Excellent Wørd segment from Stephen last night, where he took on the Sons of Confederate Veterans' arguments in favor of Confederate History Month not being about slavery, and showing that yes, indeed, it IS all about slavery.
Now why can't our mainstream media do this when they have on these racists to defend the Confederacy? Jon Stewart's take after the fold.
In a related note, Jon Stewart looked at who is causing the real trouble for the Tea Parties at their rallies. Who is giving over-the-top incendiary speeches that can incite people to violence? Why... it's... elected Republican officials!!!
Jon also hammered the media for attacking the poor who cannot even pay income taxes for being a drain on our economy, when in fact those people still pay things like payroll taxes, state and local taxes, sales taxes, excise taxes, etc. And just where is the outrage when mega-corporations like ExxonMobil don't pay A SINGLE FUCKING CENT of income taxes to the U.S. because of their offshore holdings?
And Jon topped it off with having Rachel Maddow on his show last night to discuss her upcoming documentary about the Timothy McVeigh tapes, to air next Monday on April 19, the right-wing militia's Christmas Day.
They get into an interesting discussion over when they would want to kill someone, versus their inherent peaceful nature. This can actually lead to some very interesting philosophical discussions on the nature of man, which they didn't get into (I mean, it's only like a 5-minute interview on a comedy network).
But Jon brought up an interesting parallel to the violent rhetoric. What is the difference between a teabagger (including some elected Republican officials) making veiled threats about killing a Democratic member of Congress, and back in the 1990s when rappers would release songs making veiled threats about killing police officers? Should we be OK with one, but not the other? And is that a hypocritical stance to take? I have some ideas on this, but am curious as to how this community feels about it.