This scenario, while frightening, is really implausible. Nothing like it would ever happen, and certainly congress and the American people would put a stop to it.
PS- The episode of Life I am currently watching is based on the Stanford Prison study, and it sucks.
Comrade Jake
Hey buddy, you voted for the guy.
John Cole
Twice. Kinda makes you rethink your support for Obama now, doesn’t it?
Conservatively Liberal
Nope. I’m a DFH and we are usually right. ;)
Comrade Darkness
Damn, that was depressing. Clever, but sad.
Comrade Warren Terra
Life was entertaining back when the lead actor was a space case, but now you can barely tell him from his partner by his behavior. I was also ticked off by their last previous show (I did not see tonight’s), where they had the victim killed by inhaling liquid nitrogen, resulting in his entire body being completely frozen and incredibly brittle, with no condensation or melting. Striking visuals, but lousy physics. The representation of the practice of science and the attendant motivations in a pharmaceutical company was also just completely insane.
TheFountainHead
Word.
I’m canvassing for Obama tomorrow in North Jersey, just to run up the score. For fun.
Comrade Jake
Not at all. I never voted for Bush, and thought the invasion of Iraq would be a giant clusterfuck. I’m pretty sure of my judgment. I just wonder what took the rest of the goddamn country so long to WAKE THE FUCK UP.
Grover StL
I read the link and it seems somehow familiar. Not sure why or how but it was like deja vu. Strange.
Comrade Jake
Awesome.
"How do you do today sir? I see you have a McCain sign on your lawn. Did you hear about Governor Palin being found guilty of abusing the public trust yesterday?"
Genine
What a trip to Bizarro world. I hope there was a crash cart nearby.
cain
dude.. you watch "Life" too? I love that show.
cain
ps no, i don’t have anything interesting to say
TheFountainHead
I’m writing that one down, right beneath this one I wrote down earlier:
"Good morning, when do you believe the Earth was formed and Dinosaurs went extinct?"
John Cole
@cain: Yes. I really like Damian Lewis. I think he has an interesting look and style. I have liked him since Band of Brothers.
Randy Paul
John,
Sara Shahi makes Life worthwhile as well.
Halteclere
Life is the only show my wife and I make a point to watch. And I also miss the initial episodes that were cut short because of the writer strike. I wonder which writers didn’t come back to the show? They are missed.
I was not familiar with the Stanford Prison experiment, but had to pause (we’d TiVO’d it) towards the end to reflect on relevent historical and out-of-control roll-playing authoritive abuses that keep reoccuring in me-vs.-them cituations. Chilling.
Which also reminded me of today’s video of McCain trying to turn down the hate dial at his rally.
Liz
God, reading that, I’m torn between laughing and sobbing helplessly and going fetal until November 4th.
jcricket
John – I’m glad for your "conversion" to becoming a member of the reality-based-community, and Sullivan’s too. My only comment – are you really surprised by where we are?
I hate David Brooks and his us/them dichotomies, but that article of his recently hits it out of the park. Are you really surprised that the party pushing tropes like "government is always the problem", "intellectuals are not American", starting at least 30 years ago with Reagan, turned into what we have today? Did you really think you were part of a party that would alter its proposals if reality "got in the way"?
At least Reagan raised taxes (biggest tax increase in history) when it became obvious his tax cuts were decimating the economy. So he had a bit of pragmatism hidden behind his jingoism.
I’m not arguing the Democrats are blameless, or perfect, or have all the right ideas. But there’s room for honest debate with Democrats, as long as boogie-man words like socialism, "tax and spend", "coastal elites", etc. are off the table.
skippy
did you mean the episode of life sucks, or the stanford prison experiment sucks?
at least i thought the premise of the episode was more imaginative than the usual cop show "girlfriend of a famous dude gets killed, it was the agent who did it" crap you usually get.
and tonite the show used adam arkin more germainly to the plot mechanism, always a plus.
however i think the meta-mystery of why damian’s character got sent to prison is unfolding too slowly.
for instance, in the first scene, damian and adam are listening to the wire tap, and they say "gee, what does it mean when the guy says ‘first there were 6, now there are 5, there could be 4′?"
and any one who’s ever watched tv or movies in their lives is yelling out "it’s a frickin’ threat, you nimrods!"
and then, in the last scene of the show, they turn to each other and say, "it’s a threat!"
well…duh!
also, i usually lurv donal logue but this character of his could never be a cop let alone a captain. i was glad to see the character of the female ex-captain back…don’t know the actress’s name…she was actually more believable and interesting than logue’s performance.
and i fell in lurv w/sarah shahi when she was the hot blooded latino lesbian on ‘the l word.’ she made me want to be a lesbian.
The Grand Panjandrum
Jesus! A thread about a TV how show? Can we get back to the Kitty Porn?
That link from Lawyers, Guns and Money is pure Grade-A must read snark. Its of sufficient quality that BJ’ers would appreciate it. Do you think the Bush Deadenders would get it if they read it?
@skippy: Rachel Maddow makes me want to be a lesbian.
blonde moment
My husband and I love Life – best show on TV. You’re right about the bad science, but what other series has a lead character that spends so much time keeping his mouth shut? At the beginning of this episode, when Charlie and Reese go into the basement "prison," notice how long it takes Charlie to ever say anything. That shows great trust in the writers and how they’re developing the character.
As for the satire, think of all the folks who are going to read it and believe it! All those bozos at McCain rallies who are foaming at the mouth – the black humor in it is going to sail right over their heads.
Hawes
Campos left out the part where Obama lets Seattle drown in a natural disaster, because as Pat Boone would later say, "Barack Hussein doesn’t care about white people."
I liked the Life ep. I agree that the threat thing was obvious, but the prison experiment was interesting in how it dug up a visceral emotional response in Crews over his own time in prison.
Cassidy
I love Life…amazing show and one of my favorite actors. Yes, we knew it was a threat, they showed us, but the characters only had the audio, so cut the show some slack. Secondly, while he isn’t quite the space case he was last season, I think the show is trying to portray him with a harder edge. He spent most of his spare time "enjoying" his freedom and money, but now he seems a lot more volatile. It’s almost as if the fun is gone and the anger is bubbling up. I’m willing to bet we see a full blown freak out soon.
The other thing I’m thinking is that the rogue cops remind me of a book where an elite task force went undercover and then disappeared, becoming a criminal organization themselves.