by Scott Creighton
This weekend we have been discussing the growing probability of the site Revolution Muslim being a front operation created to foster resentment toward the Muslim community in general. We have addressed the fact that Jon Stewart should have known better or at least done a little research before running with his “Go Fuck Yourselves!” segment targeting what he call the “”radical Muslims” who threatened the creators of South Park. If he had done that he would have found out that the threat was more implied than anything else and that the police commissioner of New York had already stated that no crime was committed. He would have also figured out pretty easily that this group in particular has a rather suspicious background, all the “Muslims” being converts, at least one of them possibly being associated with the CIA, and one of them was actually a orthodox rabbinical student who lived for a time as a settler in the West Bank.
With just a little research Jon Stewart would probably have come to the conclusion that a more accurate name for Revolution Muslim would be “PsyOp Muslim”. And what’s up with all the neocon criminals from the Bush administration going on Jon’s show to yukitup and sell their books? Shouldn’t these liars and war criminals be in jail or at least blacklisted on “progressives” shows rather than being allowed a forum to remake their images and sell their worthless-drivel, ghost-written books?
But in my earlier articles, I missed one of the biggest flaws in Jon Stewart’s little diatribe… one of the most glaring flaws in his propaganda. You see, most of Stewart’s show focused on old clips they ran showing how they abuse other religions and no-one had threatened them with death. The implication is clear… and it is the same implication you see in many media outlets all across the country… and that is that it is ONLY the “radical Muslims” who are so religiously intolerant as to threaten people who would dare insult their faith.
That claim, or the implication of that claim, is so completely dishonest, I can’t even begin to apologise enough for not having picked up on it sooner. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry….
But thank God (pun intended) for real journalists out there… the few that remain… who didn’t….
The various forms of religious-based, intimidation-driven censorship and taboo ideas in the U.S. — what Douthat claims are non-existent except when it involves Muslims — are too numerous to chronicle. One has to be deeply ignorant, deeply dishonest or consumed with petulant self-victimization and anti-Muslim bigotry to pretend they don’t exist. I opt (primarily) for the latter explanation in Douthat’s case.
As Balloon-Juice’s DougJ notes, everyone from Phil Donahue and Ashliegh Banfield to Bill Maher and Sinead O’Connor can tell you about that first-hand. As can the cable television news reporters who were banned by their corporate executives from running stories that reflected negatively on Bush and the war. When he was Mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani was fixated on using the power of his office to censor art that offended his Catholic sensibilities. The Bush administration banned mainstream Muslim scholars even from entering the U.S. to teach. The Dixie Chicks were deluged with death threats for daring to criticize the Leader, forcing them to apologize out of fear for their lives. Campaigns to deny tenure to academicians, or appointments to politicial officials, who deviate from Israel orthodoxy are common and effective. Responding to religious outrage, a Congressional investigation was formally launched and huge fines issued all because Janet Jackson’s breast was displayed for a couple of seconds on television.
All that’s to say nothing of the endless examples of religious-motivated violence by Christian and Jewish extremists designed to intimidate and suppress ideas offensive to their religious dogma (I’m also pretty sure the people doing this and this are not Muslim). And, contrary to Douthat’s misleading suggestion, hate speech laws have been used for censorious purposes far beyond punishing speech offensive to Muslims — including, for instance, by Christian groups invoking such laws to demand the banning of plays they dislike. Glenn Greenwald
I don’t think he mentions the violent reactions to Piss Christ or The Last temptation of Christ.
How about the angry reaction to the book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy or the reaction to the Goldstone Report? Does anyone know how many death threats Norman Finkelstein gets a week?
I for one would LOVE to see Jon Stewart do a show about how ”radical” members of a certain religion got Norman Finkelstein denied tenure at DePaul university… with Jon dancing and singing “Go Fuck Yourselves!” to them for their religious intolerance.
(the following is a paid advertisement from the Daily Show guest booking department…)
Are you a neocon from the old Bush administration? Can’t find love? Get yelled at by little We Are Change nerds while pumping gas in your limo? Are snide glares shot at you from across the Starbucks coffee-house? Do little old ladies screaming “Where’s my Fuckin money you thieving piece of shit!” throw feces on you and whoop your ass in the street like a little bitch right in front of your golf buddies?
Do you wanna remake your image into the smiling, lovable, and friendly face of the empire like Obama, Joe Biden, and Bill Clinton? Do you Wanna sell a book? Wanna keep getting paid that phat money like you were still in office?
Well, if this sounds like you, friend, I have good news; just book an appearance on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show!
War criminals, torturers, outright liars and neoconservative scum are all welcome!
Did you create false intel, fabricate “islamofascism” stories, commit treason by outing CIA operatives? Did you help kill a million innocent Iraqis! Kill off a couple thousand U.S. troops for corporate profits? Did you suck at the public teet till there was nothing left but hot air and empty derivatives scams? Come on now, be honest because it just doesn’t matter on the Daily Show!
If Jon Stewart can’t get you accepted back into decent society, no one can…. guaranteed!
Don’t wait! Book your appearance TODAY!!
(guarantee not guaranteed)
And one more thing while we are on the subject…. how many times has Norman Finkelstein or Noam Chomsky been on Jon Stewart’s show? How many times have Neocons from the Cheney/Bush “crimes against humanity” been on? Curious question since Stewart is supposedly a “liberal’ from the left…. let’s take a look…
March 9, 2010 – Marc Thiessen – (promoting his book) He served as a speechwriter for United States President George W. Bush (2004–2009) and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (2001–2004).
Feburary 9, 2010 - Newt Gingrich - Founder of the group The American Solutions for the Winning Future… a neoliberal/neocon think-tank.
January 11, 2010 – John Yoo – (to promote his new book)
January 18, 2010 – David M. Walker – (promoting his book) Comptroller Genral and head of GAO under Bush and Clinton… major neoliberal/neocon
December 8, 2009 – Mike Huckabee – neoliberal/neocon presidential candidate and Fox News host
December 1, 2009 – Thomas Friedman – (promoting his book) – neoliberal/neocon mouthpiece for the New York Times – “One of Friedman’s theses is that individual countries must sacrifice some degree of economic sovereignty to global institutions (such as capital markets and multinational corporations)”
November 9, 2009 – Kit Bond – (promoting his book) – neoliberal/neocon – “He has voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA)”
September 23, 2009 – Tom Ridge – Assistant to the President for Homeland Security (2001–2003), and the first United States Secretary of Homeland Security (2003–2005).
August 3, 2009 – Ronald Kessler – (promoting his book) – neoliberal/neocon mouthpiece for Washington Post and others
July 29, 2009 – John Bolton – neocon kingpin – promoting war with Iran
July 27, 2009 – Bill Kristol – neocon kingpin
January 8, 2009 – Dana Perino – neocon/neoliberal “served as the White House Press Secretary for President George W. Bush from September 14, 2007 to January 20, 2009.”
January 15, 2008 – John Bolton
Feb. 12, 2008 – Bill Kristol
Mar. 13, 2008 – Dana Perino
May 12, 2008 – Douglas Feith
June 2, 2008 – Scott McClellan
Oct. 14, 2008 – Ari Fleischer
Oct. 30, 2008 – Bill Kristol
Nov. 11, 2008 – Thomas Friedman
I went back as far as 2006 and I never saw Finkelstein or Chomsky on Jon Stewart’s guest list… nor did I see journalists like Chris Hedges or Glenn Greenwald either. In fact, I may have to look again, but I also didn’t see names like Amy Goodman or Jeromy Scahill.
Going back to 2003, you keep seeing the same neocon/neoliberal names plus Kissinger, Tony Snow, M. Albreight, Jonah Goldberg, Karen Hughes, Rudolph Giuliani, and Christopher Hitchens several times. You will remember that when Hitchens jumped on board the “support the president’s wars” bandwagon, his first target was Noam Chomsky. Stewart never had Scott Ritter on in the lead-up to the Iraq war, but he did have many neocons and people like Ann Coulter.
A long list of neocon/neoliberal war-criminals gracing Jon Stewart’s stage as he yuks it up with them and helps many of them sell their various books or their new neoliberal free market agenda….
what a surprise.
Filed under: How propaganda works, Jon Stewart Neocon Shill, Neocons = Neolibs, palestinian rights, propaganda, Revolution Muslim PsyOp Site, Scott Creighton
Hmm! I was generally aware that The Daily Show does this, but when I see it laid out like this I guess I want to follow your lead and reappraise the ‘neutrality’.
I have always felt that there is an implicit air of ‘we are gregarious and give opponents a fair hearing as well as some stick’.
However, many of these figures are so heinous, dogged and cynical that I doubt the value of giving them even more airtime than they already get on friendly channels. People like Adam Boulton in particular are so self-confident that I just don’t see any softening or meeting of minds taking place.
I was surprised when I found his guest list on Wiki.
there are even more neocons he had as guests who were selling their books… I just tired of typing it all….
I’ll have to go back and look but I don’t remember if he even had Naomi Klein on when her book came out or Jeramy Scahill when he published his… (I think I would remember seeing them)
He does have some “progressives” on there obviously, but not those who delve into “unacceptable” subject matter like Finkelstein or Goodman.
I also noticed that he has only had Ralph Nader on once since 2002 (as far back as I looked) and that show was guest hosted by Colbert.
I also notice that the majority of his democrat guests were of the DLC/Clintonista ilk….
here is the list… check it out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Daily_Show_guests
Yeah, it’s pretty toothless by and large. I find it strange that someone could parody a system that is so obviously rigged, year after year, and not utterly tire of entertaining mainstream politics at all. I mean, he was whooping at the election of Obama in spite of his almost nakedly manipulative and contentless ‘hope’ campaign.
P.S. I have come to feel that authentic radical politics (by which I really mean honest, intelligent politics) cannot afford to be nice and polite, and to try to blend in with the mainstream without frightening anyone off – you might as well cut your dick off there and then once you start doing this.
People should just state their case plainly and clearly and prepare to be proved right or wrong. Period.
P.P.S. If human beings still aren’t roused even when they hear many brave voices refusing to water down their best assessment of what is true and false, then I’m sorry we’re fucked anyway as a species – we can only do our best then step back, instead of becoming monsters in order to ‘save the world’ in some distant imagined future, like Stalin’s Communist Party or the American liberal hypocrites.
you sound like a lot of people I have been talking with. Chris Hedges wrote something on Truthdig today about the secessionist movements especially the one in Vermont. These guys believe the corruption is so systemic and the debt so unbelievably high now, that the only way to salvage their state, is to leave the US officiallly. When you think about it, they’re probably right.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_new_secessionists_20100426/
Essential to gaining an understanding of the right wing conservative is to read the findings revealed during the decades of research work done by social psychologist Dr. Robert Altemeyer, who is widely recognized as a leading authority on the subject.
Someone who shares my opinion about the importance of “Dr. Bob’s” work is John Dean, who is perhaps best known for his part in the Watergate affair, but whose subsequent regret about the people he was involved with compeled him to write “Conservatives Without Conscience”. This he did after meeting Dr. Altemeyer and becoming aware of his work and realising the importance of it, as I did.
Altemeyer himself became so disturbed at the recent rise into politics of extreme authoritarian conservatives that he wrote a non-technical summary of his decades of empirical study of the RWA-SDO phenomenon, and placed it, free-of-charge, on the web.
A foreword from the website: “The studies explain so much about these people. Yes, the research shows they are very aggressive, but why are they so hostile? Yes, experiments show they are almost totally uninfluenced by reasoning and evidence, but why are they so dogmatic? Yes, studies show the Religious Right has more than its fair share of hypocrites, from top to bottom; but why are they two-faced, and how come one face never notices the other? Yes, their leaders can give the flimsiest of excuses and even outright lies about things they’ve done wrong, but why do the rank-and-file believe them? What happens when authoritarian followers find the authoritarian leaders they crave and start marching together? I think you’ll find this book “explains a lot.”
“The Authoritarians” can be read or DLed here: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
For myself, I can say it is possibly the most important thing I have yet read to this day (and I ike to read /a lot/ of non-fiction).
Actually, Scahill did make it on — once. But your point is well taken; i.e., he’s the exception (or one of the very few exceptions) that prove(s) the rule.
Interestingly, Scahill is/was so forceful, sober, articulate re. the topic of Blackwater that he is one of the very few guests who had Stewart backpedaling throughout the interview, unable to launch any (lame, forced) jokes as Scahill wasn’t really in a mood “to play” (on a topic so serious).
I like Stewart, but his ego is huge and it was nice to see him pushed back on for once.
Actually Stewart had Scott Ritter in the lead up to the war.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-august-13-2002/scott-ritter
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-august-21-2002/headlines—attaq-
He deserves a lot of credit for that and that alone should put him well ahead of MSNBC.
Unfortunately he never had Scott Ritter again.
As to his having conservatives on his show I thought that there was nothing wrong with that. I think it is healthy to hear opposing views. At least to know what are the arguments of the opposing side and to learn how to argue against them. I don’t see much point to putting yourself in a bubble and only listening to your side’s rhetoric. Besides, what’s the point of constantly preaching to a group of firm believers.
Yet I believe his remarks on the cartoons were unnecessary. I didn’t find it funny at all but I guess that was what many Americans would like to hear. Unfortunately it only worsened the public view of the most demonized group in United States – the Muslims.
Generally I don’t think it is right to make fun of others cultural values. It is not much different from picking a child in a class and making fun of him to have a few laughs. That goes for all cultural values including religious Muslim, Cristian etc, and ethnic Black Hispanic etc
Considering how much fun is made of Cristian values the growing rift between right and left is not surprising.
We should learn to be able to laugh without making fun of others.
LOL Corruption to the left of me, murders to the right. When will it ever end?
[...] recent revolting sucking-up to globalist Joe Biden, there was Stewart’s story about the South Park episode psyop involving Revolution Muslim which turns out to be run by a “converted” jewish ex-settler from the West Bank, Steven’s [...]
…What is essential is to set the bounds [of expressible debate] firmly. Controversy may rage as long as it adheres to the presuppositions that define the consensus of elites, and it should furthermore be encouraged within these bounds, thus helping to establish these doctrines as the very condition of thinkable thought while reinforcing the belief that freedom reigns.
Noam Chomsky. Necessary Illusions (1989)
as a current example of Jon’s “value” he presents to the status quo, check out his take on the “conspiracy theories” developing around the Petraeus scandal….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/13/jon-stewart-blasts-petraeus-affair_n_2121359.html
I can’t watch as outside US. I don’t watch Stewart mainly because he’s affected, conservative, and I don’t find him funny. On tv I prefer someone like Bill Maher. David Cross is still the best living American satirist that I’m aware of.
He is part and parcel of the Great Wurlitzer. Whatever the show mocks is already known and understood by the public, but he holds onto (and thereby reinforces) the great myths like Osama bin Laden, 9/11, Al Queda and the idea that Democrats and Republics represent quantifiable differences in ideology.