via the voracious media-consumer bjkeefe, I’m watching this video now, Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow on the Rally. I won’t make any comments, as you already know my take on the event.
Two weeks ago, I joined much of the young American Left at the “Rally to Restore Sanity.” I didn’t travel down to Washington for the occasion; I’m not that much of a Daily Show devotee. I had meetings with various sources, a very good college friend to stay with, and my sister to see in Philly on the way back. The timing and location were convenient.
The rally was, to be honest, boring, certainly not as funny or as compelling as the two television shows from which it derived. Given how little effort I put into getting there, that’s fine. But when I think about how many young folks actually traveled to be there, it’s infuriating. It’s infuriating that the ideas around which young liberals rally en masse are so unsubstantial.
I was not the only person who felt that way. Mark Ames had a screed at The Exiled on the rally, and it’s definitely got a lot of problems [basically, skip the second half], but I think there’s a kernel of truth in the piece that is worth excerpting at some length. Read the rest of this entry »
I am an academic researcher working at the intersection of business and international affairs, focusing on how multinational corporations acquire political power, how they exercise it, and how they can be held accountable. I am the Adam Smith Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Political Economy at the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow. I am also an award-winning business journalist, and the co-founder and Executive Director of Public Business, a nonprofit supporting reporting, research and discussion about the wider impact of business actions.
© Copyright 2025 | Maha Rafi Atal | Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.