Friday, March 13, 2009

Thank You Jon Stewart























What is going on here when the most honest, provocative and in your face journalism on television is coming from Comedy Central? As Jon Stewart himself has said, he'll be happy to go back to being a comedian making fart noises and stupid jokes. But, until the rest of the journalistic world get's off their scared little butts and starts to ask the tough questions...thank God for Stewart.

Please, watch Jon Stewart's interview with Jim Cramer.  Cramer is a high profile television host of the show Mad Money, who famously hawked Bear Stearns stock right before they went under. He includes video footage of Cramer glibbly remarking how they play around, have fun and entertain themselves with other people's money. All while we were sleeping soundly at night just knowing that our IRA's and 401K's were safe and sound. Cramer took the fun to the airwaves via his show Mad Money and told people what the bankers wanted us to hear. At one point Stewart tells him "I understand that you want to make finance entertaining, but it's not a fucking game." He was angry. We are angry. It's about time somebody made someone answer for their greed and power hungry choices. Now, if we can get some of these other pansy ass journalists to start behaving like journalists and not celebrities or politicians...we might get somewhere.

Cramer seemed contrite. Let's see if he changes his tune once he's back on NBC.   I hope Cramer isn't the only one who gets raked over the coals...he's certainly not the only one who deserves to. At least Cramer had the conjones to show up. Or did he just think a comedy show was gonna be fun?

The interview is too long to post here... you can watch the whole thing at Huffingtonpost.com or at Comedy Central.

But, for your immediate viewing pleasure...there's this...


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Check this out:

http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2009/02/all-them-must-go

Janice said...

I've watched the program as it was broadcast (on the show's website, I don't have cable) and the unedited version of the interview as well; I also went back to March 4 where he gives his original "rant" that started the whole thing - and I agree with you 100%, SallyBelle. It wasn't "Brilliant" television (Jim Cramer just pretty much took the beating, which was surprising - did he know what was going to happen up front? He seemed so abashed and yes, embarrased ;did he agree to take the hits for the rest of the CNBC crew? I thought Stewart's analysis and anger were exactly what we hope to see - and never do - elsewhere from our so-called media "watchdogs", and I know people want Stewart to be funny, but give me more of this any day. What I hope though is that Stewart's original point isn't lost in all the hoopla - it wasn't about one TV show or one person, but about an entire system, in which media and corporate interests and government etc are all in bed with one another, stealing our money