Jon Stewart interview in NYT
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/15/magazine/jon-stewart-inte...
Apologies if this is showing up already, but a very thought provoking interview. One gem on voting ‘‘Participation in this corrupt system is inherently a corrupting process.’’
and this on recent events "The police are a reflection of a society. They’re not a rogue alien organization that came down to torment the black community. They’re enforcing segregation. Segregation is legally over, but it never ended. The police are, in some respects, a border patrol, and they patrol the border between the two Americas. We have that so that the rest of us don’t have to deal with it. Then that situation erupts, and we express our shock and indignation."
I think there are more than 2 Americas, but over all a lot to think about. We've been forced into a thinking rut, a red/blue/black/white political rut, and every go around the sides of the groove get higher.
Comments
There are *way* more than 2 Americas
Here's a good starting point: http://www.colinwoodard.com/
We MUST start tackling this anything-but-linear reality, otherwise the innocent/irrelevant are still going to get screwed, the guilty are in turn going to use THAT reality to keep getting away with their crimes, and ANYONE whose existence doesn't conform to "The NarrativeTM" is going to be nullified. The more we hear about "inclusivity" and "diversity", the less there is of it.
Of course, we might want to start with decentralizing major media, and New York getting its head out of its provincial-minded ass. What's most interesting about "identity politics" are the divides nobody bothers to bring up; I've lived my whole life west of the Rio Grande, and despite my father being a native New Yorker and my own lifelong commitment to cosmopolitanism, I'm finally being forced to feel like that actually matters.
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Yes, way true
We have to find a different way of talking about it, of doing something about it.
There will be riots, and superficial change, and some politicians from the groups that were wronged, and they'll get Washingtonified and get further and further away from where they started, passing crappy show boat legislation. Everyone will think problems are being solved and the media and politicians move on to the next high profile fundraising cause. At least, that's how it's worked so far.
It would be great
To get a few more excerpts from the interview for those of us who can’t get past the pay wall. I’ve always respected Jon Stewart’s work, and when he retired, a part of me wondered if he couldn’t keep joking around about what he could instead of what he wanted to. He left before the 2016 election and there was so very much to say at that time.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Me
I use Firefox, and if you clear your cookies, it's like you are visiting the site for the first time. FireFox press ctrl + shift + delete and it takes you to a screen that can clear all or selected history. Of course that could clear everything you have a history of visiting, which may not be what you want.
I’m on my iPad
Not sure I can actually pick my browser.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
I am not sure with Apple
but I think that it's the cookies and history that tell that you've visited a site before. Also, if you open more than one browser, the new browser can detect that cookie. I'm more of a dubber at this. Maybe there are Apple people here?
Stewart:
‘‘Look, we certainly were part of that ecosystem, but I don’t think that news became entertainment because they thought our show was a success,’’ Stewart says. ‘‘Twenty-four-hour news networks are built for one thing, and that’s 9/11. There are very few events that would justify being covered 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So in the absence of urgency, they have to create it. You create urgency through conflict.’’
Again
"You know, we’re in a bizarre time of quarantine. White people lasted six weeks and then stormed a state building with rifles, shouting:‘‘Give me liberty! This is causing economic distress! I’m not going to wear a mask, because that’s tyranny!’’ That’s six weeks versus 400 years of quarantining a race of people. The policing is an issue, but it’s the least of it. We use the police as surrogates to quarantine these racial and economic inequalities so that we don’t have to deal with them."
Again
"Look, every advancement toward equality has come with the spilling of blood. Then, when that’s over, a defensiveness from the group that had been doing the oppressing. There’s always this begrudging sense that black people are being granted something, when it’s white people’s lack of being able to live up to the defining words of the birth of the country that is the problem. There’s a lack of recognition of the difference in our system."
It is a system. With our politicians, inaction, indifference, more "important" things to do are choices. We know the problems because we've seen it, over and over. And we voted d or r or whatever and we get nothing that we thought we were voting for, and a lot that we never wanted. We don't have leaders, we have placeholders for the status quo.
Jon Stewart hits the nail on the head with this one
When society sets up a system where justice is withheld and poverty is enforced, the police function much like the NKVD did in the Soviet Union: To keep control of the population that is being oppressed. The more oppressed the population becomes, the more control is exerted.
Gosh, sounds like it’s a great article, I may have to register for a “free trial” to get at it. Thanks so much for the excerpts!
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Here's a trick that may work
if you add a period after com, you can get behind a lot of paywalls.
https://www.nytimes.com./interactive/2020/06/15/magazine/jon-stewart-int...
Thank you Roy!
That did the trick. Great interview with Stewart. Always admired his way of cutting through the bullshit. Still remember his epic take down of crossfire, oh those many years ago.
Here’s a quote from the interview that I can’t imagine anyone else saying. And yet, he said it.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Does Stewart have any answers?
Enquiring minds would like to know. :-).
Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.
Mostly maybe
in the same way George Carlin had "answers", to take a different view and ask the right questions. We talk a lot here about the problems, but it always feels like the discussion is already veering off because it's pre steered by the media.
I dunno, maybe it's me. I can almost write what the pundits will say about any given story. Small amount of facts, both side spin, telling by what it leaves out.
Not you or not you alone
Not to be flippant
Stewart does a good job of defining some of the problems. Worthwhile goals are also fairly easy to come up with. We know roughly where we are, and we know roughly where we want to go. The problem is that the corporate right has spent the last 49 years (since the Powell memo in 1971) taking over positions of power and creating an infrastructure for keeping themselves in power. They carefully select politicians and judges that are friendly to them. They hire sophisticated PR firms to figure out how to get people to vote against their self interests. They create "think tanks" to give their propaganda an aura of respectability. They have taken over the media and the leadership of the Democratic Party. They are tough minded and smart. The left tries to relive the civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnam war movement over and over, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the bulk of politicians will do no more than pay lip service to their demands. The left is not smart tactically and is easily fractured. It is also self deceptive, spiking the ball at the 20 yard line. Fifty years of smart, hard work might bring us back to parity with the corporate right. The economic house of cards may collapse, in which case things can change rapidly, but things are set up now to collapse into fascism rather than egalitarian progress. Witness the police with their armored personnel carriers. There are not a lot of scenarios that result in enough progress to avoid catastrophe from climate disruption. Maybe our corporate lords and masters will realize that the current trajectory leads to catastrophe and come to some Roosevelt-like re-ordering of society.
I’d give you 100 recs for this comment if I could
Geez, I hate these people.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
The author of this article calls that
Non profit industrial complex where movs are taken over by special interests.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/black-panthers-think-black-lives-matter/
Black lives matter has been taken over by the Democratic Party where donations to it goes to democratic interests. Want to donate to BLM? You go through act blue which is a democratic fundraising site and instead of helping it your money actually goes to Joe Biden. Oops you thought you were helping blacks didn’t you? Instead your money goes to the very person who made your life miserable.
The tea party was a grassroots result from people pissed at the government bailout of the banks, but it quickly got taken over by the Koch brothers.