By Ryan Bruels
www.bruels.com
I remember September 11, 2001 very well, as I’m sure most of my generation always will. Older folks call that day our generation’s Pearl Harbor, but I’ve never subscribed to that. Pearl Harbor and September 11 were both tragic events, unique and separate, both deserved of their own mark in history. But I appreciate the sentiment.
On September 12, every American was filled with dread, confusion, and a question — would we ever return to the way things were? And here, just over three years later, we know the answer to that. Of course things could never return to the way things were before that day. But we’ve bound together, as Americans do, and pushed forward to overcome the insurmountable. But have we really?
We’ve allowed ourselves to fall victim to another enemy. Also on September 12, our nation’s Culture of Fear began to develop. Three years later, it was in its prime. Every day we hear warnings — the terrorists will strike us again. Every day we conform our lives to the latest color of our nationwide threat warning. We shed our shoes for the x-ray machines at airports, and watch as a sobbing Muslim peace activist is sent away from his former home at the whim of a vague terrorist watch list. Our fellow men and women are dying thousands of miles from their homes for an unknown cause, and we watch passively. After all, if we don’t support the war, we’re not patriots. The media concentrates on the dramatic and the controversial — the gay governors, the military record of a soldier thirty years discharged, the bump on a president’s back during a scripted debate. We pit together the two sides of our “democratic” political system, ignoring the third parties and still concentrate on the stale talking points of presidential candidates long expired. Meanwhile, in the background, voting machines crash and are left untested, law enforcement officers peruse our library records unchecked, fellow citizens are surveilled and held indefinitely without trial, and Muslim Americans look around, wondering when the next sneer or verbal attack will get thrown at them in ignorance.
Heroes have been hard to find in these troubled days. The firefighters and police officers, so revered and heralded on September 12, have been handed pink slips and decreased funding. Our soldiers kill our Middle Eastern brethren without knowing exactly why. Teachers find themselves forced to conform to a massively-underfunded education initiative, instead of doing what they do best. Our heroes are again false idols — not the teachers, not the social workers, not the firefighters. Maybe a rude and demeaning athelete selling lots of tacky yellow wristbands — trendy with the frat boys, of course — to weakly promote a self-progressing cause. Movie stars who travel the high seas to meet with savage dictators, reporting back to the world just how wonderful the “leaders” are as their citizens live under relentless fear. A president who thinks women shouldn’t have control over their bodies and has taken scientific progress in this country generations backwards. Admit it to yourself: when was the last time you looked at someone and truly felt the spiritual rise that comes when you see a true human hero?
I think I felt that feeling yesterday, and I felt it during CNN’s Crossfire. Jon Stewart, of Comedy Central’s Daily Show fame, sat across from two of the media’s talking-points sheep: Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson. He was on, officially, to promote his new book (America: The Book), but what he actually came out with may very well change the face of American media.
Stewart used his time to verbally slap the network and the media for being “dishonest” and “doing a disservice” to the American public. After co-host Tucker Carlson suggested that Stewart went easy on Senator John Kerry when the candidate was a guest on “The Daily Show,” Stewart unloaded on “Crossfire,” calling hosts Carlson and Paul Begala “partisan hacks” and chiding them for not raising the level of discourse on their show beyond sloganeering.
“What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery,” Stewart said. “You have a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably.
“I watch your show every day, and it kills me. It’s so painful to watch,” Stewart added as it became apparent that the comedian was not joking. He went on to hammer the network, and the media in general, for its coverage of the presidential debates. Stewart said it was a disservice to viewers to immediately seek reaction from campaign insiders and presidential cheerleaders following the debates, noting that the debates’ famed “Spin Alley” should be called “Deception Lane.”
– MTV
The hosts were left completely dazed and out of their game. It left Tucker Carlson (whom Stewart called a “dick”, and was completely right in doing so) completely vulnerable, and attempting to laugh it off while being visibly shaken. Both hosts tried to get him to “be funny” and try to bring the show back under their control, but it didn’t happen. Stewart remained stalwart and fired back his complaints and his pleas to the modern America media. “I’m not going to be your monkey,” he said to Carlson.
He’s not unlike so many of our fellow citizens, who do actually go out every day and stand up for what’s right and good in this world. But in our Culture of Fear, those people don’t get much public airtime. Jon Stewart is immersed in that culture — after all, it is propogated by the media — and he could have just sat in that chair, promoted his book, and as he put it, been a good monkey to the media giants. But he didn’t. And he’ll be hated for it across the television and radio masses. But he held his ground steadfast, he stood up for his country, he stood up against all that’s wrong in the media, and you know — he stood up for us. It was an amazing moment. And it’s not his first time. That day so long ago, September 11, 2001, he stood up and did the same thing. Spoke for a confused country, and without any political buzzwords or ignorant go-get-em! speeches. He spoke as an American, and he hasn’t let up since that day. The Daily Show’s satire and political commentary has given a perspective on this country that is funny, as he says, only in its absurd truthfulness. As an outsider from the mainstream media, he can speak his mind outside the political talking points, and God help us, help people realize there are real problems in this country. We’re immune to fear and sadness now, complacent as we are three years later; maybe humor is the way into our collective minds again.
Thank you, Jon Stewart. If there were a million more like you, we’d be in a lot better of a place right now. As for your plea, I hope it worked … you may have brought a lot of people back to reality, and with luck, it can make a difference and bring back the true nature of the United States.
“‘Subliminable’ is not a punchline anymore. One day it will become that again. Lord willing, it will become that again, because it means that we will have ridden out the storm.”
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