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

[David Green]

Stewart's alleged grilling of Jim Cramer (Mad Money) was much over-rated, in my opinion. I don't know if humor can be used to critique the system at a fundamental level, but he certainly doesn't try. And it some level he is always ingratiating. In the "I told you so" era, I can't watch it and I don't miss it.


________________________________
From: C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>
To: Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>
Sent: Sunday, May 3, 2009 8:39:17 AM
Subject: [Peace-discuss] Putting the LOAD on The Daily Sow

["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]
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