“Them,” in this case being the media. I’m not about to start recommending Jon Stewart as a balanced news source, but he has definitely put his finger on some things, and often comedy gets closer to the truth than anything else in our political system. And while I disagree with Ron Paul on a number of issues (generally social issues), he’s got some good points that deserve to be heard.
Sometimes one finds more truth in comedy than in the regular medai.
Of course, if you think about it, we, the American people, would thus be our own worst enemy. And regarding the 77% who think our leaders behaved like spoiled brats, how many do you suppose would have behaved like spoiled brats themselves if their representative made a “hard decision” they didn’t like.
A very funny clip from The Daily Show:
I would normally have a serious problem with comparing the two situations, with Wall Street execs paid by private organizations while teachers are paid by the state, but the waters are muddied by the bailout. Under normal circumstances, I’d support people getting whatever pay is determined by the market.
But what the market determined was that some major financial firms ought to fail. There’s a caveat in that one as well. What role did ineffective or even harmful regulation have on that situation.
But all these caveats ruin the humor.
While personally I think Obama got caught uttering a truth, or at least something he actually believes, I personally record it as a negative, because as president he needs to control his tongue. It doesn’t change the fact that I will vote for him. It’s just that in a very disciplined campaign, it’s disappointing.
If he wanted to utter the actual truth, I think it would be that some people fall back on parts of their faith as a justification for existing bigotry. Faith doesn’t justify bigotry, it gets co-opted by bigotry. The partial truth results in a generalization that will certainly be false, which is again a problem. We try to distinguish moderate Muslims from radical Muslims; we need to also distinguish ignorant bigots from ordinary, hardworking people.
But what Jon Stewart did about this on The Daily Show was more fun, and also showed Hillary Clinton as the suddenly faith-filled, spiritual, gun-toting gal that is wants to be perceived as.
