Political YouTube Clips Thread

Don't mess with Jon:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-april-20-2010/bernie-goldberg-fires-back

 

One would think the intelligent thing would be to try to ignore Stewart. Their audience don't watch him anyways do they?

 

This video is being critical of Obama, but I actually think this is unfair. I think this criticism is valid for pretty much all politicians. I just hope that it is an accurate representation so the people who watch it can get a better understanding of what the budget cuts are.

 

This is a comedy. I did enjoy reading the comments as a lot of people didn't realize that.

 

I just saw the penny one now - and I liked that one quite a bit. I did realize that the "cuts" Obama had made to the budget were small, I just hadn't realized they were THAT small.

The second one was just a whackjob - kind of like the one that was made YouTube famous around election day saying that now that Obama got elected, she wouldn't have to pay her mortgage and rot like that.

Here's the thing though - if she's unemployed and has seven kids, wouldn't she already be on Medicaid?

 

I don’t even know that it’s all that fair a criticism of politicians in general. Yes, $100 million is only slightly more than ¼ of 1% of 1% of the total budget (in other words, a drop in a bucket that holds 35,000 drops), but if you’re trying to cut expenses, $100 million is better than nothing. Yes, politicians will try to convince us that $100 million is going to make a huge difference (which it won’t), and that’s where the criticism is valid, but they have to start somewhere. One can’t help wonder, though, how hard it would be to increase the relatively miniscule $100 million savings to, say, $350 million (1% of 1%), or $3.5 billion (10% of 1%). The problem is that, to most of us, $100 million is an inconceivably huge amount of money, and politicians use that fact to their advantage.

On second thought, I guess the criticism is fair after all.

 

I can still remember from the debates Obama's response to McCain's challenge to cut pork was "Pork spending only accounts for sixteen billion dollars...."

 

Maybe she's an ATT employee. Don't we pay for their health care?

 

Glenn Beck ... making sense??? On Miranda rights and terrorists.

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Beck is right here, which starkly contrasts with his usual histrionic inanity. It's not just Beck, Napolitano makes sense as well. Contrast that with the usual drivel from supposedly 'reasonable people' like Joe Liebermann or John McCain. Anyway, the dichotomy underlying the segment, that it is either intelligence or Miranda rights, is deeply silly, but that is a whole other thing. The rest of the segment is the usual drivel.

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My point is that this is a weird case of right wing nut Beck out-reasoning the supposedly reasonable people like sitting senators, simply by merit of pointing out ... rightly ... what the law says. I mean in this context, who is the right wing nut, the radical, the extremist? Liebermann, and McCain. Now that's scary.

On the other hand that's Glenn Beck for you - although he is right this time- he sticks to his shtick - simple ideas, simple thoughts, easily expressed, easily understood.

 

Glenn Beck did not craft his audience; they were there waiting for him. Leiberman is a neocon and a corporatist (the two sort of go together), who is more comfortable in the room with Cheney than with John Adams. But the Dems really need him -- too bad for them.

 

Yikes! I agree with Beck.

I feel slightly dirty...

 

... I thought you'd be used to that feeling by now.

 

What is an American?

 

If that speech gave you goosebumps and at least once you felt the urge to shout at the video "hell yeah", then you are probably an American.

 

Is that the definition of an American? How do you define what American is? I know plenty of people all over the world who would scream "hell yeah" to a speech like that. None of whom I would be all that comfortable around. Trying to define a nationality, especially such a newly created one as the American is bound to fail and is bound to lead to unpleasant dividing of people. Are there different levels of being an American? Do I need to wear jeans and salute the flag to be an American? This discussion is going on all over the world and it is utterly pointless. Are all the Americans in prison Americans? I heard nothing but a populistic, right wing, nationalistic speech about how great America is and how it is the one true path and if you dont conform completely you can get out. The same kind of speech right wing politicians has made since the dawn of democracy and people tend to love it. They love the smug feeling they get when they can feel superior to those "others" who arent like them and while they are at it blame most of their problems on them as well.

 

I think you missed the point of the speech, then. The real point, and a very reasonable one, is that if you come into a nation and seek to be granted citizenship of that nation, you should give loyalty to that nation and not cling to the loyalties of another nation, to the point that that first nation demands it. An immigrant to the US is expected to blend their culture in with the existing cultures of the US. It's fine to maintain some of your own customs and culture, but you shouldn't be just that any more, and where the laws of the land contradict you're culture, the laws rule. In Canada, it seems to be more acceptable to maintain your own culture, seperate from the national identity. In Germany (from what I've heard) it is less so. This nation was founded on, and grew on for two centuries, immigrants that came here to start new lives.

You're right that national identity is something that people have struggled with for millenia, how much should national identity overwrite personal identity, or dictate loyalties of natural born citizens? Can someone join the nation without embracing this national identity? These are, IMO, questions that each nation has it's own right to answer.

 

In the Jewish faith we celebrate a holiday called Passover. It is the celebration of when the Jews escaped Pharoah and Egypt and were freed from slavery. One of the highlights of the "Sedar" is the asking of the four questions. In one of them the "contrary son" asks "And what did God do for you?" The answer is "Since the "contrary son" asks "you" he does not include himself and therefore would not have been saved and would have died at the hands of Pharoah".

I kind of feel the same way about your question. You have posted numerous times how you do not believe that nationalism/patriotism is a good thing and possibly as far as calling it an "evil" thing. Your question practicly oozes with sarcasm, derision, and mocking and I cannot come up with a proper way to answer your question in anyway that you would understand. Sorry.

 

Oh, it was a wonderful speech, too bad the reality is different than what the speaker remarked.

Yes, and many immigrants found it a painful experience at first because they were exploited, preyed upon, mocked and degraded by those already here.