"I just want to address my fellow conservatives who are running for office this year -- fellas, you may not be aware of this, but in 1920 women got the right to vote. And since then, among likely voters, rape's approval rating has plummeted."
Showing posts with label Stephen Colbert. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stephen Colbert. Show all posts
Monday, November 5, 2012
Stephen Colbert's Advice to the GOP
"I just want to address my fellow conservatives who are running for office this year -- fellas, you may not be aware of this, but in 1920 women got the right to vote. And since then, among likely voters, rape's approval rating has plummeted."
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Awesome Quotes: Stephen Colbert
"Paul Ryan -- the man who has electrified the party base with his home spun down-to-earth way of telling the poor to suck it up."
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Ben & Jerry's Late Night Snack
Jimmy Fallon may be a pretty dubious talent as an actor (he co-starred in Taxi, one of the worst buddy cop films ever made, and was decidedly less manly than Queen Latifah in it) and a lot of people dismissed him as a talk show host after replacing Conan O'Brien, but he is good at one thing: being the inspiration to an ice cream flavor. Ben & Jerry's Late Night Snack is a tribute to his show, and after tasting this tasty combination of vanilla bean ice cream, salty caramel swirl and fudge covered potato chips, it's probably even better than Stephen Colbert's American Dream. (Although Willie Nelson's Country Peach Cobbler is probably the best Ben & Jerry's celebrity flavor.) Just as impressive, Fallon's ice cream contains Fair Trade vanilla and cocoa, and Fallon's proceeds for the ice cream will go to Fair Trade Universities to promote the use of Fair Trade products on US campuses. So maybe Fallon deserves another look as a late night host. Or maybe not...
Jimmy Fallon Starts Ice Cream Rivalry With Colbert
Amber James
Mar 3rd 2011
http://www.popeater.com/2011/03/03/jimmy-fallon-ice-cream-ben-and-jerrys
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Colbert on Wyngz!
Sadly, Lam didn't get to review DiGiorno's other combo, pizza with chicken "Wyngz":
Leave it to Stephen Colbert to discover that "Boneless Wyngz" is not some crazy misspelling but a government-mandated way to describe food that looks like chicken wings but contains no actual wing meat. In his new segment, Thought for Food, Colbert holds up a box of DiGiorno's Pizza & Wyngz and riffs on the company's motto, "It's not delivery it's DiGiorno ... and it's not wings it's wyngz."
Colbert goes on to say that wyngz is a "government-mandated way to get around the fact that it's not real wing meat." And sure enough, there it was on the website of the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service. "The FSIS allows the use of the term 'wyngz' to denote a product that is in the shape of a wing or a bite-size appetizer type product under the following conditions." Some of those conditions include: The poultry used is white chicken, the product does not contain any wing meat, and the FSIS stipulates that "no other misspellings are permitted."
As Colbert says, "It's government-approved deliciousness."
Stephen Colbert's right wyngz rhetoric
February 3, 2011
http://blogs.consumerreports.org/home/2011/02/stephen-colbert-on-digiorno-pizza-and-wyngz.html
Leave it to Stephen Colbert to discover that "Boneless Wyngz" is not some crazy misspelling but a government-mandated way to describe food that looks like chicken wings but contains no actual wing meat. In his new segment, Thought for Food, Colbert holds up a box of DiGiorno's Pizza & Wyngz and riffs on the company's motto, "It's not delivery it's DiGiorno ... and it's not wings it's wyngz."
Colbert goes on to say that wyngz is a "government-mandated way to get around the fact that it's not real wing meat." And sure enough, there it was on the website of the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service. "The FSIS allows the use of the term 'wyngz' to denote a product that is in the shape of a wing or a bite-size appetizer type product under the following conditions." Some of those conditions include: The poultry used is white chicken, the product does not contain any wing meat, and the FSIS stipulates that "no other misspellings are permitted."
As Colbert says, "It's government-approved deliciousness."
Stephen Colbert's right wyngz rhetoric
February 3, 2011
http://blogs.consumerreports.org/home/2011/02/stephen-colbert-on-digiorno-pizza-and-wyngz.html
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Stewart/Colbert rally preaches compromise and complacency
http://wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/stew-n01.shtml
Stewart/Colbert rally preaches compromise and complacency
By Joseph Kishore
1 November 2010
On Saturday, US comedic television hosts Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert organized a demonstration that drew over 200,000 under the slogan “Rally for Sanity.”
Participants included many young people, along with families and retirees. The general mood was one of hostility toward the right wing, and the rally was in part organized in response to one held by Fox television host Glenn Beck in August. The event was heavily promoted by liberal supporters of Obama, including the Huffington Post, which spent $250,000 to bus people in.
Many of those participating were drawn from relatively insulated layers of the middle class for whom the rally’s central theme—that there is not much to be angry about—resonated, at least to some extent. However, insofar as Stewart and Colbert are associated with a certain antiestablishment sentiment, the demonstration attracted broader layers.
The widespread support that Stewart and Colbert have among young people in particular is an indication of the general disillusionment with the political system and the mass media. One cannot think of a political figure who could draw a similar attendance, as there is no one in either party that has a significant base of support. At a rally on Sunday in Cleveland, Ohio, for example, Obama was greeted by 5,000 empty seats in a stadium intended to seat 13,000. The Stewart/Colbert rally was also about three times larger than the Beck rally organized in August.
Stewart and Colbert attempted to portray their event as “nonpartisan” and the comedians are not directly political figures. However, there was nevertheless a definite political line underlying it: support for the Obama administration and the Democratic Party.
Under conditions in which the majority of the American population is increasingly disillusioned by the pro-corporate and pro-war policies of Obama and the entire political establishment, the basic theme of the event was the need for a political consensus between the two parties in Washington and their allies in the media.
This generally corresponds with the aims of the Obama administration itself. Indeed, at the end of a generally favorable episode-long interview with Obama on Stewart’s “Daily Show” three days before the rally, the US president gave his endorsement to the weekend event, saying he wished it had been held two years ago.
Stewart spoke about his own conceptions behind the event in his closing remarks on Saturday. He expressed the hope that behind every political conflict is some sort of misunderstanding that can be resolved through reasoned discussion. “We can have animus and not be enemies,” he said.
Stewart directed his main criticisms against the media, repeating his analysis that the problem is that media pundits are too partisan and extreme, that they inflate problems and hinder resolutions. “The country’s 24-hour politico pundit perpetual panic conflictanator did not cause our problems, but its existence has made solving them that much harder… If we amplify everything, we hear nothing,” he complained.
If drivers with different political views and backgrounds can merge in an orderly fashion in a traffic jam, Stewart said, then certainly everyone in Washington DC should be able to work together to get things done.
This is first of all an utterly false portrayal of the real state of affairs in the American media and political system. The mudslinging among media pundits is intended more to distract from the real problems facing millions of people and to draw attention away from the fact that the political establishment as a whole is in basic agreement on all fundamental issues.
At the same time, Stewart’s “politics of the golden mean” is a facile one, devoid of any understanding of the social forces driving politics, including the significant corporate financing behind the promotion of an extreme right-wing movement in the United States. Stewart expresses the attitude of the relatively comfortable middle-class supporters of the Democratic Party who are constantly trying to reach some sort of accommodation with the right.
The basic sentiment that Stewart sought to cultivate was one of complacency. The rally was called in the midst of the greatest economic crisis in generations, but there was absolutely no mention—either before or during the event—of the desperate situation facing millions of people. There was nothing about the ongoing wars carried out by both political parties that have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands. There was no hint of the unprecedented attack on democratic rights in the United States.
According to Stewart’s analysis, the immense divisions that are emerging in American society are little more than a media creation. The outlook is in fact preposterous.
There was also an ugly element to the rally, a deliberate attempt in particular to blackguard and delegitimize any left-wing opposition to the policies of the ruling class. On a number of occasions, Stewart lumped together left-wing opponents of Obama with the extreme right, declaring, “Why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our constitution? Or racists and homophobes who see no one’s humanity but their own?”
The attempt to equate socialists with racists and homophobes is a deliberate attempt to render illegitimate any argument that the political system is dictated by the interests of the corporate and financial elite—a sentiment in fact shared by millions of people.
The call for all Americans to come together as one was combined with a nationalist and at time jingoist subtext to the entire demonstration, beginning with the singing of the national anthem by US military veterans. Later, Stewart and Colbert covered themselves in American flags, and Stewart accompanied musician Jeff Tweedy to sing that America “is the greatest, strongest country in the world. There is no one more American than we.”
While Stewart and Colbert have at times in the past leveled some sharp barbs at the political establishment, the media, and the corporate elite, their criticisms have generally been of a limited and superficial character. Their shows have become fixtures of the same political system that they have at times scorned. All manner of politicians—including the president himself—have allowed themselves to be interviewed. Last year, Colbert was given access to top military figures as part of a trip to Iraq, during which he whitewashed the disaster inflicted on that country by the US government.
While there were no doubt many people in attendance this past weekend who looked to the demonstration as a way of expressing their opposition to the direction of US policy, nothing of the sort was provided by Stewart and Colbert.
Stewart/Colbert rally preaches compromise and complacency
By Joseph Kishore
1 November 2010
On Saturday, US comedic television hosts Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert organized a demonstration that drew over 200,000 under the slogan “Rally for Sanity.”
Participants included many young people, along with families and retirees. The general mood was one of hostility toward the right wing, and the rally was in part organized in response to one held by Fox television host Glenn Beck in August. The event was heavily promoted by liberal supporters of Obama, including the Huffington Post, which spent $250,000 to bus people in.
Many of those participating were drawn from relatively insulated layers of the middle class for whom the rally’s central theme—that there is not much to be angry about—resonated, at least to some extent. However, insofar as Stewart and Colbert are associated with a certain antiestablishment sentiment, the demonstration attracted broader layers.
The widespread support that Stewart and Colbert have among young people in particular is an indication of the general disillusionment with the political system and the mass media. One cannot think of a political figure who could draw a similar attendance, as there is no one in either party that has a significant base of support. At a rally on Sunday in Cleveland, Ohio, for example, Obama was greeted by 5,000 empty seats in a stadium intended to seat 13,000. The Stewart/Colbert rally was also about three times larger than the Beck rally organized in August.
Stewart and Colbert attempted to portray their event as “nonpartisan” and the comedians are not directly political figures. However, there was nevertheless a definite political line underlying it: support for the Obama administration and the Democratic Party.
Under conditions in which the majority of the American population is increasingly disillusioned by the pro-corporate and pro-war policies of Obama and the entire political establishment, the basic theme of the event was the need for a political consensus between the two parties in Washington and their allies in the media.
This generally corresponds with the aims of the Obama administration itself. Indeed, at the end of a generally favorable episode-long interview with Obama on Stewart’s “Daily Show” three days before the rally, the US president gave his endorsement to the weekend event, saying he wished it had been held two years ago.
Stewart spoke about his own conceptions behind the event in his closing remarks on Saturday. He expressed the hope that behind every political conflict is some sort of misunderstanding that can be resolved through reasoned discussion. “We can have animus and not be enemies,” he said.
Stewart directed his main criticisms against the media, repeating his analysis that the problem is that media pundits are too partisan and extreme, that they inflate problems and hinder resolutions. “The country’s 24-hour politico pundit perpetual panic conflictanator did not cause our problems, but its existence has made solving them that much harder… If we amplify everything, we hear nothing,” he complained.
If drivers with different political views and backgrounds can merge in an orderly fashion in a traffic jam, Stewart said, then certainly everyone in Washington DC should be able to work together to get things done.
This is first of all an utterly false portrayal of the real state of affairs in the American media and political system. The mudslinging among media pundits is intended more to distract from the real problems facing millions of people and to draw attention away from the fact that the political establishment as a whole is in basic agreement on all fundamental issues.
At the same time, Stewart’s “politics of the golden mean” is a facile one, devoid of any understanding of the social forces driving politics, including the significant corporate financing behind the promotion of an extreme right-wing movement in the United States. Stewart expresses the attitude of the relatively comfortable middle-class supporters of the Democratic Party who are constantly trying to reach some sort of accommodation with the right.
The basic sentiment that Stewart sought to cultivate was one of complacency. The rally was called in the midst of the greatest economic crisis in generations, but there was absolutely no mention—either before or during the event—of the desperate situation facing millions of people. There was nothing about the ongoing wars carried out by both political parties that have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands. There was no hint of the unprecedented attack on democratic rights in the United States.
According to Stewart’s analysis, the immense divisions that are emerging in American society are little more than a media creation. The outlook is in fact preposterous.
There was also an ugly element to the rally, a deliberate attempt in particular to blackguard and delegitimize any left-wing opposition to the policies of the ruling class. On a number of occasions, Stewart lumped together left-wing opponents of Obama with the extreme right, declaring, “Why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our constitution? Or racists and homophobes who see no one’s humanity but their own?”
The attempt to equate socialists with racists and homophobes is a deliberate attempt to render illegitimate any argument that the political system is dictated by the interests of the corporate and financial elite—a sentiment in fact shared by millions of people.
The call for all Americans to come together as one was combined with a nationalist and at time jingoist subtext to the entire demonstration, beginning with the singing of the national anthem by US military veterans. Later, Stewart and Colbert covered themselves in American flags, and Stewart accompanied musician Jeff Tweedy to sing that America “is the greatest, strongest country in the world. There is no one more American than we.”
While Stewart and Colbert have at times in the past leveled some sharp barbs at the political establishment, the media, and the corporate elite, their criticisms have generally been of a limited and superficial character. Their shows have become fixtures of the same political system that they have at times scorned. All manner of politicians—including the president himself—have allowed themselves to be interviewed. Last year, Colbert was given access to top military figures as part of a trip to Iraq, during which he whitewashed the disaster inflicted on that country by the US government.
While there were no doubt many people in attendance this past weekend who looked to the demonstration as a way of expressing their opposition to the direction of US policy, nothing of the sort was provided by Stewart and Colbert.
The Phantom Left
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_phantom_left_20101031/ Oct 31, 2010
Chris Hedges
The American left is a phantom. It is conjured up by the right wing to tag Barack Obama as a socialist and used by the liberal class to justify its complacency and lethargy. It diverts attention from corporate power. It perpetuates the myth of a democratic system that is influenced by the votes of citizens, political platforms and the work of legislators. It keeps the world neatly divided into a left and a right. The phantom left functions as a convenient scapegoat. The right wing blames it for moral degeneration and fiscal chaos. The liberal class uses it to call for “moderation.” And while we waste our time talking nonsense, the engines of corporate power—masked, ruthless and unexamined—happily devour the state.
The loss of a radical left in American politics has been catastrophic. The left once harbored militant anarchist and communist labor unions, an independent, alternative press, social movements and politicians not tethered to corporate benefactors. But its disappearance, the result of long witch hunts for communists, post-industrialization and the silencing of those who did not sign on for the utopian vision of globalization, means that there is no counterforce to halt our slide into corporate neofeudalism. This harsh reality, however, is not palatable. So the corporations that control mass communications conjure up the phantom of a left. They blame the phantom for our debacle. And they get us to speak in absurdities.
The phantom left took a central role on the mall this weekend in Washington. It had performed admirably for Glenn Beck, who used it in his own rally as a lightning rod to instill anger and fear. And the phantom left proved equally useful for the comics Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, who spoke to the crowd wearing red-white-and-blue costumes. The two comics evoked the phantom left, as the liberal class always does, in defense of moderation, which might better be described as apathy. If the right wing is crazy and if the left wing is crazy, the argument goes, then we moderates will be reasonable. We will be nice. Exxon and Goldman Sachs, along with predatory banks and the arms industry, may be ripping the guts out of the country, our rights—including habeas corpus—may have been revoked, but don’t get mad. Don’t be shrill. Don’t be like the crazies on the left.
“Why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution or racists and homophobes who see no one’s humanity but their own?” Stewart asked. “We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is—on the brink of catastrophe—torn by polarizing hate, and how it’s a shame that we can’t work together to get things done. But the truth is we do. We work together to get things done every damn day. The only place we don’t is here [in Washington] or on cable TV.”
The rally delivered a political message devoid of reality or content. The corruption of electoral politics by corporate funds and lobbyists, the naive belief that we can somehow vote ourselves back to democracy, was ignored for emotional catharsis. The right hates. The liberals laugh. And the country is taken hostage.
The Rally to Restore Sanity, held in Washington’s National Mall, was yet another sad footnote to the death of the liberal class. It was as innocuous as a Boy Scout jamboree. It ridiculed followers of the tea party without acknowledging that the pain and suffering expressed by many who support the movement are not only real but legitimate. It made fun of the buffoons who are rising up out of moral swamps to take over the Republican Party without accepting that their supporters were sold out by a liberal class, and especially a Democratic Party, which turned its back on the working class for corporate money.
Fox News’ Beck and his allies on the far right can use hatred as a mobilizing force because there are tens of millions of Americans who have very good reason to hate. They have been betrayed by the elite who run the corporate state, by the two main political parties and by the liberal apologists, including those given public platforms on television, who keep counseling moderation as jobs disappear, wages drop and unemployment insurance runs out. As long as the liberal class speaks in the dead voice of moderation it will continue to fuel the right-wing backlash. Only when it appropriates this rage as its own, only when it stands up to established systems of power, including the Democratic Party, will we have any hope of holding off the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party.
Wall Street’s looting of the Treasury, the curtailing of our civil liberties, the millions of fraudulent foreclosures, the long-term unemployment, the bankruptcies from medical bills, the endless wars in the Middle East and the amassing of trillions in debt that can never be repaid are pushing us toward a Hobbesian world of internal collapse. Being nice and moderate will not help. These are corporate forces that are intent on reconfiguring the United States into a system of neofeudalism. These corporate forces will not be halted by funny signs, comics dressed up like Captain America or nice words.
The liberal class wants to inhabit a political center to remain morally and politically disengaged. As long as there is a phantom left, one that is as ridiculous and stunted as the right wing, the liberal class can remain uncommitted. If the liberal class concedes that power has been wrested from us it will be forced, if it wants to act, to build movements outside the political system. This would require the liberal class to demand acts of resistance, including civil disobedience, to attempt to salvage what is left of our anemic democratic state. But this type of political activity, as costly as it is difficult, is too unpalatable to a bankrupt liberal establishment that has sold its soul to corporate interests. And so the phantom left will be with us for a long time.
Politics in America has become spectacle. It is another form of show business. The crowd in Washington, well trained by television, was conditioned to play its role before the cameras. The signs —“The Rant is Too Damn High,” “Real Patriots Can Handle a Difference of Opinion” or “I Masturbate and I Vote”—reflected the hollowness of current political discourse and television’s perverse epistemology. The rally spoke exclusively in the impoverished iconography and language of television. It was filled with meaningless political pieties, music and jokes. It was like any television variety program. Personalities were being sold, not political platforms. And this is what the society of spectacle is about.
The modern spectacle, as the theorist Guy Debord pointed out, is a potent tool for pacification and depoliticization. It is a “permanent opium war” which stupefies its viewers and disconnects them from the forces that control their lives. The spectacle diverts anger toward phantoms and away from the perpetrators of exploitation and injustice. It manufactures feelings of euphoria. It allows participants to confuse the spectacle itself with political action.
The celebrities from Comedy Central and the trash talk show hosts on Fox are in the same business. They are entertainers. They provide the empty, emotionally laden material that propels endless chatter back and forth on supposed left- and right-wing television programs. It is a national Punch and Judy show. But don’t be fooled. It is not politics. It is entertainment. It is spectacle. All national debate on the airwaves is driven by the same empty gossip, the same absurd trivia, the same celebrity meltdowns and the same ridiculous posturing. It is presented with a different spin. But none of it is about ideas or truth. None of it is about being informed. It caters to emotions. It makes us confuse how we are made to feel with knowledge. And in the end, for those who serve up this drivel, the game is about money in the form of ratings and advertising. Beck, Colbert and Stewart all serve the same masters. And it is not us.
Chris Hedges, who writes every Monday for Truthdig, is the author of the new book “Death of the Liberal Class.”
Chris Hedges
The American left is a phantom. It is conjured up by the right wing to tag Barack Obama as a socialist and used by the liberal class to justify its complacency and lethargy. It diverts attention from corporate power. It perpetuates the myth of a democratic system that is influenced by the votes of citizens, political platforms and the work of legislators. It keeps the world neatly divided into a left and a right. The phantom left functions as a convenient scapegoat. The right wing blames it for moral degeneration and fiscal chaos. The liberal class uses it to call for “moderation.” And while we waste our time talking nonsense, the engines of corporate power—masked, ruthless and unexamined—happily devour the state.
The loss of a radical left in American politics has been catastrophic. The left once harbored militant anarchist and communist labor unions, an independent, alternative press, social movements and politicians not tethered to corporate benefactors. But its disappearance, the result of long witch hunts for communists, post-industrialization and the silencing of those who did not sign on for the utopian vision of globalization, means that there is no counterforce to halt our slide into corporate neofeudalism. This harsh reality, however, is not palatable. So the corporations that control mass communications conjure up the phantom of a left. They blame the phantom for our debacle. And they get us to speak in absurdities.
The phantom left took a central role on the mall this weekend in Washington. It had performed admirably for Glenn Beck, who used it in his own rally as a lightning rod to instill anger and fear. And the phantom left proved equally useful for the comics Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, who spoke to the crowd wearing red-white-and-blue costumes. The two comics evoked the phantom left, as the liberal class always does, in defense of moderation, which might better be described as apathy. If the right wing is crazy and if the left wing is crazy, the argument goes, then we moderates will be reasonable. We will be nice. Exxon and Goldman Sachs, along with predatory banks and the arms industry, may be ripping the guts out of the country, our rights—including habeas corpus—may have been revoked, but don’t get mad. Don’t be shrill. Don’t be like the crazies on the left.
“Why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution or racists and homophobes who see no one’s humanity but their own?” Stewart asked. “We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is—on the brink of catastrophe—torn by polarizing hate, and how it’s a shame that we can’t work together to get things done. But the truth is we do. We work together to get things done every damn day. The only place we don’t is here [in Washington] or on cable TV.”
The rally delivered a political message devoid of reality or content. The corruption of electoral politics by corporate funds and lobbyists, the naive belief that we can somehow vote ourselves back to democracy, was ignored for emotional catharsis. The right hates. The liberals laugh. And the country is taken hostage.
The Rally to Restore Sanity, held in Washington’s National Mall, was yet another sad footnote to the death of the liberal class. It was as innocuous as a Boy Scout jamboree. It ridiculed followers of the tea party without acknowledging that the pain and suffering expressed by many who support the movement are not only real but legitimate. It made fun of the buffoons who are rising up out of moral swamps to take over the Republican Party without accepting that their supporters were sold out by a liberal class, and especially a Democratic Party, which turned its back on the working class for corporate money.
Fox News’ Beck and his allies on the far right can use hatred as a mobilizing force because there are tens of millions of Americans who have very good reason to hate. They have been betrayed by the elite who run the corporate state, by the two main political parties and by the liberal apologists, including those given public platforms on television, who keep counseling moderation as jobs disappear, wages drop and unemployment insurance runs out. As long as the liberal class speaks in the dead voice of moderation it will continue to fuel the right-wing backlash. Only when it appropriates this rage as its own, only when it stands up to established systems of power, including the Democratic Party, will we have any hope of holding off the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party.
Wall Street’s looting of the Treasury, the curtailing of our civil liberties, the millions of fraudulent foreclosures, the long-term unemployment, the bankruptcies from medical bills, the endless wars in the Middle East and the amassing of trillions in debt that can never be repaid are pushing us toward a Hobbesian world of internal collapse. Being nice and moderate will not help. These are corporate forces that are intent on reconfiguring the United States into a system of neofeudalism. These corporate forces will not be halted by funny signs, comics dressed up like Captain America or nice words.
The liberal class wants to inhabit a political center to remain morally and politically disengaged. As long as there is a phantom left, one that is as ridiculous and stunted as the right wing, the liberal class can remain uncommitted. If the liberal class concedes that power has been wrested from us it will be forced, if it wants to act, to build movements outside the political system. This would require the liberal class to demand acts of resistance, including civil disobedience, to attempt to salvage what is left of our anemic democratic state. But this type of political activity, as costly as it is difficult, is too unpalatable to a bankrupt liberal establishment that has sold its soul to corporate interests. And so the phantom left will be with us for a long time.
Politics in America has become spectacle. It is another form of show business. The crowd in Washington, well trained by television, was conditioned to play its role before the cameras. The signs —“The Rant is Too Damn High,” “Real Patriots Can Handle a Difference of Opinion” or “I Masturbate and I Vote”—reflected the hollowness of current political discourse and television’s perverse epistemology. The rally spoke exclusively in the impoverished iconography and language of television. It was filled with meaningless political pieties, music and jokes. It was like any television variety program. Personalities were being sold, not political platforms. And this is what the society of spectacle is about.
The modern spectacle, as the theorist Guy Debord pointed out, is a potent tool for pacification and depoliticization. It is a “permanent opium war” which stupefies its viewers and disconnects them from the forces that control their lives. The spectacle diverts anger toward phantoms and away from the perpetrators of exploitation and injustice. It manufactures feelings of euphoria. It allows participants to confuse the spectacle itself with political action.
The celebrities from Comedy Central and the trash talk show hosts on Fox are in the same business. They are entertainers. They provide the empty, emotionally laden material that propels endless chatter back and forth on supposed left- and right-wing television programs. It is a national Punch and Judy show. But don’t be fooled. It is not politics. It is entertainment. It is spectacle. All national debate on the airwaves is driven by the same empty gossip, the same absurd trivia, the same celebrity meltdowns and the same ridiculous posturing. It is presented with a different spin. But none of it is about ideas or truth. None of it is about being informed. It caters to emotions. It makes us confuse how we are made to feel with knowledge. And in the end, for those who serve up this drivel, the game is about money in the form of ratings and advertising. Beck, Colbert and Stewart all serve the same masters. And it is not us.
Chris Hedges, who writes every Monday for Truthdig, is the author of the new book “Death of the Liberal Class.”
Friday, October 8, 2010
Great Quotes: Stephen Colbert
"You know what else is insane folks? All the special rights minorities are asking for these days. Gay Americans want the right to be married in California. Mexican Americans want the right to drive through Arizona. And Muslim Americans want the right to be Muslims."
Friday, October 1, 2010
Colbert's through-the-looking-glass moment in Congress
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-na-immigrants-colbert-20100925,0,898110.story
Colbert's through-the-looking-glass moment in Congress
Taking political satire to a new dimension, the comedian testifies before a House subcommittee in character as a right-wing commentator. The topic: migrant farm workers' rights.
Matea Gold, Tribune Washington Bureau
September 25, 2010
Reporting from Washington —
At 9:37 a.m. Friday, a man in a navy suit bounded into a packed committee room in the Rayburn House office building wearing the wide grin of a politician. Surrounded by a scrum of clicking photographers, he marched over to the witness table, plunked himself down on a leather chair and smoothed back his hair.
Stephen Colbert, cable TV political satirist-cum-political activist, was ready to testify.
"I certainly hope that my star power can bump this hearing all the way up to C-SPAN 1," he said.
Not quite. Colbert's role as a witness on migrant farm labor before a House Judiciary subcommittee only rated C-SPAN 3. But his appearance in character as a bloviating right-wing talk show host quickly made the rounds on the internet, and marked a permutation of the brand of humor that he and fellow Comedy Central host Jon Stewart have honed. No longer content with parodying politicians, they are extending the joke into the very halls of government that they mock.
The two comedians have built large followings, especially among liberals. They will step further into the arena they satirize on Oct. 30, when they hold twin rallies on the National Mall. Stewart bills his as a "Rally to Restore Sanity" to political discourse, while Colbert counters with a "March to Keep Fear Alive." Both events are intended as send-ups of a rally led Fox News commentator by Glenn Beck last month. But for participants and viewers, the line between joke and advocacy appears to be getting thinner.
Friday's subcommittee meeting was a through-the-looking-glass moment for Colbert. The two-hour hearing resembled a surreal version of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," if Mr. Smith were a comedian playing a bombastic TV commentator fielding thorny questions about immigration reform from members of Congress.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose), the subcommittee chairwoman, had asked Colbert to testify after they spent a day together picking beans and packing corn as part of the United Farm Workers' Take Our Jobs campaign, which invites Americans to try their hand at field work. The comedian turned it into a bit that aired on "The Colbert Report" earlier this week.
"His actions are a good example of how using both levity and fame, a media figure can bring attention to a critically important issue for the good of the nation," Lofgren said as she opened the hearing into a bill that would legalize undocumented field workers.
When it came time for his testimony, Colbert offered to submit a video of his colonoscopy into the congressional record as evidence that produce is "a necessary source of roughage."
As for the labor pool, "this is America," the comedian said. "I don't want a tomato picked by a Mexican. I want it picked by an American, then sliced by a Guatemalan and served by a Venezuelan in a spa where a Chilean gives me a Brazilian. Because my great-grandfather did not travel across 4,000 miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this country overrun by immigrants."
Still, "after working with these men and women picking beans, packing corn for hours on end, side by side in the unforgiving sun, I have to say — and I do mean this sincerely — please don't make me do this again," Colbert added. "It is really, really hard."
"Maybe this ag jobs bill would help," he concluded. "I don't know. Like most members of Congress, I haven't read it."
Irritated Republicans spent much of the hearing trying to disarm Colbert with a combination of jokes and pointed questions.
"Does one day working in the field make you an expert witness, do you think?" Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) asked scornfully.
"I believe one day of me studying anything makes me an expert on something," Colbert replied confidently.
"Is that to say it's more work than you've ever done before, right?" Smith followed.
"It's certainly harder work than this," the comedian deadpanned.
For all the jokes, however, it appeared Colbert was there for more than comedy. When asked by Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) why he was interested in farm workers, the comedian suddenly turned serious.
"I like talking about people who don't have any power," he said. "And it just seems like one of the least powerful people in the United States are migrant workers who come and do our work but don't have any rights as a result. And yet we still invite them to come here, and at the same time ask them to leave."
Colbert, a practicing Catholic who occasionally teaches Sunday school, quoted the biblical passage about helping "the least of my brothers," adding: "Migrant workers suffer and have no rights."
matea.gold@latimes.com
Colbert's through-the-looking-glass moment in Congress
Taking political satire to a new dimension, the comedian testifies before a House subcommittee in character as a right-wing commentator. The topic: migrant farm workers' rights.
Matea Gold, Tribune Washington Bureau
September 25, 2010
Reporting from Washington —
At 9:37 a.m. Friday, a man in a navy suit bounded into a packed committee room in the Rayburn House office building wearing the wide grin of a politician. Surrounded by a scrum of clicking photographers, he marched over to the witness table, plunked himself down on a leather chair and smoothed back his hair.
Stephen Colbert, cable TV political satirist-cum-political activist, was ready to testify.
"I certainly hope that my star power can bump this hearing all the way up to C-SPAN 1," he said.
Not quite. Colbert's role as a witness on migrant farm labor before a House Judiciary subcommittee only rated C-SPAN 3. But his appearance in character as a bloviating right-wing talk show host quickly made the rounds on the internet, and marked a permutation of the brand of humor that he and fellow Comedy Central host Jon Stewart have honed. No longer content with parodying politicians, they are extending the joke into the very halls of government that they mock.
The two comedians have built large followings, especially among liberals. They will step further into the arena they satirize on Oct. 30, when they hold twin rallies on the National Mall. Stewart bills his as a "Rally to Restore Sanity" to political discourse, while Colbert counters with a "March to Keep Fear Alive." Both events are intended as send-ups of a rally led Fox News commentator by Glenn Beck last month. But for participants and viewers, the line between joke and advocacy appears to be getting thinner.
Friday's subcommittee meeting was a through-the-looking-glass moment for Colbert. The two-hour hearing resembled a surreal version of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," if Mr. Smith were a comedian playing a bombastic TV commentator fielding thorny questions about immigration reform from members of Congress.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose), the subcommittee chairwoman, had asked Colbert to testify after they spent a day together picking beans and packing corn as part of the United Farm Workers' Take Our Jobs campaign, which invites Americans to try their hand at field work. The comedian turned it into a bit that aired on "The Colbert Report" earlier this week.
"His actions are a good example of how using both levity and fame, a media figure can bring attention to a critically important issue for the good of the nation," Lofgren said as she opened the hearing into a bill that would legalize undocumented field workers.
When it came time for his testimony, Colbert offered to submit a video of his colonoscopy into the congressional record as evidence that produce is "a necessary source of roughage."
As for the labor pool, "this is America," the comedian said. "I don't want a tomato picked by a Mexican. I want it picked by an American, then sliced by a Guatemalan and served by a Venezuelan in a spa where a Chilean gives me a Brazilian. Because my great-grandfather did not travel across 4,000 miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this country overrun by immigrants."
Still, "after working with these men and women picking beans, packing corn for hours on end, side by side in the unforgiving sun, I have to say — and I do mean this sincerely — please don't make me do this again," Colbert added. "It is really, really hard."
"Maybe this ag jobs bill would help," he concluded. "I don't know. Like most members of Congress, I haven't read it."
Irritated Republicans spent much of the hearing trying to disarm Colbert with a combination of jokes and pointed questions.
"Does one day working in the field make you an expert witness, do you think?" Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) asked scornfully.
"I believe one day of me studying anything makes me an expert on something," Colbert replied confidently.
"Is that to say it's more work than you've ever done before, right?" Smith followed.
"It's certainly harder work than this," the comedian deadpanned.
For all the jokes, however, it appeared Colbert was there for more than comedy. When asked by Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) why he was interested in farm workers, the comedian suddenly turned serious.
"I like talking about people who don't have any power," he said. "And it just seems like one of the least powerful people in the United States are migrant workers who come and do our work but don't have any rights as a result. And yet we still invite them to come here, and at the same time ask them to leave."
Colbert, a practicing Catholic who occasionally teaches Sunday school, quoted the biblical passage about helping "the least of my brothers," adding: "Migrant workers suffer and have no rights."
matea.gold@latimes.com
Friday, May 14, 2010
Media promotes far-fetched ‘bin Laden in Iran’ report
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0506/documentary-claims-bin-laden-living-luxury-iranian-capital/
Media promotes far-fetched ‘bin Laden in Iran’ report
Muriel Kane
Thursday, May 6th, 2010
According to a new documentary, Osama bin Laden has been living in Iran's capital of Tehran with his family since 2003, enjoying the protection of the Revolutionary Guard and regularly taking part in the elite sport of falcon hunting.
This seemingly bizarre charge by by falconry expert Alan Parrot appears in the film Feathered Cocaine, which depicts "the secretive world of falconers where some birds can sell for over $1 million, and in which the elite of the Middle East conduct business and politics in remote desert camps."
Parrot, who claims to have traveled to Iran after he graduated from high school in the 1970's and become chief falconer to the Shah, says that a northern Iranian warlord, who reluctantly agreed to talk about bin Laden after one of Parrot's men saved his life, spoke of meeting the al Qaeda leader on six hunting trips between 2003 and 2008 and described him as calm and healthy.
As unlikely as Parrot's story might appear, ABC's George Stephanopoulos actually raised the question with Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad during an interview on Tuesday, inaccurately asserting that Parrot himself had met bin Laden on several occasions.
"There's a new documentary out that says that Osama Bin Laden is living in Tehran," Stephanopoulos began. "And the subject of the documentary, a man named Alan Parrot, one of the world's foremost falconers living in Iran, says he's spoken to Osama bin Laden several times since 2003. Is Osama bin Laden in Tehran?"
"Your question is laughable," Ahmadinejad replied. He went on to say mockingly, "I heard that Osama bin Laden is in the Washington, D.C. ... Because he was a previous partner of Mr. Bush. They were colleagues in fact in the old days. You know that. They were in the oil business together. They worked together. Mr. Bin Laden never cooperated with Iran but he cooperated with Mr. Bush--"
The film is being promoted heavily by Fox News, which places particular emphasis on the claim that "Parrot's story is supported in the documentary by former CIA agent Robert Baer, an outspoken critic of U.S. policy in the Middle East and of how the CIA is managed. Baer, the onetime Middle East operative on whom the movie Syriana is based, explains that while he was in the CIA, he used satellites to watch the camps and they proved to be one of the key ways Al Qaeda was funded."
It is not clear how far Baer's endorsement extends, especially since he recently suggested that bin Laden is most likely dead. It also appears that in the film he was speaking only of al Qaeda's use of falconry camps and may not even have been aware of Parrot's assertion that bin laden is in Iran.
A review of Feathered Cocaine at DVDTalk states, "The always-fascinating Robert Baer (the former CIA field officer who inspired the Clooney character in Syriana) pops up to explain that falcon hunting camps are where business is done in the Middle East; meetings and cash hand-offs are the norm, and presumably, that's where Osama bin Laden took care of at least some of his financial and logistical planning. ... But the film goes deeper into the weeds. Parrot says he has a source, a professional smuggler (though not of falcons, of course) who says that bin Laden is in Iran."
"Parrot then proclaims that bin Laden's falcons all have tracking devices on them," the reviewer continues, "so if we were to go to Iran during hunting season, the signals from those falcons could be used to triangulate his location. Uh huh. He claims to have given all of this information to the government, but he's been ignored by both the previous and the current administrations, so clearly, our government doesn't actually want to catch Osama bin Laden."
In 2006, when the Dubai Ports deal was in the headlines, Parrot -- who also claims to have been part of the inner circle of the late President Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahayan of the United Arab Emirates -- was promoting a very similar story, but with a focus on the UAE rather than Iran.
Parrot told FrontPageMagazine at that time, "The Sheiks fly into falcon hunting camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan on C-130 military cargo planes filled with SUV’s, supplies and even steamer trunks full of cash. ... They meet with al Qaeda leaders or bin Laden himself while in these camps and discuss their Muslim obligations and unity. When they leave, they leave all the vehicles, supplies and any other useful equipment behind as donations to al Qaeda for its efforts at jihad."
Around the same time, Parrot appeared on Fox News -- wearing a turban and with a falcon on his wrist -- and told host John Gibson that he had personally witnessed bin Laden dealing with government officials at camps in the United Arab Emirates. "They have failed to close down the falconry camps, which are the real venue for planning the terror events that we have seen around the world," Parrot charged.
This clip was then featured by Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert, who commented plaintively, "How could we have failed to shut down the falconry camps? We know Al Qaeda is after our field mice."
Media promotes far-fetched ‘bin Laden in Iran’ report
Muriel Kane
Thursday, May 6th, 2010
According to a new documentary, Osama bin Laden has been living in Iran's capital of Tehran with his family since 2003, enjoying the protection of the Revolutionary Guard and regularly taking part in the elite sport of falcon hunting.
This seemingly bizarre charge by by falconry expert Alan Parrot appears in the film Feathered Cocaine, which depicts "the secretive world of falconers where some birds can sell for over $1 million, and in which the elite of the Middle East conduct business and politics in remote desert camps."
Parrot, who claims to have traveled to Iran after he graduated from high school in the 1970's and become chief falconer to the Shah, says that a northern Iranian warlord, who reluctantly agreed to talk about bin Laden after one of Parrot's men saved his life, spoke of meeting the al Qaeda leader on six hunting trips between 2003 and 2008 and described him as calm and healthy.
As unlikely as Parrot's story might appear, ABC's George Stephanopoulos actually raised the question with Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad during an interview on Tuesday, inaccurately asserting that Parrot himself had met bin Laden on several occasions.
"There's a new documentary out that says that Osama Bin Laden is living in Tehran," Stephanopoulos began. "And the subject of the documentary, a man named Alan Parrot, one of the world's foremost falconers living in Iran, says he's spoken to Osama bin Laden several times since 2003. Is Osama bin Laden in Tehran?"
"Your question is laughable," Ahmadinejad replied. He went on to say mockingly, "I heard that Osama bin Laden is in the Washington, D.C. ... Because he was a previous partner of Mr. Bush. They were colleagues in fact in the old days. You know that. They were in the oil business together. They worked together. Mr. Bin Laden never cooperated with Iran but he cooperated with Mr. Bush--"
The film is being promoted heavily by Fox News, which places particular emphasis on the claim that "Parrot's story is supported in the documentary by former CIA agent Robert Baer, an outspoken critic of U.S. policy in the Middle East and of how the CIA is managed. Baer, the onetime Middle East operative on whom the movie Syriana is based, explains that while he was in the CIA, he used satellites to watch the camps and they proved to be one of the key ways Al Qaeda was funded."
It is not clear how far Baer's endorsement extends, especially since he recently suggested that bin Laden is most likely dead. It also appears that in the film he was speaking only of al Qaeda's use of falconry camps and may not even have been aware of Parrot's assertion that bin laden is in Iran.
A review of Feathered Cocaine at DVDTalk states, "The always-fascinating Robert Baer (the former CIA field officer who inspired the Clooney character in Syriana) pops up to explain that falcon hunting camps are where business is done in the Middle East; meetings and cash hand-offs are the norm, and presumably, that's where Osama bin Laden took care of at least some of his financial and logistical planning. ... But the film goes deeper into the weeds. Parrot says he has a source, a professional smuggler (though not of falcons, of course) who says that bin Laden is in Iran."
"Parrot then proclaims that bin Laden's falcons all have tracking devices on them," the reviewer continues, "so if we were to go to Iran during hunting season, the signals from those falcons could be used to triangulate his location. Uh huh. He claims to have given all of this information to the government, but he's been ignored by both the previous and the current administrations, so clearly, our government doesn't actually want to catch Osama bin Laden."
In 2006, when the Dubai Ports deal was in the headlines, Parrot -- who also claims to have been part of the inner circle of the late President Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahayan of the United Arab Emirates -- was promoting a very similar story, but with a focus on the UAE rather than Iran.
Parrot told FrontPageMagazine at that time, "The Sheiks fly into falcon hunting camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan on C-130 military cargo planes filled with SUV’s, supplies and even steamer trunks full of cash. ... They meet with al Qaeda leaders or bin Laden himself while in these camps and discuss their Muslim obligations and unity. When they leave, they leave all the vehicles, supplies and any other useful equipment behind as donations to al Qaeda for its efforts at jihad."
Around the same time, Parrot appeared on Fox News -- wearing a turban and with a falcon on his wrist -- and told host John Gibson that he had personally witnessed bin Laden dealing with government officials at camps in the United Arab Emirates. "They have failed to close down the falconry camps, which are the real venue for planning the terror events that we have seen around the world," Parrot charged.
This clip was then featured by Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert, who commented plaintively, "How could we have failed to shut down the falconry camps? We know Al Qaeda is after our field mice."
Friday, January 29, 2010
Colbert rips ‘butt-sniffing’ Harold Ford
http://rawstory.com/2010/01/colbert-rips-butt-sniffing-harold-fordColbert rips ‘butt-sniffing’ Harold Ford
By David Edwards
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
Harold Ford has been accused of flip flopping on issues like abortion and gay marriage as he is apparently planning to mount a primary challenge to Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in New York. Stephen Colbert expressed his admiration for Ford's wavering positions by awarding him "Alpha Dog of the Week" Monday.
The former congressman from Tennessee has tried to shed the charge of carpetbagger but Colbert applauded Ford's "massive carpet bags." Ford could have tried to ingratiate himself to the locals but when asked if he had been to Staten Island, he proudly said, "I landed there in the helicopter, so I can say yes."
"You see," explained Colbert. "Ford wants to represent all the people of New York, who, to him, all look like tiny, tiny ants."
The Comedy Central comedian went on to praise the the audacity of Ford for changing his position on issues important to New York Democrats. "I gotta give Ford credit for having the musky sack to change not only his address but also his political views," said Colbert.
Four years ago, Ford told then-Fox host Alan Colmes, "I was not pro-choice at one time."
Just last week, the former congressman seemed to contradict himself when he said, "I am personally pro-choice & legislatively pro-choice."
"He believes that every American has the right to choose when it is politically expedient to be pro-life," explained Colbert.
And in 2006, when asked by CNN's Wolf Blitzer about his position on gay marriage, Ford said, "Well, I've never flip-flopped on gay marriage, Mr. blitzer. I've always been opposed to it."
Only last Monday Ford told Matt Lauer that he was in favor of "civil unions and same-sex marriage."
"But what really puts Ford ahead of the butt-sniffing chain is that he's not pulling this reversal in Clustermunch, Iowa," explained Colbert. "He's doing this in New York City: the media capitol of the world" where all the bits of video tape are saved and "there are whole newspaper pages dedicated to everything famous people do."
"So, for lifting your leg on New Yorkers and telling us it's just and egg cream, you sir, are my Alpha Dog of the Week," exclaimed Colbert.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Beast of the Month - July 2009
Glenn Beck
Right-Wing Propagandist
"I yam an anti-Christ..."
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"
"And if I may speak to Glenn directly for a moment, dude, you are rocking it. I know some people say you're an unstable individual and to give you a public forum is grossly irresponsible, but remember: they crucified Jesus. Crank up the crazy and rip off the knob."
Stephen Colbert on Mr. Beck
Okay, we admit it, The Konformist isn't the biggest fan of Barack Obama. Still, even if you hate a guy, it should be on what he actually is and not on what he isn't.
Over the last few months, criticism of Obama in the mainstream press has been dominated by two groups of people: the "teabaggers" (seriously, stop snickering!) led by noted "men of the people" such as multi-millionaires Rick Santelli of CNBC and Sean Hannity of Fox News, who protest O's supposed far left economic policies; and the "birthers" led by the entertaining Orly Taitz, who insist that Obama can't even be president due to his alleged secret birth in Kenya (or perhaps some even more exotic and sinister locale, such as Russia or - God forbid - France.) The end result of these two movements is the image of Barack Hussein Obama as an evil socialist totalitarian who is secretly plotting to destroy America for his foreign masters. (Never mind that Obama actually occupies the far right of the Democratic Party economically, and that if he's destroying America for any foreign master, it's the banking system.) Suddenly, the charges of Larry Sinclair seem tame that Obama is merely a closeted crack-smoking homosexual.
True, maybe The Konformist has little leg to stand on in mocking others for engaging in elaborate paranoid conspiracy theories. Still, one recent news hysteria perfectly exemplifies how most of the right-wing paranoia surrounding BHO is not only silly, but seems to be a designed misdirection of a mass movement. Consider what happened in April after the Department of Homeland Security’s report, titled Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment, was leaked onto the Internet, detailing the DHS contention that right-wing politics was a breeding ground for not-so-future terrorism. Immediately, a frenzy of reactionary frothings exploded over the web and right-wing radio about the report. Leading the charge was host Michael "Weiner" Savage, yet another right-wing establishment media blowhard who is a millionaire faux populist. The report, Savage and others insisted, was proof that the Obama administration was a crypto-Marxist cabal plotting to destroy America. So The Konformist must give credit to Kurt Nimmo of Alex Jones' excellent PrisonPlanet.com website, which has been a leading source for top notch political analysis in the age of Obama. Because of the supposed conservative leanings of Mr. Jones (though a review of his site would show his opinions are far more nuanced and certainly more honest than the mainstream media's right wing shills) Prison Planet became one of the sites the DHS report was leaked to. Unlike most other sites that followed with delusional rants, Nimmo noted something about the report that should have been immediately obvious: it was written in January 2007, when the Bush Administration was in charge. Likewise, another DHS report released earlier this year was titled Leftwing Extremists Likely to Increase Use of Cyber Attacks over the Coming Decade. This pretty much proves that the Rightwing Extremism report wasn't an Obama Kult assault on the right but rather part of an attack embraced by both George and Barack on anyone deemed a political misfit of any stripe.
Of course, perhaps it says something about the current political climate that Alex Jones and The Konformist can now be described as moderate voices of reason. (We don't mean this as a knock on Jones, but even his biggest fans would concede central to his appeal is a sensational style that resembles a carnival barker.) Chalk it up to a political dialogue dominated by the likes of Rush, O'Reilly, Hannity, Coulter and Savage. Still, in recent months even these mouthpieces have been overtaken by radio and TV host Glenn Beck, The Konformist Beast of the Month.
Mr. Beck has been host of his own nationally syndicated radio show since 2000. His astounding success over the radio has led to a TV career as a host, first on CNN Headline News since 2006 and then moving to Fox News in January. (His success on TV is all the more remarkable considering he is a decidedly physically repulsive specimen.) He has also written two New York Times bestsellers, making him a multi-media sensation who rivals Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern.
How has Mr. Beck become so popular? Simple: by behaving in a decidedly unhinged manner over the airwaves, all while espousing a reactionary political philosophy.
This was highlighted in March, when he choked up on air, wiping tears from his eyes and declaring, "I'm sorry. I just love my country, and I fear for it." For this one, Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert (who has had a field day over the entire Glenn Beck trend) spoofed him by choking up on his own show and saying, "I'm sorry. I just love Glenn Beck's sanity. And I fear for it." Colbert also earned some chuckles after Beck had a close-up of his "crazy eyes" so viewers could see just how serious he was. Colbert one-upped this by having an anal exam with a camera so viewers could literally see just how full of crap he was.
On a more serious note, FAIR columnist Norman Solomon had this to say about Glenn: "Beck has become a national phenom with his nightly hour of polemics... urging war on Iran, denouncing 'political correctness' at home, trashing immigrants who don’t speak English, mocking environmentalists as repressive zealots, and generally trying to denigrate progressive outlooks." Eric Boehlert of MediaMatters.org notes that on his show, Beck "disparages liberals, gays, Democrats, blacks, immigrants, and Muslims at will."
That's not all he's tried to disparage. In 2005, he called the victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans "scumbags." He then added: "I didn't think I could hate victims faster than the 9-11 victims." He said both after admitting that nobody "in their right mind is going to say this out loud," proving that Beck himself knows he's insane. Not to leave bad enough alone, in 2007, he mocked victims of the Southern California forest fires as "a handful of people who hate America... a lot of them are losing their homes." It got even funnier the end of June, when Beck had on his show "former" CIA agent Michael Scheuer. Scheuer declared, "The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States... Only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently and with as much violence as necessary.” To this adovocacy of mass terrorism, Beck nodded in approval.
Pretty hilarious stuff.
Hilarious, at least, until someone dies. That's what happened in April, when 22-year-old Richard Poplawski killed three Pittsburgh policemen and wounded two others in a bloody shootout. It soon was uncovered that Poplawski, a neo-Nazi, was a huge fan of Beck and his right-wing rantings on Fox News. He was also a fan of the white supremacist Website Stormfront, posting videos of Beck's show on the site. Poplawski was obsessed with right-wing conspiracies, believing that Obama was going to start confiscating guns and rounding up right-wingers in FEMA concentration camps, all part of a New World Order plot to turn Team USA into a Maoist dictatorship.
To be fair, much of this thinking is central to the appeal of Alex Jones, who Poplawski also was a fan of. What Jones did not share, however, was his racist world view, including a belief that America was secretly controlled by a gang of evil Jews. While Beck also eschews the anti-Semitic plots (perhaps because Jews are fortunately not a socially sanctioned scapegoat group anymore) he does, as noted before, engage in trashing of minorities in the same vein as Limbaugh does. Perhaps it isn't overt, in-your-face racism, but it is there.
Certainly it is too much to blame the Pittsburgh murders on Glenn Beck. After all, many "liberal" sites tried to smear Alex Jones with the same brush after it was discovered Poplawski was a fan. But it is hard not to listen to the venomous rage spewed out by Beck (as well as Rush, O'Reilly, Hannity, Coulter and Savage) and imagine what it could do to borderline personalities. Somehow The Konformist suspects the Poplawski murders are the first shot of what may turn into a very disturbing fad.
Which, of course, is only part of what is dangerous about Beck. The bigger issue is that he, along with his fellow right-wing blowhards, are channeling the legitimate anger and frustration of the masses into options controlled by the GOP. Thus, the protests of Ron Paul that once frightened the Republican establishment (tellingly, Paul was even more marginalized on Fox News than CNN in 2008) has morphed into the teabagger movement, which is backed by mainstream GOP politicians such as Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey. The controlled teabagger movement focuses all its rage on the Obama stimulus plan that marginally aided the poor and middle class, while remaining silent about the obscene bailout of Wall Street (which Ron Paul vociferously opposed.) Likewise, Beck will embrace the conspiracy theories of Alex Jones, provided they can be packaged in a way where viewers can use them to support the Republicans. And perhaps even more important, Beck and his cohorts will ignore any criticism of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and wherever else the Pentagon decides to attack in the future, even though an anti-war message is central to both Jones and Paul.
Of course, whenever Beck gets cornered by his own reactionary beliefs, he tries to dismiss himself as a rodeo clown, a harmless buffoon who is more of an entertainer than a political ideologue. On this issue, The Konformist must concede that as pure theater, Beck is indeed very entertaining. But looking at what the Poplawski murders might lead to, and looking how Beck is manipulating the anger of the masses into faux-populist movements, we have to wonder who will get the last laugh.
In any case, we salute Glenn Beck as Beast of the Month. Congratulations, and keep up the great work, Glenn!!!
Thanks to ColbertNation.com, Fair.org, MediaMatters.org, PrisonPlanet.com & RawStory.com for help on this article.
Right-Wing Propagandist
"I yam an anti-Christ..."
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"
"And if I may speak to Glenn directly for a moment, dude, you are rocking it. I know some people say you're an unstable individual and to give you a public forum is grossly irresponsible, but remember: they crucified Jesus. Crank up the crazy and rip off the knob."
Stephen Colbert on Mr. Beck
Okay, we admit it, The Konformist isn't the biggest fan of Barack Obama. Still, even if you hate a guy, it should be on what he actually is and not on what he isn't.
Over the last few months, criticism of Obama in the mainstream press has been dominated by two groups of people: the "teabaggers" (seriously, stop snickering!) led by noted "men of the people" such as multi-millionaires Rick Santelli of CNBC and Sean Hannity of Fox News, who protest O's supposed far left economic policies; and the "birthers" led by the entertaining Orly Taitz, who insist that Obama can't even be president due to his alleged secret birth in Kenya (or perhaps some even more exotic and sinister locale, such as Russia or - God forbid - France.) The end result of these two movements is the image of Barack Hussein Obama as an evil socialist totalitarian who is secretly plotting to destroy America for his foreign masters. (Never mind that Obama actually occupies the far right of the Democratic Party economically, and that if he's destroying America for any foreign master, it's the banking system.) Suddenly, the charges of Larry Sinclair seem tame that Obama is merely a closeted crack-smoking homosexual.
True, maybe The Konformist has little leg to stand on in mocking others for engaging in elaborate paranoid conspiracy theories. Still, one recent news hysteria perfectly exemplifies how most of the right-wing paranoia surrounding BHO is not only silly, but seems to be a designed misdirection of a mass movement. Consider what happened in April after the Department of Homeland Security’s report, titled Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment, was leaked onto the Internet, detailing the DHS contention that right-wing politics was a breeding ground for not-so-future terrorism. Immediately, a frenzy of reactionary frothings exploded over the web and right-wing radio about the report. Leading the charge was host Michael "Weiner" Savage, yet another right-wing establishment media blowhard who is a millionaire faux populist. The report, Savage and others insisted, was proof that the Obama administration was a crypto-Marxist cabal plotting to destroy America. So The Konformist must give credit to Kurt Nimmo of Alex Jones' excellent PrisonPlanet.com website, which has been a leading source for top notch political analysis in the age of Obama. Because of the supposed conservative leanings of Mr. Jones (though a review of his site would show his opinions are far more nuanced and certainly more honest than the mainstream media's right wing shills) Prison Planet became one of the sites the DHS report was leaked to. Unlike most other sites that followed with delusional rants, Nimmo noted something about the report that should have been immediately obvious: it was written in January 2007, when the Bush Administration was in charge. Likewise, another DHS report released earlier this year was titled Leftwing Extremists Likely to Increase Use of Cyber Attacks over the Coming Decade. This pretty much proves that the Rightwing Extremism report wasn't an Obama Kult assault on the right but rather part of an attack embraced by both George and Barack on anyone deemed a political misfit of any stripe.
Of course, perhaps it says something about the current political climate that Alex Jones and The Konformist can now be described as moderate voices of reason. (We don't mean this as a knock on Jones, but even his biggest fans would concede central to his appeal is a sensational style that resembles a carnival barker.) Chalk it up to a political dialogue dominated by the likes of Rush, O'Reilly, Hannity, Coulter and Savage. Still, in recent months even these mouthpieces have been overtaken by radio and TV host Glenn Beck, The Konformist Beast of the Month.
Mr. Beck has been host of his own nationally syndicated radio show since 2000. His astounding success over the radio has led to a TV career as a host, first on CNN Headline News since 2006 and then moving to Fox News in January. (His success on TV is all the more remarkable considering he is a decidedly physically repulsive specimen.) He has also written two New York Times bestsellers, making him a multi-media sensation who rivals Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern.
How has Mr. Beck become so popular? Simple: by behaving in a decidedly unhinged manner over the airwaves, all while espousing a reactionary political philosophy.
This was highlighted in March, when he choked up on air, wiping tears from his eyes and declaring, "I'm sorry. I just love my country, and I fear for it." For this one, Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert (who has had a field day over the entire Glenn Beck trend) spoofed him by choking up on his own show and saying, "I'm sorry. I just love Glenn Beck's sanity. And I fear for it." Colbert also earned some chuckles after Beck had a close-up of his "crazy eyes" so viewers could see just how serious he was. Colbert one-upped this by having an anal exam with a camera so viewers could literally see just how full of crap he was.
On a more serious note, FAIR columnist Norman Solomon had this to say about Glenn: "Beck has become a national phenom with his nightly hour of polemics... urging war on Iran, denouncing 'political correctness' at home, trashing immigrants who don’t speak English, mocking environmentalists as repressive zealots, and generally trying to denigrate progressive outlooks." Eric Boehlert of MediaMatters.org notes that on his show, Beck "disparages liberals, gays, Democrats, blacks, immigrants, and Muslims at will."
That's not all he's tried to disparage. In 2005, he called the victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans "scumbags." He then added: "I didn't think I could hate victims faster than the 9-11 victims." He said both after admitting that nobody "in their right mind is going to say this out loud," proving that Beck himself knows he's insane. Not to leave bad enough alone, in 2007, he mocked victims of the Southern California forest fires as "a handful of people who hate America... a lot of them are losing their homes." It got even funnier the end of June, when Beck had on his show "former" CIA agent Michael Scheuer. Scheuer declared, "The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States... Only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently and with as much violence as necessary.” To this adovocacy of mass terrorism, Beck nodded in approval.
Pretty hilarious stuff.
Hilarious, at least, until someone dies. That's what happened in April, when 22-year-old Richard Poplawski killed three Pittsburgh policemen and wounded two others in a bloody shootout. It soon was uncovered that Poplawski, a neo-Nazi, was a huge fan of Beck and his right-wing rantings on Fox News. He was also a fan of the white supremacist Website Stormfront, posting videos of Beck's show on the site. Poplawski was obsessed with right-wing conspiracies, believing that Obama was going to start confiscating guns and rounding up right-wingers in FEMA concentration camps, all part of a New World Order plot to turn Team USA into a Maoist dictatorship.
To be fair, much of this thinking is central to the appeal of Alex Jones, who Poplawski also was a fan of. What Jones did not share, however, was his racist world view, including a belief that America was secretly controlled by a gang of evil Jews. While Beck also eschews the anti-Semitic plots (perhaps because Jews are fortunately not a socially sanctioned scapegoat group anymore) he does, as noted before, engage in trashing of minorities in the same vein as Limbaugh does. Perhaps it isn't overt, in-your-face racism, but it is there.
Certainly it is too much to blame the Pittsburgh murders on Glenn Beck. After all, many "liberal" sites tried to smear Alex Jones with the same brush after it was discovered Poplawski was a fan. But it is hard not to listen to the venomous rage spewed out by Beck (as well as Rush, O'Reilly, Hannity, Coulter and Savage) and imagine what it could do to borderline personalities. Somehow The Konformist suspects the Poplawski murders are the first shot of what may turn into a very disturbing fad.
Which, of course, is only part of what is dangerous about Beck. The bigger issue is that he, along with his fellow right-wing blowhards, are channeling the legitimate anger and frustration of the masses into options controlled by the GOP. Thus, the protests of Ron Paul that once frightened the Republican establishment (tellingly, Paul was even more marginalized on Fox News than CNN in 2008) has morphed into the teabagger movement, which is backed by mainstream GOP politicians such as Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey. The controlled teabagger movement focuses all its rage on the Obama stimulus plan that marginally aided the poor and middle class, while remaining silent about the obscene bailout of Wall Street (which Ron Paul vociferously opposed.) Likewise, Beck will embrace the conspiracy theories of Alex Jones, provided they can be packaged in a way where viewers can use them to support the Republicans. And perhaps even more important, Beck and his cohorts will ignore any criticism of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and wherever else the Pentagon decides to attack in the future, even though an anti-war message is central to both Jones and Paul.
Of course, whenever Beck gets cornered by his own reactionary beliefs, he tries to dismiss himself as a rodeo clown, a harmless buffoon who is more of an entertainer than a political ideologue. On this issue, The Konformist must concede that as pure theater, Beck is indeed very entertaining. But looking at what the Poplawski murders might lead to, and looking how Beck is manipulating the anger of the masses into faux-populist movements, we have to wonder who will get the last laugh.
In any case, we salute Glenn Beck as Beast of the Month. Congratulations, and keep up the great work, Glenn!!!
Thanks to ColbertNation.com, Fair.org, MediaMatters.org, PrisonPlanet.com & RawStory.com for help on this article.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Miracle Whip joins in Colbert's mayonnaise fun
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/chi-talk-miracle-whip-colbertnov13,0,4097052.story
Miracle Whip joins in Stephen Colbert's mayonnaise fun
Northfield-based Kraft rolls with comic Colbert's satiric punches
By Mike Hughlett
Tribune reporter
November 13, 2009
With Miracle Whip's street cred called into question -- OK, let's assume that's possible -- the venerable sandwich spread's maker, Northfield-based Kraft Foods Inc., took to the airwaves in its defense Thursday during Stephen Colbert's show.
On Oct. 15, the late-night comedian ran a parody of a Miracle Whip ad, deriding the product as "Miracle Wimp" and extolling mayo as the condiment with "plenty of attitude."
Kraft's original ad sports a youthful, in-your-face theme, complete with a herd of 20-somethings frolicking to a distorted guitar riff. "Don't blend in, don't be ordinary, boring or bland," the ad commands. "In other words, don't be so mayo. ... We are Miracle Whip, and we will not tone it down."
So Colbert rolled-out "The Mayo-lution will not be televised," an homage to -- as he put it -- the "illest condiment in the hiz-ouse."
Kraft sensed a marketing opportunity. It booked four spots on Colbert's Thursday night show. The ad footage was the same as that parodied by Colbert, but Kraft modified the voice-overs and copy, said company spokeswoman Joyce Hodel. In other words, Kraft is running with Colbert's gag.
Lost in the mayo bashing is the fact that Kraft is also one of the country's two main mayonnaise manufacturers. What's up with that, Miracle Whipsters?
"We think there is room for both," Hodel said.
mhughlett@tribune.com
Miracle Whip joins in Stephen Colbert's mayonnaise fun
Northfield-based Kraft rolls with comic Colbert's satiric punches
By Mike Hughlett
Tribune reporter
November 13, 2009
With Miracle Whip's street cred called into question -- OK, let's assume that's possible -- the venerable sandwich spread's maker, Northfield-based Kraft Foods Inc., took to the airwaves in its defense Thursday during Stephen Colbert's show.
On Oct. 15, the late-night comedian ran a parody of a Miracle Whip ad, deriding the product as "Miracle Wimp" and extolling mayo as the condiment with "plenty of attitude."
Kraft's original ad sports a youthful, in-your-face theme, complete with a herd of 20-somethings frolicking to a distorted guitar riff. "Don't blend in, don't be ordinary, boring or bland," the ad commands. "In other words, don't be so mayo. ... We are Miracle Whip, and we will not tone it down."
So Colbert rolled-out "The Mayo-lution will not be televised," an homage to -- as he put it -- the "illest condiment in the hiz-ouse."
Kraft sensed a marketing opportunity. It booked four spots on Colbert's Thursday night show. The ad footage was the same as that parodied by Colbert, but Kraft modified the voice-overs and copy, said company spokeswoman Joyce Hodel. In other words, Kraft is running with Colbert's gag.
Lost in the mayo bashing is the fact that Kraft is also one of the country's two main mayonnaise manufacturers. What's up with that, Miracle Whipsters?
"We think there is room for both," Hodel said.
mhughlett@tribune.com
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Behind the Fake Report of Jeff Goldblum's Death
This summary is not available. Please
click here to view the post.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Stephen Colbert delivers laughs to American troops
http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/2009-06-08-uso_N.htm
Stephen Colbert delivers laughs to American troops
Sunday, June 7, 2009
By Aamer Madhani, USA TODAY
CAMP VICTORY, Iraq — Apparently, all it took for victory in Iraq was a visit by late-night funnyman Stephen Colbert.
"By the power vested in me by basic cable, I officially declare we have won the Iraq war!" the mock pundit joked before a cheering crowd of about 300 U.S. servicemembers who gathered here on Sunday for a taping of his TV show, The Colbert Report.
The show, which will air tonight on cable's Comedy Central, did have (slightly more modest) real-life historic implications: It was the first non-news television show to be produced, taped and transmitted to the U.S. from a combat zone, according to John Hanson, a senior vice president for the United Service Organizations (USO), which brings entertainment and other programs to troops in the field.
In the past, performers such as Bob Hope, who made several famed visits with troops in Vietnam, would film and a crew would bring footage to the U.S. to edit and repackage. The performance would not be shown on television until months later. Colbert and a crew of about 20 are shooting and beaming back by satellite four episodes that will air this week, Hanson said.
Colbert taped the first of four shows dubbed "Operation Iraqi Stephen: Going Commando" in the gaudy rotunda of one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces on this sprawling base near Baghdad International Airport.
Colbert, who has been raising money for charitable organizations that support U.S. troops, had been trumpeting his plan to tape his show before U.S. servicemembers in an undisclosed location. Taking heed of Defense Department security precautions, Colbert would only say in recent shows that, where he was going, "there will be sand and people that wish we would leave."
Before the show, some soldiers wondered whether Colbert, whose TV persona pokes fun at conservative punditry, would dial it down for a military audience.
No way. "He went totally all out," said 1st Lt. Virginia Brickner, 29, of Van Wert, Ohio.
The man who invented the word "truthiness" joked that Iraq must be a pretty nice place, considering many of the servicemembers in the audience "keep coming again, again and again."
"The good news is you have enough frequent flier miles for a trip to Afghanistan," Colbert told the troops, who responded with hearty laughter.
Colbert might have gotten his biggest laughs during his interview with Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander in Iraq. Before he brought Odierno on stage, Colbert showed a video sketch of his attempt at boot camp at Fort Jackson in South Carolina.
After a semiserious interlude in which Odierno told Colbert his declaration of victory might be a bit premature, Colbert asked the general how he thought Colbert would fare in his Army.
Odierno responded that Colbert had too much hair to be a soldier. At that point, President Obama was beamed in on a large projection screen and ordered Odierno to give Colbert a trim.
Colbert will be sporting a buzz cut for the rest of his stay in Iraq.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
NASA Names Space Station Treadmill After Colbert
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103119972NASA Names Space Station Treadmill After Colbert
Morning Edition, April 15, 2009
The space agency solved its latest public relations problem. NASA invited people to send choices to name a node in the international space station. TV comedian Stephen Colbert got his viewers to offer his last name, and they won.
An astronaut told Colbert the agency compromised by re-naming a treadmill. They gave it an acronym: Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill — that's C-O-L-B-E-R-T.
The treadmill is set to arrive at the space station in August. It will be installed after the node, named Tranquilty, arrives at the station next year.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Gerald Celente & Gargamel: Separated at Birth?
Thanks to Stephen Colbert for pointing this out on his show earlier this month...
A Konformist Kontributor & the dude who terrorizes Smurf Village
A Konformist Kontributor & the dude who terrorizes Smurf Village
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Colbert mocks 'crazy eyes' Beck
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Colbert_mocks_Glenn_Beck_with_doom_0305.html
Colbert mocks 'crazy eyes' Beck with 'Doom Bunker' segment
David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster
Thursday March 5, 2009
It's the end of the world as we know it, maybe, according to Glenn Beck. But, at least one fake pundit feels fine cracking wise.
Among media pundits ripe for parody, Beck must seem an easy target, especially for a weathered comedian. After Beck once asked his audience to look into his eyes and see how serious he is, Colbert underwent an on-air anal exam to jokingly one-up the Fox editorialist, finding plenty of red comedic meat in his "crazy eyes."
Colbert's words then -- "Glenn climbed into his genius cannon and lit the fuse" -- hold especially true today, especially if you're a satirist.
Recently, Beck's recurring jibe on the coming Obama-fueled apocalypse was enough to scare a fellow Fox host under a table. The effects on Colbert, however, were slightly more hilarious.
Riffing on Beck's newest addition to his show -- a segment he's titled "The War Room," in which so-called experts discuss end-of-the-world scenarios -- Colbert examined Beck's first suggested endgame.
"It's the year 2014," said Beck. "All the US banks have been nationalized, Unemployment is at about 12 percent. DOW is trading at 2,800. The real estate market has collapsed."
"That," injected Colbert, "is the most terrifying future I have ever heard yanked out of someone's ass."
One of Beck's guests suggested that at this point, major cities will begin to "look like Calcutta." He specifically pointed to "people who are ignorant, functionally illiterate and whacked-out on drugs, hillbilly heroin and you name it, meth, go down the line, and they have nothing to lose."
In other words, he pre-blamed the "ignorant, illiterate, whacked-out hillbillies with nothing to lose," summarized Colbert. "Terrifying! But, more viewers for Fox News!"
To prepare for Beck's forecasts of turmoil and desperation, Colbert took it upon himself to introduce a new segment: Stephen Colbert's Doom Bunker.
"I am not saying that these things are going to happen," said Colbert, his on-screen graphics a pitch-perfect mockery of Beck's. (Except for the fornicating lions.) "I'm saying, they are going to happen, I think?"
As eerily post-apocalyptic stage smoke billowed across the set, Colbert pinged his guests with preposterous doomsday scenarios including werewolves and the discovery that all cars in America are actually Decepticons.
Colbert mocks 'crazy eyes' Beck with 'Doom Bunker' segment
David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster
Thursday March 5, 2009
It's the end of the world as we know it, maybe, according to Glenn Beck. But, at least one fake pundit feels fine cracking wise.
Among media pundits ripe for parody, Beck must seem an easy target, especially for a weathered comedian. After Beck once asked his audience to look into his eyes and see how serious he is, Colbert underwent an on-air anal exam to jokingly one-up the Fox editorialist, finding plenty of red comedic meat in his "crazy eyes."
Colbert's words then -- "Glenn climbed into his genius cannon and lit the fuse" -- hold especially true today, especially if you're a satirist.
Recently, Beck's recurring jibe on the coming Obama-fueled apocalypse was enough to scare a fellow Fox host under a table. The effects on Colbert, however, were slightly more hilarious.
Riffing on Beck's newest addition to his show -- a segment he's titled "The War Room," in which so-called experts discuss end-of-the-world scenarios -- Colbert examined Beck's first suggested endgame.
"It's the year 2014," said Beck. "All the US banks have been nationalized, Unemployment is at about 12 percent. DOW is trading at 2,800. The real estate market has collapsed."
"That," injected Colbert, "is the most terrifying future I have ever heard yanked out of someone's ass."
One of Beck's guests suggested that at this point, major cities will begin to "look like Calcutta." He specifically pointed to "people who are ignorant, functionally illiterate and whacked-out on drugs, hillbilly heroin and you name it, meth, go down the line, and they have nothing to lose."
In other words, he pre-blamed the "ignorant, illiterate, whacked-out hillbillies with nothing to lose," summarized Colbert. "Terrifying! But, more viewers for Fox News!"
To prepare for Beck's forecasts of turmoil and desperation, Colbert took it upon himself to introduce a new segment: Stephen Colbert's Doom Bunker.
"I am not saying that these things are going to happen," said Colbert, his on-screen graphics a pitch-perfect mockery of Beck's. (Except for the fornicating lions.) "I'm saying, they are going to happen, I think?"
As eerily post-apocalyptic stage smoke billowed across the set, Colbert pinged his guests with preposterous doomsday scenarios including werewolves and the discovery that all cars in America are actually Decepticons.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Your Friendly Neighborhood Barack Obama
http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b78129_your_friendly_neighborhood_barack_obama.htmlYour Friendly Neighborhood Barack Obama
1-8-9
Joal Ryan
Excuse Barack Obama if his Spidey sense is tingling.
The nation's soon-to-be first commander in geek has been tapped—and drawn—to share covers of an upcoming Amazing Spider-Man with his beloved Webslinger.
The issue, No. 583, on sale Jan. 14, finds Peter Parker's costumed self making sure all goes well on Inauguration Day. Not to give away the ending, but celebratory fist-bumps are exchanged, Marvel editor-in-chief Joe Quesada said today.
Obama was not consulted. Fellow comic geek Stephen Colbert was absolutely not consulted.
"The truth is since we put Stephen in an issue [Amazing Spider-Man No. 573], we basically own his ass," Quesada said.
Quesada said the idea for the Obama issue was hatched after reports said the future president collected Spider-Man. The same reports said Obama collected Conan the Barbarian, too, but Marvel doesn't own the rights to that character anymore.
A bipartisan comics fan, Obama has also been known to drop Superman references. And Green Hornet references. And Star Trek references. And…
With such apparent love for fandom, is there any doubt that Marvel's kingpin has a front-row seat at Obama's swearing in?
Well, actually, yeah, there's doubt. In fact, it's not happening—Quesada's not going ("I wish."). Spidey cover or no, Quesada confirmed that Obama hasn't even offered one of his heroes a role in the new administration.
Still, the editor said, "Spider-Man and I are at the ready, if needed."
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Tina Fey voted AP Entertainer of the Year
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hVrlxW8kNa4k6Xx4fZboOef6597wD958G91G0
Tina Fey voted AP Entertainer of the Year
By JAKE COYLE
12-23-8
NEW YORK (AP) — Tina Fey is the entertainer of the year? You betcha. Fey was voted The Associated Press' Entertainer of the Year, an annual honor chosen by newspaper editors and broadcast producers across the country.
Fey was selected by AP members as the performer who had the greatest impact on culture and entertainment in 2008.
The 38-year-old comedian bested runner-up Robert Downey Jr., whose comeback was capped with the blockbuster smash "Iron Man," and the third-place vote-getter, Heath Ledger, who posthumously wowed audiences as the Joker in "The Dark Knight."
But it was Fey who most impressed voters largely with her indelible impression of Gov. Sarah Palin on "Saturday Night Live." Her cameos on her old show (where she had been a head writer until 2006) helped drive the show to record ratings and eventually drew an appearance from Palin herself.
"Tina Fey is such an obvious choice," said Sharon Eberson, entertainment editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "She gave us funny when we really needed it and, in a year when women in politics were making huge strides, Fey stood out in the world of entertainment."
Fey's 2008 was a full year, though.
She also starred for the first time on the big screen in "Baby Mama" (which grossed $60 million at the box office) and won three Emmys for her critically lauded NBC sitcom "30 Rock," which she created, stars in and writes. In the comedy series category, she won for best lead actress and best writing, and shared in the award for best comedy series.
"She simultaneously entertained us with her wit and put a mirror up to the nation during the election and made us think about what was going on," said Scott Shive, assistant features editor at the Lexington Herald-Leader. "She is the epitome of the smart kid coming out on top for once."
As soon as Palin was chosen as Sen. John McCain's running mate, conjecture mounted that the similar-looking Fey would have to return to "SNL" to play her.
In an interview earlier this fall, Fey recalled watching early TV coverage of Palin: "That was the first time I thought, `Well, I kinda do look like her. I'd better really listen to how this lady talks.'"
Fey debuted the impression on the "SNL" season premiere and a sensation quickly followed. She made four more pre-election appearances as Palin on the late-night satire.
"From the winks to the nods to the accent, she nailed it," said Marc Bona, assistant entertainment editor of the Plain Dealer in Cleveland. "And she did so at a time when it seemed the whole country was tuned in — both to the presidential race as well as 'Saturday Night Live.'"
Her Palin impression has benefited "30 Rock," too. The show premiered its fourth season to 8.5 million viewers, a million more than last year's opener.
Recently, she was also nominated for a Golden Globe (for best performance by an actress in a TV series, comedy or musical), as well as a Screen Actors Guild award.
"The `SNL' stuff has certainly changed things for me," Fey said in October. "A lot more people seem to know who I am."
Last year's AP Entertainer of the Year also went to a comedian whose satire blended in with politics: Stephen Colbert.
On the Net:
http://www.nbc.com/
Tina Fey voted AP Entertainer of the Year
By JAKE COYLE
12-23-8
NEW YORK (AP) — Tina Fey is the entertainer of the year? You betcha. Fey was voted The Associated Press' Entertainer of the Year, an annual honor chosen by newspaper editors and broadcast producers across the country.
Fey was selected by AP members as the performer who had the greatest impact on culture and entertainment in 2008.
The 38-year-old comedian bested runner-up Robert Downey Jr., whose comeback was capped with the blockbuster smash "Iron Man," and the third-place vote-getter, Heath Ledger, who posthumously wowed audiences as the Joker in "The Dark Knight."
But it was Fey who most impressed voters largely with her indelible impression of Gov. Sarah Palin on "Saturday Night Live." Her cameos on her old show (where she had been a head writer until 2006) helped drive the show to record ratings and eventually drew an appearance from Palin herself.
"Tina Fey is such an obvious choice," said Sharon Eberson, entertainment editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "She gave us funny when we really needed it and, in a year when women in politics were making huge strides, Fey stood out in the world of entertainment."
Fey's 2008 was a full year, though.
She also starred for the first time on the big screen in "Baby Mama" (which grossed $60 million at the box office) and won three Emmys for her critically lauded NBC sitcom "30 Rock," which she created, stars in and writes. In the comedy series category, she won for best lead actress and best writing, and shared in the award for best comedy series.
"She simultaneously entertained us with her wit and put a mirror up to the nation during the election and made us think about what was going on," said Scott Shive, assistant features editor at the Lexington Herald-Leader. "She is the epitome of the smart kid coming out on top for once."
As soon as Palin was chosen as Sen. John McCain's running mate, conjecture mounted that the similar-looking Fey would have to return to "SNL" to play her.
In an interview earlier this fall, Fey recalled watching early TV coverage of Palin: "That was the first time I thought, `Well, I kinda do look like her. I'd better really listen to how this lady talks.'"
Fey debuted the impression on the "SNL" season premiere and a sensation quickly followed. She made four more pre-election appearances as Palin on the late-night satire.
"From the winks to the nods to the accent, she nailed it," said Marc Bona, assistant entertainment editor of the Plain Dealer in Cleveland. "And she did so at a time when it seemed the whole country was tuned in — both to the presidential race as well as 'Saturday Night Live.'"
Her Palin impression has benefited "30 Rock," too. The show premiered its fourth season to 8.5 million viewers, a million more than last year's opener.
Recently, she was also nominated for a Golden Globe (for best performance by an actress in a TV series, comedy or musical), as well as a Screen Actors Guild award.
"The `SNL' stuff has certainly changed things for me," Fey said in October. "A lot more people seem to know who I am."
Last year's AP Entertainer of the Year also went to a comedian whose satire blended in with politics: Stephen Colbert.
On the Net:
http://www.nbc.com/
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
John McCain's Wacky Sense of Humor
"Oh! Oh! Remember the time he picked Sarah Palin? I totally get it now! She's totally unqualified, and he's so old! There's a really good chance she'd be president!"
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
