The Wisest Jon Stewart Quote We've Seen All Year

[Playinghardball]

Exactly.


Found on the Facebook page of Being Liberal/MoveOn.org

[Scuba]

1. Bringing the horrors of the Viet Nam war into American living room unquestionably....

... resulted in the war ending sooner.

[leftyohiolib]

2. they know it that's why the shrub wouldnt let cameras picture the coffins coming back from the war

[lostnote12]

3. another sad reminder for the day ....not your fault, thanks for the reminder.....I believe Cheney

...was behind that masquerade since Desert Storm was a trial run for the "embedded reporter era of free and unfettered open journalism in the greatest country the universe has ever known....<sarcasm>.....and of course Dickster Cheney was the only politician "man enough" to pull off a totally authoritarian feat...oh well....

[awoke_in_2003]

4. and the military learned from that...

that is why all the "journalists" are embedded now. Can't have some loose cannot Walter Kronkite-type showing what is really going on.

[evilhime]

9. My first thought!

As a member of that generation I still see the news footage every night that we saw with dinner . . . the real horror and the daily body count War shouldn't be pretty, pristine or painted in glory!

[Scootaloo]

16. Yeah, it only lasted eleven years...

It certainly turned public opinion against the war... but public opinion doesn't do shit to stop wars, as we saw clearly from 2003-present

[freshwest]

18. Yes it did. I remember the daily reports by Dan Rather. The body count, every afternoon.

Between that and the draft, lottery, etc. every young man of fighting age had to think about what they were going to do and make a decision.

Unless they were Bush, Cheney, Rush or Romney. The ones who would profit, they had 'more important things to do.'

[HiPointDem]

32. the war didn't end until 1975. about 8 years after that period of heavy coverage. the coverage

helped turn the public againt the war (1966-7 was the key year when a narrow majority came me to see it as a "mistake&quot -- but the war continued regardless.

[cigsandcoffee]

5. That could backfire. The movies are real-looking enough, and people don't bat an eye.

I remember the people cheering in Orwell's "1984" when unarmed and mixed-gender refugees were being strafed with machine guns in a newsreel. If we show war violence, people may get a taste for it, "reality-show" style.

[NashvilleLefty]

25. People know when it's "just a movie"

I remember a lot of parents didn't want their kids watching Jurassic Park because they thought it was too realistic. Even the kids knew it was just a movie.

There is a much more visceral feeling when it's real. Even if it's a dramatization.

[cigsandcoffee]

27. You sure? You can't envision a culture watching real violence for entertainment? n/t

[tex-wyo-dem]

29. I disagree...

Although Hollywood movies can be graphic and violent, it's very different actually seeing real footage of people getting limbs blown off by land mines and getting killed and maimed by real weapons. Hollywood can makes things look very realistic, but it's still just a dressed up movie. You can definitely tell the difference. Real footage is truly shocking, I think partly because you can tell the people are real and the horror they are experiencing is real, not actors trying to make a compelling scene.

[GTurck]

33. Movies cannot...

show the moral and political ambiguity of war very well but I saw one made in Bosnia that does that. "No Man's Land" made by Danis Tanovic. It shook me up with an ending that is devastatingly difficult to see. Beware though the dialog is in Serbo-Croatian so there are sub-titles.

[deutsey]

37. I think there is a real danger of that

But the films shown in 1984, if I remember correctly, portrayed the victims as "other"...Eurasians or Eastasians who got what was coming to them by the victorious forces of Oceania.

I think if the humanity of all the victims on all sides were emphasized, it might have a different impact.

Yes, there will always be insensitive dolts (e.g., people making jokes about the Aurora shootings), but I think media has the power to touch our deepest humanity if that's the intention of those using the media.

The problem is, that's not the intention of most of those currently in control of mass media today. We get video-game style wars, and stories about returning vets coming home to happy, crying families (while glossing over those lingering in poorly funded VA hospitals dealing with horribly disfiguring injuries or severe psychological trauma, and completely ignoring Iraqi/Afghan victims).

Focusing on anything, in other words, but the real human cost of these insane wars.

[lark]

6. Love Jon Stewart!!!!

[Plucketeer]

7. Yeah, it's ALL "sanitized" so as not to make taxpayers gag

MSM risks making their audiences turn off the TV if they're gonna be subjected to guts and blood and agony. GE (and others) need to keep selling more war wares so they can get a tax gift from our treasury. All we're allowed to see is statistics and young
Americans beaming over their new prosthetics.

[The Wizard]

35. War crimes

should not be an option. Concealing the true nature of war from the people who pay the tab is consumer fraud on a civil basis, but in reality a war crime.
Americans who have no skin in the game are detached from the grim reality of war. It's neither a video game nor a drive by shooting. It's dirty, gruesome, deadly and there are no time outs or breaks for commercials. Most Americans have never had skin in the game, but we, this band of brothers..........

[Plucketeer]

39. Indeed!

Yeah - ALL war is criminal.

[Blanks]

8. Lewis Black on the daily show...

Really hit the nail on the head in the video at this link.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-july-24-2012/back-in-black---campaign-fibs

[Go Vols]

28. +1

[99Forever]

10. War is failure.

Always. Without exception. There is no glory in it, only death, maiming and senseless destruction.

You know the tune:


~~~Generals gathered in their masses
just like witches at black masses
evil minds that plot destruction
sorcerers of death's construction
in the fields the bodies burning
as the war machine keeps turning
death and hatred to mankind
poisoning their brainwashed minds, oh lord yeah!

Politicians hide themselves away
they only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor

Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait 'till their judgement day comes, yeah!

Now in darkness, world stops turning
ashes were the bodies burning
No more war pigs of the power
Hand of god has struck the hour
Day of judgement, god is calling
on their knees, the war pigs crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Satan, laughing, spreads his wings

~~~

War Pigs- Ozzy Osbourne

[freshwest]

19. Same vultures, always calling for more, like Romney is doing now.

[Gregorian]

11. We;ve all been saying that for years.

Well I have. Eating dinner and seeing Vietnam had a real effect on Americans. And the draft.

[Brigid]

12. Jon Stewart is a national treasure.

He sees himself as just a comic, but he just can't help himself -- he's much more than that.

[Blanks]

36. Most trusted newsman.

Nobody else that I know of goes to Fox News and fights against O'Reilly quite like Jon Stewart.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/2009/07/22/time-magazine-poll-jon-st_n_242933.html

[sulphurdunn]

13. Want to make war making a democratic process?

Then get rid of the all volunteer and increasingly privatized armed forces, reinstate the draft, eliminate all exemptions for people between 16 and 86 (even the old, the infirm, the crazy and the physically unfit can serve in non-combat capacities). Make certain that parents of young children, college students, those with incomes over $250,000 annually and members of congress have especially high lottery numbers.

[90-percent]

23. Well, that's easy

"Make certain that parents of young children, college students, those with incomes over $250,000 annually and members of congress have especially high lottery numbers."

Just give the draft lottery contract to Diebold.

-90% jimmy

[sulphurdunn]

24. A most excellent idea.

To ensure fairness we'll have a special lottery for Diebold management and investors and draft 10% of them annually. Rather than using Diebold machines, we'll have Al Gore draw their names from a hat.

[Doctor_J]

14. Now the same companies getting rich off of the wars

are also in control of Big Media. So good luck with that.

[Shankapotomus]

15. And there's no respawn in real war. (nt)

[Electric Monk]

17. k&r

[tclambert]

20. Robert E. Lee: "It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it."

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

31. + 1 :) one of my favorite quotes n/t

[90-percent]

21. Such thinking travels far

Even makes it all the way into a LTTE on a drag racing news website

http://dragracingonline.com/response/xiv_7-4.html

-90% Jimmy

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. Has he been reading my posts?

I have said this for YEARS, and that goes also for all the gun violence in the country.

[Hotler]

26. Reinstate the draft and the wars will stop. n/t

[Flatpicker]

30. I agree

But, just to clear the misconception.
In most V-games the bodies were removed from the field of play because the memory they took up needed to be reallocated.
Had there been unlimited resources, keeping them on-screen would have been the preferable option.

Just throwing that out there, because I don't want the common thought to be that the designers were trying to "clean up" anything (except memory addresses).

[Brigid]

34. "You just think you want to come over here."

-- WWI soldier.

[alfredo]

38. The smell of rotting flesh and raw sewage would do wonders.