For those of us who are Star Wars fanatics, virtually every scene is burned into our memories. Many scenes in the movie provide metaphors for situations we face in our lives. There is the scene early in the first movie where Luke is with his Uncle Owen buying droids for their farm. Symbolically they select the translator droid C-3PO and a Red colored droid R5-D4.
As the transaction is completed Luke leads he droids back towards the garage for preparation, Luke has to yell over to R5-D4 saying come on Red, let’s go! Barely a few yards later the R5-D4 unit breaks down in a puff of smoke. Luke yells back “Uncle Owen this R2 unit has a broken motivator unit, look. Owen to the Jawa: “Hey, what are you trying to push on us? What about the Blue one? we’ll take that one.”
Yes America, you should have picked the Blue one in the first place.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbmqnINyLXM[/youtube]
If only Congress could work so easily. the Republicans (Reds) are always trying to push stuff over on the American people, and the Democrats (Blues) are left to come in and clean up the mess that the GOP and their “Broken Motivators” have created.
Towards the end of the year lame-duck session, it took a new motivator to move the “Party of No” off their respective tails to take care of a little business before going home for the holidays. Comedian Jon Stewart took up the role of motivator. With the power of disclosure, and a dash of embarrassment, Steward was able to do what no other member of Congress seemed to be able to do. Stewart repaired the Republicans broken motivator long enough to clear the road to progress.
From The New York Times:
Jon Stewart’s Advocacy Role in Passage of 9/11 First Responders Bill
Did the bill pledging federal funds for the health care of 9/11 responders become law in the waning hours of the 111th Congress only because a comedian took it up as a personal cause?
And does that make that comedian, Jon Stewart — despite all his protestations that what he does has nothing to do with journalism — the modern-day equivalent of Edward R. Murrow?
Certainly many supporters, including New York’s two senators, as well as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, played critical roles in turning around what looked like a hopeless situation after a filibuster by Republican senators on Dec. 10 seemed to derail the bill. Read the complete story HERE.
At least we’ve figured out that the key to moving things forward with the Party of No is embarrassment. I wonder how many times in the next two years Stewart will have to remind us?
Here are the video segments from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart 12/16/2010.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Worst Responders | ||||
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| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| 9/11 First Responders React to the Senate Filibuster | ||||
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