or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
•
"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
September 23, 2007
Jon Stewart In 1996 On US Foreign Policy
I dug up Jon Stewart's 1996 HBO special, and have snipped together the bits on America's propensity to bomb things—particularly Iraq. It's interesting for a bunch of reasons, and still pretty funny.
(Sorry, technical glitch. Hold on.)
(Fixed.)
Posted at September 23, 2007 02:17 PM | TrackBackThe more things change, the more they stay the same. It is instructive to remember who was president when this was recorded.
Posted by: Biff Usually at September 23, 2007 10:20 PMPfft. And who was running the house of reps. And who was pushing for the bombing (clue: it wasn't Hillary, the ACLU or greedy lawyers with their frivolous lawsuits).
Posted by: me at September 24, 2007 08:49 AMAnd who was running the house of reps. And who was pushing for the bombing
Yes, certainly we've learned since then all about the immense power the Congress of the United States wields in foreign policy.
Posted by: Jonathan Schwarz at September 24, 2007 09:24 AMThis sent me in search of George Carlin's "bombin' brown people" routine. Couldn't find it on YouTube though. Has anybody seen it posted on the web somewhere?
Stewert is awesome, if we were all going to the firing squad tomorrow, he could still make us laugh. Not a bad job of clipping you did, by the way, very cleanly done!
"If there's one thing America hates,
it's dictators in oil-rich states.
We shoot them with bullets, rockets and bombs
and watch it all on color television"
"If you're brown, you're going down!" SteveB, I searched for "george carlin persian gulf" and found an interpretation at DiavoloDelCulo's "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjyrFgpaYIk" and at tedbucks's "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amv7DN6P29Q". Apparently, Carlin opened 1992's "Jammin' in New York" with this bit. There's also a newer take that mentions Dick (Cheney) and Colin (Powell); I think I read it in "Napalm and Silly Putty." Hope that helps. (And since this is my first comment: thanks for the great site, Mr. Schwarz.)
Posted by: LotF at September 25, 2007 03:54 AMI actually find humor like this disturbing. When you start to consider the resources and attention paid to people like Stewart, in relation to our lack of involvement in stopping the war, it's fairly depressing. I quit laughing along a long time ago.
Think of it this way: Suppose you knew German and stumbled upon an old archive of a famous comedian making light of the Jewish rendition to "labor camps" in Poland. And the German crowd laughed along uproariously.
You can disregard this or get angry and call me humorless (I didn't come to this site by accident, I like Tomorrow's style) but perhaps you should consider rewarding yourself with political humor after a considerable day of activism. And I trust that most of you already do.
I wrote more on this in column form here:
http://www.olywip.org/site/page/article/2007/03/09.html
very funny
he's been talking about this for a long time
that's why he knows so much about it
alot more than those clowns who are running this war
http://youtube.com/watch?v=tMACzBomDK4
Posted by: peter at September 29, 2007 08:41 AM
