Classic Bill Maher 'New Rules' ...... on false equivalency

[marmar]

[Uncle Joe]

1. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, marmar.

[tomp]

2. agree totally. john stewart lost me on that equivalency thing.

one quibble: on 9/11 as an inside job. there has not been a thorough investigation of 9/11, so the best anyone can say for sure is that we don't know what happened. and there is a ton of circumstantial evidence indicating that the official story is a lie. so...NO ONE in the democratic party thinks it's an inside job? that in a sense is an equivalency of its own.

[Ken Burch]

6. Those two rallies showed why our side loses so often.

The other side fights for its principles and shows no shame.

Our sides leaders fight US and are ashamed of our principles. That's what "staying in the center" means.

Obama may be getting this, finally...but will he get it in time?

[pacalo]

10. Our side tries too hard in trying to be fair; perhaps as a way to set an example in hopes

that the other side will be shamed into behaving better. It's not gonna happen.

Especially because we've got the truth on our side, we should be calling it like it is & letting the chips fall where they may. So what if the other side "gets their feelings hurt" (which is just another tactic to keep the truth from being spoken).

Like tomp, I haven't felt the same about Jon Stewart since his remarks against Keith Olbermann. Stewart turned that "return to sanity" rally into a cheap attempt to play up to the corporate side.

[freshwest]

3. Thanks, this is excellent and still timely.

[whatchamacallit]

4. Classic and so true K&R n/t

[butterfly77]

5. I see Issa was at the table..

I wish I could have seen his face when he was telling the truth which the republiCONS can't handle with out trying to talk over people. I want to see this show.

[Ken Burch]

7. One question:

If the Stewart/Colbert rally had been done the way Bill(and most of us)would have wanted it done, would they still have had shows the next day?

I'm thinking they may have remembered what happened to the Smothers Brothers...who were fired by CBS for speaking truth even though they had HUGE ratings.

Not an excuse...but a possible explanation.

[freshwest]

14. Donahue also was highest rated on MSNBC when he spoke against the Iraq War. Poof, he was gone.

Instead of government suppressing free speech on media, it's corporations and their heirarchical structure is a rigid pyramid. Democracies are structured as an inverse pyramid. That is what public participation and cooperation is about.

The mainstream media is controlled by the same companies that benefit from a number of not very nice things being done in our names. The corporations, or rather, fascists, as by virtue of auctioning off the airwaves and ending the Fairness Doctrine by throwing the crumb to the people called CSPAN, are only going to allow dissent within a small box, to gain the viewership and influence more people to their view.

I applaud Maher's piece as being more honest, but he too, can be driven off the air just like Stewart and Colbert for not walking the line. Cable was his escape when fired for mocking. He'd stepped on the foot of the big fat MIC elephant in the living room no one can talk about, and with more fans than God. It's difficult to find anyone who has not, in some way, been involved in it. And so it goes.

[Beartracks]

8. "200K liberals at a rally -- may as well make it ABOUT something."

True, I thought that was a lost opportunity. It wasn't totally FAIL, but I don't think it was as much WIN as it could've been.

=========================

[pacalo]

9. OMG, I loved what he said about Jon Stewart's false equivalency of Olbermann & Glenn Beck.

With all due respect to my friends Stephen & Jon, it seems to me that if you truly wanted to come down on the side of restoring sanity & reason, you'd side with the sane & the reasonable and not try to pretend that the insanity is equally distributed in both parties.

Keith Olbermann is right when he says he's not the equivalent of Glenn Beck. One reports facts; the other one is very close to playing with his poop. And the big mistake of modern media has been this notion of balance for balance's sake; that the left is just as violent & cruel as the right; that unions are just as powerful as corporations; that reverse racism is just as damaging as racism. There's a difference between a mad man & a mad man.

[freshwest]

15. That was a winner, for sure. Loved it and am sharing it.

[bobdem62594bs]

11. cool video. love bill maher

[JDPriestly]

12. I saw this the first time and am delighted to see it again.

Certainly one of Bill Maher's best.

[freshwest]

17. I didn't see it when it came out but I'm sharing it now. Still timely.

[pam4water]

13. Kicked and recommended. Sad to see Jon Stewart fell for the American Exceptionalism BS.

[Unite2DefeatGOP]

16. Oh...so that's what THAT is called...

...'false equivalency', thanks for that. And the video.