Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This country desperately needs a functioning Fourth Estate.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Elections aren’t won by handwringing, cowering, and/or bashing your own candidates.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Be a traveling stable for those who can’t find room at the inn.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Trump makes a mockery of the legal system and cowardly judges just sit back and let him.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Nikki Haley, who can’t acknowledge ‘slavery’, is a pathetic shill.

Joe Biden can go out like FDR, not by dying in office, but by crushing the fascists.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

FFS people, this was a good thing. take the win.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

You are here: Home / It’s all Greek to me

It’s all Greek to me

by | 88 Comments

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I don’t know what this means, but I like it anyway:

Syrek is doing his dissertation on several of Shakespeare’s plays, including Coriolanus.

“You might say that Coriolanus was the first Republican, in the modern sense of the term,” says Syrek. “He is the most sublime bombast in all of literature.”

I asked him who would be Coriolanus in the political drama playing out in Zuccotti Park.

“Oh, God, what’s his name? Sean Hannity. And Menenius would be David Brooks.”

I am now labeling all Occupy Together posts with Jump! You Fuckers!

Reader Interactions

88Comments

  1. 1.

    Corner Stone

    DougJ, do you have any advice on medications for people who hear organ music as they go to bed at night?

  2. 2.

    cat48

    I think they want our government’s elected officials to leave so they can take over. You should probably read Ted Rall’s, AntiAmerican Manifesto. The Occupation DC or October2011 at Freedom Plaza; has been planned for about 6 months and has a lot of familiar sponsors on their website.

  3. 3.

    Uncle Clarence Thomas

    .
    .
    Damn you, DougJ. You know how I feel about Greek. Why are you trying to inflame me, man?
    .
    .

  4. 4.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The first time I saw Sean Hannity, before I heard a word out of his mouth, my impression was he had a face made for being hit with a Louisville Slugger.

  8. 8.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    @Corner Stone: In Ship of Fools a spanish hooker tells Lee Marvin to meet her in room 14. When he drunkenly barges in it’s Vivian Leigh’s room and she had just drunkenly applied a shit load of sleazy makeup in a fit of regret of getting old. Marvin assaults her and she does the three minute motherfucker on his face with a high heel.

    great scene

  9. 9.

    Spaghetti Lee

    I actually read As You Like It for class a while back and it struck me that Orlando’s speech about how slaves served out of loyalty and didn’t ask for money back in the good old days would have fit right into the pages of the National Review. I even considered rewording it and submitting it for publication.

  12. 12.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Not that it makes a particle of difference to the thread, but this may be the only chance I ever get to mention that in 1959 I saw Laurence Olivier at Stratford (England) in the title role of Coriolanus.

    That was the day after I saw Charles Laughton as King Lear. And guess who else was in that cast: Vanessa Redgrave, Zoe Caldwell, Robert Hardy, and Albert Finney, bitchez!

    I was 17. I didn’t fully appreciate what I was seeing.

  17. 17.

    Cat Lady

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    I’ve been trying to conjure a similarly fitting fate for Bobo. Something more subtle and painfully drawn out, with an ironic twist that exposed his craven bootlicking even to himself. A girl can dream.

  19. 19.

    Cat Lady

    @MikeJ:

    I was thinking more like Obama’s package being rammed down his throat for all eternity. I’m not sure he wouldn’t enjoy it though. He’s a fellater of power. Something up his ass maybe.

  23. 23.

    MikeJ

    Completely OT, but has anybody seen their local news coverage of the “values” voters summit? I’m sure King-TV didn’t send a reporter, but that’s ok. Stations sell actualities to each other and that’s cool. The report they ran looked as if it were produced by the Republican party. “One thing everybody agrees on: Obama has got to go!”

    It’s not unheard of for people who run these type of things to put together “news” packages. Anybody else seeing similar?

  25. 25.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @MikeJ:

    It’s not unheard of for people who run these type of things to put together “news” packages. Anybody else seeing similar?

    Yes, there was a study a few years back that showed how TV stations were using PR “news” straight out of the can or slightly modified. I wouldn’t be surprised.

  26. 26.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @MikeJ:

    I rarely watch CNN but I’m in a hotel tonight and it’s one of the few channels available. It wasn’t quite as blatant as your quote, but there was a sort of push on the part of the interviewer to MAKE it all Obama’s fault.

  27. 27.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    @sfinny: I was getting confused. The much besieged Georgia Offensive Coordinator is Mike Bobo and I thought ya’ll were going OT!

  28. 28.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @MikeJ:

    You mean they all ignored the real story of today’s session, which was Romney striking back at the Southern Baptist leader for calling Moromonism “a cult”?

    The facade of “unity” is a very bad joke.

  30. 30.

    B W Smith

    @becca: Very funny, there is a resemblance between Hannity and Nathan Lane. Something I am sure neither would appreciate.

  32. 32.

    Montysano

    @Nellcote:

    I’m trying hard not to be unduly cynical about the OWS thing but I think this is really fu*ked up:

    Try harder.

    They’re experimenting with consensus rule; give ’em a break. Besides, I think I’d like a movement that was not dominated by an endless bunch of speeches by celebrities, musicians and luminaries.

  34. 34.

    ChrisNYC

    @Villago Delenda Est: That was the real story of yesterday’s session. The story with today’s was Romney’s mild tsk tsk to Bryan Fischer (“poisonous language”) and Fischer’s hate-filled diatribe.

    http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/bryan_fischer_on_how_prayer_has_rendered_terrorist_wannabes_incompetent.php?ref=fpblg

    Short version is — all Muslims are murderers, at heart. Fischer also believes that Nazis were Nazis because they were gay. That was the problem there. The Nazis were gay. Hello? David Frum? Andrew Sullivan? This guy who is feted by the GOP says the problem was not historic anti-Semitism, but homosexuality — you agree? Well, no one in your party has rejected this guy so, what’s the deal with that?

    C-Span carried the speeches from yesterday but didn’t broadcast Fischer’s speech. Which is infuriating, that they are doing the clean up work.

  35. 35.

    FlipYrWhig

    Re: Coriolanus — this is the part he’s thinking of:

    Coriolanus flies into a rage and rails against the concept of popular rule. He compares allowing plebeians to have power over the patricians to allowing “crows to peck the eagles”.

    I was thinking about how he decides not to destroy Rome in revenge only because his mother persuades him not to. That didn’t sound very Republican to me.

  37. 37.

    Mark S.

    Nebraska belongs back in the Big 12 North.

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    The first time I saw Sean Hannity, before I heard a word out of his mouth, my impression was he had a face made for being hit with a Louisville Slugger.

    Mine too, and I was a conservative back then.

  39. 39.

    Mark S.

    I only read Coriolanus once and it was like a decade ago but I remember thinking he was such an asshole I didn’t give a shit what happened to him. His mother was horrifyingly grotesque; I guess he turned out better than could be expected being raised by that.

  40. 40.

    Svensker

    @Corner Stone:

    DougJ, do you have any advice on medications for people who hear organ music as they go to bed at night?

    What about folks who hear bagpipes at 2 in the morning? And see the bagpiper on the street outside their bedroom window?

  41. 41.

    BGinCHI

    As a well-published Shakespeare scholar, I’d like to be the first to point out that you can’t spell Coriolanus without “anus.”

    So yes, as the first Republican? Makes perfect sense.

    There’s also the little detail that Coriolanus doesn’t get what he wants from Rome, so he goes off and throws in with his mortal enemies and uses them to conquer his homeland. Sounds like a swell allegory for GOP patriotism. Like Ronnie and the Kochs doing business with Iran.

  42. 42.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Mark S.:

    I only read Coriolanus once and it was like a decade ago but I remember thinking he was such an asshole I didn’t give a shit what happened to him.

    Coriolanus.

  47. 47.

    BGinCHI

    I think it would be a great leap forward for Sunday’s talk shows if they referred to the Values Voter Summit as the Assholes Voter Summit.

    I mean fuck, the Christians are in church anyway.

  48. 48.

    gnomedad

    @Southern Beale:

    So, scientists say two species have gone extinct in South Florida. Amazed the free hand of the market didn’t save them.

    If species don’t have jobs and aren’t rich it’s their own damn fault.

  49. 49.

    Corner Stone

    @Svensker: I never worry about it when I can see the bagpipe player.
    It’s only the times when I can’t find the bastard and just see the green flag he’s left behind tied to something.

  50. 50.

    Davis X. Machina

    @BGinCHI: Just as Republicans run on the slogan that government can’t do anything right, and when elected prove it, these right wing Christianists, raised on a diet of Augustinian and Calvinist doctrine on the fundamental depravity of mankind, given an opportunity go right out and demonstrate its soundness.

  51. 51.

    Southern Beale

    I saw a picture of people at the Values Voter summit decked out in full 18th century costume — men and women — the women in caps and longs skirts and the men in tricorn hats and knee britches and the rest. So I don’t want to be hearing any more bullshit about Occupy Wall Street protesters being oddly dressed. You can just nip that shit in the bud right now.

  57. 57.

    John Weiss

    @Raven (formerly stuckinred): Perhaps it’s a broad statement. By my own personal experience, I believe it’s true. Sometimes, my man, we simply don’t know what we’re looking at until long after.

    But the time I met my current partner I knew in a flash. As is said, “Your mileage may vary”.

  59. 59.

    John Weiss

    @Southern Beale: That would be very funny Ms. Beal. If I didn’t live in the hinterlands, I’d take either role and show up with you (If the Mr wouldn’t mind!)

    And we’d have four foot crowbars, just in case.

  62. 62.

    Nellcote

    @Montysano:

    I think I’d like a movement that was not dominated by an endless bunch of speeches by celebrities, musicians and luminaries.

    From your mouth to Michael Moore’s ear.

  63. 63.

    Anne Laurie

    @Cat Lady:

    I’ve been trying to conjure a similarly fitting fate for Bobo. Something more subtle and painfully drawn out, with an ironic twist that exposed his craven bootlicking even to himself.

    Hell, in Brooks’ echt-Episcopalian afterlife? Just read Aristotle, Milton, Burke & all the other Very Serious Intellects the columns where Brooks uses them to dress up his pathetic craven bootlickings. I think we can count on them to give BoBo all the griefings he so richly deserves. Ater the latest posthumus smear-job, even Steve Jobs would depart from best Buddhist practice to depants Brooks & run his soiled tighty-whiteys up the celestial flagpole!

  67. 67.

    handsmile

    @SiubhanDuinne: (#12)

    I am gobsmacked with envy at your account of seeing Olivier as Coriolanus! And then to be poleaxed by the coup de grace of your attending a performance by Charles Laughton as Lear! I certainly hope you have long enjoyed the stunned reactions of friends and relations as you relate that glorious tale of your youth.

    While far from those lofty dramatic heights, I can relate that about twenty-five years ago I saw Christopher Walken in the title role of Coriolanus at the Public Theater in New York. That night, the then-unknown actor Andre Braugher (Homicide) offered a memorable performance in a minor role.

    To highlight the evening, shortly after the play Mr. Braugher boarded the subway car on which my friend and I were travelling. I approached him to offer congratulations on his performance. Thrilled to be recognized and expressively grateful for my remarks, Braugher and I spoke about the production for several stops until he disembarked uptown.

  68. 68.

    PIGL

    @Cat Lady: There was a really bad science fiction novel from the 80s that detailed a very imaginative punishment that might be severe enough to suit the case.

    It involved sophisticated neuro-surgery such that the condemmned had all his senses except one scrambled. That one caused him to roam the city, sniffing out piles of dog shit, and burying his face in them. Forever.

  70. 70.

    Sly

    @Nellcote:
    John Lewis didn’t seem to mind.

    That’s really the pesky thing about political celebrity: worrying about insulting someone important (and John Lewis is certainly in that category) to the point where your indignation reaches a higher level than that felt by the celebrity himself/herself. We’ve seen a whole helluva lot of that stuff in the past three years w/r/t Bill and Hilly Clinton and their “supporters.”

  71. 71.

    Corner Stone

    John Lewis seemed to understand the situation and circumstances.
    Obviously that doesn’t help those with significant hurting of the nether regions, or those on the grift. So it most likely will not be discussed.

  72. 72.

    ChrisNYC

    John Lewis is sooo a celebrity. Geez. Who doesn’t know that? Doesn’t know anything about social change — leave it to the PhD candidates who know about real suffering. I bet Kardashian was with him.

    And, I can totally see he was cool with it. It so showed that he was like, “It’s cool.” I bet he learned something from the experience really.

  74. 74.

    Corner Stone

    John Lewis is a grown man. Unlike some of the pained egos here and across the griftwitters.

  77. 77.

    ChrisNYC

    @Corner Stone: What’s his word? Serious question.

    Doesn’t matter to me, for my opinion of OWS, whether he was ok with not talking. I don’t like a whole bunch of what I’ve seen. This is just more. But I think it matters for liberals.

  78. 78.

    Sly

    @ChrisNYC:
    That he’s not offended, and that he respects and encourages the process that the protesters are developing. Because John Lewis is a class act, and knows from personal experience that this stuff is hard to do.

    So anyone wailing about it should probably take a page from the guy they’re rushing to defend from the horde of uppity PhD candidates.

  79. 79.

    Corner Stone

    @ChrisNYC: Sorry your panties are so bunched.
    There’s a video linked at #70 by Sly. It has Mr. Lewis speaking for himself. He certainly doesn’t need me paraphrasing him.

  80. 80.

    Corner Stone

    Grifters in the night exchanging griftes
    Grifting in the night what were the griftes
    We’d be grifting grift before the grift was through
    Grifting in your eyes was so grifting
    Grifting in you smile was so grifting
    Grifting in my heart told me I must grift you

  81. 81.

    ChrisNYC

    @Sly: Listen, it’s not about offense. I’m not offended on Lewis’ behalf. Just I’m not signing on and pledging undying love for a group of people that says, “Hey, John Lewis, nothing to learn from him.” For me. Personally, I’m not sure I respect the “process” or encourage it. I’m, frankly, not that easy to win. I’ve seen an awful lot that makes me mad (i.e., slamming the NYPD, who turned out in WI but apparently are “thugs” when it’s convenient). I’m watching it but I’m not 100% oh please please free us.

    I think OWS have their own ideas (TBD) and I’m not going to superimpose my own impression on them, to smooth edges and make excuses, like a lot of the internet left seems to do. I am not sure what they want or what they’re about but I’ll pay attention and come to my own conclusion. Which I think they’ve actually earned, that level of freedom.

    They want to turn away John Lewis? More power to them. They are totally free to do that. Can I draw conclusions from that? Yes. That’s my right and both them and I have a right to do that without people saying, “What you saw was not what you saw.” Part of this is taking a stand, mapping out what they care about, what they don’t care about, what they value, what they don’t. They are allowed to do that and people watching are allowed to sign on or not.

  84. 84.

    Corner Stone

    @ChrisNYC: Of course I love it. WTF is wrong with you that you don’t?
    Think you can bluster off some shit? Not so much.
    You don’t like some “things” about OWS? Hmmm?

  86. 86.

    joel hanes

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I was 17. I didn’t fully appreciate what I was seeing.

    Who ever has?

    Serious question. I’m opening the floor for nominations.

    Maybe Buddha.

    If you give a dog a choice between the Buddha-nature and a dog biscuit, is there any question which he will choose ?

  88. 88.

    Sleeper

    Ha! How strange. Just stumbled across this post, and I went to school with the guy quoted in that story. Haven’t seen him since last week of classes at Rutgers in ’98, though. Wonder what he thought about the Seinfeld finale.

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