Gotta admit I admire Mr. Charles P. Pierce’s May Day commemoration:
There is a strong feeling, and not merely on the right or from our gloriously apathetic Center, that the Occupy people have had their time on the stage, that it is time for another show to begin. Nobody’s ready for a remix. Nobody’s ready for a reboot. (Me? I’m still trying to figure out why in hell they’re bringing back Dallas.) And nobody, certainly, is prepared to admit that what started in Zuccotti Park and a hundred other places might have permanently affected the way Americans looked at the connections between how the country does its business and how the country runs its government.
Just this morning, the Wall Street Journal ran a feature about how the Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into the activities of the lawyers who worked for the assorted shark tanks that ran the world economy into the ditch… [W]hat it does is illustrate, again, what an utterly corrupt nation the United States of America was in the first decade of the 21st century. The governing elites, all of them, were complicit in massive fraud against the rest of us. Either they participated in it, which would be the bankers and (it appears) their lawyers, or they condoned and celebrated it, which would be the financial press and the elite media, or they shirked their duty to protect the political commonwealth from being hijacked, which would be the members of both parties in the government, and us, for letting so much of the country run on automatic pilot for so long.
This was a banana republic. It was a failed state in everything except the fact that no tanks rolled in the streets. The terrorists were not hiding in Waziristan. They were having lunch at Cipriani’s and sitting in luxury boxes at the Meadowlands. The government existed only to increase their profits and to provide a quasi-legal context for organized piracy. There was an extraordinary contempt for the law, for the institutions of government, and for the people the law and those institutions were supposed to serve. The country was cored out. It was a shell of a country and a shell corporation, and it has not recovered yet…
If the Occupy people want to march, I say let them march. If they resist conventional politics, that may be because conventional politics are worth resisting. What I do know is that, if i weren’t for the people in the streets last autumn, the Obama people would be running a very different campaign and Willard Romney wouldn’t look half as ridiculous as he does. Somebody has to care enough not to care.
I like his taste in music, too. As always, YMMV.
Apart from that… anybody want to share the story of their day?
BruceFromOhio
5 morons thought they could change the world through the sheer power of stupidity.
FAIL.
khead
I just got back from a rec league hoops game where the referee felt the need to mouth off to my wife who was simply cheering for our team.
Yes, the ref. The guy who is supposed to have thick skin talked shit to my wife who was one of THREE people sitting in the stands cheering.
I would pay cash money for a few moments alone with the “gentleman”.
ant
guess there’s attacks going on in Kabul.
reuters.com/article/2012/05/02/us-afghanistan-kabul-blast-idUSBRE84102520120502
Little Boots
Mr. Charles Pierce is the awesome.
schrodinger's cat
I just finished watching The Good Shepherd. Can’t help but compare it to the recent movie adaptation of Tinker, Tailor. Both movies set in the Cold War and uncovering the mole in the top echelons of spy agencies (CIA and MI5). Both were good but Tinker, Tailor was better I think, Gary Oldman’s Smiley was more believable than Damon’s Edward Wilson.
Mickey
Channeling Not Republican Cole.
“I agree with Arianna and Cenk and we should just give up and let Romney win”
TaMara (BHF)
Apologies if it has been posted before:
West Wing Cast does PSA
Love Dule Hill pretty much channeling Gus, not Charlie.
Little Boots
@Mickey:
there’s anger, and then there’s bitter.
freelancer
They’re bringing back Dallas? O4FS!
Chris
Harsh but warranted words.
Not even the tanks: the most meaningful difference between us and a banana republic is the existence of a social safety net that, even in its current weakened condition, is doing its damnedest to hold the country together. Thank God for what’s left of the New Deal, despite what’s been done to roll it back.
Yutsano
May Day got me out of work early. So there’s that. I better get Dawg time out of the deal. Also. Too.
Was supposed to make chicken wings for work Thursday, but I have to go in early, so I’m settling on macerated berries and angel food cake. It’ll have to do.
Little Boots
@freelancer:
on TV
or in reality?
beltane
@Chris: A safety net is the only force capable of truly keeping the peace. Any society with glaring income inequality and widespread poverty is going to be, by necessity, a police state.
Mnemosyne
Looks like some assholes in Seattle decided to try and ruin it for everybody, but the police were able to clear them out to allow the peaceful protesters to have their immigration march.
The marches here in Los Angeles were nice and quiet — apparently the worst thing that happened was that a police officer somehow got hit in the head with a skateboard, but she was wearing her helmet. Knowing our skateboarders out here, it could easily have been an accident.
Hill Dweller
I’ve been ragging on Jon Stewart lately, so it’s only fair that I point out his first segment hammering the Republicans was tremendous.
Little Boots
just cause I heard it recently.
youtube.com/watch?v=x_TIFmpSN-c&feature=fvst
...now I try to be amused
@schrodinger’s cat:
I haven’t got around to watching the recent Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, but I highly recommend the 1979 miniseries starring Alec Guinness. I was surprised when I learned that they were doing a remake, first because Guinness owned the role of George Smiley, and second because the miniseries was nearly six hours and I doubted the story could be told properly in only two hours. I might be proved wrong though.
PurpleGirl
Rant… Since October 2011, I’ve been having problems hearing the ventilation system fans and/or the motors. At one point the fan blades were unbalanced and it took a while to get the management to fix them. (Clanking metal is not fun to hear.) For several weeks, it was quiet and then I began hearing the motors. Again in took a few weeks to get them to adjust the settings. Then I began feeling a vibration through my floor — some days intermittent and some days almost constant. Today it was almost constant. The other morning I called the overnight phone number of the management office, while having an anxiety attack because the vibrations had been constant, and left a message. No one has called me back. I’ve been in this apartment since 1999 and I’ve never heard or felt the ventilation system as I have since October. Rant over. Thanks for reading.
TaMara (BHF)
@Little Boots: If you like that one, I bet you’ll love this one:
youtube.com/watch?v=dYiw-RAyXck
KCinDC
I’m not sure about Pierce’s use of the past tense. Are those people really not still at Cipriani’s and in their luxury boxes? Has anything meaningful changed about Wall Street since 2008, except that the inhabitants whine more about people being mean to them, while nothing is actually happening to them?
Little Boots
and for omnes, cause it’s the only song I ever posted that he didn’t hate:
youtube.com/watch?v=l0sAgm9Vz50
Elizabelle
@Hill Dweller:
Thanks for the head’s up re Stewart. Will catch it on the rerun.
Anybody else catch Colbert’s interview with Diane Keaton last night?
She was heinous. Weird and kind of aggressive. He started riffing off her after a while.
Little Boots
hey, whatever happened to omnes, anyway?
Chris
@beltane:
Yep. Which, of course, is a feature not a bug if you’re a certain kind of person.
Steve
I was surprised there was absolutely nothing going on in Zuccotti Park this morning, but the big march down Lower Broadway in the evening was extremely well-attended.
schrodinger's cat
@…now I try to be amused: I liked it, I haven’t seen the miniseries, Gary Oldman was very good as Smiley, the antithesis of James Bond if you will. The movie is demanding, if you blink, you miss a plot development. Watching the movie was like solving an intricate puzzle or a brainteaser. It was subtle with superb acting. Apart from Oldman, there were Colin Firth and Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hardy in pivotal roles. You should see it.
Little Boots
now just to annoy omnes, if he were here:
youtube.com/watch?v=nU615FaODCg
Elizabelle
Stephen Colbert just called Paul Ryan a “Reagan hair re-enactor.”
Lojasmo
@Little Boots:
Just because a person doesn’t post seventy times in a thread doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Little Boots
@Lojasmo:
yes, yes it does.
where’s doug, by the way?
chrome agnomen
@schrodinger’s cat:
just finished watching tinker, and was completely unimpressed. i am handicapped by having read the novel a dozen times, and seen the very well done miniseries with alec guiness a few times. two hours is way too short a time to do any justice to that great novel, and the screenplay was extremely disjointed to where i wasn’t sure who the characters were for the first half. several key elements were changed to no purpose. grumble.
RalfW
Holy crap Stephen King is mad at the tightwad, sociopath rich. And he knows, ’cause he’s rich and seems to be able to write novels about sociopaths.
A taste:
Calouste
@Little Boots:
There’s also pathetic.
Little Boots
@Calouste:
don’t yell.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@chrome agnomen: I thought it was pretty good, if no where near as good as the miniseries, much less the novel. I thought you had to watch it on its own terms. I knew going in two hours wasn’t nearly enough time. I liked Oldman, Firth, John Hurt and the guy who played Prideaux.
but the Lady Ann Smiley is not a giggly tart in a cheap red dress. She’s Sian Phillips
Jebediah
@schrodinger’s cat:
second that. I didn’t see the miniseries either, but Oldman was superb (as was everybody else you mentioned, in my opinion.)
danielx
The SEC is looking into the activities of the lawyers…of course the question that leaps to mind – is this a joke? The lawyers to whom the WSJ article refers very likely worked at the SEC before moving on to bigger and much more well compensated positions on Wall Street. Given the revolving door that exists between the SEC/FDIC/CFTC/gabbagabbahey and the positions offered by Wall Street firms and their legal representatives, it’s a wonder that any cases at all ever get prosecuted.
After all…if you’re an SEC staff attorney struggling along on a miserable $125k a year, do you want to piss off your potential future employers by aggressively pursuing cases? (Hint: the answer has two letters.) All this has been documented by Matt Taibbi, bless his heart:
rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-isnt-wall-street-in-jail-20110216
Then there’s the whole bit about the SEC getting rid of inquiry files containing evidence…again by the nice people at Rolling Stone.
rollingstone.com/politics/news/is-the-sec-covering-up-wall-street-crimes-20110817
I imagine the reaction from the lawyers in question and the shark tanks they work for is going to be something along the lines of “WTF? You’re changing the unwritten rules and getting sanctimonious on us now? Get serious, you simpletons, especially if you ever want to leave your shitty civil servant jobs and cash in…like us.”
James E. Powell
@ant:
Check out the comment to this Reuters report of the car bombing in Kabul.
What has Obama ever done to merit such hatred?
danielx
@schrodinger’s cat:
Saw the movie this weekend, and saw the miniseries years ago. The movie is okay, but compresses things more than I expected. Difficult to turn such a sprawling novel into a two hour movie, but it could have been better. Gary Oldman is excellent, but he’s not up to Alec Guinness as Smiley – who would be? Alec Guinness was George Smiley.
Now I’m gonna have to check the miniseries out at the local library, which still has it on VHS.
Yutsano
@James E. Powell: PWB. All that’s required these days.
Mnemosyne
In case any of our right-wing trolls didn’t get their updated memo: yes, Elizabeth Warren really is part Cherokee. You can drop that meme now.
Steve
@danielx:
Incorrect. The way to get hired by the other side is to appear knowledgeable and aggressive.
Mickey
@Little Boots: When you figure out where Not Republican falls on that spectrum let me know. Personally I think he has issues that he is trying to deal with using Prozac or similar. That’s about the only explanation I can come up with.
Other than the fact he was just born dumb but you can’t fix stupid so it is what it is. He’s definitely doesn’t have the brains to talk about politics…or economics..or just about any of the bigger issues. He should have make BJ about Cats, Dogs and cooking. Something he has the intellectual capacity to deal with on a regular basis.
Phil Perspective
I like his taste in music, too.
Black 47 is Teh awesome!! You should listen to their early stuff. And how can you not like a band that has a song called:
I Got Laid on James Joyce’s Grave
Phil Perspective
@James E. Powell: What has Obama ever done to merit such hatred?
You haven’t figured that out by now? Because racism and hate is all the right has.
Ruckus
I’ll post my sad story.
A couple of you may remember that I had to close my business. I have moved in with friends in southern calif for now but there really is no way I can keep my rescue cocker spaniel. So anyone know of a rescue service or someone who might want a 12-14 yr old almost deaf cocker with issues?
He can be a good companion for the right person. He has interesting personality to say the least. He is the most difficult dog I’ve ever known but the most interesting to live with. He probably would do best in a home with one or two adults.
I really don’t want to give him up but in my life I very seldom get what I want. And only occasionally what I need.
Pat In Massachusetts
Charles does it better than anyone else and to think I just discovered him a few months ago, him being from Massachusetts and all.
If you really want to howl, you must, must, must read his almost weekly dismantling of that Young Fogie David Fking Brooks. Like i said, no one does it better.
Rita R.
Anne Laurie, if this has already been posted or you know about it, feel free to ignore, but your recent post on the “Sugar Daddies” story was cited on the “Comments” page of New York magazine this week:
nymag.com/nymag/letters/comments-2012-5-7/
I internally woo-hooed for you when I came across it in the magazine today on the subway.
the fugitive uterus
I’ve been watching the Frontline documentary – which is quite good, of course, but most of the keyactors, like Paulson, were portrayed as being stunned and completely caught off guard – i don’t buy it, not for a minute
the fugitive uterus
@Ruckus: i understand how you feel, it is a heart-wrenching decision, i had to do it at a very low point in my life and then, recently, had to consider what to do with 3 cats if i had to move in with family members – i know you will find a good home – cockers are so adorable and there are many kind hearts out there. please don’t lose faith.
it is hard to be strong sometimes the way people want you to be. and if they haven’t been there, it’s hard for people to really grasp what a soul-shattering experience this kind of thing, losing your livelihood, can be. but if things can turn around for someone like me, they surely will take a turn for the best for you in due time!
i don’t come here nearly as often as i used to but will be looking to see how things are going for you.
the fugitive uterus
well, this is the only thing in the article i did not already know. holy crap, that is going to be depressing as fuck and i never even watched Dallas. Also, not so sure how a soap opera about 1 percenters will go over these days.
just WOW.
Ruckus
@the fugitive uterus:
Thanks
Yea some days it seems like I can’t get anything right. I’m now at the stage in this kind of drama where one questions the world and why my ass is the center of the shit storm. It’s the 5 stages of loss. We all go through them, we just act differently depending on the loss. We don’t all handle the stages the same nor do we follow the same routine every time. This time is a bit harder, mom died 3 weeks ago(94 and ready to go) but I have been unable to get to see her for 2 years, so there’s that.
I’ve been here before but it feels like that was 300 years ago.
I was younger, better looking and I had a plan.