Jon Stewart, Rick Santelli, CNBC, and the dearth of political satire in Australia

                                      

(Above: Jon Stewart gives Rick Santelli, assorted loons, and CNBC a really hard time).

If you've had enough of right wing Australian loonatic columnists, time to relax with a nice hatchet job by Jon Stewart. I know there are a million sources for Stewart on the intertubes - why not drop by the Comedy Channel and say hello, and thanks to Crooks and Liars for this clip - and I know when I get an email link, the meme has already hit at least a hundred million people.

But dammit, he and his writers are funny. They're better at analysis than the average finance reporter in this country, and a heck of a lot funnier.

And then I got to brooding. Why is that? Why do Americans get all the best comedians and comedy writers? Why is Australia so bereft of savage political humor, or even a gentle dose of satire, or even just a few funnies about the way the world is at the moment?

Rove? Wash out your mouth with a pillow cushion, you rancid prawn. Assorted morning teams? Well they're funny, but rarely intentionally. John Clarke and Bryan Dawe? You mean for five minutes on a Thursday night as an afterthought to a current affairs show run by a carrot top with ego, but no humor, and given to celebrity star fucker interviews? The Chaser boys - but where have they gone, when will they come back? Wil Anderson? Well he's funny live, but on the ABC he's just a middle class auntie kind of suck. Maybe there's something cult on cable TV I'm missing?

Media Watch is about all that's left, and they give it fifteen minutes a week to cover 24/7 rants by loons Australia wide.

I guess in America they take the free market of ideas, and the market place, seriously. If you can sell it, no matter what it says about captains of industry, or pillars of the media, someone will find a way to sell it and market it. 

Here we have Gerard Henderson. Groan. The man's about as lively as a dead fish, or starting to smell roadkill. Dame Slap aka Janet Albrechtsen? Shut your cake holes, you morons. Compassionate conservatism just happens to involve a Taliban-style ban on laughter. Peter Reuhl? You want me to buy the Australian Financial Review so I can read him? Get a grip. There's not enough yachts or whiskey in the world to make that happen.

Tim Blair? Well he thinks he's funny, and to a small paranoid coterie of weird Tim Blair loving loons, he no doubt is. But there's something sick and desperate about the gadfly's sense of humor - a bit like an Inquisition priest shoving a red hot poker up the bowels of an infidel greenie leftie and laughing at the howls and shrieks (and about as clever). Piers Akerman is always funny ha ha, but only if there's someone around to point out just how funny peculiar the fat owl is.

So there we have it. That's why I spend most of my time watching Stewart and Colbert, in the process giving up completely on free to air television in this country. It's a sorry state of affairs. And it needed be all one way. You mean to say there's nobody can see the funny side of the pious Rudd, the wretched Garrett, the out there Wong, the wayward Swan, and the chief censor Conroy? To name a few. 

This country needs some decent free to air political satire, as we had back in the Whitlam days when the government was as loonatic and shaky as middle eastern oil finance. But so long as the ABC wants to keep making SeaChange for middle class women, and SBS thinks Pizza is hilarious, and they hang about hoping to get some more triennial funding from this cash strapped government, we're all doomed, I tells ya. It's one thing to die the death of a thousand fiscal lashes and cuts at the hands of ponces, gits, and greedy loons, but to die without laughter on the lips ... that's real pain ...

Well at least I can tell you what Stewart was saying in his last bleeped word. Fuck you! Ain't it a grand phrase, so simple and well meaning and well wishing. Sex for everybody, even Bettina Arndt. Get fucked. What a cheerful greeting for eveyone except Christians. We hope you have a happy time of sexual intercourse or perhaps sexual wankery.

We should turn it into a new all purpose greeting phrase. Happy holidays, and fuck you. Merry Christmas, and fuck you. Happy birthday and fuck you. And for our loon columnists, happy writing, and fuck you. And when they're being especially compassionate conservatives, why not a generous wish. Come on, they deserve as much sex as the next person. So give it to them. Say get fucked! with a smile. They'll feel better and so will you.