, liberals, and others on the left, including those they generally support. That's something that's impressed me about them; during the Clinton administration, I was quite critical of Clinton from the left, and I found the way that liberals uncritically supported Clinton, even when he was directly attacking liberals, to be quite frustrating.
i never said any of that at all (Score:3, Interesting)
thank you for the red herrings, i'm glad you like yelling at phantom bogeymen that exist in your head and not in my words. would you like actually address my point at some point?
its a simple point:
"I don't support forcing people to buy healthcare"
let me be perfectly clear:
you HAVE to buy health insurance
if you are in perfect health, but you break your arm, it is not possible for an ethical society to turn you away from treatment. therefore, you will be saddled with a large bill if you don't have insurance. a select few will be able to pay for it, but the most can't handle the bill, and simply won't pay. this is not speculation, this is reality: most people live paycheck to paycheck, and a sudden $2,000 bill from the hospital is something they can't afford
do you disagree with any of that?
because WE ALREADY HAVE universal healthcare, it is simply paid for in the most retarded wasteful way possible. simple payer means lower rates (you are insuring everyone, not just the old and sick), and you will have LESS paperwork (not a competing morass of healthcare companies trying to profit off of your sickness) and we will have financial incentives for PREVENTATIVE medicine, not emergency end-of-life medicine at huge expense. so instead of spending $10,000 to cut off peoples fingers for diabetes, we'll simply prevent people from getting diabetes
this is called COMMON SENSE. not anti-american socialist fascism
Re:Why? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's pretty sad when a show that is supposed to be dedicated comedy is considered a more trustworthy news source than CNN.
What makes it more sad, is that they are actually right to consider it more trustworthy. It's not just people believing it and wanting it to be true. They actually are more trustworthy. What does that say about the rest of our sources of "news"?
Re:Kudos (Score:3, Interesting)
He wasn't talking about conservatives, he was talking about tea partyers.
conservative and libertarian values aren't the same thing. They share similar fiscal policy ideas, but libertarian social policy is liberal.
Re:Kudos (Score:5, Interesting)
To bolster your point, Ron Paul spoke about cutting Military spending, specifically by closing foreign bases. He was immediately labeled a loon and openly mocked in the debates that he was able to force his way into. In the first Republican debate, Huckabee was talking about sending Iranian sailors to meet their 70 virgins, and Paul retorted that we shouldn't be warmongering. The moderator actually interrupted him, claimed nobody was warmongering, and cut his response time short. Then they had that putz, Frank Luntz, doing one of those focal group nonsense things, where they all unequivocally decided that Ron Paul lost the debate.
Anytime a tea-party candidate mentions cutting ANY Federal program, they are labeled bat-shit insane, no matter how pointless or useless that program has proven itself. Test scores have been consistently dropping since the creation of the Dept of Education, with ample evidence of every increasing bureaucracy, yet any mention that it might need to go the way of a certain flightless bird is met with the same reaction you'd expect from someone suggesting the public flogging of Mother Theresa.
Re:Kudos (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:let me ask you something (Score:2, Interesting)
Just FYI, we already force everyone to buy health care. We do it via Medicare/Medicaid taxes (for everyone) and by raising the price of health care for the paying consumer. I don't know if Obamacare will be cheaper or better or what, but the forcing people to buy health care is simply making the fact explicit. You and I and everyone that pays taxes or pays for their health care at all are already supporting the people that don't pay.
never become a battlefield general (Score:4, Interesting)
because your strategic thinking sucks
the government is supposed to represent the people. it doesn't: its warped by corporate influence to stack the deck in their favor. we both agree on that
then we radically part ways
you say: lets trash the government. ok, then what happens? now the corporations gleefully completely abuse you in every way you listed above, plus 50 more unseemly and degenerate ways you haven't even imagined yet that you can be abused, because YOU DESTROYED THE ONLY THING WHICH CAN STANDS BETWEEN YOU AND COMPLETE DOMINANCE BY CORPORATIONS: the government
i say: you should want to FIX the government, and have it work for you, which it what it is supposed to do and was made to do! not trash it and remove the only thing that can protect you from unhindered corporate abuse
i really don't understand people like you: you openly admit to the corporations and their financial influence being the ultimate source of the problem, but you still don't understand that the government, which is supposed to be of the people, is being corrupted to work against your interests rather than for your interests. so you should remove the corruption, right? no, you go "ok, let's finish the job and destroy the government completely so i can be completely butt raped by corporations in a world where they don't even have to pretend and work secretly by destroying my government"
wtf?!
Re:Kudos (Score:4, Interesting)
The US has a radical left, and from what I can make out, it's similar in scale to the radical left in European countries and elsewhere. However, there's not a significant social democratic left party in the US -- so the radical left has an even harder time getting a hearing in the US than elsewhere. Most people who would support a social democratic party grudgingly support the Democratic Party, a party of the center which routinely squelches its left-of-center wing. It's routinely said (I think Obama said this, for instance) that the Democrats need not pay any attention to the left, since the left will either vote Democratic or not vote at all.
The most likely candidate for a social democratic party in the US is the Green Party, which does have one thing going for it: whereas in most countries, there is a split in the left between the social democratic and green parties, there's the potential to unite both in one party in the US. However, the Green Party was rather viciously attacked in the 2004 presidential election, and while on paper the Green Party has become more coherent, in practice the Greens have been almost passive.
Re:what you just said makes no economic sense (Score:2, Interesting)
You're not listening. The law indicates that insurance companies must cover anyone, including pre-existing conditions.
Clearly this is expensive, so as an apparent bone the bill requires that everyone get insurance, as you describe.
The problem is that the fine is less than insurance would cost. So the wise consumer will not buy insurance, and will instead pay the fine. Should he get sick and need insurance, he can then just go buy it as needed.
Therefore, the ratio of healthy/sick people will go way down, and insurance companies will not be able to operate without massively hiking rates. Either they'll be prevented from doing so by law, or nobody will be able to afford it and the Democrats will come back "see, look how expensive insurance is, let's just go single payer".
In short, contrary to requiring everyone to buy insurance, this bill does _exactly_ the opposite and encourages healthy people not to get insurance, since they can just buy it in an emergency now.