You Gotta Get Mad

The OWS phenomenon has been interesting to watch, especially how ineffective the predictable attempts to ignore, ridicule and demonize the protesters have been. From that I surmise that for many, the pressing fear of unemployment, foreclosure, bankruptcy, unaffordable illness, etc. has sharpened their thinking so as to render the usual right wing noise machine relatively less effective.  Too many people have experienced, or know someone close who has experienced, the disastrous effects of this prolonged economic quagmire wrought by an elite that has relentlessly lowered taxes on the rich, cut social spending, and removed the few regulations that protected the commonweal.

I think the next step for progressives should be to ratchet up the rhetoric against the Republicans and Blue-dog Democrats, their mega-rich asshole patrons, and their media enablers.  These people bear the responsibility for the impoverishment of millions, and its time for them to start worrying about angry mobs with torches and pitchforks.  You might retort that lowering ourselves to the level of the O'Reillys, the Coulters and the Hannitys is only going to further degrade the political discourse in the country, but I have news for you:  it's already degraded past the point of redemption.  Plus, tell me, has the cool, rational voice most often employed by liberal voices worked out so well?  At this point, we need our elites to internalize the idea that they could well have a starring role in a remake of the French revolution.  We have to pound them in the media every day, blaming them for everything.  We have to get mean.  We have to get mad angry.

Brooks Gets Pierced

Great take-down of Bobo by Charles Pierce.  Man, I had not realized how much I missed this guy.  His output is prodigious, and his quality is sustained and at the highest level.  Case in point:  his recent post on Eric Cantor, in which he credits Cantor with "the unctuous personality of a third-string maitre d' at a fourth-string steakhouse," and states that his proposals would "use the tax code to cement that inequality from now until Eric Cantor VIII is flunking economics somewhere."     

Ma and Pa Kettle Need to Read This

Brad Reed tells it like it is.

This Is Your God

As people slowly begin to wake up to the reality that a tiny fraction of our society is conducting a non-stop war against the rest of us, I'm reminded of the great, underrated John Carpenter movie, They Live.  Here's the classic scene in which Roddy Piper's character discovers that our world is filled with subliminal messages and that there are hideous aliens among us:

Picking Up Momentum

Seems like the Occupy Wall Street movement has actually managed to force itself on the national media, however grudgingly.  How did they make it past the blackout?

First, video footage of gratuitous use of pepper spray on corralled women by a police lieutenant deputy inspector:

Then, solidarity from other unions, including a bunch of airline pilots:

Yesterday, we had partying investment bankers smugly drinking champagne as they watched the marchers:

Now the protests have spread to Boston, Chicago and San Francisco.  If you have a little change in your pocket, consider donating to provide food for these guys.