During the COVID-19 pandemic, societies all over the world have adapted the term "essential workers"; it has become clear as daylight that the ones most responsible for keeping society from grinding to a complete halt, the workers who are indispensable for keeping the wheels of society and the economy turning, are also the most poorly compensated people in our societies.
source: YouTube
I miss Jon Stewart, I really do; in the 16 years that he hosted The Daily Show, from 1999 to 2015, his comedic take on the news of the day was a delight in my opinion. And I was not alone in that assessment; The Daily Show was extremely popular, especially among generations much younger than myself. Stewart always gave the impression that he was very aware of the fact that we live in an age of misinformation and misrepresentation, that the mainstream media, of which he was very much an integral part, is not to be trusted to give unbiased information and that they actually sell propaganda aimed at maintaining the socioeconomic and political status quo that's so dear to the for profit corporate interests that own these media and legally bribe our politicians. Although I can understand why Jon Stewart quit after 16 years, I truly believe that the time we're living through right now would benefit greatly from his public presence; In my mind he would qualify as an essential worker even though he wouldn't be counted among those who are most poorly compensated for their work.
A couple of days ago, Jon Stewart was interviewed by Joe Rogan, and I've linked that interview for you all to enjoy at the bottom of this post; it's over an hour long but I recommend you take that time and listen to what these gentlemen have to say about our current moment in history. Although the mainstream media still tries to paint the social unrest sparked by the murder of George Floyd as a racial and law enforcement issue, Jon and Joe focus on the much larger underlying cause and the reason why this time the protests are world wide, which is the economy that disproportionately benefits the rich investors and owner class and at the same time devalues real work. What started as a protest against ethnic inequality has quickly become a protest against the overarching economical inequality that happens to hit the American black community hardest of all, as a result of generations of political and economical suppression.
"I feel like in this moment, this horrible crime and murder sparked something, but what's underlying that is not just a racial inequality and inequities, but this whole idea of... we built our society economically from the top down. That's the shit that's got to change." - Jon Stewart
They go on about how this flawed political economy negatively affects all kinds of groups, and tell a particularly disheartening tale about how veterans and first responders of the 9/11 attacks are still at war, but this time against their own government; there are veterans from the Vietnam war who still fight this day for something as simple and obvious as fair treatment. Stewart tells about how bus drivers and grocery store workers are sacrificed at the altar of the capitalist economy, and how compensating home owners after the 2008 financial meltdown was considered "a moral hazard" by politicians, while rewarding the banks and institutions that caused the meltdown in the first place was not. They said that compensating persons, real people, who's mortgage was under water would send the wrong message; these irresponsible individuals had to be disciplined and not get away with it. But the banks, investors and rating agencies that bundled, bet on, and leveraged these mortgages were sent the message that they would be rescued with the taxpayers' money, they were rewarded for their criminal behavior, and somehow that was not considered a moral hazard.
The easiest thing to do, back in 2008 as well as right now, in order to keep the economy from crashing, is to "bail out" workers, home owners and renters; give them the money so they can keep up with their monthly payments, because that way you also make sure that the banks and landlords get their monthly payments and consumer spending doesn't grind to a halt. This is not only much more effective, it's a lot cheaper as well, even more so after the 2008 meltdown; spend a couple of hundred million to bail out the people, versus spending billions to bail out the institutions that leveraged the original debts many times over. But hey, that would go against the whole neoconservative "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" narrative which Jon and Joe criticize as well in the interview.
If there's one criticism I have about the opinions expressed in this interview, it's that "capitalism" isn't mentioned nearly enough as the big problem, and that both gentlemen reason from a position where they want to maintain capitalism as well as the market economy; Jon Stewart even mentions that drastic reforms are needed to save capitalism. It's a minor point though, because realistically we won't get rid of capitalism any time soon; that makes some kind of well developed social democracy, as proposed by Bernie Sanders, our current best bet for improvement, even if the current social unrest ends up in the Storming of the Bastille... Somewhere around the 30 minute mark of the interview Stewart summarizes the tragedy of our current moment in time by what boils down to our collective inability to simply "do the right thing":
"Some of this shit is so simple and fair and obvious. And you do wonder like, how has this system become so corrupt and corroded that we can't anymore, as a people, do the right thing. Just do the right fucking thing!"
Joe Rogan Experience #1498 - Jon Stewart
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