:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::

:: 9.17.2010 ::

:: Stewart, Colbert To Hold 10/30 Rallies ::

The Atlantic
By Marc Ambinder

It's "Fear!" v. "Simmer Down." Satirists Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert will hold competing and complimentary marches on Washington just days before the November elections, breaking the fourth wall and inserting themselves directly into the political debate in a way that might influence the November elections.

Appearing on each other's shows tonight, the two men portrayed the 10/30 marches as representing the true divide in American politics: Stewart's march is for people who want to "take it down a notch for America." Colbert's march is about "freaking out for fear," he said, because there are a lot of things to fear. Although Stewart's politics are left of center, his video montage of fear-mongers included Democrats who believe that President Bush was Hitler-esque and radical leftists who believe that 9/11 was an inside job.

Stewart and Colbert have disclaimed any interest in participating in politics. But the timing, and message, are undeniably political -- and not helpful to conservatives. Audiences for both shows tend to be younger and more liberal than the older, conservative independents who watch Fox News. The events were conceived as a response of sorts to Glenn Beck's recent "Restoring Honor" rally, which drew as much as 100,000 conservatives to the Washington mall on the anniversary of Marlin Luther King's historical speech. I'd imagine that these rallies will draw counter-rallies, and that smart conservative folks will try to incorporate them in a way that helps Republicans as well.

Depending on how the media covers the run-up to these rallies, Stewart and Colbert could generate interest and enthusiasm among the type of voters who have so far been turned off by the independent conservative resurgence.

Moments after the announcements, Comedy Central posted websites. Stewart's is rallytorestoresanity.com and Colbert's is keepfearalive.com.

Stewart's web site includes this essay:

"I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

Who among us has not wanted to open their window and shout that at the top of their lungs?

Seriously, who?

Because we're looking for those people. We're looking for the people who think shouting is annoying, counterproductive, and terrible for your throat; who feel that the loudest voices shouldn't be the only ones that get heard; and who believe that the only time it's appropriate to draw a Hitler mustache on someone is when that person is actually Hitler. Or Charlie Chaplin in certain roles.

Are you one of those people? Excellent. Then we'd like you to join us in Washington, DC on October 30 -- a date of no significance whatsoever -- at the Daily Show's "Rally to Restore Sanity." Ours is a rally for the people who've been too busy to go to rallies, who actually have lives and families and jobs (or are looking for jobs) -- not so much the Silent Majority as the Busy Majority. If we had to sum up the political view of our participants in a single sentence... we couldn't. That's sort of the point.


Colbert, in his tongue-in-cheek-Fox News-y fear-mongering mode, describes his rally this way:

America, the Greatest Country God ever gave Man, was built on three bedrock principles: Freedom. Liberty. And Fear -- that someone might take our Freedom and Liberty. But now, there are dark, optimistic forces trying to take away our Fear -- forces with salt and pepper hair and way more Emmys than they need. They want to replace our Fear with reason. But never forget -- "Reason" is just one letter away from "Treason." Coincidence? Reasonable people would say it is, but America can't afford to take that chance.

A L S O

Distraction or Engagement? Researcher On What Viewers Learn from The Daily Show
Big Think

Why Jon Stewart Is a Huge Long Term Threat to Fox News
AlterNet

Fans lobby Stephen Colbert to host 'Restoring Truthiness' rally in DC to rival Glenn Beck's event
New York Daily News

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert to Hold Rallies on Washington Mall Oct. 30
CBS News

posted by me

:: 12:59:00 AM [+] ::
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:: DOCUMERICA: The World Trade Center ::

Found on Flickr:

The U.S. National Archives presents historic images of the then-newly completed World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, from May 1973.

Wil Blanche’s DOCUMERICA assignment took him to New York City and Westchester County where he took pictures of landfills, water pollution and the rapidly changing Lower Manhattan skyline. Among his photographs are images of the newly completed Twin Towers of the World Trade Center – U.S. National Archives.

posted by me

:: 11:22:00 PM [+] ::
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:: Why 9/11 is no longer a day free of politics ::

Never Forget (To Vote for Me)
Slate.com

The liberal panic of the week, now that Saturday's Quran-burning ceremony has been canceled, is the mystery-cloaked rally that Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin are holding in Anchorage tomorrow evening. "Right Wing Leaders Plan To Use September 11th Anniversary To Make Money," writes Lee Fang at ThinkProgress. "Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck Exploit 9/11 for Profit" reads a headline at Firedoglake.

Instant outrage, just add water—although unlike every other news-cycle-burner of the year, there might be some actual outrage here. Between the Palin/Beck event in Alaska, the launch of a new war-on-terror documentary (America At Risk: The War With No Name) produced by Newt Gingrich in Washington, a rally against the Park51 Community Center in New York City, and the made-for-cable idiocy in Florida, there is something new about the way the 9/11 anniversary is being played in 2010.
Until this year, America basically operated under the impression that politics stopped on Sept. 11. In 2008, Barack Obama's campaign caught some flack for promoting a fundraiser with Warren Buffett that would have been held on the 9/11 anniversary; in public, both his campaign and McCain's campaign were pulling down TV ads. They spent the anniversary attending a solemn memorial at Ground Zero, and that was it.

Two years on, that just seems quaint. In New York, Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio (yes, him) has super-glued his campaign to the spat over the construction of a Muslim community center two blocks from Ground Zero. His commercial on the topic is as subtle as a bazooka, with imagery of the smoking ruins of the World Trade Center as the background for his plea that "New Yorkers have been through enough." He's not dropping it as the holiday approaches, and he is one of many politicians holding events and fundraisers tomorrow—as if Sept. 11, 2010, were just another Saturday. If there's been a backlash, no one's noticed it.

How did we get from 9/11 as sacred day-of-no-politics to this?

Read more here.

Slate's coverage of the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

posted by me

:: 8:52:00 PM [+] ::
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