(no subject)
why am I soooooooo not surprised that Woody Allen champions Roman Polanski? MASSIVE EYEROLL. Note to a whole fucking lot of Hollywood, you can be talented and still be a WASTE OF SKIN. Drugging and raping makes you a waste of skin. Thank you, Kevin Smith and Luc Besson for being able to make this important distinction.
Why am I talking about this, when there are so many more important and pressing things demanding my outrage, and more important than my outrage half of my fucking space_married fic which I'm sure more of you care more about than what I think about the state of the world?
I'm talking about this because of fucking David Brooks at the NYT who is talking about how our cultural degeneracy is what's making us fail, that corporations are failing because we're all ancient Romans reclining on couches and waiting for the slaves to clean up the vomit before the orgy starts. We've failed to embrace our stern Calvinist forefather's belts for tightening and self-flagellation!* We're unwilling to put out effort and SACRIFICE petty things like sexual gratification and freedom of speech and not starving for the Betterment of All Mankind!
no, really, pretty much in that many words. And you know what? You, sir, you are WRONG.
First of all, how about the canard about Self-Denial Is Really Great? No, actually. Rome before it got all decadent n' shit? Was still a really, really, really fucking awful place for anybody to live who wasn't a landed free white male, or for anybody who lived close and had anything Rome might want. Sound familiar, anyone? Also, manifest destiny? Not so great for brown, red, or yellow people, or mining, factory and transportation workers pre-union! Exploitation, Mr. Brooks, is not self-denial. Sometimes, people just got fucked and it wasn't for any higher purpose and it didn't get recognized. And sometimes was a lot more often than the people who embark on flights of fancy about the worthy goals they achieved want to admit. Vietnam, anybody? Great Depression? Smallpox-infected blankets? Company stores? Pinkertons? Sand Creek? Wounded Knee? Triangle Shirtwaist fire?
Second of all, Mr. Brooks, I invite you to be the first to surrender your home and comfort to devote your talents to solution of the world's energy and economic problems. Or even a fucking tithe of it, since that's probably still about ten times MY decadent ass pulls in.
What our problem is, Mr. Brooks, is not the Perils of Sexual Gratification and Big-Screen TVs. It is the conviction that those who have something must have done something to deserve it. Something your beloved Protestants looked at as the finger of the Almighty pointing out His elite. They wouldn't prosper if the All-Powerful and All-Seeing didn't want them to, would they? When was the last fucking time someone rich surrendered anything in this country?
Let me lay some truth on you, Mr. Brooks. Decadence isn't the problem. Lack of consent is the problem. It wasn't that Mr. Polanski fucked, sucked, backdoored, that there was a Jacuzzi or champagne. It was that he took what wasn't his. It was that he took advantage of someone because he could. THAT is what is wrong with our society today. As much as I would LIKE to blame the collapsing infrastructure of our nation on Katy Perry and Kentucky Fried Chicken--you know what, no. I don't even want to blame it on them. I blame it on the fact that we have a society that lionizes Gordon fucking Gekko. That we have a society where Bernie Madoff was documentedly defrauding for 20 and quite possibly more like 30 years and be the chairman of goddamn NASDAQ before he fell and nobody cared. That the same crooked bastards who created the S&L debacle have cleaned out the government to mop up after the the fucking subprime lending/derivatives fiasco and no meaningful remedies have been pursued as far as regulation goes, just buckets of free fucking taxpayer money handed out and they have the GIGANTIC BALLS to talk about the unfair burden a single-payer plan would put on corporations to compete. And we are to believe, Mr. Brooks, in this climate, that peoples' "i got mine, fuck you' attitude is somehow due to mediocre tempests in a teakettle about crucifixes in urine? No, Mr. Brooks, that is the delusion of the chattering classes that what THEY talk about is somehow fucking interesting or relevant. I mean seriously, how fucking dare you not mention a SINGLE INDUSTRY LOBBY when you talk about interest groups, as though corporations aren't standing on a stage with a PA and speakers drowning people in fear and banality like champagne and Quaaludes before steering legislation and reform into nowhere with carefully allocated funding to war chests? You really don't think at all that maybe Weekend at Bernanke's is more of a source of rot in our society than Weekend at Bernie's?
Fuck you, Mr. Brooks, fuck you and the million-dollar-horse you rode in on, and the million-dollar megaphone you lift to your lips. And fuck you too, Roman Polanski. Being able to do something doesn't mean you should. And while one aging director is a drop in the goddamn bucket of people who deserve a giant karmic kick in the ass for raping people, either literally or by strip-mining away their sources of livelihoods to line their own pockets, at least it's one more person who was actually told taking something from someone because they were powerless to defend themselves is wrong, no matter how smarter or stronger you are.
And in conclusion, EVERYBODY WRITE AND DRAW MORE SMUT and pursue art and sexual gratification instead of the almighty dollar and be opinionated bastards instead of good Puritans BUT NOT RAPISTS the end.
*unless, of course, you're into that. I don't judge. if you're flagellating someone ELSE, please, let's keep it consensual and consenting-age.
Why am I talking about this, when there are so many more important and pressing things demanding my outrage, and more important than my outrage half of my fucking space_married fic which I'm sure more of you care more about than what I think about the state of the world?
I'm talking about this because of fucking David Brooks at the NYT who is talking about how our cultural degeneracy is what's making us fail, that corporations are failing because we're all ancient Romans reclining on couches and waiting for the slaves to clean up the vomit before the orgy starts. We've failed to embrace our stern Calvinist forefather's belts for tightening and self-flagellation!* We're unwilling to put out effort and SACRIFICE petty things like sexual gratification and freedom of speech and not starving for the Betterment of All Mankind!
no, really, pretty much in that many words. And you know what? You, sir, you are WRONG.
First of all, how about the canard about Self-Denial Is Really Great? No, actually. Rome before it got all decadent n' shit? Was still a really, really, really fucking awful place for anybody to live who wasn't a landed free white male, or for anybody who lived close and had anything Rome might want. Sound familiar, anyone? Also, manifest destiny? Not so great for brown, red, or yellow people, or mining, factory and transportation workers pre-union! Exploitation, Mr. Brooks, is not self-denial. Sometimes, people just got fucked and it wasn't for any higher purpose and it didn't get recognized. And sometimes was a lot more often than the people who embark on flights of fancy about the worthy goals they achieved want to admit. Vietnam, anybody? Great Depression? Smallpox-infected blankets? Company stores? Pinkertons? Sand Creek? Wounded Knee? Triangle Shirtwaist fire?
Second of all, Mr. Brooks, I invite you to be the first to surrender your home and comfort to devote your talents to solution of the world's energy and economic problems. Or even a fucking tithe of it, since that's probably still about ten times MY decadent ass pulls in.
What our problem is, Mr. Brooks, is not the Perils of Sexual Gratification and Big-Screen TVs. It is the conviction that those who have something must have done something to deserve it. Something your beloved Protestants looked at as the finger of the Almighty pointing out His elite. They wouldn't prosper if the All-Powerful and All-Seeing didn't want them to, would they? When was the last fucking time someone rich surrendered anything in this country?
Let me lay some truth on you, Mr. Brooks. Decadence isn't the problem. Lack of consent is the problem. It wasn't that Mr. Polanski fucked, sucked, backdoored, that there was a Jacuzzi or champagne. It was that he took what wasn't his. It was that he took advantage of someone because he could. THAT is what is wrong with our society today. As much as I would LIKE to blame the collapsing infrastructure of our nation on Katy Perry and Kentucky Fried Chicken--you know what, no. I don't even want to blame it on them. I blame it on the fact that we have a society that lionizes Gordon fucking Gekko. That we have a society where Bernie Madoff was documentedly defrauding for 20 and quite possibly more like 30 years and be the chairman of goddamn NASDAQ before he fell and nobody cared. That the same crooked bastards who created the S&L debacle have cleaned out the government to mop up after the the fucking subprime lending/derivatives fiasco and no meaningful remedies have been pursued as far as regulation goes, just buckets of free fucking taxpayer money handed out and they have the GIGANTIC BALLS to talk about the unfair burden a single-payer plan would put on corporations to compete. And we are to believe, Mr. Brooks, in this climate, that peoples' "i got mine, fuck you' attitude is somehow due to mediocre tempests in a teakettle about crucifixes in urine? No, Mr. Brooks, that is the delusion of the chattering classes that what THEY talk about is somehow fucking interesting or relevant. I mean seriously, how fucking dare you not mention a SINGLE INDUSTRY LOBBY when you talk about interest groups, as though corporations aren't standing on a stage with a PA and speakers drowning people in fear and banality like champagne and Quaaludes before steering legislation and reform into nowhere with carefully allocated funding to war chests? You really don't think at all that maybe Weekend at Bernanke's is more of a source of rot in our society than Weekend at Bernie's?
Fuck you, Mr. Brooks, fuck you and the million-dollar-horse you rode in on, and the million-dollar megaphone you lift to your lips. And fuck you too, Roman Polanski. Being able to do something doesn't mean you should. And while one aging director is a drop in the goddamn bucket of people who deserve a giant karmic kick in the ass for raping people, either literally or by strip-mining away their sources of livelihoods to line their own pockets, at least it's one more person who was actually told taking something from someone because they were powerless to defend themselves is wrong, no matter how smarter or stronger you are.
And in conclusion, EVERYBODY WRITE AND DRAW MORE SMUT and pursue art and sexual gratification instead of the almighty dollar and be opinionated bastards instead of good Puritans BUT NOT RAPISTS the end.
*unless, of course, you're into that. I don't judge. if you're flagellating someone ELSE, please, let's keep it consensual and consenting-age.