Stewart and Colbert Plan Competing D.C. Rallies

Lev13than writes "In a direct retort to Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have announced competing rallies on October 30th. Stewart plans to host a 'Rally To Restore Sanity' on Oct. 30 on the National Mall in D.C. for the Americans he says are too busy living normal, rational lives to attend other political demonstrations. Colbert, meantime, will shepherd his fans in a 'March To Keep Fear Alive.' 'Damn your reasonableness!' Colbert said. 'Now is not the time to take it down a notch. Now is the time for all good men to freak out for freedom!' Stewart, meanwhile, has promised to provide attendees with signs featuring slogans such as 'I Disagree With You But I'm Pretty Sure You're Not Hitler' and 'I'm Afraid of Spiders.'"

Comments

Kudos

[Veggiesama]

Kudos to you, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

You make my world seem slightly less irrational with each and every day.

Re:Kudos

[Veggiesama]

Also, Rally to Restore Sanity

Also, Keep Fear Alive

Also, I love you, Jon (with one H).

Re:Kudos

[Abcd1234]

Instead of spending an hour joking about Sarah Palin and Rand Paul. How about Henry Waxman, Nancy Pelosi or Obama?

Yeah, you're right... they never lampoon those guys... ::rollseyes::

Hell, this rally has been specifically billed as non-partisan, with their message directed at anyone and everyone who would shriek and yell, frighten and intimidate in order to achieve their agenda, whether they be in the media or a politician, left-wing or right.

Re:Kudos

[jbeach]

Clearly from your statements, you disagree with Jon Stewart and Colbert's politics. Which is your privilege. However it does seem clear to me that's what's driving you.

But this statement is pretty ridiculous:

"Their audience aren't concerned about things like big government because most of them pay no taxes. "
Got any demographics for that assumption?

But let's say that's true. Do you know how *hard* this economy is hitting those just out of high school, or college? Do you think the younger *want* to have a hard future? This is possibly the worst job market in decades. If they thought Big Government was the problem, they'd be all about getting Small Government to happen.

The people you are talking about may just have a better understanding of a) actual economics and b) history than you do - they know that:

a) government can and should step in to help American citizens in a time of economic crisis, when banks and corporations won't and
b) despite a lot of promises, no conservative President has **ever** brought America smaller government anyway

But you know, that's just a bunch of facts-y, head-y stuff. Go with your gut.

Re:Kudos

[Ephemeriis]

I do wonder how much acclaim and praise these two would get if they were constantly poking fun at the other side. Instead of spending an hour joking about Sarah Palin and Rand Paul. How about Henry Waxman, Nancy Pelosi or Obama? Do you think there might be some rich material there?

If you did watch the shows more often, you'd be aware of the fact that they're both equal opportunity offenders.

They routinely poke fun at both sides.

Try audience replacing his studio audience with middle aged tax payers or people working two jobs to pay their mortgage and see how funny they are!

I'm middle aged. I pay taxes. My wife is disabled, so I work a crapton of hours to pay my mortgage (and my kid's tuition, and my wife's healthcare).

I think they're both hilarious.

Re:Kudos

[Dragonslicer]

My point is, the audiences of these shows are mostly young liberal and uninformed

Yes, yes, and demonstrably false. When polls were done a couple years ago, people that watched The Daily Show were more politically informed than people that got their news primarily from other cable channels. People who don't understand what Stewart and Colbert are making fun of probably won't find them funny and won't watch their shows.

Re:Kudos

[boxwood]

Lately Stewart has been spending more and more time attacking Obama and democrats for not doing anything.

Colbert satirizes right wing talk shows, but many times he makes better arguments that the real conservative talk shows and gets a laugh while doing it.

Yeah when someone like Glean Beck says something completely stupid they mock him. Their primary goal is to get laughs, not be "fair and balanced" (as is such a thing exists).

If you watch these shows as closely as I do you'll notice that for the most part they're trying to get laughs, but there's a few moments here and there where they try to get a serious message across. Lately that message has been the democrats are incompetent and the republicans are being bullied by batshit insane teabaggers, neither option is very good.

This rally is an appeal to conservatives to start providing a real, sane, conservative opposition to the democrats. Even though these shows are liberal at heart, they know that if the opposition to the democrats is incompetent, then the democrats have no incentive to be anything other than incompetent themselves.

Saying that the democrats are socialist-nazis and obama is a secret muslim isn't going to change anything. Burning Korans isn't going to change anything. Be reasonable. Be sane. People might listen to your ideas and agree with you. When that happens you'll get representation. When you have representation you'll have real opposition to the democrats.

Re:Kudos

[Volante3192]

And for good measure they mock CNN for not being anything other than a retweet factory.

Re:Kudos

[Anonymous Coward]

It is funny that you talk about being sane and reasonable while apparently you think that the conservatives are all about calling Obama socialist-nazi and burning Korans.

If a republican didnt come out in support of these two activities in the past few months, they probably lost their primary to some crazy anti-masturbation homeless witch lady. You need to deal with the reality of the current situation in your preffered political party instead of attacking people who would comment honestly on it.

These people dominate the discourse, in fact this is kind of what the entire rally is all about. The rosy vision of intellectual conservatives that you hold in your head does not match up with teabaggers and the ideas they are pushing or the vile, racist brutes most of us see when we dare click on any comment section for a news item that is vaguely political. If you actually had a point, then the rally would likely not even exist in the first place.

brilliant

[circletimessquare]

when you see the vicious, fear-addled, hysterical fearmongering and demagoguery going on in the usa, you can easily grow despondent and depressed about the future of this country

and then you see that the antidote to this vile sleaze, the ray of sunshine, is simple humor, and irony, and sarcasm

the antidote to the poisons of the lowest basest emotions and motivations from the human character are the fruits of the higher faculties, and simple cheerfulness and confidence

if the drek you see being assembled into herds of mindlessly angry propagandized partisan sheep on the far right depresses you, do not give up heart, nor give up hope: just give a good laugh, and smile, and beat the zombie horde back into the dustbin of history where they belong

Re:Probrem!

[Tom]

but JS and SC are doing the EXACT same thing they're bitching about Glen Beck doing...

Comedy often is about doing the exact same thing - just in a context or with a small twist that reveals how ridiculous it is.

Re:Probrem!

[bsDaemon]

No, they're not. John Stewart and Steven Colbert are satirizing Glen Beck. Glen Beck is serious. That's the difference. The point of this type of satire is to draw attention to the absurdity of the thing/person/event being made fun of by imitating its form and taking the ridiculous characteristics ad absurdam.

Re:Probrem!

[UnknowingFool]

I disagree with you but I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler

PEW Research Study

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

In 2009 the PEW research study asked individuals where they got their news then 23 factual questions about US politics and wold affairs. Below is the list of news sources, correlated with percentage of correct answers:

1. Major Newspaper web sites 54%
2. Colbert Report 54%
3. Daily Show 54%
4. Jim Lehrer News Hour 53%
5. National Public Radio 51%
6. OReilly Factor 51%
7. Rush Limbaugh 50%
8. News Magazines 48%
9. TV News Web Sites 44%
10. Local Daily Newspapers 43%
11. CNN 41%
12. Google News 41%
13. Yahoo News 41%
14. Network Evening News 38%
15. Online Blogs 37%
16. Local TV News 35%
17. Fox News 35%
18. Network Morning Shows 34%

From this can we pretty definitively site that the fans of The Daily Show and the Colbert Report are more likely to be knowledgeable about what's going on in the world than Glen Beck;s rally attendees?

Re:Probrem!

[Rary]

They weren't protesting the war, they were protesting the president under the guise of protesting the war. Now that their guy is in office, code pink is all but gone and where is Cyndi Sheehan? How come she isn't camping out in front of Obama's vacation houses?

Are you referring to the Cindy Sheehan who protested at Martha's Vineyard when Obama was staying there in August of 2009? The same Cindy Sheehan who was arrested last October while protesting Obama's continuation of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan outside the White House? The very same person who went to Norway to protest Obama's receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize, and who was arrested again this past March outside the White House?

Yeah, you're right. It's all about Bush, and has nothing to do with the war.

Re:"Competing" like WWF

[fermion]

If we are going to be pedantic, the tea party movement and the general republican party are funded by the same people. Corporations like Koch industries fund both. Any competitions between the two are a dog and pony show. It is becoming unfashionable to be employed and intelligent, so the tea party is there to put nude models, unemployed carrer politicians, and sex deviants so that people can relate to their officials. I mean look at the half term governor who everyone loves. She allows us to live vicariously through her. Most can't afford to shop at neiman marcus, or wouldn't put the unwed daughter on TV, but we can live through her and hope that one day someone will reward us for our jackass like behavior.

And it would be nice to know some rational Tea Part leaders. It is those that want to cut taxes, without a plan to fund the war and protect our citizens. Or is the one's that want to ban sharia law, but are happy to continue to force free enterprise to shut down on sundays. Is it those that waste tax payers money to see a birth certificate that is already on line, Or those that want to ban Mosques, but allow christian to gloat next to the centennial olympic park. Or perhaps it is palin and her death panels.

Honestly, if the Tea Party would official expel Palin and Beck, most of my problems with them would evaporate. Most everyone else are mostly rational.

no very familiar with american history huh?

[circletimessquare]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkertons

The Pinkerton National Detective Agency, usually shortened to the Pinkertons, was a private U.S. security guard and detective agency established by Allan Pinkerton in 1850. Pinkerton became famous when he claimed to have foiled a plot to assassinate president-elect Abraham Lincoln, who later hired Pinkerton agents for his personal security during the Civil War.[citation needed] Pinkerton's agents performed services ranging from security guarding to private military contracting work. At its height, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency employed more agents than there were members of the standing army of the United States of America, causing the state of Ohio to outlaw the agency due to fears it could be hired as a private army or militia.[citation needed] Pinkerton was the largest private law enforcement organization in the world at the height of its power.[1]

blackwater anyone?

i'm not a paranoid, but corporations have a lot of money, that can buy a lot of influence, and that's something reasonable to fear, because it is very genuinely pointed against the rights and desires of the general public. do you know what it took to win a 40 hour workweek in this country? vacations? outlaw indentured servitude? outlaw child labor? safe work conditions? these are not jokes, these were all about corporations who would be very happy we be uneducated machines without rights existing only to make them profit. just look at china, the suicides at foxconn

and there are people who actively argue against government regulation of industry? they call themselves libertarians, they champion the rights of individuals, but the real world effect of their agenda is to merely unleash corporatism

corporatism!=capitalism. i am NOT attacking capitalism. in fact, in all of economic history, socialism and communism are not the greatest enemies of capitalism, monopolies and oligopolies are: corporatism. the greatest enemy of small struggling businesses in this country are not government taxes or socialist healthcare: it is large entrenched businesses who don't want the competition and rig the market to work for them. it is perhaps the greatest trick of corporate propaganda that capitalism and corporatism has been conflated as the same thing in some minds, and socialism demonified as the enemy (because it might mean a corporation somewhere has to spend more on the well-being of their workers), when the truth is socialism is merely a few social safety nets, and corporatism sucks the life out of marketplaces and genuinely free and fair capitalist competition

the freedoms and rights of corporations!=the freedoms and rights of individuals. except in all the speechifying and demonizing going on in the political right in this country about immigrants, the poor, homosexuals, etc., NO ONE TALKS ABOUT THE THREATS TO LIBERTY AND FREEDOM FROM CORPORATIONS

why is that?

i don't hate the right, i think some forces from the right, like religious organizations, have, in the past, spoken out and fought against corporatism, out of concern for the welfare of the people. but so many on the right i think are just duped into not seeing the real enemy of the american people: corporations that will ship your job to china and india in the name of the bottom line, and yet claim the mantle of patriotism

corporations, hands down, are the greatest threat to the well-being of our democracy with their financial influence, and i really wish i saw more voices on the right see this to be the truth of the matter, and stop with the scapegoats and willfully know nothing simpleminded appeals to the government being the enemy, when there is an obvious puppeteer behind the government pulling the strings in their favor

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion