A New Year's Soundtrack

The Death Set, Chew it Like Gun Gum

The Death Set—21st century punk rock—a noisy, global, electronic,
post-Beastie Boys bricolage.


The Death Set, P.O.V. Shot In The Head

Pierced

David Fucking Brooks states:

But, in the 1930s, people genuinely looked to government to ease their fears and restore their confidence. Today, Americans are more likely to fear government than be reassured by it.

Charles Pierce rebuts:

(Yes, because we have had 30 years of reckless vandalism by the political movement in which you cut your teeth. We have had three decades of anti-government rhetoric from people who then set out to prove themselves correct by cutting taxes, spending money on useless weaponry, conducting wars off the books, and hiring boobs and bunglers to staff the federal agencies. We have had Michael Brown. We have had James Watt. We have had Anne Gorsuch and Silent Sam Pierce. People don't trust government? You know what? I don't trust my car if I hire a blind drunk to drive it. Doesn't mean I don't use it to get to the store. Your movement created apathy and distrust, and the people who pay your honoraria profited by it handsomely. People don't trust vaccines, either, and Jenny McCarthy didn't know any more about medical science than you do about "the American people.")

David Fucking Brooks states:

In sum, in the progressive era, the country was young and vibrant. The job was to impose economic order. Today, the country is middle-aged but self-indulgent. Bad habits have accumulated. Interest groups have emerged to protect the status quo. The job is to restore old disciplines, strip away decaying structures and reform the welfare state. The country needs a productive midlife crisis.

Charles Pierce rebuts:

(You first, Bunky. Is there any doubt that, had David Brooks been writing for The New York Times in say, 1901, his columns would have been all about the quaint customs of those coal miners in Appalachia, and isn't it clever how they drink their evening libations from mason jars, and aren't they just the most religious of people, the way they all sing those lovely shape-note hymns when one of their men dies at 45 from black lung? We don't want any onerous regulations stifling all of this, do we? Is there any doubt that he would be arguing that Morgan and Carnegie and the rest of them are the engines of our "young and vibrant" economy and that LaFollette and the rest of them are standing in the way of progress. Is there any doubt where he would have lined up after Homestead? The country needs fewer lectures from people who do not understand it.)

from here

Thursday Soundtrack

Big Maybelle 96 Tears

Not Long Ago

The Black Power Mix Tape 1967-1975

Streaming at Netflix

A powerful documentary—from a time of assassinations, Vietnam, Nixon, George Wallace, Rockefeller, Reagan in California, and real push back—all seemingly wiped from our cultural memory.

I'm Telling Ya...Shit Is Fucked Up And Bullshit

From the Washington Post...at least it isn't a graph about the scary, scary deficit (thanks OccupyWallStreet).

Nice visual...we appear to be the brown sediment at the bottom of the graph.

Also Daily Kos

Oh No...It's A Guy On A Buffalo

Saw this on a friend's facebook page.
The song cracked me up.

The trailer for the original 1978 film.


The entire film.

Tuesday Soundtrack

Ennio Morricone Ecstasy of Gold

Ennio Morricone Sixty Seconds to What?

A Lizard's Future

From Imagining a Future with Newt Gingrich

When he was still relevant as a policymaker, Gingrich came out in favor of the death penalty for persons who found guilty of possession of a drug whilst crossing state lines. The only qualification he offered were that it be imposed after the convict’s second sentence. In Newt Gingrich’s futurist America, a California woman arrested twice for carrying her marijuana prescription across state lines would be administered a lethal injection. I implore readers to remember this whenever someone tells you that Newt is a “man of ideas” or a “serious thinker.”

But I think I listen to Gingrich because I’m aware that Newt’s calls for futurism are in fact simply the ill-concealed prayers of a man who admires and emulates the past, not the future. His futurism would set back the American people at least a century in terms of jurisprudence and social justice, and in the meantime would significantly endanger our fellow citizens without healthcare, without employment, and without homes.

The Stateless Archipelago

From Taibbi's A Christmas Message From America's Rich

But it seems to me that if you’re broke enough that you’re not paying any income tax, you’ve got nothing but skin in the game. You've got it all riding on how well America works.

You can’t afford private security: you need to depend on the police. You can’t afford private health care: Medicare is all you have. You get arrested, you’re not hiring DavisPolk to get you out of jail: you rely on a public defender to negotiate a court system you'd better pray deals with everyone from the same deck. And you can’t hire landscapers to manicure your lawn and trim your trees: you need the garbage man to come on time and you need the city to patch the potholes in your street.

The entire ethos of modern Wall Street, on the other hand, is complete indifference to all of these matters. The very rich on today’s Wall Street are now so rich that they buy their own social infrastructure. They hire private security, they live in gated mansions on islands and other tax havens, and most notably, they buy their own justice and their own government.

                                B                O                 O                M


So when you hear the ratbastards whining about Americans who don't pay income taxes (because they're poor for fuck's sake—and they do pay taxes on everything else), keep in mind who the argument serves—people who are so wealthy they could care less how government functions for the rest of us.

The "smaller government" motherfuckers carry water for the oligarchs.

Remember, it's indifference that fuels the stupid—both are America's most abundant natural resource.

Charles Pierce Calls Out The Cowards Who Are Afraid Of The Crazies

From The Payroll Tax-Cut Hostage-Taking

The narrative is already shifting from "Republican Vandals Blow Up Democracy!" to "Feckless Congress Can't Tie Its Shoes!" The inevitable desire of the corporate press not to get yelled at by the crazy people on the radio, and by the crazier people who listen to the crazy people on the radio, and by the crazy people who get elected by the crazy people who listen to the crazy people on the radio, will result in this whole mishigas being interpreted as a bipartisan failure. which it obviously is not. The tell is the number of stories we're reading now about the "impasse" in Washington. This is not an "impasse," This is a deliberate act of political sabotage on the part of one of our two political parties. It is a hostage-taking. Call it an "impasse" and you've abandoned truth for neutrality.

Read the entire article, it's a laser—and makes me despair for both our media and politics.

buh...buh...Boehner

Sniff...sniff...

Things Do Change For The Better

Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta and Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell

[Photo credit: Brian J. Clark/Associated Press]

A sweet image.

V-J Day, 1945

Butt-Hurt For Christmas

In defiance of Walker's free-speech tax.

Scott Walker is one part of a Koch Brothers funded experiment (elected in 2010 alongside Rick Scott, Nikki Haley, John Kasich, Sam Brownback, Paul LePage, Rick Snyder, Chris Christie, Susana Martinez, Mary Fallin, Tom Corbett)—to create a head-spinning conservative pincer movement at the state level to complement and distract from the federal level knuckle-draggers and hostage-takers.

A successful grassroots recall of Scott Walker (like Ohio's defeat of Kasich's anti-union SB 5 bill) will slow them down.

Amen

From Why People Who Hate Tim Tebow Hate Tim Tebow:

And yes, it's also a matter of faith. I grew up in the first Golden Age of Religious Hypocrisy (we're currently living in the second), with Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart disgracing themselves because they loved pussy and skimming from the collection plate more than they loved the Lord. I am conditioned by my upbringing to regard all outward displays of faith with a healthy dose of skepticism, and I don't think that's a bad thing. History has proven time and again that the people who actively flaunt their faith usually end up being full of shit.

                      .                    .                    .

Not only is it OK to root against Tim Tebow, it's practically your duty as cynical American. Hating on Tebow means rebelling against the same media bullshit generator that made superhumans out of the likes of Tiger Woods and Brett Favre. It's saying a gigantic FUCK YOU to anyone who thinks you're a cold-hearted, football-hating miser for not BELIEVING in Tebow. For not "enjoying the ride." For not letting go and giving in to his wily Christian charms and ability to produce rainbows in the shape of a crucifix during the fourth quarter. Hating on Tebow means subscribing to the idea that the fucker is human, which is a much more accurate and boring story than the current myth being erected.

Hilarious.

Satisfaction

Devo - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - Live 1978Vimeo.

Dangerous Minds

I remember watching this at a house party in 1978.

At that time, parties would stop for SNL. This particular party was full of former high school friends—all nostalgically getting high and trying to get laid—I recall that most of them were put off or threatened by this performance.

Funny.

Updated:
Video gone, can't find an embed, here's a link.

Generation Angst

...near-retirees are somewhat more likely than today’s retirees to say they expect the Great Recession and its aftermath to lastingly harm their prospects. The most revealing measure of their anxiety, however, is that only one-fifth of the near-retirees (compared with one-third of those who have retired) express a great deal of confidence that they will have enough income to provide a secure retirement. Like Eason, many of them are paddling so hard to stay above the waves today that they have difficulty imagining a time when they can confidently lay down their oars.

from the National Journal

The one-fifth of near-retirees cited as having confidence that their incomes at retirement will sustain them for 20-30 years are kidding themselves.

Most estimates claim that you should have about $500,000 in savings (401K, etc.) at retirement. If you make the nation's median annual wage (between $26,000—$28,000), setting aside $500,000 over the course of your working life is simply impossible. Even if you make $60,000 and aggressively play the Wall Street casino, you can't come close to hitting that mark.

With private and public sector employers abandoning pension programs, most retirees will be entirely dependent on the nation's weakened safety net (social security, medicare, medicaid)—any savings they do have can be wiped out by one accident, illness, or recession.

Shit is fucked up and bullshit.

Life Doesn't Have To Be About Buying Crap...

George Whitman, Shakespeare and Company Bookstore, Paris
Portrait of a Bookstore as an Old Man

...and hoping the scorpions at work don't sting you.

Dead End

from RoboCop, 1987

I'd like to see some creative television programmer drop this into the commercial breaks during one of the numerous Republican debates (or one of the beltway political talk shows).

Bazinga!

Tuesday Soundtrack

Alone and Dying

Hank III, not Sr., and definitely not Jr.

Conservatives Are Clear Thinkers (and Assholes)

Meanwhile, some people are acting on their frustrations and blaming the wrong people for their trouble. Instead of doing something about their problem, they wait for the government to act, or try to get someone to do something for them.

If you are an unskilled laborer, it may seem like there are no opportunities. But, there are if you move to where the jobs are. In the 1930's and 1940's, there were several great migrations in the United States. The migration from the Great Plains to California was captured in the John Steinbeck novel about the Joad family. Many families moved from the rural south to the industrialized north for work. Just because you have lived your whole life in one area of the country doesn’t mean you are stuck there.

from here

Yeah, remember Grampa Joad, he wasn't a lazy moocher. If he can't eat spare ribs, his dementia helped him smell them...

Grampa Joad: "I smell spare ribs. Somebody's been eatin' spare ribs. How come I ain't got none? "

Garden variety conservative: "Cos ya ran outta luck."

Grampa Joad

Oh, and before you teat sucking losers embark on the next migration, take a bath for chrissakes!

Atheists Should Stay in the Closet...

...because religious people don't think you believe in the right things.

(actual photograph)

Participants in the study found a description of an untrustworthy person to be more representative of atheists than of Christians, Muslims, gay men, feminists or Jewish people. Only rapists were distrusted to a comparable degree as atheists.*

From here

Governor Butt-Hurt Thinks Outside The Box

Governor Scott Walker, (R) WI

A free speech tax—that's a good one.

And his anti-worker policies are quite successful.
Why wait for the recall, just resign.

Previous Butt-Hurt post

Got Nothin'

(h/t Dangerous Minds)

This will grow on you.

X-37B...Not Sci-Fi

The 29-foot-long, reusable mini-shuttle was designed to spend up to 270 days in orbit. The 270th day of the winged spacecraft’s second flight is today, but the military has no intentions of bringing the billion-dollar robotic vehicle back to Earth just yet. “It’s still up there,”...

from here

The existence of this new , and secret, space vehicle puts in context the retirement of the 30 year old space shuttle program. Although currently unmanned, the science of the X-37B will hopefully lead to manned vehicles with less sinister missions.


Or not...

But it’s not science experiments that have other countries worried.

They’re concerned that the X-37 could be used to spy on or even “hijack” their own satellites, using “inspection” gear tucked in its payload bay.

Washington could get away with this sort of space espionage because no other government has the technology to comprehensively track the activities of other nations’ space vehicles. “When another state, say Russia or China, uses their dual-use technology, the U.S. has the ability to determine that that was not a hostile act,” said Brian Weeden, from the Secure World Foundation. “But when the U.S. does it, in most cases no one else has information to independently verify what’s going on. That creates a problem.”

from here

Sunday Night Soundtrack

Alan Grayson On #Occupy

Part 3 of 6


(H/T to DownWithTyranny by way of Hullabaloo)

Meme Loop

from here

Also...



(h/t Dangerous Minds)

Boston Media

I'm getting ready for work and clicking between the Boston news shows and they're peppered with stories about #Occupy being unsanitary, misguided, inconvenient, and not about what normal people should be doing or thinking about right now—especially since Black Friday is coming up and our sponsors have a lot of shit to sell to people who either don't have jobs, or are worried they might lose the one they currently have (hate).

Also the holiday ads that make it appear natural to want to by your spouse a Lexus or Cadillac for Christmas...she'll love you if you do...oh, and diamonds.

Kill me.

A Meme Begins

Without affect...cruelty on a casual stroll...

Edouard Manet  Luncheon on the Grass

George Seurat  A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

from here

WOW!

UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi walks past silent protesters like Tippi Hedren on the set of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.

To Protect and Serve (up pain)

from here with video

The writer of the linked article helpfully gives the reader some "it could be worse" context.

"And also feel at least a moment of relief that the weapon used in this case was pepper spray, not bullets, as in the Kent State massacre of 1970 (in which the Ohio National Guard killed four unarmed students)."

First:   What a sick rationalization for police action.

Second:   Fucking ratbastards.

Saturday BLR

NYC Time Capsule

NYC IN THE 70S from Django's Ghost on Vimeo.

1. “Jet Boy” - The New York Dolls
2. “Piss Factory” - Patti Smith
3. “X-Offender” Blondie
4. “Born To Lose” - The Heartbreakers
5. “SuperRappin’” - Grandmaster Flash
6. “Darrio” - Kid Creole
7. “The Mexican” - Babe Ruth
8. “Pop Your Funk” - Arthur Russell

(H/T Dangerous Minds)

Filmed when NYC had that scary allure.

To Protect and Serve

Randy L. Rasmussen The Oregonian

Ratbastards.

Tin Soldiers and Nixon Coming

Mr. Fish

I was only 12 years old in 1970, but the OWS movement and the statist reactions to it are beginning to feel oddly familiar. The image above, and its point of view, were common takes on the authority used to quell the anti-war movement in the late 60s and early 70s. At that time, it was clear to many, that the police and the military were tools of the state, an extension of a regressive and intractable power—the status quo reflexively protecting its interests.

But unlike Kent State, a mayor or governor, in our current post-9/11 society, doesn't have to call the National Guard to put down the hippies and the malcontents. Most police forces in this country, to the tune of millions in taxpayer money, receive military weaponry and anti-terror training—they are the national guard for the 1%.

I think we have a problem.


                              .     .     .     .     .     .


My déjà vu:
In 1970, I had a poster of this...

By Bernie Boston -- The Washington Evening Star

and without irony, this...(give me break, I was 12)

Raquel Welch One Million Years B.C.

They Want It To Go Away

The oligarchy is anxious about the attention that Occupy Wall Street has received over the last several weeks. The media coverage has moved away from deficits to income inequality, poverty rates, and the shrinking middle class...

The oligarchs respond.
Nationwide there's a coordinated dismantling of OWS sites, from NYC to Oakland.

What will be the next move?

Too Busy

Completely slammed at work. I've been hit with every deadline that could possibly crowd into a two week period...including performance evaluations for my staff.

I actually enjoy doing these, but never have enough time to capture all the hard work and craziness that they endure.

So watch a couple Brian Eno paintings.


Video Painting 1, 1981


Thursday Afternoon, 1984

"The Tea Party Loves Crazy More Than They Hate Blacks"

Herman Cain’s Campaign Promises with Mike Tyson from Mike Tyson

Mike Tyson kills...Cain! Cain!...

Monday Soundtrack

fIREHOSE Under the Influence of the Meat Puppets

Fucking Brilliant

Over many years, my semi-rational fear of identity theft has kept me from discarding those awful credit card offers—with some initiative, I could send back hundreds, if not thousands of them.

Saturday Soundtrack

Triumph Goes to Zuccotti Park

Stay until 8:35 (or jump right to it).
No one is spared.

Republicanism = Regressive Conceptual Art

Despite incessant claims to the contrary (images of American flags snapping behind a drooling Ronald Reagan), Ayn Rand believers can only be patriotic to their own single person nation state.



Which should make you wonder why there are so many Randian assholes elected to serve in our government.

Screwed

Earlier this week, GOP gubernatorial candidate and Kentucky Senate President David Williams fired at Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear (D) for taking part in a ceremonial Hindu ground blessing — accusing Beshear of “idolatry” for attending the Hindu ceremony. On Wednesday, Williams clarified his remarks, but his clarification is even more offensive than his original statement. Although Williams says that it is everyone’s “right to be a Hindu person if they want to,” he hopes “their eyes are opened and they receive Jesus Christ as their personal savior.” He also accused Beshear of a long pattern of opposing “outward displays” of Christianity such as “Christmas trees, prayers before high school football games, and posting the Ten Commandments.”

from here

Having spent a lot of years in Louisville, Kentucky, I grew to tolerate the quaint bigotry of that place. But this is ridiculous and I think illustrates how far out there the Republican party has become nationally.

The absurdity of William's statements aside, Republican craziness also drives people into the arms of shitty Democratic candidates like Beshear—a lose-lose proposition.

Friday Soundtrack

Slowly getting things back to normal after 5 days of dark time.

Losing the routine that one builds around effectively getting to work, having food, sleep, down-time, etc. is probably a good thing.

Cold And Dark

I'm one of the lucky New England bastards without power (since Saturday afternoon).

National Grid's outage status map has refined their estimate to November 3...
It feels like camping without choosing to camp.

The Road

There is something odd (and bleak) about seeing all your stuff—the objects in your life and your home—rendered useless by the electrical grid.

UPDATED: November 2...I have power!

Saturday Soundtrack

A doubleheader.

Reverse the corporate coup d'état

Charlie Rose set aside his centrist bullshit—and his scotch—long enough to talk to Amy Goodman and Chris Hedges about #OccupyWallStreet.

Part 1


Part 2

Republicans Craft Consensus On Job Creation

Image from Rising Hegemon.

What It Is Ain't Exactly Clear (cont.)

#OccupyOakland gets gassed and flash bombed.
From this account, it sounds as if the local media is in collusion with the police actions.

Also.

Clampdown

As the media's "dirty fucking hippie" rhetoric declined, and the coverage began to highlight how the national narrative changed from "the deficit will kill us all" to "let's talk about unemployment and income inequality," powerful people started freaking out.

So now, in addition to the media's ready-made "protesters are dirty vandals who poop in parks " narrative, they also have "the protesters are violent anarchists who make the police deploy flash bombs and tear gas."

Here we go...buckle up.

Update: Boston's morning news has at least 3 separate stories about sanitation problems at #Occupy locations and a couple of vandalism reports...I think the new scripts arrived.

Suck It Up Whiners!

Tom Tomorrow

Monday Soundtrack

EXP


Up From The Skies

Memento Mori

Memento Mori  "Remember you will die."
Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples

An allegorical and symbolic approach to the philosophical theme (Hellenistic origin) of the transience of life and the imminence of death ("memento mori") which, by eliminating the disparities of social class and wealth, restores equilibrium to the vagaries of fate. The upper part of the composition shows a level with a plumb-line, an instrument used by workmen to check the level of buildings. The axis of the plumb bob is death (the skull), while below it is a butterfly (the soul) balanced on a wheel (Fortune). Beneath the arms of the level, which are opposed and perfectly balanced, are the symbols of poverty to the right (the knapsack, the beggar’s stick and the cloak) and the symbols of wealth to the left (the sceptre, purple and the crown).

Occupy Pompei

Night of the Hunter

I imagine Charles Laughton and James Agee had fun crafting this seriously creepy film.

It drips with malice, both for and from Robert Mitchum's character. Initially, his hatred and anger simmer just beneath a grifter's facade—that is until he's denied or exposed. But what's always disturbed me about Mitchum's portrayal of Harry Powell is that it's so stylized (and repugnant), it often reads as dark humor (maybe just me).

More...



Later in the film, when Harry Powell, silhouetted by a pre-dawn sky, sings Leaning On The Everlasting Arms, I am absolutely terrified.

Also...



Great film.

Blink(?)

Matt Taibbi

Anyway, the hysterical responses from the Rushes of the world are just more signs that these protests are working. I never thought I’d see it, but some of the dukes and earls high up in America’s Great Tower of Bullshit are starting to blink a little bit. They seem genuinely freaked out that OWS doesn’t have leaders or a single set of demands, which in addition to being very encouraging is quite funny.

This may be true. There seems to be frustration that the OWS movement hasn't been lured into the co-option trap that America uses to defuse a genuine grassroots threat to its power, or capitalism in general.

It may seem counter-intuitive to maintain a large and leaderless movement, but it does make it more difficult to flog a specific target in the media—think Cindy Sheehan, Jesse Jackson—isolate and smear the "leader" and ignore the movement all together.

You smell like bacon to us

William Powhida

His blog.

Not That It Matters, But...

With 9.1% unemployment, debt should never prevent this government from flooding the economy with nearly interest free money.

The real issue is the rhetoric about debt—real debt (and who created it) is and was always a lie.

What It Is Ain't Exactly Clear

Matt Taibbi

What nobody is comfortable with is a movement in which virtually the entire spectrum of middle class and poor Americans is on the same page, railing against incestuous political and financial corruption on Wall Street and in Washington. The reality is that Occupy Wall Street and the millions of middle Americans who make up the Tea Party are natural allies and should be on the same page about most of the key issues, and that's a story our media won't want to or know how to handle.

                                       .               .               .

They're going to try to identify fake leaders, draw phony battle lines, and then herd everybody back into the same left-right cage matches of old. Whenever that happens, we just have to remember not to fall for the trap. When someone says this or that person speaks for OWS, don't believe it.

Taibbi makes a good point.

The sheer power that will be exerted against OWS by the moneyed and political class will only be enhanced by the media's resistance to framing this movement in a different way. The left vs right script is already written—the media is too co-opted (and lazy) to write another one.

Capitalism Besmirched...How Dare They!

Tom Tomorrow

Sunday (Night) Soundtrack

Herbie Hancock Chameleon (part 1)


Herbie Hancock Chameleon (part 2)

One of the records I had to sneak on to the turntable at house parties in 1974.

This Is What Large Protest Movements Do

They get people thinking again.

If we hadn't deregulated banks and markets, we wouldn't be facing the kind of disaster that we've seen over the last three years. If we hadn't drastically reduced tax rates for the wealthy, we wouldn't have seen pension funds dry up and middle class wages stagnate. If we hadn't given corporations more and more political clout, we wouldn't be where we are—in a broken system that serves them, not us.

But what if is a game for suckers. The question isn't where we went wrong, it's what we do about it.

The occupy movement is a withdrawal of consent. It's not a war on capitalism. It's an acknowledgement that we are doing capitalism badly, and in a way that does not serve to help real people in their real lives. To repair the system will require government to step up and take action.

From here.

Home Front

I've reached my apartment's capacity for plant space.

Now the challenge is to keep them healthy with the 6 hours of daylight granted to New England in the winter.

Saturday BLR

I love these things.



Momma gets a what, what...

Friday BLR

Ancient History, Bygones, Whatever...

Tax Cuts for the Wealthiest

5% of Americans

Cost the U.S. Treasury $11.6 million

every hour of every day

That would be the Bush Tax Cuts enacted in 2001 to steal the budget surpluses created during the Clinton Administration.

From here

If you want to watch one of those depressing counters where the numbers exceed your lifetime earnings by the tens of thousands...go ahead.

It Could Be Worse

Sarah Vowell and They Might Be Giants

The Partly Cloudy Patriot.

Occupy Wall Street/Update

Watch live streaming video from globalrevolution at livestream.com

They think Brookfield Properties and the cops have postponed the cleaning (and clearing) of Zuccotti Park/Freedom Plaza.

We'll see.

Don't Be A Dick...

This is what Republicans hear when the real Elizabeth Warren speaks.

Not The Tea Party? Well, In That Case...

...let's talk about Dancing With The Stars.

Tom Tomorrow

Which Explains Rand Paul's Use Of The Term "Paris Mob."

Paul Krugman sensibly writes:

The way to understand all of this is to realize that it’s part of a broader syndrome, in which wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.

                                .          .           .

This special treatment can’t bear close scrutiny — and therefore, as they see it, there must be no close scrutiny. Anyone who points out the obvious, no matter how calmly and moderately, must be demonized and driven from the stage. In fact, the more reasonable and moderate a critic sounds, the more urgently he or she must be demonized, hence the frantic sliming of Elizabeth Warren.

An Objectivist Whiner whines about Occupy Wall Street protesters and President Obama.

Poor Sarah

I've been ignoring her.

Currently her followers are trying to come to grips with the reality of her non-candidacy—they're also trying to process just how they were duped by this sleazy grifter.

I'm sure they'll conclude that it's Obama's fault.

Vermont

I drove up to Vermont yesterday...beautiful weather up here.

Hancock, VT

There is evidence of the double storms of Irene and Lee. Roads were passable, but under construction.

The water coming off the mountains was moving at such a high velocity that it cut new channels through roads and entire towns.

Why Are Those Drum Beating Hippies Making Such A Fuss?

Mother Jones

Hint: those are per quarter profits.
But give 'em a break, the bonuses are murder.

Time Travel

There are songs that throw one back to the past with all of its banality—and grandeur.

Go to 1979—Louisville, KY—I'm working at a Ford truck plant as a non-union plant/grounds cleaner. My primary responsibilities were to mop the workers break room, walk the 15 acre parking lot to pick up ether cans, nuts, bolts and other essential parts that regularly dropped off the newly assembled trucks—and most importantly, try not to piss off the unionized line workers—tall order.


(What's So Funny 'bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding


Oliver's Army

So, it's 7:15 AM, hot, hazy, and humid, I'm quite possibly hungover, real poor, trying to decide whether to go back to school or continue making just enough money to pay the rent on a shitty house I'm sharing with 3 friends, all of whom were similarly gambling on the bottom dropping out of their lousy jobs, forcing them back to their parents, or worse.

Good times.

Lindsey Graham

Asshole

Lindsey Graham's thoughts on Rick Perry and the "Niggerhead" thing.

"Rick Perry is not a racist," Graham said, saying the Texas governor is the victim of an "intimidation” campaign. "You know if you’re a southern white guy, this is part of your life," Graham complained.

from here

Update with audio:



You know, its the casual racists who have it the hardest.

Occupy Wall Street

A good list.

Wednesday Soundtrack

Word.

Monday Soundtrack

Arthur Lee Everybody's Gotta Live
1971

Sad, True, Funny

It's the economy... and the fucking indifference, stupid.

Both of these things will drive the 2012 election(s).

Currently the process is drowning in rhetoric designed to mask indifference to the middle class and the unemployed.
The party that figures this out will win—let's hope it isn't the Republicans.

Editors

From Dependable Renegade

Occupy Wall Street/Update

Watch live streaming video from globalrevolution at livestream.com

700 protesters arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge Saturday.
A report.

The Coarsening

Three families have abandoned elderly relatives at Lexington shelter

This is what stressed/strapped Americans do with their older animals—grandma and grandpa too.

Austerity Rules!

NYPD Plaza 09/30

A decent crowd.
Because the protesters have no permits for microphones or sound systems to project a speaker's voice, they use what is termed the "people's mic"—the speaker says 4 or 5 words of a speech that is then repeated in unison by the protesters in front—individual speaker, crowd repeats, individual speaker, crowd repeats, and so on.

I like this. It also keeps the speeches short and to the point.

There were no arrests at this gathering—or pepper spraying.

Saturday Soundtrack

I can't believe this is from 1978.
I was "taking some classes" and working at a gas station.

Elizabeth Warren and Occupy Wall Street

This Rachel Maddow clip is long, but covers good ground.
I especially like the framing of Scott Brown's fundraising sources and the right wing media's HOWL about Elizabeth Warren's message.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Our Media

These are the nice people who are helping to frame the debate around the economy, taxes, and the deficit—all sturdy middle class Americans.

Net worth:

Tom Brokaw   70 million

Bill O'Reilly   50 million

Katie Couric   55 million

Diane Sawyer   40 million

Charlie Rose   23 million

Wolf Blitzer   16 million

Joe Scarborough   12 million

George Stephanopoulos   8 million

A Diversion

Russell Means and Wes Studi in The Last of the Mohicans

This film has always appealed to my "born in the 50s" childhood (as did Cooper's book).

Growing  up in Wisconsin, a state filled with Native American place names—remnants of a disappeared people—and later in Oldham County, Kentucky, on a farm above the Ohio River—my imagination and play were always about the Indian—never the cowboy.

Set aside the (now odd) matinee idol role of Daniel Day Lewis—Russell Means and Wes Studi are fantastic in this visually beautiful film.

Makin'em Work

Canadian Cheney fans seem perplexed at all the fuss.
One well dressed attendee remarked; "It's just torture to get a good seat."

This is long, but worthwhile.

Occupy Wall Street Protest/Livestream

Watch live streaming video from globalrevolution at livestream.com

80 to 90 non-teabaggers arrested yesterday.

Updated:



This is disgraceful. NYPD spokesmen claim that the use of pepper spray in this instance was appropriate. Fucked up.

Bad Touch

“No other candidate on that stage has the record that I have,” Perry said. “Yep, there may be slicker candidates and there may be smoother debaters, but I know what I believe in. And I’m gonna stand on that belief every day. I will guide this country with a deep, deep rudder.”

Rick Perry is a "hold you down, daddy it hurts" Dominionist.

The Season

Western Massachusetts

It's beginning to turn in the Berkshires.

The Truth Hurts...Too.

The cheeseheads should watch it, America's job-creators are a sensitive bunch.

From here