Last night Jon Stewart delivered a segment that is destined to become classic among the Daily Show archives (video below). The brilliantly produced nine minutes of insight and comedy began with a montage of Fox News squaking heads doing what comes naturally to them: Complaining about President Obama.
On this occasion, the topic of the complaint was that the President did not talk enough about poverty, a subject that Fox News generally regards as a scam run by moochers and Democrats who are either trying to enslave them or are fishing for their votes. But since Fox’s mission is to denigrate Obama at all times, when he talks about poverty he is pandering and when he doesn’t he is heartless and hypocritical.
It quickly became apparent that Fox must have been watching a different President Obama than the the one that inhabits reality. Stewart noticed that divergence saying that Obama has indeed “been addressing those issues his entire presidency,” and that Fox ignored that fact in favor of obsessing over Obama making an unarguably true observation about Fox.
“Yep, just like college students at a four hour commencement, Fox basically paid no attention until they heard their own names. It turns out at one point during this incredibly thoughtful and productive session on poverty, the President made the easily provable and decidedly true point that the Fox News narrative is that poverty is not a function of economic condition, but of character.”
For the record, this what Obama said about Fox:
“If you watch Fox News on a regular basis, it is a constant menu, they will find folks who make ME mad. I don’t know where they find them. They’re all like ‘I don’t wanna work. I just want a free Obamaphone.’ And that becomes an entire narrative that gets worked up. And very rarely do you hear an interview of a waitress, which is much more typical, who’s raising a couple of kids, and is doing everything right, but still can’t pay the bills.”
Stewart accurately noted that the President has a “remarkably firm grasp” on the Fox business model and mocked Fox anchor Stuart Varney’s assertion that they are “honest messengers.” He then laid into what he called a “rich buffet of bullshit” when Varney claimed that Fox never characterized the poor as lazy. What followed was another montage of Fox News callously demonizing the poor in direct contradiction of what they had just claimed.
This caused Stewart to wonder “How fucking removed from reality” is Fox of their own coverage. That is, I assume a rhetorical question. Obviously Fox does not factor reality into their coverage from the outset. Otherwise, how could people like Varney say that the poor “have a richness of things, what they lack is a richness of spirit,” in one breath, and then pretend that he would never say such a thing in the next? Stewart’s response…
“Are these glaring contradictions a product of lack of self-awareness, or cynicism, or stupidity, or evil? I don’t know anymore, and I’m starting to lack a richness of fucks.”
It is easy to understand the sense of exasperation that Fox’s hypocrisy can incite. But the truth is that they have been doing this for years. Take for example this account of how the poor just have things way too good; or this one; or this one. And the funny thing is that all three of those stem from the same source that Fox keeps recycling for years on end. It’s a mantra that surely brings them the inner peace of a Bizarro World Buddha who lusts for ever more material possessions, while condemning anyone who is struggling to survive for wanting just the bare necessities of life.
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Clearly, the FoxPods and their ilk live in an alternate universe. In that alternate universe, Obama is an evil socialist communist fascist nazi dictator who is working to take over the world and become Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico and he is a pawn of the Muslim brotherhood who wants to turn the greatest nation in the world over to this Muslim cabal and he is the most useless and incompetent president to ever come down the pike. See, only in this alternate universe can all of this be absolutely true.
(Never mind, of course, that, in our own universe, the Lord Emperor Cheney and his puppet tried desperately to proclaim himself Emperor and only proved himself the total incompetent he is.)
And they will never truly see Obama for what he is in our universe: a well meaning fool who is very good with a speech but finding the follow-up extremely difficult to accomplish, mostly because Fox Spews and the super rich white guys who worship it hath told the Republicans to oppose anything for which Obama expresses support.
So pity the FoxPods and their ilk. Perhaps someday they will return to our universe when they understand the true nature of their lies. Let’s hope that the Democrats find someone truly capable of handling the office of the presidency this time.
“…what they lack is a richness of spirit” Coming from a pasty, fat, conservative douche-nerd who just oozes a need for attention and validation. Oh, the irony is almost too painful to bear.
Hearing poor folks getting trashed in the media makes me livid! I’ve been poor, and I can tell you that nobody works harder or endures more day-to-day misery and indignity than the poor. Is it better to be poor in Uh’merica than in some third world hell-hole? Maybe, but it’s much, much worse being poor here than in any other industrialized democracy on Earth. Rightwingers believe the less-fortunate need to be punished for their lack of success because… well, I dunno… because RWNJs are sick bastards and their parents didn’t raise ’em right, I guess.
Some right winger think that – but I believe it would be much less prevalent if the taxes we pay were taken from us were NOT involuntarily. Think about it – an average middle class person works hard, pays his bills, donates to charity, etc. with a check that is significantly less than what he/she earned. Why shouldn’t someone be pissed off? Now replace that with someone getting their entire check or at least most of it and taxes being generated/taken from people through their consent – such as when they consume something or anything (ie sales tax) knowing the cost will include some tax and they agree to pay it through the conscious decision to make that purchase with the taxes added.
Just saying – most of the frustration is because we – the working person – has NO CHOICE when taxes are taken from us and GIVEN to someone else who honestly has no right to those funds that were involuntarily confiscated – not just the poor either, it applies to so many living off the government including corporate handouts and the like. My hard work should allow me to make 100% of the choices with the money – like giving to charities and organizations that benefit the poor or not if I so choose – voluntarism is the best way to solve this – the people of this country are quite generous and I have not doubt would support worthwhile causes when asked.
Yes, that worked sowell during the Depression, didn’t it? You want to “volunteer” the super duper rich Fox worshiper to contribute to the poor? Yeah, that’s going to happen…
Do you actually read anything or just spew whatever supports your communist dream? Read the causes of the depression sometime – you may learn something about reality.
He attacks and says nothing. Again.
You are the one who brought up “voluntarism,” Steve. Hoover tried to push that to solve the depression and it didn’t work, mostly because Hoover did nothing to spur it on (since, like many presidents of that era – and the Rethuglican party of ours – he did not believe government should aid the people). We’re not talking about how the Depression started, only how Hoover dealt with it.
So, do explain how my comment is a support of communism and your comment isn’t? And please don’t bring up reality – that has nothing to do with anything Fox Spews releases to the public.
Well Steve, I really hate seeing my taxes being sucked up by the Military-Industrial Complex and their never-ending wars for profit, but they didn’t ask for my permission either. Maybe we should both move to some country where people only pay taxes “voluntarily” like, um… well, y’know, one of those libertarian countries like… err, I forget. But there must be some out there somewhere…?
Alternatively, I might go retire to a country where even the richest people pay a fair share of taxes and the government keeps their military spending down to the level needed for actual defense and not empire-building. You know, those countries where taxes are spent keeping people fed, clothed, housed… but not so much for killing foreigners. I’m sure those countries do exist – pretty much all of western Europe for starters.
With all the wasteful spending “our” government does, it just seems really fuk-tup that people blame the poor for the failure of capitalism to live up to its hype. Maybe we should blame the evil sons of bitches that foisted Reaganomics on us in the first place, and then maybe have an honest conversation about what kind of economics work in the Real World. Furthermore, we should ask ourselves what is the economy for anyway? If everybody works for this system, but the system doesn’t work for us… maybe we need to scrap the system rather than continuing to grind our fellow humans into bloody hamburger just to prop up the Religion of Money.
No one is blaming the poor. For someone who has freed themselves from one dillusion (God) – you only substituted it with another – that government is the best way to deliver things to the people efficiently. I never expect to get agreement over taxes or how they are collected – but I do think some self respect would be easier to find. Specifically – how an individual can say giving the government permission to take whatever it wants, no matter how much – which the 16th amendment does.
And of course the understanding this is all done at gunpoint (force) and if you dare not comply you lose your freedom or worse. Why is that at all ok with you? Government has been bought already by the “rich” and the banks – do you honestly think they will ever be forced the way YOU think they should to do that? Honestly? Theory is nice and all, but what you think should happen won’t. It’s better to be free than to be managed by government.
First, yes the poor are being blamed & shamed. I have eyes & ears and I grew up deep in the bosom of conservatism and I heard it all the time. As for the problem of taxation; all I can do is live in the Real World and try to improve it. Living in a Theoretical Libertarian World is fine for you, but it does not actually exist beyond discussions like this.
No perfect govt is attainable… ever. Can we agree on that? But to say our country can’t be improved is simply wrong. There are other countries that are not so different from ours, but they do better by their citizens, even tho they take their taxes “by force” they still manage to allow people to have as much or more personal freedoms than in the US. If they can do better, why can’t we?
And besides, once you fully free your mind from oppressive religion and ideology you can get on with your life as a Free Citizen of Earth. I don’t look to any nation-state for my freedoms and I don’t look to the false god of capital to set the parameters of how human civilization must be ordered. The Almighty Market does not provide for all, and I refuse to worship it.
This insane world view can be traced back to an 18th century ‘ideal’ that “i am rich because I am good and God loves me. You are poor because you are bad and God wants you to suffer. To alter this would upset God so we must keep the poor suffering and keep ourselves rich.”