The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => History => Topic started by: pmcd9 on October 03, 2011, 05:23:47 pm
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This story has been blowing up on my Facebook. I've not been paying too close attention, but is this a thing? Is that cop that pepper sprayed those helpless girls a new hero to the left?
The gist I'm getting from the Facebook post is that we need to be protesting for some kind of change on Wall Street. Like I say, I haven't really been paying too close attention, but what exactly are we protesting for? What do we hope to achieve with the protest?
Not that I think it's anything other than a futile display of impotent rage. I still remember when 10s of millions took to the streets in 2003 to protest the war. It's crystal clear to me that our Government is completely unresponsive to protest.
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There's a huge disparity in how left-wing vs. right-wing protests are covered and received. Get two dozen Tea Party guys together, and all the networks send out crews. Get thousands of liberals together to protest the war or protest Wall Street, and they'll ignore it as long as possible. Just a bunch of Dirty fuck*ng Hippies, who gives a shit.
Will it have a direct influence on the government? Probably not. But much like the early Tea Party protests, it serves to tell a certain group of Americans, "Yes there are others who feel like you and are trying to change things," and if it convinces more Americans to get off their asses and push for the change they want to see, so be it.
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Will it have a direct influence on the government? Probably not. But much like the early Tea Party protests, it serves to tell a certain group of Americans, "Yes there are others who feel like you and are trying to change things," and if it convinces more Americans to get off their asses and push for the change they want to see, so be it.
I was too busy yesterday being aware of Breast Cancer to worry about Wall Street.
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Man, all those pink gloves and shoelaces kept making me feel sad for the titties.
i like this better:
(http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrsxk1F4lS1r3xvzoo1_500.jpg)
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Now that is nice.
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Is that cop that pepper sprayed those helpless girls a new hero to the left?
What's this?
I heard something on the radio tonight about how the protesters are short on answers, but that there are intellectuals on the left acting as "protest entrepreneurs," seeing this as an opportunity to get their ideas some traction.
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As much as I am a fellow traveller to the Occupy Wall Street idea, I went down and checked it out...
Those people are disorganized as shit. A few hundred cats all trying to herd each other. Well-meaning, completely but yeah.
And then a lot of motherfuckers not there for any ideological reasons, just as a place to put on their performance art and mug/smug for the cameras.
Day I went, of course, it was like 200 well-intentioned people with no fuck*ng plan, 200 exhibitionists and 5,000 people asking 'where's Radiohead?' but...
I dunno. Maybe it'll become something useful if it gains momentum, I dunno.
Seems like sort of like the whole story's about lefties WANTING SO BAD for it to be something significant than, you know, that it is something significant.
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I love it when I'm right and I'm not too small to toot my own horn, either.
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Now that is nice.
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Now that is nice.
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If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.
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Doc gets a can for the Vonnegut reference.
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My friend from work was arrested at the STL protest for "violating park curfew" and is interviewed in the newspaper. Cool, I guess?
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My friend from work was arrested at the STL protest for "violating park curfew" and is interviewed in the newspaper. Cool, I guess?
totally. he stuck it to the man and the man stuck it right back.
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The occupation of Portland is going in grand Portland style.
Please and thank you all around.
Here's some pictures of our police force at work.
(http://www.portlandmercury.com/images/blogimages/2011/10/06/1317945190-large.jpeg)
(http://www.portlandmercury.com/images/blogimages/2011/10/06/1317945244-319149_10150835527075134_688565133_20888196_1380649789_n.jpg)
So far two people have been arrested. A 17 year old, and a 20 (I think) year old. They got arrested because they were stenciling stuff with rattle cans. "Stuff" included a police cruiser.
I think really only the people ticked off by the 4000 marchers and 1000 park occupiers are the marathon runners who are set up in the two blocks the parks occupy. There's a contingent of them whom what are pissed that the protesters are there, and worked out space sharing with the marathon organizers.
Oh...Portland...
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I think really only the people ticked off by the 4000 marchers and 1000 park occupiers are the marathon runners
Fuck marathon runners. Marathon runners here have seriously fucked up mid-April Saturday morning plans like 5 years running now. It is impossible to plan around the marathon unless your plan is to not cross its path.
Don't get me started on fuck*ng marathon runners. Let their plans get fucked up for once.
Oh...Portland...
I love Portland. Even with all those damn hippies and marathon runners.
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Speaking of Marathons... They are running the Olympic trial here next Jan and they want artcars to run as pace cars. So it looks like I'm gonna be in the Olympic trial marathon next year.
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Coupla weeks ago, at Makerfaire, we saw an artcar covered with hacked Billy Bass-es and they all sang as a chorus to various rock songs.
It was insane.
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Wow. That is something I'd like to see.
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Coupla weeks ago, at Makerfaire, we saw an artcar covered with hacked Billy Bass-es and they all sang as a chorus to various rock songs.
It was insane.
Ah yes, the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pmcd9/4618608538/). Friends of mine. They were up in New York for Maker Faire (http://makerfaire.com/newyork/2011/). Oh wait you said that. Those guys are awesome.
Edit: Fixed the links!
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YOUR FRIENDS ARE AWESOME
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So, a thing has come up in discussion with my friends about Occupy Wall Street, OccupySTL (specifically, a flyer I was handed downtown which I found really stupid and inflammatory), and it reminds me of arguments we had at the radio station, and also recent arguments on Reddit about /r/jailbait.
Friends of mine, and members of OWS, Reddit, the radio station, make the argument that the point of these things is to provide a forum for whatever message people wish to convey. I had friends argue that broadcasting PSAs with political opinions would not infer that the station supported those political positions-- they said that anyone with a brain would know we were just providing an open forum, and would have broadcast any political PSA as long as it was placed by a valid student/citizen group and wasn't hate-speech. Similarly, I am being told that I am being unreasonable for thinking that this flyer I was handed reflects badly on occupySTL, because obviously I should know that these groups don't have a unified voice-- they are composed of many groups, arguing for many positions.
Is this some sort of weird shift (possibly because of the internet) that I have missed out on? Am I crazy for thinking that these communications reflect on the group that allows them/broadcasts them/whatever? It seems to me that any group that doesn't have some sort of discipline about what views they project is making themselves easy to ignore or marginalize. This also comes up with the frequent complaint that OWS doesn't have any demands.
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Inev, your friends are stupid, and therefore we are doomed. In my personal opinion.
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your friends are stupid, and therefore we are doomed. In my personal opinion
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Just saw this on FB from a girl I went to high school with "thinks if protesters spent the same amount of energy contributing to society as they do disturbing it we'd have much fewer issues. And this isn't political, whatever you're protesting, it's a waste of time and you're an asshole. No one cares. Now go to work, it's a week day."
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it's a waste of time and you're an asshole. No one cares. Now go to work, it's a week day."
I don't really agree with the first part, but I love this part.
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I have a friend who is a hobo. Rides the rails, plays music for tips to survive. Pretty cool dude. He's at the Occupy DC protest. You can see him singing and playing his banjo in this video (http://youtu.be/ZJTnxvkrzAs) He shows up somewhere around the 4 minute mark.
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If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.
Now that is nice.
That would look nice as some ink, and would pay tribute to my Mom. Hm.
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Thirteen Observations made by Lemony Snicket while watching Occupy Wall Street from a Discreet Distance (http://occupywriters.com/by-lemony-snicket)
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Borowitz Report: A Letter from Goldman Sachs (http://www.borowitzreport.com/2011/10/17/a-letter-from-goldman-sachs/)
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The joke there is that Lloyd Blankfein would give the hippies the time of day. If I gave my opinion on this I'd come off as activating some kind of Internet Debate Machine and I burned that sucker down after the LFM ACAP Flame War of '07.
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Thirteen Observations made by Lemony Snicket while watching Occupy Wall Street from a Discreet Distance (http://occupywriters.com/by-lemony-snicket)
the standouts:
5. There may not be a reason to share your cake. It is, after all, yours. You probably baked it yourself, in an oven of your own construction with ingredients you harvested yourself. It may be possible to keep your entire cake while explaining to any nearby hungry people just how reasonable you are.
7. Someone feeling wronged is like someone feeling thirsty. Don’t tell them they aren’t. Sit with them and have a drink.
have a thank-you-can, wombrat.
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I think this is amusing and well-put.
I also think the OWS people are, on the whole, idiots.
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11. Historically, a story about people inside impressive buildings ignoring or even taunting people standing outside shouting at them turns out to be a story with an unhappy ending.
Don't tend to think they are idiots. I just wish they would stop drumming. I do think that my acquaintances who are attending the St Louis marches as anarchists are idiots.
Not really sure who Lemony Snicket is. I mean, I know he (?) is a character in a book, but these lines did not give me a sense of who this character is, other than kind of obnoxious in how he speaks.
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This
http://www.theawl.com/2011/10/ask-an-activist-why-should-we-demonstrate (http://www.theawl.com/2011/10/ask-an-activist-why-should-we-demonstrate)
has some interesting points about why it tends to be drummers and anarchists and other sort of people who make one roll one's eyes, who start this sort of thing, but that that doesn't mean it won't become something bigger. The piece rambles, but parts of it have made me change my stance to one of reserving judgment.
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If nothing else, OWS is worthwhile as a counter-balance to the Tea Party. There are mad people who you need to try to placate on both sides (or, in some cases, on the same side).
I really enjoyed this article (http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/10/13/the-we-are-the-53-tumblr-is-heartbreaking/) and this related snarky blog. (http://actuallyyourethe47percent.tumblr.com/)
Thanks Wombat, I like that article too.
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If nothing else, OWS is worthwhile as a counter-balance to the Tea Party. There are mad people who you need to try to placate on both sides (or, in some cases, on the same side).
Ah, something to this. I know it isn't going to help, but I sort of want someone on the left with Fred Phelps levels of crazy. It seems (to me) that the left is constantly given the "two wrongs don't make a right" treatment. How come Michelle Bachmann can be batshit crazy and run for president?
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If nothing else, OWS is worthwhile as a counter-balance to the Tea Party. There are mad people who you need to try to placate on both sides (or, in some cases, on the same side).
I really enjoyed this article (http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/10/13/the-we-are-the-53-tumblr-is-heartbreaking/) and this related snarky blog. (http://actuallyyourethe47percent.tumblr.com/)
Thanks Wombat, I like that article too.
Yeah man I was just thinking what we need is more polarization in this country.
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Yeah man I was just thinking what we need is more polarization in this country.
I think that genie is long since out of the bottle.
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I think that genie is long since out of the bottle.
That makes it right?
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Y'know, it's kinda shooting the left in the ass, in a way. They just got to be the side, in the last coupla years, that could claim more rational positions and fewer crazy people and now they're blowing it.
Oh yeah?
Or... When Reagon got Alzheimer's how did anyone know?
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Y'know, it's kinda shooting the left in the ass, in a way. They just got to be the side, in the last coupla years, that could claim more rational positions and fewer crazy people and now they're blowing it.
Yeah, but fuck it, it's their turn. I mean, no one really believes things are going to get better at this point, do they?
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Hm.
It seems to me that the Tea Party has gotten Republicans to pay attention to them. They get what they want because they make a big stink. Liberals worry about not looking stupid, so they don't get anything done. This country has moved massively rightward. We need a strong, populist leftist movement.
Do the OWS people seem crazy? I have seen, so far, one sign that said "Bankers = Nazis" or whatever. I don't see it.
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I will say that OWS is as bad as the Tea Party when they get some insane, unqualified people elected to public office. If we started electing anti-statist anarchists who want to mandate that all schoolchildren be taught the evils of organized religion in schools, and let everyone from Mexico who wants walk in, and hands out free abortion vouchers at his/her/zir rallies.
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I will say that OWS is as bad as the Tea Party when they get some insane, unqualified people elected to public office. If we started electing anti-statist anarchists who want to mandate that all schoolchildren be taught the evils of organized religion in schools, and let everyone from Mexico who wants walk in, and hands out free abortion vouchers at his/her/zir rallies.
I second this.
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(http://occupywriters.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/danica-occupy-lg.jpeg)
http://occupywriters.com/by-danica-novgorodoff-and-michael-voll (http://occupywriters.com/by-danica-novgorodoff-and-michael-voll)
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So as long as it's abortions for some, tiny American flags for others?
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occupywriters.com is blocked by my big publicly-held company's firewall.
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occupywriters.com is blocked by my big publicly-held company's firewall.
No one is paying you to rage against the man. Get back to work.
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Right person to brain with a teargas canister: an unemployed crust-punk with dead rich parents and a trust fund.
wrong person: a gainfully employed Iraq War vet.
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No no no.
The dude to brain is the dude who wears a big costume to promote his one-man-show in a basement in Greenpoint that has nothing to do with the politics of the moment.
Just, like, full-on leafleting his show about his overbearing grandmother where he dresses up like Dorf and yodels.
Brain the fuck outta that guy.
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yeah, last night the protesters here were told to evacuate the park they'd occupied. they found themselves in the street, protesting in a major thoroughfare. then they found themselves being arrested for obstructing traffic.
where is 'peaceably assemble' qualified by 'with proper permits and paperwork'?
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You can't yell fire in a movie theater, you can't carry a bazooka into a school, and you can't shit all over the park. There are reasonable restrictions to what people are allowed to do in public. Zuccotti park is filled with garbage and actual human waste. It is disgusting and I don't blame other municipalities for trying to keep the peace for the people who aren't yelling about things.
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Hookworm.
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Its an issue because I generally like to move about the city without dealing with poop. This country has seen its share of populist movements, but this is the first one that will be remembered for people shitting all over the place.
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I bet the people in Hoovervilles abstained from shitting by pulling on their boot straps so hard.
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The idea that the people who hate the ideas that the Occupy movement espouse, like more government programmes and social services and public services and public-sector jobs, are complaining about how the Occupy movement is a strain on... their public streets and public sanitation... this fuck*ng tickles me.
And then they demand that the police go in and break the Occupy movement's fuck*ng skulls.
By the publicly employed and strongly unionized police.
As Bart Simpson once said, the ironing is delicious.
EDIT: American mainstream conservatism is completely fuck*ng intellectually inconsistent is what a dude is saying here.
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Scratch the surface of the political posturing and, yeah, LA is a very conservative town politically... at least that, at the end of the day, it's a big business industry town and whatever the tourism and entertainment industries think will benefit them basically happens.
Not to mention that the political discourse is fuck*ng dominated by KFI jackoffs and an LA Times that was consistently much farther to the right than they ever want to admit.
Maybe not in terms of social politics but in terms of economic politics, LA is about as rockhard conservative a town as you can possibly get. Its a town full of lottery ticket nouveau riche entertainment types desperately trying to impress the old money in a business environment that tears through underlings who work for nothing because they wanna live the dream of being in the entertainment business and a commercial environment that thrives on the backs of illegals who work for nothing because they wanna live the dream of not dying in the crossfire of the drugwar in Tiajuana. The gap between the haves and the have-nots is not only a bleeding gash there but the gap is openly flaunted as your personal karmic failure if you don't overcome it. The idea that if you're not rich, you just didn't cheat well enough or get lucky enough was the whole mind-fuck behind the real estate bubble.
My boots aren't on the ground there but I could totally see Tony Villar being told by entertainment CEOs or whatnot that Occupy LA is making The Magic Store (TM) look bad and to sweep out that shit, "forget about it, Jake, it's Tinseltown" style.
Oakland I can't speak for, never been there. From my friends in the Bay Area, though, I've gotten a little bit of a sense of it being like Oakland is sick of looking like a town of dangerous angry rioting radicals looking for any reason to go, between the legacies of radical African-American movements there and local college muckrackers still flitting through trying to strike sparks of the Sixties again. I could see that totally being a Chamber of Commerce Image Improvement business pressure thing that's more about economic forces than social political leanings.
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I almost went to check out OWS today to see if there was really poop there, but I decided to go to the zoo instead, I guess I wanted to go somewhere where there was no difference of opinion about whether there would be poop.
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You can't yell fire in a movie theater, you can't carry a bazooka into a school, and you can't shit all over the park. There are reasonable restrictions to what people are allowed to do in public. Zuccotti park is filled with garbage and actual human waste. It is disgusting and I don't blame other municipalities for trying to keep the peace for the people who aren't yelling about things.
Sounds like a job for Night Soil Men (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_soil).
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(https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/321144_10150381708841178_6333396177_8220719_1112712225_n.jpg)
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I love throwaway shit like that.
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You know who else occupied Europe?
Hitler
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also, rome.
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I love throwaway shit like that.
From which perspective are you looking at it? There are a lot of ways to take that cartoon.
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From which perspective are you looking at it? There are a lot of ways to take that cartoon.
I don't know, it seemed to be boiling the whole thing down a bit, to me.
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you can't carry a bazooka into a school
What. Reasonable restrictions on firearms? Cut a corner off of your NRA card, young man.
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Can someone define what it takes to be part of the 1%?
'Cause I'm pretty sure if it's a simple income calculation I've had years where I qualify and I ain't even running my fuck*ng mouth.
High-five. You can be angry at the way things work or you can exploit it.
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From what I've read, the bottom end of the top 1% makes over $ 380,000 in income in a year. That's not out of reach for a lot of executives in a lot of industries.
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High-five. You can be angry at the way things work or you can exploit it.
Even that, though, presumes a lot of luck and a lot of preparation for your life that was set in motion by your parents and whatnot.
I don't buy it.
Even if "exploit it" wasn't ethically wrong, I don't buy it. We all presume that who we are comes from the sweat of our backs and it just doesn't.
Even saying "well then, just cheat, asshole" presumes a past position from which cheating is possible.
Things are too fucked for most people to even have a platform from which to cheat unless there was a whole set of dominoes stretching back long before their birth.
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Can someone define what it takes to be part of the 1%?
'Cause I'm pretty sure if it's a simple income calculation I've had years where I qualify and I ain't even running my fuck*ng mouth.
I think it mainly takes viewing people as potential dollar signs, but then again I'm not sure what % I'm in.
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I'm gonna think of this 1% stuff as more 'corporate overlords' than people I work and socialize with because I find it easier to demonize a monolithic entity instead of Yasu or Laurie or Paul.
You must be referring to another Paul.
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You're hella easy to demonize, dude.
I think of Paul more as Ace, but to each his own.
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I don't know if I buy the 'potential dollar signs' thing, Nabu,
I would have thought the bottom of the 1% was higher than 380k, but by that metric I'm in the 99% (maybe not the 97%? I don't know). And when I say potential dollar signs, I meant seeing the other 99% as dollar signs and only dollar signs. I agree with the monkeysphere philosophy, and I feel like 99% is just a handy shorthand, right? Basically, the powers-that-be want the populace quiet and easily swayed, and not occupying the Port of Oakland or whatever.
And when I say that cartoon is sort of throwaway shit, I just mean that pitching it as a 'greatest generation' vs. 'slackers who are taking the easy way out and milling around in front of the local B of A branch' is pretty simplistic. At that, you might as well say B of A is this generation's Mussolini* and that the slackers are doing the Lord's work.
*Not Godwin'd.
Keep in mind that I'm almost certainly wrong about everything I blather about here.
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*Not Godwin'd.
Thank Godwin for that.
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And when I say that cartoon is sort of throwaway shit, I just mean that pitching it as a 'greatest generation' vs. 'slackers who are taking the easy way out and milling around in front of the local B of A branch' is pretty simplistic.
That cartoon seems like bullshit to me. Who occupied Iraq and Afghanistan? Did everyone miss the fact that an Iraq veteran ended up in the hospital when the police shot tear gas and rubber bullets at Occupy Oakland?
Not to downplay what the World War Two generation did, but I am inclined to believe that if you somehow transported these kids today to that moment in history, they would rise to the occasion in the same way. People have no choice but to play with the hand they are dealt.
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Even that, though, presumes a lot of luck and a lot of preparation for your life that was set in motion by your parents and whatnot.
I don't buy it.
Even if "exploit it" wasn't ethically wrong, I don't buy it. We all presume that who we are comes from the sweat of our backs and it just doesn't.
Even saying "well then, just cheat, asshole" presumes a past position from which cheating is possible.
Things are too fucked for most people to even have a platform from which to cheat unless there was a whole set of dominoes stretching back long before their birth.
My single parent was a nurse who had leukemia. Her dad was an electrician. There were no dominoes and none of these facts influenced my future in a positive way. You're a cool guy, but this kind of self defeating rhetoric does no one any good.
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Here's the thing: Not just who your parents are but who you are makes a difference. ACap is the kind of person who could pull himself out of of whatever muck he started in, and that's great, but not everyone is like that. I want to live in a society where even the mediocre and below can make some kind of a decent life with their mediocre and below skills, and this is purely out of self-interest: I don't want them trying to steal my stuff, you know?
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My single parent was a nurse who had leukemia. Her dad was an electrician. There were no dominoes and none of these facts influenced my future in a positive way. You're a cool guy, but this kind of self defeating rhetoric does no one any good.
Your situation does not equal everyone else's situation. My single parent was also a nurse, and lo and behold, she also ended up with leukemia.
Her dad was a haberdasher, though, so maybe that's the difference.
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Here's the thing: Not just who your parents are but who you are makes a difference. ACap is the kind of person who could pull himself out of of whatever muck he started in, and that's great, but not everyone is like that. I want to live in a society where even the mediocre and below can make some kind of a decent life with their mediocre and below skills, and this is purely out of self-interest: I don't want them trying to steal my stuff, you know?
That social construction is working out great for Greece. I want to live in utopia, too, but its not practical, it does not work.
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I don't think what I am describing is utopia. In the not so distant past in this country, people with a high school education could support their families with a job in a factory. If only the exceptional can have a decent life, it's not going to be a decent life for long even for the exceptional.
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I agree with Wombat. Calling the situation where the average person can have a decent life Utopia . . . that's not good.
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Wombat is hitting the right notes. The occupy Wall Street protest isn't trying to create a utopia where layabouts get a free ride. They just want to fix the system so they can get a fair slice of the pie and not have the greedy hogs at the very top eat the whole goddamn pie.
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Also maybe at least try to investigate some folks who fucked things up for everybody else, instead of rewarding them, and if we're really lucky, take another look at that Citizens United bullshit (although I'm fairly sure that bird has flown, more's the pity).
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But I do agree with Acap that sMets has a self defeating attitude that is holding him back.
Also... what about me? I've had every advantage in the world and I'm pushing 50 and struggling to keep my head above water financially.
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I don't think my attitude is self-defeating, I think it is realistically humane. The Reagan Junta deregulated the shit out of this country and wealth has been able to concentrate in ways that turned into the Great Depression last time around.
It's one thing for people like me, with a dream and a reasonable amount of talent looking for a dream job in the arts but without the confidence of a cut-throat, to fail. I get it. I'm not talking about me. People like me are probably always gonna fail unless they get either a lucky break or develop a sociopathic desire for success that sacrifices all other segments of life to get there. I'm one of the unsafe at any speed, I'm not delusional about that.
I'm talking about wading through a world where people with masters are taking food service and nanny gigs, if they can even find those. People who just wanted to be teachers, not rockstars or directors like my unrealistic ass, people who just wanted to be fuck*ng TEACHERS are barely holding onto retail gigs.
FDR was a rich motherfucker and he wasn't a socialist either, he knew that you had to prop up a middle class if you wanted a stable society where the rich aren't drug out into the streets in revolution every generation or two. He was being practical. The market doesn't work and communism doesn't work, either. High minded stupid ideals about either side of that argument are about as practically useful as a fart in a tornado.
What WORKS? What creates a stable society with enough mobility to not eventually lead to revolt in the streets?
Whatever that is... this isn't it. What we have now, careening so far into the favour of the Invisible Hand, isn't working.
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Here's to hoping Occupy Wall Street works out better than Occupy Iraq has.
Paul, you're the exception that proves the rule, or something. At least you have popcorn.
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High-five. You can be angry at the way things work or you can exploit it.
Not everyone has CEOs teaching them how make a nice tie knot.
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Not everyone has CEOs teaching them how make a nice tie knot.
Yeah it takes that kind of mentality I guess. According to LFM, it takes a sociopathic drive to succeed. I forgot I shared that instance of my life with you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAQ4yNgXelk
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I am really disappointed that that wasn't a video of a CEO showing how to knot a tie.
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Yeah it takes that kind of mentality I guess. According to LFM, it takes a sociopathic drive to succeed. I forgot I shared that instance of my life with you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAQ4yNgXelk
Never forget.
Never forgive.
I'm super mad about your tie.
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Never forget.
Never forgive.
I'm super mad about your tie.
Smick, we should hook up when I'm back in town. I'm pretty sure I still have your phone number - should I just call you sometime?
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According to LFM, it takes a sociopathic drive to succeed.
I only meant that in terms of my personal aspirations toward a media job, actually.
Pretty much the only people I knew who were making it in teevee or film had to give up all of their personal life and most of their ethics for like... years... to succeed beyond paying the rent.
You gotta have a laser-like singular focus... or a lot of connections or a lot of luck... in that field.
Devoting your entiire waking life to exaggerating and namedropping and schmoozing and sucking up and turning on people at the drop of a hat and stuff. It is very hard to be, well, nice in that field and succeed.
I can see where I wasn't perfectly clear in delineating that point, though.
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Smick, we should hook up when I'm back in town. I'm pretty sure I still have your phone number - should I just call you sometime?
Sure! That would be rad! I'm in Reno (with the Vitamin D) next week between Tuesday and Friday afternoon.
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Your rational debate is impeding my ability to make gross generalizations and categorically write off everybody involved as a bunch of idiots. Cut it out!
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Watch out guys, The Authority is calling for the tear gas to lay down on us!
I have my bandana and Coke. I'll be a'ight.
Smick, I'll call you week after next.
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Your rational debate is impeding my ability to make gross generalizations and categorically write off everybody involved as a bunch of idiots. Cut it out!
Yeah no one turned on The Internet Debate Machine here and it makes me sad that we all grew up and acquired brains. If strangers can't yell at each other over the interwebs then what is this all even about?
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Yeah no one turned on The Internet Debate Machine here and it makes me sad that we all grew up and acquired brains.
You take that back.
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My opinions have not changed too much. Except the one where I used to think it made sense to yell at conservatives on the internet.
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I'm with you, except the one where I used to think it made sense to yell.
Or maybe the one where I used to think it made sense.
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Or maybe the one where I used to think it made sense.
Nabu gets to the hot, sticky core of the issue.
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My opinions have not changed too much. Except the one where I used to think it made sense to yell at conservatives on the internet.
leave the yelling to the conservatives.
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leave the yelling to the conservatives.
Other than hella yellin' about the sex.
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We've gotta make up for the conservatives!
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I'm just going to put these here.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/05/opinion/rushkoff-occupy-wall-street/index.html (http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/05/opinion/rushkoff-occupy-wall-street/index.html)
http://occupywriters.com/works/by-george-lakoff (http://occupywriters.com/works/by-george-lakoff)
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Thanks.
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I liked those. The Lakoff piece mentioned something that I've always struggled with: he basically says "workers deserve higher wages" and "people deserve jobs". How do we make companies hire more people? If they do not need more people, they won't hire them. If they can get the workers they need paying the wages they pay, they will continue paying those lower wages. How do we fix this?
I think about this a lot, because I think a lot about a fundamental shift that has occurred and makes it so that people do not want to hire me. Our economy used to need a lot of paper-pushers who were relatively educated but without specific training/skills. An anthropology major from a good school could get a job in that market. When my parents graduated from college in the late 70s with degrees in goofy liberal-arts things, they were able to get office jobs and move their way upwards.
Our economy no longer needs those people to push paper around. There is no way to force our economy backwards to where it needs those people again. They've been replaced by computers, or by more efficient systems, or better allocation of workers' time, or something. Is there anything we can (or should) do to change this?
An alternative view, which I can't confirm or deny since I wasn't alive, is that companies used to accept that they needed to train their employees. Now they do not, and can afford to do this because of the glut of job-searchers.
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Also, let us not forget that companies are moving as much of their work to other nations where the labour laws are appalling, barbaric or just fuck*ng cheap as free where it doesn't matter that the output is substandard because it's so cheap that it doesn't matter that its bad.
When our laws should force them to conduct business either on a par with American business practices or not conduct business in America/with America/as American companies.
If we had proper regulations and/or tariffs forcing them to do that, those jobs would be here still and those moneys would be circulating within our economy, not lost to a combination of foreign investment and local wealth concentration.
And there'd be a lot more jobs for all of us.
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I don't know if I believe that that would work, or would have worked.
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Well, shit, if you made it so expensive to do business with us on an import/export basis that companies would have been just as well off/bad off to keep manufacturing jobs here in the US, something would have happened, anyway. I don't know if it would have been good, but it would have been different.
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An alternative view, which I can't confirm or deny since I wasn't alive, is that companies used to accept that they needed to train their employees. Now they do not, and can afford to do this because of the glut of job-searchers.
I have a vague memory that this is true.
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The worldwide population explosion has caused a super glut in the labor market. This problem is only going to get worse, not better.
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But if there are more people, don't all those people need products and services, so don't you need more workers to supply them?
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I think we passed the fulcrum some time ago, and now we are in a race to the bottom.
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But if there are more people, don't all those people need products and services, so don't you need more workers to supply them?
All most of those people have is crushing poverty. They don't really know about such as products or services. That's why a job you or I might think is worth $20 dollars an hour they will do for .50 cents.
And in the time it's taken me to type out this post another 100 people got in line to do your job for a cup of rice a day.
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I thought it was "you'll work harder with a gun in your back for a bowl of rice a day".
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And they'll give you a little salt to put on your rice if you are one of the ones holding the gun.
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I think I'll put this one here too.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-i-stopped-worrying-and-learned-to-love-the-ows-protests-20111110 (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-i-stopped-worrying-and-learned-to-love-the-ows-protests-20111110)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Wl1ObUGAoHE#!
Well hopefully they'll stop pooping in the streets for now.
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For Inev:
@peterrothberg
Nice scene at Union Square Park. At least 2,500 spirited students. Most enthusiastic chant over People's Mic: "Fuck Internships!"
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Yes, this is on Cracked.com, but it has a lot of insights.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-we-ruined-occupy-wall-street-generation/ (http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-we-ruined-occupy-wall-street-generation/)
The problem is that we've sort of set you up to think that after high school, the next step is college, and after that you just jump in and start working at the job you went to college for. We kind of implied that this "college to job" transition is as natural and orderly as "high school to college." That is, if you get the right grades, you "graduate" to it. That's not true, and it's our fault that so many of you think that.
See, our parents told us that because they didn't actually know. As a generalized whole, they didn't go to college. You have to realize how recent the whole "everybody goes to college" thing really is. It was only two generations ago that college educations were rare -- in 1950, less than 10 percent of adults had bachelor's degrees (hell, only half even graduated high school). People back then were less mobile and more likely to stay in the town where they were born. That meant that their options were limited; men joined the military, or went to work at the local factory/warehouse/whatever was hiring. Women got busy having babies and being waitresses/secretaries/whatever was hiring. College was something that smart kids and people with money did. And they probably thought those college kids had a free ticket to a nice job in an air-conditioned office.
So when they worked hard and gave their kids the opportunity to get a degree, they thought they were giving us what those fancy smart kids got: an automatic job with a hotass secretary to feel up. Sexual harassment wasn't a thing yet.
This reminds me of when I was working as a research assistant for a professor at MIT and told my mom (who didn't finish high school) that I was going to grad school to be a college professor someday, she said "Can't you just work your way up?" She just didn't have a clue.
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Learning magic is a fake thing is a sucktacular experience for some folk, I guess.
its basically some a-hole behind a curtain twisting knobs, pushing buttons, and yelling into a microphone.
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on the other hand, my mom and her dad both have PhDs, and still think that I should get a PhD as my road to success.
Wombat, my dad has a story which reminds me of yours. Apparently no matter how many times he explained that he presided over thousands of people, how much money he made, or whatever, my grandma would ask him every so often if he thought he'd make Branch Manager soon.
Maybe, in her own way, she was trolling.
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Back in the MIT days I mentioned, I had a friend who got her Phd in that lab, and when she had a kid, she said about his future career, "He just has to get his PhD and then I don't care, he can do whatever he wants." I kind of wanted to strangle her.
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My mum expressed a similar sort of idea about me and my brother, i.e. that we should get a university degree and then we could do whatever we want.
This worked out fairly well for me but my brother is someone who really should have just got a job and worked his way up, it's effectively what he's doing now anyway in a job he didn't need a degree to get but he's wasted 5 years getting a degree he didn't really want or enjoy and I think it was a bit of a waste really.
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I think this country needs more craft and trade training during the mandatory schooling. Bullpushing people who'd be perfectly happy and comfortable doing HVAC or plumbing into an unwanted degree is dumb-assed.
Believe me, there's pride and a good living to be made in making the heater work or the crapper flush strong.
Totally agree. If I could change anything about my teenage years, I would have worked summer and after school jobs where I actually used my hands to learn useful and difficult skills. This (http://www.amazon.com/Shop-Class-Soulcraft-Inquiry-Value/dp/1594202230) is pretty interesting, but basically it takes a whole book to say what you said in one sentence.
Who knows where I would have ended up but I imagine I would have had much more direction in college.
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Believe me, there's pride and a good living to be made in making the heater work or the crapper flush strong.
So much this, when I was up on Thursday Island a couple of months back on a placement we were chilling with some young electricians who were up there on a contract, they made some joke about how we'd be pulling in doctor-money in a couple of years and driving fancy cars, my friend and I had to laugh at how much more money they were making right now than we would for a long-ass time. Not only does trade work make bank (over here at least) it gets you making bank much earlier than most degree-related jobs. I might make all right money doctoring but I won't be making it till my mid to late 30s at least, fancy car money will be much later still.
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I think this country needs more craft and trade training during the mandatory schooling. Bullpushing people who'd be perfectly happy and comfortable doing HVAC or plumbing into an unwanted degree is dumb-assed.
Believe me, there's pride and a good living to be made in making the heater work or the crapper flush strong.
Do you know who does not want this? Who will actively work to control this?
The current active plumbers, HVAC contractors, electricians and so forth (along with their corresponding unions). These guys keep a tight lid on how many people they train each year and have done so since forever.
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The happiest guy I know is a dude who went to trade school and became a plumber. He has a business, a house, an El Torino he makes love to, and a family.
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Mike Rowe gave good Senate testimony a while back on this very thing.
http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/dirtyjobs/mike-rowe-senate-testimony.html
I tend to agree with him. We've stigmatized these jobs way too much. But tell you what, I have days where I feel like my job is complete bullshit, like nothing I did that day has any kind of real-world substantial benefit to anyone, and on those days I am rather envious of people who actually make and fix things for a living. And of course when my plumbing is fucked up, I think the plumber is freaking AWESOME.
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How are those jobs doing in this recession, though? My understanding is that the building trades are in the shitter.
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One difficulty facing trade education in the US is the human desire to have a simple fix for complex problems. The "just get a college degree and you'll be fine" mindset comes from the same place that says "all we need to end the recession is for everyone to spend a bit more". Happily for me, I got a college degree and am working in my field of major study. I wish I could explain to other people how I did this - all's I can say is that it's what I wanted to do, so I did it...
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How are those jobs doing in this recession, though? My understanding is that the building trades are in the shitter.
From Rowe's piece:
"Right now, American manufacturing is struggling to fill 200,000 vacant positions. There are 450,000 openings in trades, transportation and utilities. The skills gap is real, and it's getting wider. In Alabama, a third of all skilled tradesmen are over 55. They're retiring fast, and no one is there to replace them."
[citation needed] and all, and who knows exactly what trades or how he cherry-picked his numbers.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0125-spjL9s
This. A thousand bajillion times this. Brought to you by the man who implanted much of what I understand about the world.
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Capitalism is like Communism, in that as far as I can tell it has never actually existed in the wild.
Neither system is working, because there is clearly a strong demand in the market for that man to get a better hairstyle.
As soon as he used the word "handouts" I knew where he was going. Boo to that. "only way to make profits is to improve standard of living" my eye.
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Yeah, pretty much douchebag ivorytower intellectual boilerplate.
Certainly, some of the early protesters on the ground have been broad and imprecise about describing "Capitalism" as one giant vague force that is completely wrong... but nuance don't fit perfectly on signs and in a protest movement, especially early on, you don't always have the most elegant of spokespeople.
But that's only an excuse to throw the baby out with the bathwater if you're LOOKING for an excuse to fuck*ng kill the baby, as some theoretical rightwing intellectual would want to, to prop up his own theories and sell books.
None of the theoretical extremes works, left right or centre, no douchenozzle of any stripe sitting in a distant office getting slurped off by TAs is gonna have a real answer to real problems.
These are real nuanced problems on the ground that need nuanced solutions, yes, conceded from the start. But conceded for all sides, not just the sides we don't like.
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um, something like that.
I think the way he describes it, "the foxes guarding the henhouse" is apt. But simply saying "so then let's get rid of the henhouse guards, and let the hens fend for themselves" is not the solution. New foxes will come along.
What I'm trying to say is, regulation of the economy is always going to be tricky. I don't know who I trust, or what theories I trust, to regulate it. The best we can do is have a rough balance so that neither side can screw things up too far. Right now, it seems to me, that we've swung way too far in one direction-- deregulation of financial markets, crony capitalism, etc.
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Wow. The man is actually defending OWS and goes no further than describing basic facts of life like "Wealth is created by producing things people value" and "Government programs will be exploited by self-interested people and organizations" I don't know what you guys are finding so offensive.
All this guy has done with his life is study economics 24/7, so his description of reality makes him a "douchebag", but the vague and imprecise messages of the protesters are just "misunderstood" and too early on to make sense?
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I'm with A-Cap on this one, LFM, it seems you are are responding to something else than what that guy actually says in the video.
But Inev seems to hit the nail on the head on one point. Yeah, capitalism that involved only producing stuff people want, instead of playing games with money and influence - that would be great. But what is the chance that it could exist in nature for very long? I totally believe that there is nothing evil about producing stuff people want, employing people to make the stuff, and taking money for the stuff from people who got the money by being employed by other people to make other stuff. Logically that sounds like a great system. Utopian, almost. The problem is that in reality, it's not exactly working out for us anymore. People can't seem to resist the temptation to figure out ways to game the system.
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the thing that bothers me is the leap from the stuff he started out with to "therefore, the solution is to deregulate."
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Yeah, I don't see how you keep people from gaming the system without regulation, but then, people start to game the regulation system.
I don't know what the answer is, I just hope someone figures it out before I end up an old lady living on the street in a cardboard box.
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capitalism will never work as described by prof hoozit because doritos
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the thing that bothers me is the leap from the stuff he started out with to "therefore, the solution is to deregulate."
Exactly. That's exactly what's douchey about it.
Deregulation has, at EVERY SINGLE STEP, made these problems worse and the douche is in the "well, I got my book with a theory in it that says the problem is that there's any regulation at all"...
And it's just douchey fuckin' theorizing. If you're admitting that these people have grievances but then you're gonna say that the thing that has always made it worse is going to fix everything by doing the most of that awful thing you possibly can, that's theoretical pissing.
That's someone liking the way things are going because they fit their theories, no matter the human cost, and trying to manipulate the situation to play out his theories even more by lying.
That's "go fuck yourself" territory.
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I've learned that when a discussion dissolves into 12 year old name calling to just back out and let the other person figure out themselves. He was talking about removing moral hazard and identifying the corrupt influences that exist in government. You've got to move on from this prejudice against 'book learnin' and considering people who dedicate their lives to the study of the science of money as douches. We can all rap about how things aught to be and then there is reality.
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This guy's dick move agenda deserves harsh words. Harsh words aren't just about being immature.
Sometimes they're a flabbergasted reaction to an educated man refusing to leave an indefensible position just to prove some ideological point.
But I respect your right to pull outta the conversation if that's your thing.
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capitalism will never work as described by prof hoozit because doritos
Or a can of dr. pepper
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The happiest guy I know is a dude who went to trade school and became a plumber. He has a business, a house, an El Torino he makes love to, and a family.
Torino-human hybrid children?
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Occupy Winnipeg is looking pretty sad. Went by today, and all there were was some empty tents and no movement. I think all that's left is a few homeless people who I recognize as folks who regularly camp out in on the streets. Winter will put a damper on such things out our way.