Although I did not get to go to the rally this Saturday, I had the chance to see John Stewart's closing speech on Youtube. I must say that Stewart's final speech was definitely inspirational, while at the same time, very insightful. I am not very familiar with the United States politics involivng Democrats and Republican ideals, with the Tea Party thrown in, but what I know is that United States have been concerned with terrorism for a very long time. However, at the same time, it has been dealing with various other issues, both concerning the international and national stages. The only problem with so many issues were that most of them, if not all, were serious issues that could have huge influence over the entire country. Because each of these issues that were on the agenda for US for the past decade were all important, it is no wonder that US tried to address each and all of them, leading it to become overextended.
In his closing speech, Stewart said "If we amplify everything, we hear nothing," and this is the exact problem with overextension of any government, not just US but any other country as well. There are hundreds of problems that governments should address, but if everyone emphasizes different issues until all the problems that one country faces is threatening the very survival of the state, then there is no sense of direction for the government to take; the pressure is on them to do everything. However, the government and the state has the same 24 hours everyone else haves, and it doesn't have all the capabilities needed to address all the issues, and if the government tries to address everything because everything is "amplified," then it will come to a point where nothing would be done at a satisfactory level. What does this mean? A dire threat to the national security by overlooking some issues that are more "important" than others. What this means is that the government, despite being chosen by the public, should not concern itself with what each individual "amplifies" as the biggest problem, but it should carefully prioritize to make sure that its most fundamental goal of survival is achieved, and then they can go down the ladder and address other problems.
Another aspect of Stewart's speech that caught my attention was how he emphasized that despite different ideals, Americans were working together to get things done as he showed the video of the cars merging and in a jam. This is in essence true, because things do get done despite all the ideological differences and media's discourse about what needs to be feared what needs to be corrected. The government doesn't simply sit there talking about who is right and who is wrong, while nothing is getting done, which is also apparent in Mr. Person-Who-Came-From-The-State-Department (Sorry, I can't remember his name), when he said ideology doesn't really matter in the bureaucracy because the bureaucracy is there to get things done. However, I think this might be generalizing too much about America in general, because despite my lack of knowledge and experience with America, there is a great deal of barriers being set up by different ideals. If everyone was working together, then why isn't all the bills in the Congress get unanimously either get voted against or voted for? Why is there Republicans and Democrats fighting over the policy and the presidency and the Senate seats and all other government institutions? If indeed everyone was working together and not putting forward their ideology first, then there would have been no debate about whether to go to war with Iraq and Afghanistan. With such complicated ideology battle taking place in the government, I really do wonder if Stewart's opinion of working together does really apply to the entire United States.
Sources and video from:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXmbzLI3pnk
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