Comments on: Are Bodies Politically Meaningful? Report from The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear

By: Tausif Khan

Tausif Khan — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 19:38:10 +0000

*thrown around too often

By: Tausif Khan

Tausif Khan — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 19:36:43 +0000

This whole rally to me was to bring back the potency of the civil rights movement and remind us of how liberal (read rational) it was. This starts with Jason Jones and John Oliver’s trip to the rally on the bus with fellow rallyers and continued with African American spiritual songs at the rally and appeals to allowing every one a chance right down to the end with Stewart’s speech of- it doesn’t matter whether I am a red stater or blue stater because when it comes to a tunnel all of that melts away- and everyone has to give everyone else an opportunity in order to remain safe.

I don’t think we are living in a postmodern political era and I think that term gets through around too frequently. I would need to see a better justification of this.

However, if one were to read this rally through a post structuralist perspective Michel De Certeau’s The Practice of Everyday Living would be relevant here specifically with the emphasis on travel and traffic and perspective and the third part of the book with chapters 7 (Walking in the City) and chapters 8 (Railway Navigation and Incarceration).

I actually had the exact same thought as Stewart when I was trying to leave New York through the Holland tunnel-so many cars, so many things can go wrong, so many different types of people, yet all are able to cede power to make sure that everyone exits safely. This is a very interesting and important political metaphor that I would like to see explored further.

By: Jeffrey Jones

Jeffrey Jones — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 01:40:53 +0000

Same with the need for Hannity to manufacture more bodies for Bachmann’s Tea Party rally, which didn’t seem to produce as many bodies as needed to be meaningful. If anything, your examples point directly to the hyper-mediation of politics, with bodies as little more than fodder for the machine.

By: Jeffrey Jones

Jeffrey Jones — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 01:37:03 +0000

Dan: You write: “the Tea Partiers’ and other conservatives’ embodied opposition to Obama at town hall meetings and street protests gave their movement a lot of political momentum, providing fodder for Fox news reports.” And therein is the catch: all one needed is anywhere from two to four loudmouth idiots and one person filming it for a Town Hall meeting to become a media event, especially on Fox, but also CNN et al. Not so sure those bodies were very significant in number, more significant as manufactured YouTube viral-video goes Fox and CNN moments. So was the momentum from the bodies or how the select and outlying few were deploy and used by the machine Stewart is critiquing (the ants on fire epidemic)?

By: Daniel Marcus

Daniel Marcus — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 23:47:18 +0000

Actually, I think bodies mean a lot in today’s politics — the Tea Partiers’ and other conservatives’ embodied opposition to Obama at town hall meetings and street protests gave their movement a lot of political momentum, providing fodder for Fox news reports and regaining confidence in opposing Obama. (This is not to discount the organizational and financial resources behind the right’s response.) The ambiguity of the meaning of the Stewart ralliers’ presence is based on Stewart’s openly nonpartisan appeals and framing of the event, which became even more ambiguous by the left’s positive response to his invitation. He might have wanted it to be nonpartisan, but liberals hungry for an occasion to respond in an embodied way to the right seized the opportunity to turn it into their rally. Sort of.

By: Cornel Sandvoss

Cornel Sandvoss — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 22:09:06 +0000

Great piece, Jeff!

Just a quick transatlantic addition: while BBC coverage (I am more of a radio than TV man these days) features interview after interview with Tea Party members, the rally went largely unmentioned over the weekend and today.