Hillary and Condi sharing a cell... A fantasy of mine.

upvote for keith richards/mikes hard lemonade...

I don't agree with Jon, here. It seems weird for him to suddenly come out on the side of, "Meh, we all know the government sucks. Why bother trying to change it?"

I don't think that was what John was saying. I was under the impression he isn't impressed with the Wikileaks (or at least the latest round of leaks) and doesn't think they are as big a deal as the government and media make them out to be as lots of them are things we more or less knew or at least suspected.

>> ^direpickle:

I don't agree with Jon, here. It seems weird for him to suddenly come out on the side of, "Meh, we all know the government sucks. Why bother trying to change it?"

I don't think he was saying that we shouldn't improve our government. He was saying that leaks like these do not accomplish that goal. Anyone who is paying attention already knew or suspected 90% of the information that came out of these. If the last 6 months of leaks were supposed to galvanize an ignorant public into demanding reform, I can only say that they failed utterly.
>> ^direpickle:

I don't agree with Jon, here. It seems weird for him to suddenly come out on the side of, "Meh, we all know the government sucks. Why bother trying to change it?"

I'm extremely offended!

...the Daily Show staff misspelled "wookiee"

Are people in the US really that ignorant concerning this?

Nice that you or me know this stuff already, but there are more than enough people who still see the governments as heaven sent, incorruptible and always doing what is best for the people.

>> ^RFlagg:

I don't think that was what John was saying. I was under the impression he isn't impressed with the Wikileaks (or at least the latest round of leaks) and doesn't think they are as big a deal as the government and media make them out to be as lots of them are things we more or less knew or at least suspected.
>> ^direpickle:
I don't agree with Jon, here. It seems weird for him to suddenly come out on the side of, "Meh, we all know the government sucks. Why bother trying to change it?"



Exactly. These leaks while interesting are well below say The Pentagon Papers leak which is what the other leaks were being compared to very wrongly. Jon is pointing out that a lot of this stuff is idle chatter or crap we already knew...nothing groundbreaking. The Medias reaction is interesting because of how awful they think this is...what they're doing is trying to say that any sort of leaks are a horrible thing and everyone should be upset by them. It's propaganda, at least that's what it used to be called.

>> ^coolhund:

Are people in the US really that ignorant concerning this?
Nice that you or me know this stuff already, but there are more than enough people who still see the governments as heaven sent, incorruptible and always doing what is best for the people.


No one thinks that...you gotta look at some poll numbers sometime. The Vast Majority of the American public realize that the government is there to do what is best for corporations or the rich, they are extremely disenfranchised with their government which is why the number of people actually voting is so low.

In a functioning democracy the people would believe that the government is great because THEY would be the government. And they'd love to pay taxes because they would be paying for the programs that they supported, which is not what is happening now. Our democracy does not function which is why participation in it is sporadic and lacking.

>> ^Yogi:

In a functioning democracy the people would believe that the government is great because THEY would be the government. And they'd love to pay taxes because they would be paying for the programs that they supported, which is not what is happening now. Our democracy does not function which is why participation in it is sporadic and lacking.


I wouldn't say that. It's still majoritarian, not unanimous.

Even if we finally eradicated this idiotic philosophy of saying that the solution to all problems in the world is to eliminate government, you'd still have plenty of disagreement over what the government does and how much funding each part of government gets, and in every non-unanimous vote, you'd have some people who didn't like what was done.

Still, it's better than private organizations, which have unilateral decisions that virtually no one likes, and have a ton more effect on your daily lives than the government does...

http://watch.thecomedynetwork.ca/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart/full-episodes/#clip382027

Tags for this video have been changed from 'jon stewart, the daily show, julian assange, wikileaks' to 'jon stewart, the daily show, julian assange, wikileaks, lets count the rings' - edited by calvados

The obvious flaw of this episode of the daily show is that it appears to view the recent wiki-leak as being directed at audiences in the USA. The jokes certainly stand their ground in that regard - on an international scale however, this is an entirely different matter.
One can of course argue that, again, the world already knows how US diplomacy views its allies (and spies on them) - that fact however, would pose an entirely different and much more serious problem for the US:

Politicians in other countries are going to have a MUCH tougher job explaining why they have their troops in Afghanistan or are offering logistic support.

Finally, do you really believe the US diplomats in the affected countries can continue business as usual after this event?

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