Can I just say this up front? Jon Stewart is a massively overrated pundit who isn’t nearly as smart as he thinks himself to be.

I mean, not even close.

Just check out the headline he ran with to talk about Madison:

Crisis in Dairyland – Revenge of the Curds
The Wisconsin protests against Scott Walker’s plan to cut benefits and collective bargaining rights turns into the Bizarro Tea Party. (09:14)

Basically, as Stewart outlines in his piece, the Pro-Union protesters are right on all the facts; Walker’s plan is a radical power grab and crushes long-held civil liberties.

But can’t we be *nice* about it? Not so ‘chanty’?

In the 9 minute segment Stewart repeatedly mocks the brave people who have occupied the Capitol Rotunda as being, well, dirty, noisy hippies.

He then proceeds to attack some commentators for comparing us to the Mideast protests that have rocked the world.

Hey, Jon? You know who else compared us to them?

Kamal Abbas, general coordinator of the independent Egyptian Centre for Trade Unions and Workers Services (CTUWS), has sent an amazing message of solidarity to U.S. workers under assault by CEO-backed governors and state legislators. From Michael Moore’s website:

I am speaking to you from a place very close to Tahrir Square in Cairo, “Liberation Square,” which was the heart of the Revolution in Egypt. This is the place were many of our youth paid with their lives and blood in the struggle for our just rights.

From this place, I want you to know that we stand with you as you stood with us.

I want you to know that no power can challenge the will of the people when they believe in their rights. When they raise their voices loud and clear and struggle against exploitation.

No one believed that our revolution could succeed against the strongest dictatorship in the region. But in 18 days the revolution achieved the victory of the people….

We want you to know that we stand on your side. Stand firm and don’t waiver. Don’t give up on your rights. Victory always belongs to the people who stand firm and demand their just rights.

We and all the people of the world stand on your side and give you our full support.

As our just struggle for freedom, democracy and justice succeeded, your struggle will succeed. Victory belongs to you when you stand firm and remain steadfast in demanding your just rights.

Huh. But I guess he should shut up, because Jon Stewart has decided the two events are completely unrelated. I mean, what would Kamal Abbas know about living under, and then overthrowing, dictatorship?

About Kamal Abbas and the Centre for Trade Unions and Workers Services:

Kamal Abbas is General Coordinator of the CTUWS, an umbrella advocacy organization for independent unions in Egypt. The CTUWS, which was awarded the 1999 French Republic’s Human Rights Prize, suffered repeated harassment and attack by the Mubarak regime, and played a leading role in its overthrow. Abbas, who witnessed friends killed by the regime during the 1989 Helwan steel strike and was himself arrested and threatened numerous times, has received extensive international recognition for his union and civil society leadership.

Oh… right. But still, I mean, Stewart runs a comedy news program, so clearly Abbas is mistaken.

Stewart then slips in a bizarre attack on Al Jazeera as ‘promoting’ the World Trade Center attacks and Al Qaeda, finally rounding off his segment by explicitly calling the Madison protesters the ‘Bizarro Tea Party’ and saying that MSNBC is identical to Fox for standing up for us. (Even though, as previously noted, Stewart establishes that the Pro-Union side is right on all the facts. Reporting facts, it seems, is now an uncivil, unfair approach to journalism, unless accompanied by a touch of scorn and wacky graphics.)

Jon Stewart is, and let’s be clear, an idiot when it comes to politics. He’s a man who thinks that the facts are far less important than everyone being nice, and sitting down, and having a pleasant conversation. His false equivalencies and fetish for painting himself as the reasonable and rational center of the country are notorious. He is not a great thinker, and his ability to care about your plight and your situation extends precisely as far as your tactics don’t offend his delicate, pearl-clutching, run-for-the-fainting couch sensibilities while you stand up for your rights.

Jon Stewart is, in fact, a tool.

Tags: Journamalism, Madison Protests

This entry was posted by John Sears on Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011 at 6:39 am and is filed under ZRC News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.