The Glass Teat: November 29, 1968

Above: Kam "Cupcake" Nelson, back in the day

The subject this week is a thing called The Groovy Show, one of those long-gone dancing & variety shows where some adult host would spin young folk's records while trying not to look severely out of place amid dancing teens. "It's got a good beat, and you can dance to it! I give it an eight!" and that kind of stuff.

Anyway, the resident eye candy on display on The Groovy Show was one Kam Nelson, who Ellison was assured by the producers was an exceptional Renaissance Gal who all but cured the common cold with one hand behind her back - and yet - well, let's let Harlan explain it:

"Let's take her stint on last Thursday's show. Mr Riddle [the adult host] called her out and she emerged suitably micro-mini'd. He asked her what she'd been doing lately. She stared at him for several beats with wide, innocent eyes and then mumbled something about having gone to 'the liberry' (sic) for research on marriage in Scandinavia. Riddle seemed to think that was pretty exciting, and asked her what she'd found out. Then emerged from Miss Nelson's mouth a syntactical jumble of half-sentences drenched with 'yeahs', 'uh-huhs' and ending lamely with 'T don't really know'. (Everything she comments on ends with 'I don't really know'.)
"Later, in an effort to get her to haul her own weight, he cleverly tried to introduce the second record by asking her something about French, I believe it was the word for bicycle. Once again there were mumblings and mouthings and Riddle, now floundering, went to the record. Yet just before it cut in, he could be heard asking her with something akin to bemused impatience, 'What do you mean, "you don't know"?'"

This wonderous Bubblehead Barbie performance is all the more pleasant given the assertion by the producer that "the kids seem to identify with her". Apparently whatever Miss Nelson's talents and skills outside the show, displaying those would have been inappropriate and risked alienating her peers - therefore the Little Miss Ditz performance.

She's not supposed to raise consciousness or educate - if they had wanted to do that, they'd naturally have brought on a guy instead.

She's just a girl, after all.


Can't be expecting her to remember her French or paying attention to what she read at the liberry or things like that. Don't worry your little head, sweetie. Just sit back and let the nice responsible people do your worrying and thinking for you. See the bad people in Iran? Don't they look scary? Boy, are they scary. Maybe we need to bomb them. But we'll take care of that. Look at the nice man on TV! His hair is so nice. Don't you think he should be President? Look at all those dirty hippies! What are they saying? Well, it's just too confusing, so we'll say they're just not saying anything at all. Let the police take care of them... they're there to protect and serve, after all.

(Hmm.

To some extent, as far as the media's concerned we're ALL "just a girl", I guess.)

"Television is too potent a medium, too exacting an educational force, for anyone to dismiss even a boondock area such as The Groovy Show and its ability to shape and mold manners or morals.
"No, I would not have a 17-year-old girl genius on The Groovy Show; but neither would I have Susie Sparkle set up as the end-all and be-all for emerging personalities. What is wrong with Miss Nelson as a Force in our times is what is wrong about the Miss America contests and all the other shallow, phony shucks put over on kids too young to separate the wheat from the chaff.
"And in conclusion, I trust Miss Nelson and her attorneys will understand that while I may have nothing but the highest regard for her as a human being, it is the slapstick number she proffers six times a week on television that needs some examination. I think women are, uh, groovier than that."

Amen.

Lazy SOBs just sitting around with their hands out waiting for the goverment to help them

Goddamnit. Fuck. Damnit. Damnit. Fuckashitpiss.

This just makes me goddamn livid:

In the lead-up to the financial crisis that crippled the American economy and plunged the country into a recession, the Federal Reserve made trillions in undisclosed loans to struggling banks and financial institutions, according to official documents obtained by Bloomberg News. Six of the country’s largest banks then turned those loans into more than $13 billion in previously undisclosed profits.

Whee! You thought the bailout we knew about was bad; this is literally ten times worse. The TARP bailout was $700 billion; this little shenanigan was to the tune of $7.7 TRILLION. AND the bastards made money off of it! $13 billion they didn't feel they had to let anyone know about, yet they continue to impose new charges on account holders. BoA wanted to charge you to access your own goddamn money they held, on the grounds that they needed the additional revenue, while quietly having socked away billions in profit from these loans. Isn't that nice?

And why did they have to be secret? Because, for one, if people had known about them, the banks might have been reluctant to hit the government up for more money:

The Fed, headed by Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, argued that revealing borrower details would create a stigma -- investors and counterparties would shun firms that used the central bank as lender of last resort -- and that needy institutions would be reluctant to borrow in the next crisis. Clearing House Association fought Bloomberg’s lawsuit up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear the banks’ appeal in March 2011.

And, better yet, the banks didn't have to worry about that mean ol' Congress doing anything to regulate them or break them up, since Congress didn't know jack shit about the program!

Lawmakers knew none of this.

They had no clue that one bank, New York-based Morgan Stanley (MS), took $107 billion in Fed loans in September 2008, enough to pay off one-tenth of the country’s delinquent mortgages. The firm’s peak borrowing occurred the same day Congress rejected the proposed TARP bill, triggering the biggest point drop ever in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. (INDU) The bill later passed, and Morgan Stanley got $10 billion of TARP funds, though Paulson said only “healthy institutions” were eligible.

Mark Lake, a spokesman for Morgan Stanley, declined to comment, as did spokesmen for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.

Had lawmakers known, it “could have changed the whole approach to reform legislation,” says Ted Kaufman, a former Democratic Senator from Delaware who, with Brown, introduced the bill to limit bank size.

Moral Hazard

Kaufman says some banks are so big that their failure could trigger a chain reaction in the financial system. The cost of borrowing for so-called too-big-to-fail banks is lower than that of smaller firms because lenders believe the government won’t let them go under. The perceived safety net creates what economists call moral hazard -- the belief that bankers will take greater risks because they’ll enjoy any profits while shifting losses to taxpayers.

If Congress had been aware of the extent of the Fed rescue, Kaufman says, he would have been able to line up more support for breaking up the biggest banks.

Byron L. Dorgan, a former Democratic senator from North Dakota, says the knowledge might have helped pass legislation to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, which for most of the last century separated customer deposits from the riskier practices of investment banking.

“Had people known about the hundreds of billions in loans to the biggest financial institutions, they would have demanded Congress take much more courageous actions to stop the practices that caused this near financial collapse,” says Dorgan, who retired in January.

These are the poor struggling entities that Michael Bloomberg was so angry with OWS for criticizing.

Plus, breaking them up would have been "punishment":

Lobbyists for the big banks made the winning case that forcing them to break up was “punishing success,” [Sen. Sherrod] Brown says.

Yeah, well, ignoring the fact that the banks GODDAMN WEREN'T SUCCESSFUL AT ALL and in fact were in financial trouble, only getting their asses pulled out of the cellophane by OUR DAMN MONEY.

Employees of the banks weren't hurting at the time, either:

Employees at the six biggest banks made twice the average for all U.S. workers in 2010, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics hourly compensation cost data. The banks spent $146.3 billion on compensation in 2010, or an average of $126,342 per worker, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s up almost 20 percent from five years earlier compared with less than 15 percent for the average worker. Average pay at the banks in 2010 was about the same as in 2007, before the bailouts.

Think of that when you contemplate how much YOUR paycheck has gone up recently.

Still another reason lawmakers didn't need to know about the bailouts was the fact that it just would have been too goshdarn complex:

At the meeting with [Sen. Ted] Kaufman, [New York Fed president Timothy] Geithner argued that the issue of limiting bank size was too complex for Congress and that people who know the markets should handle these decisions, Kaufman says

That would be the same Timothy Geithner who is now Secretary of the Treasury. Wheee! Yes, let's leave keeping an eye on the henhouse to the foxes and weasels who are familiar with things like this. I mean, Congress deals with trade issues and foreign policy and treaty negotiations and federal law, but understanding banks would be just too difficult for them. Tee hee! Macroeconomics are hard!

Oh, and the whole idea of punishing these bastards by pulling your money out and changing over to credit unions? Evidently those nice people at the Fed will make up for your irresponsibility by propping up your former bank until someone can come along and purchase it:

Wells Fargo bought Wachovia Corp., the fourth-largest U.S. bank by deposits before the 2008 acquisition. Because depositors were pulling their money from Wachovia, the Fed channeled $50 billion in secret loans to the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank through two emergency-financing programs to prevent collapse before Wells Fargo could complete the purchase.

“These programs proved to be very successful at providing financial markets the additional liquidity and confidence they needed at a time of unprecedented uncertainty,” says Ancel Martinez, a spokesman for Wells Fargo.

So, to recap: These banks, which lied to Congress and the American people about their solvency, received over $8 trillion in taxpayer loans, interest free, minimal strings attached, then proceeded to successfully lobby against the same government that they had taken money from imposing any kind of regulations on them. And, far from suffering for all this, they have continued to post massive profits, some of which they felt they didn't even have to reveal. (Think - how would the IRS react if they found out YOU were hiding income?)

As Talking Points Memo puts it:

The nation’s largest banks have turned more in profit in the last 30 months than they did in nearly eight years preceding the crisis, all while spending millions to derail significant reform legislation. And since the Dodd-Frank Act became law, they have spent millions more to weaken its rules and prevent certain regulations from taking effect. Bank lobbying, in fact, is now on pace to reach a record high this year.

And yet we're to believe it's the dirty hippies of OWS who are the whiny children sitting around waiting for a handout from the government.

Right.

The Glass Teat: November 22, 1968

Even back in the stone-knife-and-bearskin media age of the late Sixties, the scourge of right-wing talk shows was upon us, and this week Ellison takes a chance and guests on The Joe Pyne Show. Wikipedia says "[Pyne] was an influence on other major talk show hosts such as Wally George, Alan Burke, Morton Downey, Jr., Bob Grant, and Michael Savage", which should give you some idea of where he came from. (And if you don't recognize any of those names... trust me, you're better off for it.)

"I took the call and Kane [Pyne's coordinator] said he'd been reading my columns in these pages and why didn't I come on and espouse Truth and Beauty and Wisdom to all the snake pit freaks who watch Joe.
(Now we all know that is a hype. Those people are sado-masochists of the purest stripe. They watch Pyne only because the Roman arena was shut down, and they have nowhere else to go where they can turn thumbsdown and see some poor slob get a trident through his chest. The redneck schlepps who dig Pyne's brand of hypocrisy and brutishness are the ones who can be convinced only by demagogues and rabble-rousers.)"

(Funny thing is, these confrontational right-wing jerkfests have largely been superseded these days by shows like Limbaugh or Glennbeck, who not only deal with a more host-driven monologue format than a classic give-and-take call-in show, but also start from the premise that the view of the host is the only valid one and any opinion outside of that is somehow pathological, that only the insane and/or malign could possibly entertain a contrary viewpoint; as opposed to the old model of allowing the other party to speak their piece and then making a case against it.)

So Ellison goes on, and, as he puts it, "blew it". Pyne acted as moderator for Ellison and the news director at Pyne's station, "a very nice, ultra-straight cat named David Crane", and while Ellison tried to summon up righteous anger and get the others to lash out at him, they stayed smooth and pleasant while Harlan, in his own words, "found myself sounding like a cranky tot".

Pyne and Crane were the Very Serious People of their time, much like the hosts of Sunday shows are now, and to much the same end - we're going to be polite, but we're only going to entertain ideas that don't stray from the mainstream, even if the mainstream is tilted far to the right. Poor Harlan was in the position of a Michael Moore or Paul Krugman or Keith Olberman - obviously far too confrontational and extreme to be taken seriously. And so they're allowed to rant and rave and then are patted on the head soothingly and the Very Serious People go back to discussing the necessity of torturing prisoners and giving up civil rights and bombing Iran and the like, now that the Peanut Gallery has had its little tantrum.

The grand essay against the bastions of reaction fail, and all we're left with is impotent sarcasm. "Fuck'm. It's like Jefferson said: 'People get pretty much the kind of government they deserve', and this state deserves Reagan, and this nation deserves Nixon. I'm convinced. It's a good life. It is, it really really is. I was wrong. Nothing's happening. Nothing's amiss."

Just like today when we're told that Occupy violence is due to "clashes" with the police (as seen so vividly recently at UC Davis, where Lt. Pike found it necessary to "defend himself" against seated yet menacing protestors), that the economy's "in recovery", that we're awash in job opportunities for those who really want to work and there would be so many more if the government would just get out of the way and stop being such a burden on entrepreneurs, that public employees are overpaid loafers, that Iran singlehandedly menaces world peace and Mideast stability, that nobody's hungry or poor in America, that Obama has the country on the verge of a Communist dictatorship.

Who are you going to believe, after all - FAUX News or your own lying eyes?

The Glass Teat: November 15, 1968

This week reveals the limits of the late 60's understanding of the media by politicians of the time - and the rise of the scourge we deal with today.

TV's eye is much too merciless, and the generations raised on TV are wise to the fraudulent; they've seen too many commercials to ever again be taken in by demagogues and political used car salesmen."
[. . .]
Yet the demise of the one postulates the rise of another. The Show Biz Politician. Reagan is a classic example, of course. In a way, the Kennedys are another. I think the element is charisma. If a man can look sincere on the tube, if he can seem to be honest and forthright and courageous, he can sweep an election merely by employing the visual media.
In which case, the term "bad actor" would come to have a new, more ominous meaning.

*shudder*

We also delve once again into the question of how the public reacts to those who jump the dissidence gun, as it were - a survey reveals 73% of Americans agree with Lyndon Johnson's halt to the bombing of North Vietnam. To which Ellison responds:

Now, I don't know what boils your blood, gentle reader, but that is the same 73mother% that was out in the streets shouting "Lynch! Lynch!" at the kids who showed up at Century City, who chased the Dow recruiters, who burned their draft cards, who sat-in at a dozen universities, who marched to Washington, who got their skulls crushed in Chicago streets by the all-powerful John Laws. They are the same hypocritical 73% who refuse now to draw a line between all that dissent, through Johnson's vanished popularity, past Johnson's decision (forced on him) not to run, ending with the bomb halt.
[. . .]
At what stage of cultural adolescence do the people assume responsibility for their mistakes?

That, of course, is the stage at which it becomes politically meaningless to take the dissenting view - the point at which it's safe to criticize.

Think about the Iraq War - how easy is it to find someone, outside the knuckle-draggers of the Tea Potty, who now thinks it was a lousy idea to invade and occupy that country? Forgetting, of course, that many of us predicted this 'way back in 2003 and were dismissed as a "focus group", as "treasonous" and "hating America". We also see that now with Occupy, that its high approval ratings seem to have wilted in the face of "all the violence" - 99% of which is due to police raids on encampments. And if the movement is further successful beyond merely bringing up economic inequality as a subject - if, say, they manage to raise taxes on the wealthy or forgive student loans, many of these people who now wring their hands over "violence" will suddenly find support for the dissidents.

And even that still isn't enough. For all the blather about "responsibility" we hear, so many of us are still so loathe to take it that we'll listen to outright lies from people like Bachmann and Cain and Perry and Romney and Glennbeck and Limbaugh, lies that tell us there's no guilt that needs to be addressed and America Is Exceptional and that We Are Always Right because shut up, that's why.

We still aren't beyond that cultural adolescence, decades later - far from it; we're still living in our parent's basement and playing Xbox 360 and bitching when we're asked to take out the trash or walk the dog. Which is pretty fucking pitiful.

All The Fits That's News, We Print

Oh, sweet holy screaming Jeebus on toast with a side of home fries - in these times of trouble and turmoil, the NYT has parted the veil and given us a vision of what is truly important in the 2012 Presidential campaign - Mitt Romney's hair.

Interviews with voters on the campaign trail suggest that, if anything, Mr. Romney’s age-defying hair is an asset, especially with women.

At a recent campaign stop in Manchester, N.H., Caroline Cagan acknowledged a weakness for his lush locks.

“A lot of people would pay a lot of money to have hair like that,” said Ms. Cagan, a local Chamber of Commerce member. “It projects youth. And, honestly, you can’t help but think that people with good hair are in good health.”

Diane Godbout, a retiree who attended the same event, put it in simpler terms: “It’s very presidential.”

FuckmeAgnes, we're going to decide on the leader of a thermonuclear superpower based on his hair. Wheee!

You know what? LET'S JUST ELECT THE DAMN HAIR. Write in a vote for "Mitt Romney's Hair" for President in 2012. Why the hell not? It'd certainly be just as competent at Presidenting than the rest of the GOP candidates, probably is more able with foreign and domestic policy than Bachmann or Perry or Santorum, and is less likely than Herman Cain to pinch a female reporter's ass. And it's just so goshdarn charismatic!

Obviously the GOP has but one choice for their candidate next year:

Mitt Romney's Hair, 2012
We Could Hardly Do Worse At This Point.

Too full of fowl

"Turkey Fact #12: Turkeys are filled with enough L-tryptophan to
knock you on your sorry Thanksgiving ass."

Urp.

The Glass Teat: November 8, 1968

Oh, man, no cute & cuddly Ellison this week.

No, far from it. He takes a look at the top shows listed in Time Magazine, and, as he puts it, he sees "escapist entertainment of the most vapid sort". Light frothy sitcoms like Mayberry, R.F.D. and Gomer Pyle and Beverly Hillbillies. Inoffensive comedy. Fun, fun, fun.

I know, what's the big deal? Crappy shows, what's new? Well, there was this small issue of a highly unpopular war being fought for dubious reasons, with boys being drafted off to fight it, unrest in the streets, a generation turning its back on the staid hat-and-tie values of the Fifties and trying to find a new way to live - and, far from addressing any of these issues, the popular culture turns away in favor of a world where the biggest problem is the Boss coming over for dinner and the worst language anyone uses is "Fiddlesticks!"

But, of course, that was 1968. Fast forward a few decades - we have troops stationed overseas for a war started for dubious reasons at best, turmoil in the Middle East, a political system apparently caring more for Wall Street than Main Street, kids out protesting the aforementioned political system's bias and getting a face-full of oleoresin capsicum for their trouble, 16% of American families lack security in feeding themselves, idiots trying to get us into war with Iran using the same bullshit they foisted off on us for Iraq...

...and what were the top ten shows last week, in our more enlightened and wise age, according to the Nielsen ratings?

1. NFL: Phila. At N.Y. Giants NBC
2. NCIS CBS
3. Dancing with the Stars ABC
4. NCIS: Los Angeles CBS
5. Dancing with the Stars results ABC
* The Big Bang Theory CBS
7. Two and a Half Men CBS
8. 60 Minutes CBS
9. Modern Family ABC
10. Criminal Minds CBS

Mind you, I don't recognize most of these names; I don't watch network TV anymore (or cable TV, but that's another issue). I can't say a lot to the content of these shows.

But - prime-time professional football, three crime & terrorism shows in which agents presumably never interrogate or torture the wrong people, more sitcoms - and you're telling me "Dancing With The Stars" now has TWO shows devoted to it? Oh, fuck, I'm rolling to disbelieve.

"60 Minutes" being up there is interesting - was it the adoring portrait of Grover "Nobody Fucking Elected Me But I'm Running The GOP Regardless" Norquist, maybe? Funny how 60 Minutes has been able to do segments in the last couple months on the necessity of staying in Afghanistan, Vincent Van Gough, and the agent representing many NFL players, but couldn't motivate themselves to address Occupy Wall Street. Or maybe the story they did on the NYPD counter-terrorism force was that; christ knows unarmed protesters are being treated more like domestic terrorists than political dissidents. (Anyone remember that Ted Koppel had the Michigan Militia on Nightline for a friendly town hall meeting the week after the OKC bombing? I guess right-wing terrorists get air time to speak their piece while peaceful leftists get jack-shit.)

Doesn't look like we're doing any better now.

And, as Ellison points out, "[t]hey will applaud now that LBJ has stopped the bombing [in Vietnam], but they see no inconsistency in having beaten and arrested all the clear-sighted protesters who said it three years ago... And now that what those protesters protested for has come to pass, will they rise up and say free them, reinstate them, honor them?
We know the answer to that."

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

The Glass Teat: November 1, 1968

Well, since what with the replay of the Chicago Democratic National Convention in microcosm all over the country and such like, I'm going to plow ahead and try to do BOTH volumes of The Glass Teat, aiming for one post a day, from now until I either get through both books or my internet is cut off for posting subversive propaganda.

Let's see how things were 43 years ago - some of this is going to sound like cut'n'paste from today's headlines.

November 1st - Ellison is defending himself against various slings & arrows and all like that there, what with being called a big meanie (leading to one of my all-time favorite Ellsionisms: "...a threat roughly as imposing as telling a man who has just crawled out of the Gobi Desert on his hands and knees that he cannot have a peanut butter sandwich") and refusing to nark on information sources at CBS. Which leads directly to a comment about a rep from ABC-TV defending the show The Mod Squad in front of a Senate investigating committee on TV violence - oh, yes, children, they wasted time on shit like TV violence back then, too. Said rep defended the show on the grounds that it encouraged a young woman to become and undercover source for the LAPD and report on her associates and their drug activities - which, I suppose, is just so much better than TV violence. Good patriotic citizens keep their eyes open for signs of dissent, after all!

Ellison then points out that he's been slagged by commentators for being such a sourpuss about what's on TV, and responds by listing some things he genuinely appreciates and recommends, including Laugh-In, The Smothers Bros. Comedy Hour, Mission: Impossible, and, surprise, Adam-12, which he refers to as "[v]ery nice, very realistic, and almost too damned good to believe...".

Of course, being cuddly is not Ellison, so he then goes on to imagine some truly tasteless TV offerings such as BERKOWITZ OF BELSEN! ("With the success of POW camp shows like Hogan's Heroes, the next natural step is a funny series about a Nazi extermination camp."), FREAKOUT! ("A weekly series of music and blackouts featuring kids who've been committed to the UCLA Intensive Care ward, acid-victims all."), A MAN CALLED REX! ("A situation comedy about Oedipus and his Mom."), and, pertinent to recent events, CHICAGO SIGNAL 39! ("...a pair of Chicago flying squad cops assigned to the Special Riot Detail. Homespun comedy about mace and mad dogs.")

"This is only a sampling of the wonders modern TV could provide, if they would only carry to logical extremes what is already being delivered to the public."

Just a pussycat, that's Harlan for you.

Legal/Illegal

Ewan MacColl on the strange priorities of British law (applicable also to American law):

Every time you pick up a newspaper,
Every time you switch on the T.V.,
You can bet your old boots that at some point you'll see,
A high ranking copper or Tory M.P.
Calling on all who are British and free,
To stand up and defend law and order.

It's illegal to rip off a payroll,
It's illegal to hold up a train,
But it's legal to rip off a million or two,
That comes from the labour that other folk do,
To plunder the many on behalf of the few,
Is a thing that is perfectly legal.

It's illegal to kill off your landlord
Or to trespass upon his estate
But to charge a high rent for a slum is O.K.
To condemn two adults and three children to stay
In a hovel that's rotten with damp and decay
It's a thing that is perfectly legal.

If your job turns you into a zombie
Then it's legal to feel some despair
But don't get aggressive and don't get too smart
For Christ's sake don't upset the old applecart
Remember you boss has your interests at heart
And it grieves him to see you unhappy.

If you fashion a bomb in your kitchen,
You're guilty of breaking the law,
But a bloody great nuclear plant is O.K.,
And plutonium processing hastens the day,
This tight little isle will be blasted away,
Nonetheless it is perfectly legal.

It's illegal if you are a Gypsy,
To camp by the side of the road,
But it's proper and right for the rich and the great,
To live in a mansion or own an estate,
That was got from the people by pillage and rape,
That is what they call a tradition.

It's illegal to kill off your missus,
Or put poison in your old man's tea,
But poison the river's the seas or the skies,
And poison the minds of a nation with lies,
It's all in the interest of free enterprise,
Nonetheless it's perfectly legal.

Well it's legal to sing on the telly,
But make bloody sure that you don't,
If you sing about racists and fascists and creeps,
And those in high places who live off the weak,
And those who are selling us right up the creek,
The twisters, the takers, the con-men, the fakers,
The whole bloody gang of exploiters!

Consumption deferred

Slavoj Žižek, writing for the London Review of Books on the recent London riots, makes a point pertinent to the perennial "OWS HAZ NO DEMANDS" whining:

The fact that the rioters have no programme is therefore itself a fact to be interpreted: it tells us a great deal about our ideological-political predicament and about the kind of society we inhabit, a society which celebrates choice but in which the only available alternative to enforced democratic consensus is a blind acting out. Opposition to the system can no longer articulate itself in the form of a realistic alternative, or even as a utopian project, but can only take the shape of a meaningless outburst. What is the point of our celebrated freedom of choice when the only choice is between playing by the rules and (self-)destructive violence?

Of course, in the case of Occupy, they are indeed articulate about their reasons for protest, if anyone bothers to listen, even though there are so many perspectives on such a huge set of issues that it seems inarticulate - and the fact that a status-quo business-dominated media too often refuses to listen doesn't help, either. Hasn't anyone told these idiots that socialism failed? There Is No Alternative - and, anyway, all capitalism needs is a few neo-liberal tweaks here and there and everything will be fine. Derp, derp.

Which suggests a rationale for the constant assertions from the wingnuts that OWS is funded by Soros or whoever - Liberty Park is a socialist anarchy, one that seems to be working, and the only way the Limbaughs and Glennbecks of America can cope with this apparent gross violation of natural laws is to conclude it's a Potemkin Village.

There is a point as well towards explaining, for example, the looting that happened after Hurricane Katrina, which of course was labeled by the Right as little more than a concrete expression of the tendency of "Those People" to (as supposedly in the case of social programs) enrich themselves at other's expense:

Zygmunt Bauman characterised the riots as acts of ‘defective and disqualified consumers’: more than anything else, they were a manifestation of a consumerist desire violently enacted when unable to realise itself in the ‘proper’ way – by shopping. As such, they also contain a moment of genuine protest, in the form of an ironic response to consumerist ideology: ‘You call on us to consume while simultaneously depriving us of the means to do it properly – so here we are doing it the only way we can!’ The riots are a demonstration of the material force of ideology – so much, perhaps, for the ‘post-ideological society’. From a revolutionary point of view, the problem with the riots is not the violence as such, but the fact that the violence is not truly self-assertive. It is impotent rage and despair masked as a display of force; it is envy masked as triumphant carnival.

The Social Darwinist ideology so popular now with conservatives (Republican and Democrat) is basically one of not so much driving a mule with a carrot dangling in front of its nose, as starving the mule beforehand so it pursues the carrot with that much more vigor and efficiency. Which neglects the possibility that the mule is at some point going to say "Fuck this" and turn on you and bite your hand off to get to that goddamn carrot.

We have a contracting economy where wages have fallen, job security effectively no longer exists, credit is tightening, and the economic safety net has been gleefully frayed by free-market conservatives. And yet, we still have a system that demands ever-increasing consumption, that teases with images of wealth and "success", that insists on displays of affluence, that offers so much for a privileged few, while the proles are merely allowed to look on with envy and fight each other for a vanishingly small chance at upward mobility.

So go ahead, dismiss OWS. Dismiss their views. Thousands of people are peacefully expressing their anxiety about their financial situation. Thousands of people are willing to articulate in reasonable, polite terms what they think is going wrong and what should be done about it, even if the news media isn't interested in listening. Go ahead and ignore them, roust them out of the parks with clubs and tear gas, then cut their wages, slash social programs, demand austerity from everyone but the 1%. Make the economy scream in the name of protecting profit and privilege. Just don't get all pissy when the inevitable happens and articulate rage turns inarticulate.

As Langston Hughes put it:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Two Bums

Okay, you goddamn wingtards who want to make out OWS and Occupy in general to be dominated by lazy ne'er-do-wells who "just need to get a damn job". Let's take us a lil' time trip back to an era when people were looking for work and not finding it - but were a lot more conscious of what was going on.

There's no date for the original poem - evidently it just appeared, ex nihilo, in I.W.W. literature back 'round a hundred years or so. I don't think the spirit of the original writer would mind my minor updating - the Wobs knew damn well what was going on and weren't afraid to say so. Which is what we need more of these days.

And so:
The Two Bums.

The bum of Occupy is clubbed and sprayed
As the enemy of all mankind;
The other is driven around to his exclusive club
And feted, and wined and dined.

And they who curse the bum in the park
As the essence of all that is bad
Will greet the other with a winning smile
And extend him the hand so glad.

The bum of Zuccotti is a social flea
Who might give an occasional bite;
The bum on the plush is a social leech,
Blood-sucking day and night.

The Occupier bums are a load so light
Their weight we scarcely do feel,
But it takes the labor of dozens of workers
To furnish the other a meal.

As long as you sanction the bum on the plush,
The other will need to be here,
But rid yourself of the bum on the plush
And the other will disappear.

Then make an intelligent, organized kick,
Get rid of the weights that crush;
Don't worry about the bum in the park,
Get rid of the bum on the plush!

As Utah Phillips said of the original poem:

If we're really concerned about people getting just what they earn, if we're really concerned about people not getting something that they didn't put in time and sweat for, let's start with the major offenders, and get rid of them. Then we'll gradually work our way down to the petty chiselers. It just makes sense.

Amen.

Oops.

"Hails of derisive laughter, Bruce!"

One thinks juuuust mayyyybeee the whole GOP anti-intellectual thing has gone a fair bit too far.

Mea culpa

Sometimes the good guys actually win one. While I was typing up my rant last night, the following happened:

Mississippi 'Personhood' Amendment Vote Fails

Ohio Turns Back a Law Limiting Unions’ Rights

Maine Voters Restore Same-Day Registration

Occupy Wall Street Gets Its Generators Back

Aaaaand all three of the legislative initiatives/issues passed with serious majorities.

We may be The Stupidest Country On God's Grey Earth sometimes, but we can pull our thumb out and live up to our ideals sometimes as well. Woot!

EDIT: Further woot - I'm sorry, my karma appears to have run over your dogma:

State Sen. Russell Pearce, the controversial architect of Arizona's immigration law, was voted out of office on Tuesday evening in a special recall election. He was defeated by Jerry Lewis, a fellow Republican who does not support the immigration crackdown and has vowed to reject gifts from special interest groups and work to ban gifts for legislators.

America, Yuck Feah!

Hey there, and welcome to yet another edition of "America: Stupidest Damn Nation On God's Grey Earth".

Exhibit 1:

Wal-Mart (WMT +2.38%) has wanted to be a financial player for a long time. And now, it just might get that opportunity.

The retailing giant is seeing new banking business from people fed up with Bank of America (BAC +1.24%) and other financial institutions. As banking customers close their accounts, Wal-Mart is there with some options.

If this continues, Wal-Mart could be on its way to becoming a mini-bank for some Americans. Perhaps that's one reason why the company's stock has been on a roll over the last month, rising 8% to $59.19 Tuesday.

The company offers check-cashing and bill-paying services, The New York Times reports. Customers can also wire money overseas and load money onto pre-paid debit cards. Often, the fees for these services are cheaper than what other companies charge.

The Times interviewed one factory worker in Pennsylvania who closed his bank account after dealing with one fee too many. He now takes his paychecks to Wal-Mart, where he can cash them for a flat $3 fee.

Derp, derp! Let's fight the 1% by... supporting the 1%. Whee! More money from Wal-Mart to go to conservative pro-business candidates who are the reason we're in this goddamn mess in the first place! Yes! Defeat the ogre of Bank Of America by cohabitating with the flesh-eating hag of Wal-Mart. Can't see how that could go wrong.

Exhibit 2:

DTE Energy has finished removing a majority of Highland Park's streetlights in a city-approved plan to pay off $4 million in lighting bills.

Mayor Hubert Yopp said Tuesday that he looked at crime statistics and felt the move was the best option for the city.

"We're trying to keep (costs) down so the taxpayers don't have to pay extra money," Yopp said.

Oh, how thoughtful. Street lights. Who needs a luxury like that in this time of austerity budgets? And don't worry about crime:

When asked about residents' safety, Yopp said that 90% of burglaries take place during the day when residents are away at work.

"Burglaries after dark are rare in Highland Park," he said. "That is not a lighting factor."

Oh, well! Of course, he isn't saying anything about the potential for unlit streets to factor into rapes, muggings, car theft, or suchlike crimes. But 90% of burglaries take place in daytime! See? See? Not a safety problem at all! Q.E.D.

Exhibit 3:

Mississippi voters head to the polls today to consider a radical anti-abortion measure that equates abortion with murder and would outlaw some forms of birth control, but Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant (R) warned yesterday that if the personhood amendment fails, “Satan wins.” “This is a battle of good and evil of Biblical proportions,” Bryant, who is also the GOP nominee for governor, told a crowd in Tupelo, Mississippi.

Well, thank god such a nut couldn't possibly get any more power in Mississippi.

Bryant is heavily favored to win the governor's race

Oh, shit. Mississippi Goddamn, indeed.

Exhibit 4:

All you folks whining about OWS "sitting around wanting government handouts" should probably be looking a bit further down Wall Street:

General Electric made big waves earlier in the year when The New York Times reported that the company paid no taxes in the U.S. in 2010, and in fact claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.

How could a company that made $14.2 billion in profits worldwide avoid paying taxes? G.E. wasn’t the only one, according to a new report released on Thursday by the Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The two advocacy groups, which could be fairly described as left-leaning, claim that among the 280 most profitable U.S. companies, 30 of them paid “less than zero” in taxes in the last three years, and 78 of the companies didn’t pay any federal income tax in at least one of the last three years.

The list of the big offenders is edifying - an assortment of power companies, financial companies, and telecommunications companies. You know - the ones who have hardly been struggling as of late; in fact, the ones who are reporting record profit after record profit. Which is, I guess, fucking easy to do when you're paying NEGATIVE taxes.

One might suggest that the dickheads of the "53% Movement" who want to piss and moan about paying taxes to support lazy socialists and welfare leeches might want to take a look at these companies - that is, if the 53%er douchenozzles weren't the type to defend Wells Fargo and GE and Verizon sucking in tax dollars on the grounds that yadda yadda can't punish success blurp blurp rich create jobs blah blah shut up that's why.

And that's all we have time for tonight! Tune in next time, when we once again prove we're The Stupidest Damn Nation On God's Grey Earth, by falling for the same goddamn bullshit we fell for last time!

"Shared sacrifice", GOP style

More fun from the deficit stupidcommittee!

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, has drafted a bill that would replace the military reductions that would occur under a process known in Congress as sequestration with 5 percent cuts to other, unspecified parts of the federal budget, and a 10 percent decrease in pay for members of Congress. In the House, similar measures are being assembled.

"If the joint select committee does not do what it needs to do," said Representative K. Michael Conaway, a Texas Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, "most of us will move heaven and earth to find an alternative that prevents a sequester from happening."

How rude to talk about cuts to the military! We've got to attack Iran, people! Think of the boost to the economy that will be! Those are almost-sort-of jobs for disadvantaged youths who will be trained in - well, there's not a lot of skills in the military that can be carried over into civilian life, but they'll learn how to obey orders and that'll do 'em just fine in any job they do manage to find. And how are we supposed to splash liberation right around the world unless we have the guns & bombs to do it?

Some Democrats are increasingly concerned that some Republicans on the committee, in declaring that they will not be able to accept new revenues toward deficit reduction, are calculating that they will be able to reverse the triggered cuts.

"New revenues" meaning taxes, which are so anathema to Republicans that they reject spending on teachers and police and infrastructure rather than vote for pitifully small increases on taxes for the wealthy. Presumably if we think we really need bridges and first responders, we can go humbly, hat in hand, to the 1% and ask them nicely to buy them for us for Christmas.

Republicans have expressed more alarm about possible across-the-board cuts in Pentagon spending than Democrats have voiced about cuts in domestic programs that would also occur. Many safety-net programs for low-income people, like Medicaid and food stamps, would be exempt from automatic cuts. And Medicare payments to health care providers could not be reduced by more than 2 percent.

Priorities. Plus, if they can pass legislation to immunize the Pentagon from the cuts, what really would prevent the GOP from writing similar legislation to include Medicaid in the "other, unspecified parts of the federal budget"? (And don't think I'm not disappointed in the Dems for not pushing as hard to keep social programs from being cut. WTF are you people thinking?)

And from the "goddamnit, we're Republicans, and we always get our way" department, there's this gem:

Some Democrats had expected the threat of automatic cuts in military spending to be the leverage to force Republicans to consider tax increases. Republicans said Democrats should not count on that. "If Democratic members of the committee think that Republicans just cannot resist calls or demands for a big tax increase because of the sense of unacceptable cuts, I think they would be wrong in that," said Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama.

Sen. Sessions then said "HO HO HO! TEEN-EE JE-DAI! BOSKA!" and hit a button that dumped Senate Democrats into the Sarlacc pit.

No, not really. But I wouldn't put it past him.

Epic math FAIL

Someone might want to point out to the Republicans on the deficit stupidcommittee that the whole concept of "cutting the deficit" entails, you know, cutting the deficit, not adding to it:

The new Republican plan provides for slightly more than $3 trillion in deficit reduction over the next ten years, relative to a current-policy baseline that assumes extension of all the 2001-2003 tax cuts. (See Table 1.) Of that amount, only about 1 percent of the deficit reduction ($40 billion) stems from revenue increases. And, compared to the “plausible baseline” that the Bowles-Simpson Fiscal Commission and the Senate’s Gang of Six used, which assumes expiration of the upper-income tax cuts, the latest Republican plan actually provides for tax cuts of more than $800 billion over ten years.

Whee, that's just a net savings of -140 billion! It's Bizarro economics - "us reduce the deficit by adding to it! We am so stupid!"

I would make a comment along the lines of "this is the best the GOP can do?" but A) looking at their Presidential candidates, yes, it probably IS the best they can offer, and B) it's obviously what they wanted to do all along, now with a convenient fig leaf of "reducing the deficit" to cover their nastiness.

BTW, as far as the GOP hopefuls go, Crazy Pizza Man Cain says, much like another GOP candidate a few years back, that he will have really great advisers and should therefore be allowed to learn on-the-job:

I don’t believe that you need to have extensive foreign policy experience if you know how to make sure you’re working on the right problems, establishing the right priorities, surrounding yourself with good people, which will allow you to put together the plans necessary to solve the problem.

When I went to Godfather’s Pizza in 1986, the company was supposed to go bankrupt. I had never made a pizza, but I learned. And the way we renewed Godfather’s Pizza as a company is the same approach I will use to renew America. And that is if you want to solve a problem, go to the source closest to the problem and ask the right questions.

One might point out how well that worked last time.


(I mean, seriously, compare the babble Cain spouted up there with G.W. Bush, on the News Hour, April 27, 2000:

Secondly, am I willing to listen and who would I be listening to, who are the people that would come and provide counsel or would I listen at all, and, if so, and if I did listen, when I made a decision, would it be based upon principle, or would it be based upon polls? My answer to people would be that I'm a person of faith and family. And I hold -- but I hold America dearly in my heart. I love what America stands for.

Secondly, I am going to be surrounded by the best that any president has ever brought to Washington, D.C. People ask who - well, you know, my foreign policy adviser is a person - who when America gets to know her is going to realize that she is really one of the smartest, capable people in America - Dr. Condaleeza Rice. Larry Lindsay has been an economic adviser of mine.

I just announced my vice presidential search headed by Dick Cheney, who is about as solid a citizen as America has ever produced. A leader is somebody who must listen and so I think the quality of the administration and the quality of my presidency will be determined by the people I bring to Washington.

How are those two sets of quotes any different from each other? Are we really that stupid that we'd elect - oh, never mind, Cain's evidently the front runner right now, and evidently therefore, yes, we ARE that stupid. Fuck yeah, let's just get ourselves another eight fucking years of Mr. CEO Preznit; like I said, it worked out SO FUCKING WELL last time.)