Hypocrisy Is The Greatest Luxury [New]
I Am Not Moving — A Short Film
In case there’s anyone who hasn’t seen this yet, here is a rather effecting short film, making a very simple point.
Hypocrisy is the greatest luxury in the Empire. It’s only been viewed about 300K times thus far, so there’s still time to make it go viral!
What Do You Think?
8 Responses to 'Hypocrisy Is The Greatest Luxury'
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Tim [New]
Saturday, 15 Oct, 2011 at 6:55 pm
Wow. Has anyone asked Clinton how she explains her words and what is going on all over this country?
The failure of the media to call out hypocrisy is part of the disconnect. On the one hand, a lot of people who would never protest are out in the street demanding the government re-tax extreme wealth and create jobs and punish Wall Street for crimes committed. And not all of them marching. Even stopping by and watching counts: it shows people are intrigued if not engaged. And yet the media has not realized that they have a duty to filter events, and their questions, based upon what is happening out in the real world. Otherwise, they’re courtiers, not journalists.
When these three job-destroying trade deals were abruptly passed by Congress this week, after five years of delay, not one journalist apparently thought to ask Obama and members of Congress how they square their out of nowhere votes to destroy US jobs (the bill included $300 million or so for job retraining, a clear admission these pacts kill jobs) meshed with the calls to create and keep jobs across this country.
I find that amazing, the disconnect. 1 + 1 should equal 2. Yet the media has not woken up, apparently, to realize the hypocrisy, as shown in this video, and the fact the government is clearly and deliberately acting in violation of public sentiment. While the government has done this for years, the difference is that now we have normal people from all walks of life calling out the difference.
Some day soon perhaps the journalists will wake up. And perhaps the NYPD will realize their interests are with the 99%, that they will never be in the 1%.
Sunday, 16 Oct, 2011 at 10:28 am
Journalists as Courtiers. It does have a certain ring of familiarity to it by now. At least Courtier sounds better than Stenographer. Thanks in part to Bill Clinton’s Telecom Act of ’96, 85% of all media outlets are owned by six corporations. They are the Ministry Of Truth, for all intensive purposes.
Under the New Math, 1+1= Whatever We Damn Well Say It Is In Today’s Editorial Guidelines. So I don’t see them waking up. That’s okay, since it’s not the media that needs to wake up, it’s the polity.
Thus far, OWS is polling rather well, with 54% approval in the Time poll, compared to 27% (which covers the percentage of nutters in the polity, oddly enough) for the TeaHadis. That’s an awful lot of people and as the remaining 20% or so undecided make up their minds, OWS will pick up a lot of those, methinks.
As for NYPD, there seems a distinct pattern of violence and who commits them. White Shirts, many of whom look old enough to be close to retirement. So factor in Rudy 9/11′s deal creating the Paid Detail Unit which created a uniformed, off-duty force for the banks to engage in additional “security” arrangements and you have a pipeline of WS money into NYPD’s coffers. So how many of those White Shirts are currently looking for cushy retirement jobs on WS? How many of them are macing and beating people as part of the Paid Detail Unit right this very moment? They could be technically off-duty, being paid $37/hour by Goldman Sachs directly, only indemnified by the taxpayer.
Interesting questions, aren’t they?
If any of the above is true, then it should be possible to drive a wedge between the Blue Shirts and the White Shirts looking for a pay day. That would be rather interesting, IMO.
Tim [New]
Sunday, 16 Oct, 2011 at 2:10 pm
Yet another point OWS and other protests should drive home. Right up there with, “Why is no one on Wall Street in jail for mortgage scams?” and “Live simply so others may simply live” and “Amazon runs sweat shops” and “Politicians work for Wall Street, not you and me.”
Some very good points!
Sunday, 16 Oct, 2011 at 3:28 pm
Well, they have been corralling Fox News people doing stand-ups with signs, “We don’t take FOX seriously either,” so I think it’s there.
One of the coolest aspects about Occupy is that one can keep adding messages all day long and still stay essentially “on message.” Open Source Protest is the new Black, to use the fashion idiom.
By the way, I love the one, “Live simply so that others may live.” One can unpack that ditty for weeks.
Tim [New]
Sunday, 16 Oct, 2011 at 4:00 pm
Found that watching a satire of Occupy Sesame Street, a sign in the background with Snuffleupagus on the Brooklyn Bridge. Having been raised by Jesuits in high school, rather like being raised by wolves, this quote also resonates with me. Best of all, it is non-religious. It appeals to basic human decency in face of needless suffering in this world. It is a clever way to shame the greedy selfish jerks who truly think their needs trump the needs of anyone else, even in matters of life and death.
The Sesame Street gag also shows that, even in the worst of times, there is room to have a little fun:
http://www.tauntr.com/blog/occupy-sesame-street-gets-violent
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7alqv_m7uU
VictorInLA [New]
Saturday, 15 Oct, 2011 at 11:28 pm
I’d rather live in a city that stinks of urine than in one where true freedom of assembly no longer exists. The trouble is that few (if any) first-world cities refused to drink the law-and-order Kool Aid, and there is nowhere left to go. For this, we have only ourselves to blame. Many of us live in cities where “public” space is no longer public but is merely for rent (upon the purchase of parade, festival, or protest permits that come with barricades, bullhorns, and a lot of cops). Many of us directly (or by our silence) gave approval to public officials who passed the ordinances that bar homeless people from sleeping on public sidewalks, in parks and along beaches. We smiled inwardly as annoying “loiterers,” beggars of change, and sellers of trinkets have been disappearing slowly from our our daily routines. These “ne’er-do-wells” didn’t disappear. They got hauled off to jail for long sentences under tough-on-crime laws or driven to suburban ghettos where the only “public” space is a WalMart parking lot. THE HORRIBLE PRICE WE HAVE TO PAY FOR THIS OVERLY-ORDERED WORLD IS NONE OTHER THAN OUR OWN LIBERTY. Welcome to the new millennium. It smells a lot like pepper spray!
Tim [New]
Sunday, 16 Oct, 2011 at 8:22 am
And don’t forget the role of terrorism and how politicians have used it to play on the lizard brain of Americans: we’ve traded liberty for security and gained neither.
It’s also been an interesting year: we started with Wisconsin and cops refusing to help the state. We’re ending the year also with protests but the NYPD, at least, is acting like a corporate police force when things get tense. Or certainly a private security force where anything goes, including spraying innocent women with pepper spray for the hell of it or, in this video, putting their knee deliberately hard on someone’s neck when the person is passive.
Sunday, 16 Oct, 2011 at 10:51 am
I guess it’s a good thing I’m addicted to habañero peppers, then!
In any case, consent can always be withdrawn and it looks like that is happening, finally.