This is a good photo of the Iraqis, with the aid of U.S. Marines, putting a noose around the neck of a large statue of Saddam, pulling it down, and dancing on it. I heard the BBC describing the scene on the radio this morning, and it pleased me a great deal. Not surprisingly, the commentators were very cynical, saying that the statue was too strong, that the Iraqis wouldn’t be able to bring it down, and that, even if they could, it wouldn’t mean anything. The commentators were wrong on all counts.
I happened to catch a couple of minutes of Comedy Central’s "The Daily Show" last evening and they did a segment on the "lameness" of the statue destruction. It was compared to the drama of the Berlin Wall coming down and they showed clips of Iraqi civilians whacking at the base of the 2,000 lb. statue with a sledgehammer in an effort to bring it down, prior to the US pulling it down with a crane. Overall, said John Stewart, it wasn’t much to look at and deserved a poor rating. The segment was quite funny, but - sadly - it also served to comment on the fact that for most Americans, the war is nothing but entertainment.
H.L. Mencken famously defined Puritanism as the fear that someone, somewhere, might be having a good time.
I’m not quite sure I understand what Mr. Moser is trying to get at. Perhaps he’d care to elaborate. Surely he’s not suggesting that a war should be considered a form of entertainment??? Some clarification would be much appreciated.
Simply to say that there are some for whom joy is a legitimate response to the end of 35-plus years of tyranny. Others get satisfaction by making ironic jokes which amount to sneering at Americans for allegedly treating war as "nothing but entertainment."
By the way, it strikes me that Jon Stewart and the writers of the Daily Show, for all their cosmpolitan elitism, are the ones who have been making light of the war.
C’mon, let’s great real here, Mr. Moser. Jon Stewart and the writers of the Daily Show make fun of EVERYTHING, as do most comedians. It’s what they get paid to do. If you want a nation where people aren’t permitted to voice their opinions, tell jokes or protest, perhaps you shouldn’t be living in the US.
As for the show, I’m convinced that you misunderstood my comments. The segment was by no means a denouncement of the war or the newly "liberated" Iraqi people. If anything, it was a criticism of the media and those who would regard the war as entertainment (hence, the comments that the statue dismantlement wasn’t as good as the Berlin Wall or seeing Yeltsin on a tank).
The previous evening’s show replays early in the evening (maybe 6pm or 7pm?)here in Cincinnati. I suspect that is the case everywhere. Perhaps you’d care to check it out first-hand before denouncing it.
Nope. It used to be on at 7:00, but they dropped it in favor of reruns of Conan O’Brien. Too bad, I used to enjoy the show.
I just did a little bit of homework and found that it airs at 5:30pm here. (This explains why I never see the early evening version anymore, as I’m usually not home by then.) Anyway, you might want to check it out at that time and see if it’s on there (Ashland?).
I have to say that, when I used to have cable, I enjoyed "The Daily Show" quite a bit, most especially for how it punctured the pretentions of the big gas bags on television news. I once saw an interview of Stewart where he strongly derided 24-hour cable news for dealing in sensationalism, celebrity, hearsay, and rumors. He thought we deserved better, and he’s right, so I applaud anything he does to ridicule them.