Re: Colbert’s Moment of Truth

Harangues are never “funny” for the victims. Further, given that crowd’s vile and callous sense of humour, -boorishing braying at last years’ Bush skit about looking for WMDs in his office, its appraisal is irrelevant. What was “funny” was the bitter irony steeped in the blood and impoverishment of the American people, of the abysmal degeneration of the Administration into war and torture and the political cowardice that enabled it. But for Colbert, it blooms and holds hostage the tongues of many who know better, in our Senate, in our media, and in our churches. Political fear is its name. Martin Luther King once quoted the Rabbi of Berlin who, in relation to the horrors of Nazi Germany during his time, said that even those terrible things paled in terms of shame and disgust to those who stood mute. “A great people which had created a great civilization had become a nation of silent onlookers. They remained silent in the face of hate, in the face of brutality, and in the face of mass murder.”

Stephen Colbert is our Chinese man with a briefcase in Tienamen Square who blocked that line of People’s Army tanks.  He was that brave.  Maybe moreso. 

He was Horatio at the bridge, the Spartans at Thermopylae, Perot in ‘92 edging Bush I out of the White House, Ray McGovern calling out Rumsfeld’s criminality (today), William Sloane Coffin and others pouring their own blood on America’s nuclear missiles and Selective Service draft records, Rachel Corrie in front of the Caterpillar bulldozer but with a different destiny, and Brian Willson in front of that munitions train in California but with a different destiny. 

Thank you, Stephen. Thank you one and all.

Speaking of a very lame press corps - why isn’t anyone bashing Cheney for starting up the Cold War today in Russia?  Even Gorby has come back to say how insulted they feel.  Imagine lecturing them on human rights issues?  Turns Dr. Evil was trying to please his base back here at home. Way to go dick, we need to have the ruskies hate us too.

The American Fourth Estate’s miffed, humourless reaction to Colbert’s schtick is further evidence that it has bottomed out in the dumbing down department. 

They and their “audience” are dumber than their dictator.

Hat’s off to Mr. Colbert.  But it is so pathetic that this TV comedian is the only intelligent, widely distributed reality spigot to the great unwashed and our “betters”; and this comes so very late in the game.  Way too late for me.

About twenty five years ago, when I was studying the “Pentagon Papers” and other documented depravities in Indo-China, and simultaneously observing Reagan/Bush and the Shining City on a Hill destroy Central America—which lies to the north of me now—I, and others, thought I was a cynical young man.  But a few years ago I finally realized that it is not possible to underestimate the stupidity of America’s rulers, it’s cultural managers, and all those who take them seriously.  Nor is it possible to underestimate their cynicism.  I am absolutely certain that almost everyone I knew in Texas—and many I knew in California—are capable of this hypothetical act:  to sit in front of their TV sets, eating popcorn, and watch some really kick-ass explosions (shock and awe in Latin American anyone?) to slaughter people I see on the street every day, and not lose a wink of sleep that night.  I know this could happen because I lived there and saw friends and family do just that.  But now I live in “collateral damage is acceptable” land.  And I can no longer maintain relations with such people.

Who’s cynical?

I sometimes try to pity my fellow decent, respectful, and sentient Americans.  They will suffer in the years to come.  But they slept through it all—9 out of 10 favoured the doomed attempted theft of Iraq— believing that Americans were innately “good” just because they were Americans. 

Now they will pay and I can only watch with dry eyes while I think of the white phosphorus and napalm used on all those Vietnamese and Fallujans.  I will also think of that “thousands of depleted-uranium bullet casings per dead insurgent” statistic.  (I read a rumour, I say, just a rumor, that US ground troops are so low on bullets that they are being supplied by Israel these days.)

It is not funny.  I really pisses me off.  I knew this would happen. For 27 years I lived with W’s voting base:  good christian, know nothing, belligerent, “kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out” Texans; then I fled for more liberal vistas, only to find San Franciscans telling me to rub stones on my belly to ward off evil spirits and negative energy.  A few years of that and I began to want to opt-out.

Giving ‘W’ the keys to the Supreme Court and the Pentagon was the last straw.  That’s why I disowned every American I knew—excepting three or four “lucky” people— immediately after the 2000 coup.  That’s why never want to go back.  That’s why I call them “losers”.  It’s been along time since Americans have shamed me.  That shame grows dimmer with every mile and year between us.  Now I only feel that anger when I watch CNN or BBC, read US and UK newspapers, and look at these blogs.  I vent on a blog, then I’m ok for awhile.  I’m really trying to cut down.  My goal is to feel nothing when the sh!t hits the fan.  And it will hit the fan.

To some of you: good luck.  To most:  bem feito.

I love you all.....but I love Stephen Colbert more!!! Goddamn was he good.......What a pleasure to watch these good for nothings have their faces pushed into their own shit for a while. It’s one of the rare moments in the last few years I’ve been proud to be an American!

Just managed to find the Corbert video of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner online (via Salon). Great! Love all these posts too. I have an “IMPEACH BUSH” bumper sticker on my Insight - for about 2 months now. Most folks pay no attention (or act as such). I have gotten one very excited thumbs up from a woman with Idaho plates though. Guessing she was thrilled to see it - what with Idaho being a pretty staunchly Repub. state. I suggest all of us who did like the Corbert spanking to also get an IMPEACH BUSH bumper sticker (and be proud to display it). It is as good a time as any and Bush really deserves impeachment.

television means that lots of so-called reporters get jobs because they’re photogenic—it’s central casting but it entails the overriding importance of the teleprompter—tony snow, for instance, wouldn’t be able to function without a script: he used to write scripts himself but his superiors gave him the theme & the bullets—americans feed on canned news & controlled views

the mainstream media is a mess. it has been too long. they need to change their ways.

colbert is painfully aware of this. he seized the opportunity to call them hypocrites. congratulations to him for all the he is and all that he stands for.

A great article to balance the one of Richard Cohen in the Wash.Post who should really look in the back of his mind to see if there is anyone there.

BRAVO Stephen Colbert!

Rude enough to speak the truth.

Thank you.  I’m so tired of people misusing the term “truthiness” for this.  There wasn’t a drop of truthiness to Colbert’s amazing display of transcendent patriotism at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.  It was bald TRUTH, and it soothed my aching heart to hear it at last.

I love the irony. The fake journalist reveals the truth while the real journalists can’t be bothered with things like facts. Colbert is a true hero. It’s too bad lazy journalists only stop being lazy when they become the subject.

The Washington press has been increasingly brain dead since the proliferation of TV News (no reporting) and journalism schools (factories producing public relations cheerleaders).  It is totally interwoven with government, take Snow, Fox News has said, on air, he can return after working their.  Ironically, food critics and medical journalists can’t return to reporting after they have been paid chefs and drug company pr people.  The media is the sickest at the top. Ironically, the National Enquirer actually digs up dirt on its targets.  Enquirer reporters would do a much better job in Washington DC.

On TV, Stephen Colbert pretends to be an amalgam (essentially) of Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Joe Scarborough . . . take your pick. Like all great parodies, it is only the slightest exaggeration, almost imperceptibly slight, against the reality of what such an amalgam would actually look like.

What all of these commentators purport to stand for is, as Colbert highlighted in his performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner, is the simple, common sense “gut-truthiness” of their insights as opposed to the complex, fact-based “head-truthiness” of the “elites” . . . a truthiness that they portray as a kind of deception.

The political and social phenomenon that has made this distinction between “gut-truthiness” and “head-truthiness” (and therefore the careers of people like O’Reilly, Hannity, Scarborough, et al.) possible is described really well in Thomas Frank’s book “What’s the Matter with Kansas.” The phenomenon is essentially this: People have been persuaded that to care about the complexity of a situation (political, social, economic, etc.) is to lose touch with ones fundamental humanity. Therefore the shortcoming of being under-informed is reversed and elevated into to the virtue of being under-distracted-by-facts from the genuine “reality” you know in your heart and don’t need to have proven to you.

Although not explicitly a religious phenomenon, it taps insidiously (and therefore brilliantly) into the uncomplicated religiosity of so much of American culture. Americans, in a sense, have a much easier time than most people with the concept of faith and “trusting their instincts.”

Colbert, incidentally, is I believe a committed Catholic, a fact that is interesting because of the re-reversal that informed his remarks at the Correspondents Dinner. By exposing and lampooning the lies and excesses of “gut-truthiness,” Colbert has done what no one has done in a long time . . . that is, he reclaimed (for a moment) the pride you can have in knowing a kind of truth you don’t have to buttress with faith or instinct.

He illustrated, in fact, that the mechanics of “gut truthiness” is not the “simple truth” Americans seem to want, but—with its complicated back-end of spin, manipulation, intimidation of opponents and so on—is, in fact, more complex and therefore further from “authenticity” than even the most arcane “head truthiness.”

I’m not going to over-emphasize the impact of this performance. It will be forgotten quickly and its impact will be microscopic. But, for a moment anyway, Colbert showed there is a path out of the wilderness when it comes to aligning Americans’ love of simplicity with a love of the truth . . . and, by the way, that path is fucking hilarious.

I am one who didn’t find Steve Colbert funny on the Daily Show or on his own Colbert Show. I rarely watch either, actually. But I salute him for both his artistry and his courage for taking on - in the same room - both the President and his company of sniveling stenographers who pass for journalists in Washington, (if not the entire country). It’s a rare moment when both become a captive audience to truth telling; in view of the fact that we have been a captive audience to lies and deception for six years, Colbert’s performance at Saturday’s White House correspondents’ dinner in Washington is a moment to be cherished.

Please take note all of you non-americans! The majority of us not only agree with Stephen Colbert, we were hopelessly waiting for somebody in the press to do what he did.

We are all sorry that we did not stop this man from a 2nd term. (he stole the first, and well with voting machines with no paper trails, probably the 2nd)

Want to feel patriotic?  Here’s what you do.  Watch Colbert’s “roast” and then watch Pink’s “Dear Mr. President.” You’ll remember what it’s like to be proud to be an American.

Imagine.  There are people out there who are offended by Colbert’s comprehensive exposition of the myriad sins and failings of this president, this administration, and the “professional journalists” who cover them.  Yet those same people think nothing of their president saying he believes he has the responsibility to enforce only those laws he judges to be constitutional (even the ones he signs into law). 

One would think that true American patriots would be revulsed when their president urinates on the Constitution before their very eyes.  One would think true American patriots would be horified to learn that their president evidently skipped the part of eight grade where we learned about Madison’s brilliant construction of constitutional checks and balances.  Where are the “strict constructionists,” anyway?  Why are they not not offended that our self-annointed president-king regards the constitution as a list of suggestions - informal guidelines - but indignant that Colbert reminded us of that fact?

We all owe Stephen Colbert an immmense debt of gratitude for showing the courage that most of the White House correspondents evidently exchanged for their paychecks.

For the first time since George W Bush took office he had to listen to the voice of the tens of millions of Americans whose views and opinions he as ignored.  Stephen Colbert is a true American hero.  He is brilliant.

Stephen really succeeded (with flying colours) in putting the chimp down. It is truly amazing to watch the press play Bush’s lapdog (or bitch if you will) even as he tries to cut off their rights and freedom. Kudos to Colbert for giving the best spanking yet to that dangerous idiot…

FROM INDIA…
MOHIT