Politicians and celebrity suckers

Posted on December 28, 2011 by oddmanout215

Matt Damon would have preferred 'a one-term president with some balls'

Daniel Craig, star of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, recently sounded off about politicians, especially the ones who pretend to be hip and progressive in order to win the favor of liberal-minded celebrities:

“Tony Blair started it much more than anybody’s ever done. ‘Go and have tea at 10 Downing Street,'” he said of the former British Prime Minister. “It becomes ‘Mephisto,'” Craig continued, alluding to the famous book about an actor who ingratiates himself to Nazis in hope of winning a prized part.

“You immediately are aligning yourself with a political party. Politicians are shitheads,” Craig asserted. “That’s how they become politicians, even the good ones. We’re actors, we’re artists, we’re very nice to each other. They’ll turn around and stab you in the fucking back.”

Craig’s remarks were from a story picked up by Huffington Post. Something similar to his assessment of Blair — referred to by non-fans as “Bush’s poodle” because of Blair’s unwavering support of Bush’s disastrous war in Iraq — was voiced years ago by Noel Gallagher, the former guitarist and songwriter for Oasis:

“The fact that [Blair had] been in a band, owned an electric guitar and has probably had a spliff was Prime Minister really meant something, after years of John Major and Margaret Thatcher. He just might be one of us,” [Gallagher] told one interviewer (via the Daily Mail). “In hindsight, it turned out he was just a politician like all the rest. I was brought up as a Labour voter and it was euphoric when they got into power. I didn’t realize it wasn’t New Labour at all – it was the Tories dressed in red.”

The Tories dressed in red. I wonder if there’s a catchy phrase that’s been used by some American activist star to describe the Democratic Party since the reality of Obama’s broken promises sank in. I’m thinking of all the celebrities — U2, Denzel Washington, Sheryl Crow, Beyonce, on and on — who performed or gave speeches at a pre-inaugural concert for Obama, in 2009.

I wonder how many of these stars, if asked, would echo Matt Damon’s recent remarks:

“I’ve talked to a lot of people who worked for Obama at the grassroots level. One of them said to me, ‘Never again. I will never be fooled again by a politician,'” Damon tells [Elle] magazine. “You know, a one-term president with some balls who actually got stuff done would have been, in the long run of the country, much better.”

Posted in arts, economic collapse, Great Recession, liar, mainstream media, movies, Obama, Politics, pop music, The New Depression, unemployment | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

‘Balanced’ reporting? That’ll be the day

Posted on December 27, 2011 by oddmanout215

Mitt Romney recently told Time magazine that “25 million people are out of work because of Barack Obama. And so I’ll compare my experience in the private sector where, net-net, we created over 100,000 jobs.”

Both statements are flat-out lies, but Time won’t tell you that, nor will any other corporate media outlet, as Paul Krugman pointed out in his op-ed last Friday:

Over all, Mr. Obama’s positions on economic policy resemble those that moderate Republicans used to espouse. Yet Mr. Romney portrays the president as the second coming of Fidel Castro and seems confident that he will pay no price for making stuff up.

Welcome to post-truth politics…

But won’t there be some blowback? Won’t Mr. Romney pay a price for running a campaign based entirely on falsehoods? He obviously thinks not, and I’m afraid he may be right.

Oh, Mr. Romney will probably be called on some falsehoods. But, if past experience is any guide, most of the news media will feel as though their reporting must be “balanced,” which means that every time they point out that a Republican lied they have to match it with a comparable accusation against a Democrat — even if what the Democrat said was actually true or, at worst, a minor misstatement.

Obama is far from an FDR — don’t get me started — but the main reason 25 million or so people are out of work is because the economy imploded during the Bush administration, and because Republicans in Congress are doing everything they can to block passage of jobs programs because the 2012 elections are close.

Romney is lying about Obama not creating any jobs, just as he lies about Obama cutting the defense budget.

I mention these facts not because they’re news, but rather because I continue to find it odd that Krugman, alone among mainstream columnists, has repeatedly argued that the notion of balanced reporting — also called “unbiased” or “objective” reporting — is total bunk, a fabrication of the corporate machine that dictates what Americans are supposed to believe.

Krugman uses facts to skewer the myth of balanced reporting every chance he gets, but do you think NYT‘s reporters and editors — or Time, or Politico, and so on — will ever come up with a story headlined “Romney campaign based on falsehoods”? That’ll be the day.

Clarification: This is not to say the NYT decision makers support Romney. The point is that the mainstream media adhere to a narrow set of rules that is, to some extent, supportive of all candidates who embrace the status quo.

Posted in Congress, economic collapse, Great Recession, liar, mainstream media, Mitt Romney, Obama, Politics, The New Depression, unemployment | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

‘Australia’ (Happy Boxing Day)

Posted on December 26, 2011 by oddmanout215

We’ll surf like they do in the USA
We’ll fly down to Sydney for a holiday
On sunny Christmas Day…

I’m standing in line yesterday at a drugstore, one of those chain stores that turn wall-to-wall red a month before Christmas. Big red bows, rolls of red wrapping paper, rows of red greeting cards, employees in red aprons.

What is it about red? It’s overwhelming, like Christmas. You can’t fight it, especially when it glares at you while bad music is assaulting your ears — Chicago singing Tell me you will stay/Make me smile, with a horn section that sounds like a high school band.

The man directly in front of me in line — he’s thirty-ish, short but stocky, looks like a brawler, maybe a druggie — is asking customers if there’s a trading-card store nearby, he’s carrying some collectible baseball cards he needs to sell.

He reaches into a paper bag and pulls out rookie cards of Mike Schmidt, Derek Jeter and other stars, and shows them to everyone in sight. “Those should be worth something,” I say to him, not at all sure they’re worth anything. The cards are laminated but they look a bit beat up. Someone tells the man about a card store in South Philly but reminds him this is Christmas Day.

When it’s the man’s turn at the checkout counter, he pulls two rolls of Kodak film from his coat pocket and asks the cashier for a refund. She says no way, the film obviously is very old and the stickers on the film boxes indicate they were bought at some other store.

The man leaves the store with his cards and his film, and I wonder where he’ll go, he’s probably flat broke. Some of the other people in line look like they aren’t in such good shape, either.

In other eras there were dream destinations for young people with no money or job prospects. Where do they go now for job opportunities? California? Florida? Hoho.

I think of the old Kinks song in which the desperately poor in post-WWII Britain dream of emigrating to Australia.

In FDR’s time, young or middle-aged Americans who were hard-up could join the Work Projects Administration. In the Bush-Obama era, they can join the ranks of the permanently unemployed.

Posted in arts, economic collapse, Great Recession, humor, Obama, Philadelphia, Politics, pop music, The New Depression, unemployment | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

‘There ain’t no Sanity Clause!’

Posted on December 26, 2011 by oddmanout215

Chico tells Groucho he won’t be fooled in A Night at the Opera:

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Happy Third Day After the Solstice

Posted on December 25, 2011 by oddmanout215

Bernini’s St. Theresa in Ecstasy is in the Cornaro Chapel (Santa Maria Vittoria). Which means nothing to me, but the act of writing down the address for future reference seems constructive, especially with all the thinking I’m doing about Rome, a city I must see now that I’ve read Ingrid Rowland’s review of Robert Hughes’ new book.

I couldn’t get the book review out of my head as I jogged past Squalor and Ruin streets in South Philly on this perfect Third Day After the Solstice. A mile farther on, at Washington and Passyunk, I spotted what looked like a leftover Halloween scarecrow sitting in a deck chair outside a row house. It was a middle-aged woman wrapped in bright red and wearing sunglasses, facing the low but unobstructed sunlight beaming from the south.

I slowed to make sure she was alive and noticed she was a ringer for Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. She took off her glasses, gave me an ecstatic look, and said, “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. Odd Man.”

Just kidding, she didn’t say anything, not even after I wished her a Happy Solstice.

Posted in arts, history, humor, Philadelphia | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Joe Conason, meet Karl Rove

Posted on December 24, 2011 by oddmanout215

A resolution for 2012: Don’t read opinion pieces by knee-jerk Obama supporters who profess to be liberals. Their stuff is as propagandistic as the garbage that streams from the right in support of Newt and Mitt and the dimmer Republican presidential wannabes.

No more Joe Conason, for example, whose recent rabid attack on libertarian eccentric Ron Paul was off-target and manifestly unfair:

The latest evidence of simmering racial resentment on the American political fringe showed up Monday in a Facebook post by a California man who urged the assassination of the president and his two daughters in obscene, racist language. Aside from the Secret Service, there was little reason for most of us to pay attention to this sick boob—except that he was identified as a local political leader of the tea party and an avid supporter of Rep. Ron Paul, the Texas Republican who now seems likely to place first in the Iowa presidential caucuses.

To those who have followed Paul’s long career as a failed presidential candidate—these campaigns have become a family business—the appearance of yet another racist nut job in his orbit is scarcely news. The newsletters that earned millions of dollars for him from gullible subscribers over the decades were often soiled with vile invectives against blacks and other minorities…

Very classy stuff, worthy of Karl Rove. Some ugly-minded wing-nut who calls himself a Paul supporter urges a heinous crime, and Conason immediately smears Paul with the guilt-by-association argument. As further evidence that Paul and the nut are on the same page, Conason mentions racist language in newsletters from which Paul made money. Case closed.

The trouble with guys such as Conason is they can’t imagine a world where the good guys often aren’t very good and the bad guys sometimes have a few redeeming features. Paul appears to be more competent and honest than the other Republicans, and he makes more sense than Obama on many issues.

Clarification: I would never vote for Ron Paul and disagree with much of what he purports to believe in, although I love watching the other Republican candidates squirm at Paul’s lucid putdowns of the Federal Reserve and American imperialism. (Obama would squirm, too, if he had to debate Paul on these issues.)

The politicians whose ideas appeal to me, and to many other disillusioned Dems, include people like Dennis Kucinich and Bernie Sanders, both of whom are as independent as Paul but don’t share his right-wing views on issues such as abortion. But I’m sure Conason would only smirk at those two, because neither would have anything to do with the corrupt Democratic machine that elected the faux-Democrat Obama.

Posted in mainstream media, Mitt Romney, Obama, Politics, Wall Street, world-wide economy | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

‘Blue Christmas’

Posted on December 24, 2011 by oddmanout215

Elvis Presley had been knocked sideways by the British Invasion, by new styles in America, and by a long series of crappy music and movie-starring choices, but his 1968 Comeback Special silenced critics and breathed new life into his career.

On videos from the show, Elvis looks eerily handsome and strikes a perfect balance between bravado and self-parody. You can see the intelligence in his eyes and his smile. It’s as if he knows he’s at the top of his game, and at the same time realizes the game is bullshit, no one stays on top of anything, not for long.

Footnote: I love the moment in “Blue Christmas” when Elvis or Scotty Moore bends an E string and someone off-camera yells “Play It Dirty” and a woman in the small studio audience screams. This is one of the rare Christmas songs that doesn’t make me feel blue.

Posted in arts, pop music | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Chase’s Jaime Dimon — too big to fail

Posted on December 23, 2011 by oddmanout215

Here’s Matt Taibbi shedding more light, in his inimitable way, on how Wall Street executives, with the help of the D.C. establishment, cheat and bribe their way to a level of wealth and privilege few of us can even imagine:

J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon – the man the New York Times once called “Obama’s favorite banker” – had an excellent method of guaranteeing that the Federal Reserve system’s doors would always be open to him. What he did was, he served as the Chairman of the Board of the New York Fed.

And in 2008, in that moonlighting capacity, he orchestrated a deal in which the Fed provided $29 billion in assistance to help his own bank, Chase, buy up the teetering investment firm Bear Stearns. You read that right: Jamie Dimon helped give himself a bailout. Who needs to worry about good government, when you are the government?

Dimon, incidentally, is another one of those bankers who’s complaining now about the unfair criticism… Is Dimon right? Do people hate him just because he’s rich and successful…? Maybe we should ask the people of Jefferson County, Alabama, what they think.

That particular locality is now in bankruptcy proceedings primarily because Dimon’s bank, Chase, used middlemen to bribe local officials – literally bribe, with cash and watches and new suits – to sign on to a series of onerous interest-rate swap deals that vastly expanded the county’s debt burden.

Essentially, Jamie Dimon handed Birmingham, Alabama a Chase credit card and then bribed its local officials to run up a gigantic balance, leaving future residents and those residents’ children with the bill. As a result, the citizens of Jefferson County will now be making payments to Chase until the end of time.

…People like Jamie Dimon aren’t really citizens of any country. They live in their own gated archipelago, and the rest of the world is a dumping ground.

Footnote: Read Taibbi’s article for information on other thieving CEOs. I excerpted the stuff about Dimon because Chase is the monster bank that owns my house, and because of the disgustingly sympathetic piece about Dimon that ran last year in NYT Magazine.

Posted in economic collapse, Goldman Sachs, Great Recession, mainstream media, New York Times, Obama, Politics, The New Depression, Wall Street | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Rejoice, fellow pagans

Posted on December 22, 2011 by oddmanout215

The winter solstice is here, marking for me the crossroads of dread and hope. Dread because it’s the shortest day of the year, when you can’t walk down the street without being reminded of consumerism’s holy of holies, Christmas Day. Hope because I know each day forward will bring a bit more daylight and some sense of progress toward the spring and the disappearance of Christmas decorations.

No offense to Christians, but acknowledging the solstice as a literal turning point — when the North Pole is tilted 23.5 degrees away from the sun, as far as it will get — makes more sense than celebrating the notion of a Jewish guy founding an anti-materialist (and, later, anti-Semitic) religion, then returning centuries later as Santa Claus, the poster boy for materialism.

So which is it, Christians — the Jew who was nailed to a board, or the jolly goy in the red suit? You can’t have it both ways, no matter what the ad copywriters say.

Keep your pale imitation of Saturnalia, thanks. I’ll take my materialism straight up, without the doubletalk. If I get a yen for spirituality I’ll consult with a card reader or make a pilgrimage to the Dalai Lama’s house. At least he knows what a joke is.

But I digress, as usual. Just wanted to send best wishes to pagans, Christians and everyone else. As Irving Berlin put it, “May your days be merry and bright, and may all your Christmases be goyish.” Or something like that.

Update: I just put solstice lights in my front window, the twinkly kind, to keep the darkness at bay. Christians and pagans are on the same page sometimes, but we like different stories.

Posted in humor | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

‘Santa Claus, Go Straight to the Ghetto’

Posted on December 22, 2011 by oddmanout215

If anyone wanna know,
Tell him James Brown sent you.

You know I know what you will see
Because that was once… me.
Hit it! Hit it!

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