Possible symptoms to be smiled upon:
Some of you might have picked up on this week's battle between Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer. Daily Show vs. CNBC's cheerleading us to the current clusterfuck that we call an economy. There are some real gems here: Stewart gets flustered beyond belief numerous times, but perhaps more importantly, there are a few moments at the end of the second link where: 1. Stewart describes the US as 'a nation of workers' in an attack on the financialization of contemporary markets; and 2. Stewart reaches out to his 'other' base and talks about the innocent traders on Wall Street who are also getting, in his words, 'fucked' in this mess.
In a very real way, Stewart is doing two kinds of work here: he is not only repeating the refrain of the mainstream press and politicians in the US that this crisis is the bad result of the actions of bad men. However, if this were all he were up to, we would have seen an entire program dedicated to Bernard Madoff and Shinanigans reminiscent of his appearance in 2004 on CNN's crossfire. Instead, we see the second type of work, pointing towards a (but not coming out and saying it?) systemic logic underlying this mess.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=220252&title=cnbc-gives-financial-advice
http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=220533
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