JON, WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?

JON, WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?

By Richard Day on Mon, 11/01/2010 - 5:40pm |

Harold Evans at the Beast discusses the stimulus package; explaining what it has accomplished.

In Evans’ mind, the stimulus worked and is working. There just were not enough stimuli.

Now this is the standard Krugman liberal approach when examining the current state of the economy.

Then he demonstrates how the GOP uses the big lie to trash any stimulus attempts.

The Big Lie is a disgrace to all who have uttered it, knowingly or unknowingly. It is worse. It is a tragedy, since if we are to have more refusal to face the effects of the stimulus, as now seems likely, life is going to get a lot more miserable for millions after one of the worst elections I’ve ever seen in many years of reporting.

We were like a man a sinking in a swamp. A good neighbor rushed along and threw us a rope. It just about stopped us sinking. But it didn’t get us out. It was too short, just as the stimulus was too small. Now along comes another man, the local preacher, telling us we are sinking because of our sins (which are many) and will yank the rope away.

The result will not be pretty.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-11-01/the-stimulus-worked-the-gops-big-lie/

Evans obviously enjoys the rustic interpretation of things. Ha

But old Harold gets to the nub of things.

I am a bit angry with Jon Stewart and so is Mr. Beinhart.

I love Jon Stewart as much as anyone else in my demographic, but the rally hit at least three wrong notes. First, ridiculing fear. Yes, of course, Fox and friends hype the threat from terrorists, illegal immigrants, Christmas haters etc. But one reason they do so successfully is that there are quite rational reasons, in America today, to be scared out of your wits. Many Americans think that the great recession is not a passing misfortune but the new normal—that they will never regain their old quality of life. And they may well be right. The specter of decline haunts much of our political debate, and while the Tea Party has built an entire narrative around the idea that America is losing its former glory, the Obama administration keeps dancing around the subject. In his closing monologue, Stewart did acknowledge that Americans have legitimate fears, but the thrust of the event was that Americans would soothe their rattled nerves if only the media and politicians stopped whipping them up. I don’t think that’s true. In the last year or so, the right has found a way of acknowledging Americans’ terror about economic decline. The left has not, and last weekend, Stewart barely tried.

Second, the fake bipartisanship. In his montage of media silliness, Stewart made a point of counterbalancing idiotic Fox clips with idiotic MSNBC ones. And in his closing monologue, he insisted—as did candidate Barack Obama in 2008—that Americans aren’t that divided after all; only our talking heads are. There’s a long history of liberals insisting that if only pundits and politicians would stop focusing on divisive “wedge” issues like guns, abortions and gays, everyone could come to a reasonable consensus about how to renovate the American welfare state. That’s what some of Obama’s campaign rhetoric implied, and Stewart’s monologue followed in that vein. But by now we all should have learned that Americans are deeply divided over whether to have a functioning welfare state at all. It was only when Obama realized that the Congressional Republicans would not support any serious effort at covering the uninsured—once he stopped trying to be bipartisan—that he got anywhere…

Finally, the focus on “sanity.” Talk about condescending. The Tea Party types who believe that expanding government undermines their freedom are not insane. They’re tapping into a deeply-rooted American fear of government power, one that would be immediately recognizable to Calvin Coolidge or Strom Thurmond. And in the process, they’re conjuring, once again, the myth that America was born free, and surrenders a smidgen of liberty every time Washington imposes another tax or establishes another government agency.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-11-01/jon-stewart-rally-shows-how-the-left-blew-it/?cid=topic:featured3

Frankly I do not ‘love’ Jon Stewart anymore. During this rally, Stewart did what he has done on his comedy show. He poses the argument that somehow:

Rush Limbaugh = Keith Olbermann

Beckerhead = Ed Shultz

He even made the insane argument that Chris Matthews somehow equals Sean Hannity.

Now I usually—down to once a month these days—will do a blog on rush’s latest racist fascistic rants. You just go to Mediamatters.com first and then hit a few other blog sites and the list is anywhere from 20-50 items representing his worst.

So if Olbermann calls rush a liar, that is the same thing?

Matthews who is far to the right of my philosophy, has taken to putting together short essays at the end of his show demonstrating that beckerhead is a threat to truth, justice and the American Way. Is Matthews really out of line when he states the obvious?

Ed Shultz will flat out call Palin or O’Donnell or Angle liars. He simply replays a video or an advertisement or the script from a radio interview and shows these morns lying their asses off.

Ed will scream bloody murder about how the right wing media distorts the truth in an attempt to get their agenda implemented.

Jon Stewart is attempting to look ‘clean’, free of all bias.

Now Stewart has shown himself to be a master demonstrating how Cheney for instance, lied continually for eight years…about everything.

Brian Williams was reportedly angry at his staff when Stewart scooped him by presenting video proof of Cheney’s lies.

And look at what has transpired over the past two years.

Boehner and McConnell have publicly stated that they do not wish to compromise with Reid or Pelosi or Obama. Ever.

And the RNC has run a campaign where its front runners continually scream that there will be no compromise once they are elected. They have promised to compromise on no issue whatsoever.

Just looking at this one tactic of the repubs are we to say that there are two sides to the story?

One side says it will never compromise.

The other led by our President has attempted to compromise on every single issue coming down the pike; much to the chagrin of the left. Whole sections of the health care legislation contain demands of repubs, repubs who refused to vote for the damn thing.