[Peace-discuss] Putting the LOAD on The Daily Sow

[C. G. Estabrook]

["The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and the associated "Colbert Report" seem to 
be the way many undergraduates and other cognoscenti hear the news.  (One AWARE 
member suggested that we move "AWARE on the Air" from its 10pm Tuesdays slot 
because it conflicted with those programs.)  Here the writer Dennis Perrin -- 
his "Savage Mules: The Democrats and Endless War" was published by Verso last 
year -- points out how the limits of allowable debate are applied to The Daily 
Show ("TDS"). --CGE]


...When Kilborn left to engage Conan O'Brien in late night, Jon Stewart took 
over, ensuring that TDS would become the mainstream darling it remains today. 
Nothing against Stewart, who does a fine if sometimes frenzied job behind the 
desk. But before TDS, Stewart was not known as a satirist, certainly not in a 
Krassner/Crimmins/Whitney Brown way. Then again, had he been as cutting as those 
three, Stewart would never have been given the TDS gig in the first place. 
Stewart's popularity, especially among white liberals, ensures that he'll remain 
pretty much in the same spot -- so long as the ratings hold, and Comedy Central 
doesn't lose significant ad revenue.

At best, Jon Stewart serves as a corporate release valve, letting off 
permissible steam when the American machine overheats. This is pretty much what 
"satire" has been reduced to. The Realist, Terry Southern, and the original 
Lampoon have never been deader.

Also, most American comics are deeply apolitical; and those who riff on "current 
events" usually operate well within shared assumptions about politics, history, 
and US power. Which is why Stewart's recent comment about Harry Truman stood out.

Responding to Cliff "Torture can be good" May's point that if Bush is a war 
criminal, then Truman's nuking of Hiroshima must have been an even worse crime, 
given the comparable damage, and Stewart's outrage at Bush (which Stewart bases 
on the fantasy notion that the Bush gang undermined basic American "values," a 
popular liberal talking point that'll never die). Amazingly, Stewart agreed that 
yes, Truman was a war criminal, though Stewart would've preferred a 
demonstration explosion near Japan before moving to the human ash/melted flesh 
phase.

Domestic reactionaries went predictably nuts. They may be in the electoral 
minority for now, but they know red meat when when they smell it. And nothing 
sets them off like a "media elite liberal" like Stewart besmirching our nation's 
fine name and God-fearing reputation. While there have been serious debates 
about Truman's use of nuclear terror, countless Americans of varied views still 
think that Truman did the right thing, for reasons that run from the 
million-American-dead-through-land-invasion argument, to the simple, more 
pleasing position that the US can do whatever it wants, especially in war, and 
that the idea that America commits war crimes is insane if not treasonous.

Up to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and after, US planes firebombed numerous Japanese 
cities, unleashing mass murder on the civilian population, something that had 
the Tokyo trials after the war been at all impartial, would decidedly rank with 
imperial Japan's monstrous conduct in Asia. But war crimes trials are never 
impartial and serve to justify and excuse crimes committed by those powers 
conducting the trials. Stewart could've added the reason why there was an Asian 
war in the first place, hostilities that began well before Pearl Harbor. Hell, 
he could've mentioned Truman's war crimes in Korea, killing millions.

Instead, Stewart did what well-regarded mainstream entertainers do when 
expressing an unpopular opinion. He groveled for forgiveness.

"The other night we had on Cliff May. He was on, we were discussing torture, 
back and forth, very spirited discussion, very enjoyable. And I may have 
mentioned during the discussion we were having that Harry Truman was a war 
criminal. And right after saying it, I thought to myself that was dumb. And it 
was dumb. Stupid in fact. So I shouldn't have said that, and I did. So I say 
right now, no, I don't believe that to be the case. The atomic bomb, a very 
complicated decision in the context of a horrific war, and I walk that back 
because it was in my estimation a stupid thing to say. Which, by the way, as it 
was coming out of your mouth, you ever do that, where you're saying something, 
and as it's coming out you're like, 'What the f**k, nyah?' And it just sat in 
there for a couple of days, just sitting going, 'No, no, he wasn't, and you 
should really say that out loud on the show.' So I am, right now, and, man, ew. 
Sorry. And, Warren G. Harding was a [bleeped, unintelligible]."

When an American "satirist" apologizes for stating the truth, you can really 
appreciate "free expression" in a corporate-owned culture. Still, I enjoy 
Stewart, despite his pathetic ass-covering. Besides, he has to keep TDS anchor 
chair clean and warm for when Seth Meyers replaces him. It's all about 
continuity, baby.

http://dennisperrin.blogspot.com/2009/05/just-kidding-ltd.html

[Cf. Noam Chomsky: "If the Nuremberg laws were applied today, then every 
Post-War American president would have to be hanged." Of course, although the 
Holocaust is cried up frequently for propaganda purposes, we don't tell the 
children about the Nuremberg principles -- and certainly don't suggest that 
might apply to Americans.  --CGE]