last night on the daily show, i was pleasantly surprised by what i saw. finally a taste of real, actual journalism in american mainstream media, even if it was an easy target like jim cramer and cnbc.
to be honest, a lot has been made of this “feud”, but i thought the show last night was hardly a fight, even though stewart was clearly playing hardball with cramer. i’ve seen a lot of media reports today claiming stewart skewered, eviscerated, killed, etc. but that’s not the point of the interview, is it?
if you haven’t seen the full, unedited interview, the clips are embedded below(clips 2 and 3 below the fold), and you can see what i mean by that. while stewart clearly takes cramer to task for his own statements and actions, he also makes it clear that “this song ain’t about you” and that his real target is CNBC – an entire news organization that has cornered itself into irrelevance by NOT blowing the whistle and NOT seeing the warning signs. what they’ve done is a great disservice to the public, and truly is as stewart says “criminal at worst”.
ultimately, it comes down to this: journalism is, or at least should be about finding the truth and exposing it, seeking justice for the good of all – the common people as well as society at large. by its very nature, good journalism is often a david vs. goliath fight, to expose corruption at even the highest levels and not just distribute information and sound bites from CEOs and political figures. while that is almost all that we’ve come to expect from our mainstream news organizations, it’s also what the folks at the daily show have not been doing – they may corner their show into relative obscurity by making easy targets of political figures with their punchlines, but as it is now, the entire crew on that show is also proving themselves unsurpassed at researching and disseminating the truth behind the sound bites, exposing corruption, deception, hypocrisies and omissions. this interview should serve as an example of analytic reporting for those in the media, that truth can be found and brought to light, with or without punchlines.
…as you would have them do unto you means the church gets what it has coming to it. for some weird reason, the mormon and catholic churches are acting all shocked and offended that there’s a massive outcry against them for their bigotry in supporting california’s prop 8.
apparently it’s ok for churches to take an active part in bigoted oppression, spending time and money promoting hatred and division, instead of championing social justice. apparently it’s ok for the church to take political stands in clear violation of federal tax laws, despite the scriptures stating to honor the laws of the land. apparently it’s ok for them to declare people with alternative sexual preferences as abominations, despite the fact they should deem themselves abominations because they trim their beards and eat fish and swine and don’t throw their wives out of their house every month when they’re on their period.
so, to these churches and to the people who support their policies i say this sincerely: fuck you. your oppression is your own doing. pull your heads out of your hypocritical asses and realize this: you are the problem with society, not them. maybe if you spent more time reading and focusing on the parts of scripture that teach you how to love, you wouldn’t have enough time to spread all that hate. gay people and even homosexuality in general are not your problem, YOU ARE. grow up and grow a pair, and confront your leaders when they speak out in bigotry and hatred. speak out for social justice and the human rights of others, or you will only stir up more hatred against yourselves.
stand up, grow up, and act right, or any oppression that you may face will be your own doing, and will be for the cause of hatred and evil, not for god. i promise you that.
as a quick follow-up to my recent post about the goings-on at oral roberts university, today brings the news that ORU president richard roberts has temporarily stepped down.
interesting how just before this mr. roberts was saying “god told him” to stay and stand up to this, and now he’s stepping aside, and the lawsuit is being expanded to include allegations of his wife spending time with the “underage male” on nine separate occasions and that the university has been shredding evidence related to the case.
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