Jon Stewart hosts anti-Tea Party rally in Washington

Comments

[Cleethorpes Rock]

Some of my American friends went to this and it looked like a lot of fun. I wouldn't take it too seriously; even Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert treated it as a bit of fun and not a serious political event.

It's not really just an anti-Tea Party rally, but something designed to lampoon extremes on both sides. Jon Stewart pointed out how people on both sides carry the most crazy banners, references to Hitler and Stalin. You'd get a good idea if you saw the launch of the rally on the Daily Show. The feeling was that the debate on both sides was getting ridiculously extreme, but I suppose we'll get a load of Tea Party Die-hards reading lots into it.

[Bedd Gelert]

I don't think it is fair to label this 'anti-tea-party'. His point in referencing to traffic going into the tunnel under the river was that we all have more in common than we have separating us. And that the media hysteria is far too shrill. And that mocking anyone with 'Hitler' posters and moustaches is surely a bad thing.

Why are Con Home so anti Jon Stewart ?? Most of 'centre ground' American views are pretty congruent with the policies of the Con-Dem coalition, so I never understand why Obama is seen as a 'lefty' - his views are very different from that of Gordon Brown.

Judge for yourself at the Huffington Post - hardly unbiased as they hired buses to take people there - but I'm sure you are intelligent enough to make up your own minds. And the posters there were mainly of a light-hearted and gently satirical variety, which is surely something the blogosphere would approve of ?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/30/rally-for-sanity-video-live-jon-stewart_n_776433.html

[dougf]

"The feeling was that the debate on both sides was getting ridiculously extreme.." C.B.
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So you're saying that this was just an even-handed, 'pox on both your houses', rally of the centre, type thingy ? And 'sanity' never has any bias.

OK , then. So it falls into the same category as the BBC being 'balanced' and understanding of all viewpoints then. It's not just diehard Tea Party types that might see this somewhat differently, but each to his own I suppose.

Say speaking of Hitler Signs as you were, let's go to the tape as they say --- http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/

[Bedd Gelert]

dougf - well we may have to agree to differ, but at the risk of falling into the trap listed at the end of this article, here is a different, and balancing view..

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/30/AR2010103004147.html

[Matt Woods]

doug f- When Jon Stewart launched the rally to restore sanity last month, he showed posters of Bush as Hitler and remarked how ridiculous it was. He even produced his own placard with a slogan along the lines of "I disagree with you, but I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler."

This rally was a bit of lighthearted fun aimed at the vast majority of Americans who have a pretty cynical attitude to politics and just want the extremists on both sides to "take it down a notch, America".

[dougf]

"dougf - well we may have to agree to differ, but at the risk of falling into the trap listed at the end of this article, here is a different, and balancing view.." Bedd G.
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Actually I read that article and unless I missed something it was not at all a contradiction to my posting. In fact I found it to be a complete confirmation of it. To wit ----

"Jon Stewart can pretend all he wants that the point of his big rally Saturday was just for chuckles, or just to encourage a more reasonable, substantive and civil tone in American politics. The reality is that his own audience on the Mall had an additional agenda, and it was decidedly partisan and decidedly liberal."

That's why a lot of us don't like Stewart or his clone Colbert. They are NOT at all 'centrist'. They are partisans hiding behind clown noses when that is convenient. I agree completely with 'turning down the volume' in public debate. Completely. I just have SERIOUS issues with tendentious people flying the false flag of above the fray reasonableness. And I am also increasingly having issues with 'irony' as a vehicle of moving thought forward. I think that in heavy continual doses it tends to kill the patient rather than cure him/her by inculcating a culture of absolute cynicism. But that's probably just me.

[Matthew Reynolds]

I would had I been President Obama been a bit smarter with stimulus. I would have scrapped federal personal income tax & corporate income taxes entirely for two years meaning a bigger stimulus worth in excess of $2 trillion in FY 2009-10 & 2010-11.That would have caused an explosion in investment as all that money that US corporations have overseas could be brought back and invested in economic expansion.The trouble is that that money will not be returning for investing as US taxation is too high & too complex.If people had to pay no federal income tax for two years then they would spend lots more money and that would help rescue the suffering US retail sector as well as helping people pay off of debt too.This would have flushed out the Republicans as Obama could have set up a Tax Reform Commission composed of moderates from both Parties and pointed out that federal income taxes on personal incomes & corporations will be returning in FY 2011-12.The President could have said that he wanted a long-term reform to produce a simpler,fairer,pro-growth tax system that was supported by both sides for the sake of economic stability.In so doing he could have been bipartisan and won votes by governing in a way designed to served to benefit everyone.It would have been a coup to deprive the GOP OF the hot issue of taxation by exposing their lack of ideas for long-term reform.So in the short-term he could have won by unleashing a tidal wave of investment & consumer spending and could have won in the longer-term by offering the GOP to simplify taxes by more than Reagan did.

[dg]

Logic and reason = Marxism? Pull the other one Jon Stewart!

[Bedd Gelert]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/31/andrew-mitchell-ghana-cocoa-armajaro

[Simon]

What a sea of white faces! Such racism!