Dumb Shit People Say About the #OccupyWallStreet Movement

¡Hola mi Gente!
I’m not a nice person. in fact, I make my own mother cry sometimes. I am not proud of this, but it is true ::hangs head in shame:: I am not a gentleman: I say and do things that are totally socially unacceptable, and I will try to fuck you in the ass at some point if you’re in a relationship with me. I don’t know how to drive and I have no sense of direction. So, what good am I, you ask? (LOL!). I don’t have many good character traits, but I think the few I can claim are important. Chief among this sparse crowd is trust. That’s my one trump card -- trustworthiness.

Another one is that I don’t tolerate ignorance too well. This might be a good or bad thing, according from what perspective you’re looking at it. The following is rude, but I know no other way of addressing it…

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Dumb-Fuck Fuckery

I have utter contempt for lazy thinking or fallacious reasoning. The following are actual objections overheard or gleaned from various conversations about #OccupyWallStreet:

They criticize corporations, but use smart phones made by corporations! Hypocrites!

This one gets me the most because it is such a blatantly stupid assertion. It’s so ignorant, I don’t think it deserves a response. I’ll just add that we wear clothes too. ::blank stare::

A movement that doesn’t have a compressed agenda and list of demands can’t be taken seriously.

OK… I’ll give this one a try. When the OWS organizers had their first few general assemblies, it was decided, by consensus, not to have a list of demands or agenda. There were many reasons for this, but chief among them was the shared belief that demands, agendas, goals, should be arrived at within a horizontal democratic process inclusive of all participants. In other words, it was decided that the best way to come up with these things was to actually include the people in the decision-making process. I was wrong on this because, not having a prefabricated, sound bite list of demands made it much more difficult for the corporate media to label us because they have no experience with a movement predicated on a transparent, horizontal democratic process.

People living in third-World countries have it worse -- these OWS people should go try living there for a while.

Again, this one is too ridiculous to respond to. As a thought exercise, do yourself a favor and take that line of reasoning to its logical conclusion and you tell me what’s wrong with it.

Shouldn’t they protest in Washington instead? That’s where the people in charge are, right?

::sigh::

This is part of what separates us from the clueless (exploited and forgotten) teabaggers: we actually have a salient analysis. The vast majority of the OWS organizers I’ve come into contact with are ardently pro-government/ pro-democracy. We’re not against the government; we’re steadfastly opposed to a form of government sabotaged by money and corruption. We’re against government for and by the 1%.

Why aren’t you people out there looking for jobs instead of protesting?

There are several stupid, narrow-minded assumptions embedded in this objection. First, it assumes there are jobs out there, when the fact is that for every job, there are scores of people looking to get it. Secondly, most of the participants in the #OccupyWallStreet movement don’t work. This is patently untrue. There are many people intensely involved in the movement who work. There are many, as well, who’ve been downsized and out of work, and there are many working at jobs beneath their level of proficiency. In fact, the people at OWS sites across the nation are just like you and me -- part of the 99% -- and as such, represent the full range of demographics.

Occupy Wall Street is a secret plot by Soros/ Obama/ Michael Moore/ communists/ socialists (<-- insert favorite bogeyman here) to undermine our country.

Really. I really heard this one…

They’re hippies and hippies suck! I hate hippies!

What’s wrong with hippies? And if you bothered, you would see that this is a bullshit stereotype. I’ve seen poor people, middle-class people, PhD’s, Nobel Prize winners, people with little formal education, old, very young -- I’ve seen all manner of people at the OWS sites. Do yourself a favor, turn off the TV machine and take a walk.

I saw where one person at an OWS site did (<-- insert something objectionable). That’s proof they’re all scum!

Really people… really? You actually think the above statements are examples of logical or critical thinking? SMDH

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

Don't Believe the Hype! [The Iowa Caucuses]

¡Hola mi Gente!
Let me get this right: You are allowing, Newt Gingrich, a belligerent, bigoted, ethically challenged, hypocritical adulterer lecture you on morals and work ethics? LOL! I mean, this guy was found to be in violation of ethics in Washington, DC -- the most ethically-challenged piece of real estate in the known universe! I need to become a politician…

Speaking of the Newt, these days you can’t turn on the TV machine without hearing some bullshit nonsense about the upcoming Iowa presidential caucuses and a lot of speculation about the “king maker” Iowa caucuses being so important.

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But really… how important are they? A look at the historical record tells a different story, not that the mainstream idiots, intent on reporting on elections as if they were horse races, would ever tell you.

From a historical perspective, the Iowa caucuses are meaningless for both sides of the political fence. Though the Iowa caucuses have been making front page newspaper headlines across the nation since 1972 (The winning Democrat that year was Maine Sen. Edmund Muskie and he wasn’t nominated), they are a poor predictor of who becomes the nominee, let alone the president.

In 1976, Jimmy Carter won Iowa in January and in November nationwide. In 1984 the winner was former Vice President Walter Mondale. Remember him? He was nominated but was humiliated in the general election.

In 1988, Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt won but wasn't nominated. Ditto Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin in 1992.

As for 1980 and 1996, both Democratic winners of the caucus in those years were presidential incumbents, Mr. Carter and Bill Clinton. Mr. Clinton won the presidency; Mr. Carter lost in November to Ronald Reagan.

In 2000, Vice President Al Gore won there and was nominated but lost in November. In 2004, the same happened to Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry. In 2008, Obama, on his way to the presidency, won the Iowa caucus.

On the Republican side, only one Iowa caucus winner out of five since 1976 (excluding incumbents) went on to win the presidency: George W. Bush in 2000.

So, based on the historical evidence (and leaving aside elections where there was an incumbent president), on Jan. 4 the front page headline on the story should read: “Wins Iowa Democratic Caucus/ Means Less Than Shit.”

Clearly, there’s less to victory in Iowa than many politicians and pundits would have us believe. And the big states -- with many more delegates in the national conventions and many more electoral votes than Iowa -- are fed up with the state’s inflated role in the electoral process.

Caucuses are rapidly becoming a leftover of obsolete politics anyway. Almost all states have switched to primaries, which get more ink. Twice as many states today will have primaries as in 1972, when Iowa first put its caucus on some front pages. And many of those states that used to pick delegates in March, April, even June, have scheduled much earlier selections. When Maryland votes Feb. 12, Republicans in 29 states and Democrats in 32 will have already voted.

Nevertheless, if Newtie wins the Iowa caucus this election cycle you can be sure the 24/ 7 corporate-owned news cycle will devote more ink and airtime to it than ever before.

The Iowa caucuses, like much in contemporary American elections, don’t make much sense. They never did. But, like much of what is wrong with American elections, it won’t go away nicely.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

Sunday Sermon [Category Five Hype]

¡Hola! Everybody…

Brazilian Day today! Did I mention I was invited by a friend to spend ten days in Rio earlier this summer? I had to turn it down because I had just gotten laid off and I needed to hold on to what little moolah I have (which is fast running out). It’s been my dream to visit Brazil; hopefully, I’ll get there before my dick stops working… LOL

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-=[ Style Over substance ]=-

The media and politicians enjoy a symbiotic relationship during possible impending disasters. The resultant perfect storm of hype over Irene runs the risk of making Americans even more likely to ignore warnings in the future.

 -- Howard Kurtz on coverage of Irene, a category 1 storm

This time last week, we were all assaulted with one of the largest, most destructive storms in decades. No, I’m not talking about hurricane Irene, I’m talking about the perfect storm of mostly misleading coverage about Irene.

You can certainly make a convincing point that Irene wasn’t overhyped, since the storm caused widespread flooding and power outages for more than 1 million customers. You can also make the case that more people might have died were it not for the heretofore extraordinary measures of evacuation orders and the media coverage that they received.

On the other hand, the nonstop TV hyping of worst-case scenarios even after more-responsible forecasters saw as early as Thursday that Irene would not be a major hurricane caused millions to expect something far, far worse. “The East Coast Katrina,” some on-air “journalists bleated. Watching the infotainment media one would have expected or the water wall from The Ten Commandments. Nothing like that showed up.

As Toby Harnden, reporter for the Telegraph, UK observed of a CNN reporter:

… it was a dramatic on-air moment, broadcasting live from Long Island, New York during a hurricane that also threatened Manhattan.

“We are in, right, no… the right eye wall, no doubt about that… there you see the surf,” he said breathlessly. “That tells a story right there.”

Stumbling and apparently buffeted by ferocious gusts, he took shelter next to a building. “This is our protection from the wind,” he explained. “It’s been truly remarkable to watch the power of the ocean here.”

The surf may have told a story but so too did the sight behind the reporter of people chatting and ambling along the sea front and just goofing around. There was a man in a t-shirt, a woman waving her arms and then walking backwards. Then someone on a bicycle glided past.

Across the screen, the “Breaking News: Irene Batters Long Island” caption was replaced by stern advice from the Federal Emergency Management Agency: “Stay inside, stay safe.”

There’s a huge difference between informing the public and exploiting it for gain. Some cable anchors for example, were still reporting that Irene could strike New Jersey and New York as a major hurricane long after credible sources had reported the storm was weakening. Howard Kurtz (another media whore with whom I rarely agree) put it best when he said that this was Category 5 reporting on a Category 1 storm.

Some reporters even looked crestfallen as the Great Storm fizzled out into a mostly non-event. And it is true, as Nate Silver argues that the coverage of the storm in size was not extraordinary, but the coverage in tone certainly was. As with everything else, coverage of the storm was distorted in order to accentuate the sensational to the detriment of the public good.

One cable reporter from NY1, a local 24/7 news station, became visibly defensive when challenged by a viewer on the overhyped news reporting. He dismissed the notion that this type of coverage is motivated by financial gain, noting that the network had stopped airing commercials. For me, this was cynicism at its worst, and further undermines the credibility of already tarnished journalists. It was insulting, to say the least. 

Understanding the media reaction is simple: Irene was a big, inexpensive story capable of filling hours of air for pennies. The hurricane came to the media’s doorstep at a time when they’re all bargain-basement shopping for the cheapest crap an audience will watch. Yes, I’ve seen the reports about how millions worth of commercial time was pre-empted by storm coverage, but let’s not kid ourselves. The media outlets with the biggest audience numbers will use them to bump up their rate cards.

They'll make back the lost revenue and then some.

Corporate news is about, well, profits. But you’d have to be one dumb motherfucker to go along with that line of reasoning. The media, endowed as the “Fourth Estate” -- a vital part of our republic -- and the principle beneficiary of the First Amendment, has as its mandate the responsibility of informing the public and being a watchdog against abuses of power. When the media abdicates its civil responsibility, then we’re all fucked.

This type of media is detrimental to our quality of life and it erodes what little freedoms we could claim. In this way, is how a war criminal like Dick Cheney is allowed to break international and domestic laws and not just get away with it, but write books about breaking those laws and profiting from his crimes. Meanwhile, there’s a black or Latin@ youth rotting away in prison for stealing a bag of chips or six-pack of beer.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…