http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-03-11/news/why-i-am-no-longer-a-brain-dead-liberal/ A fantastic op ed piece written by one of the greatest modern playwrights of our time. He wrote this piece in the Village Voice in 2008. I stumbled over this only because I was in the bookstore the other day and saw a book he just published. http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Knowle...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309726004&sr=1-1 Mamet brought us "Glengary Glen Ross", "Wag the Dog", "The Spanish Prisoner", "American Buffalo", "House of Games" and "The Untouchables". Mamet was a life long liberal. Then one day he had an awakening. And this op ed piece is the result. If you are going to comment on this thread, please read his piece first.
House of Games was about a woman that abruptly learned how evil a con artist was.. she went from idyllic to really hostile.. I worked with a liberal guy, had to deal with his stupidity every day. He hated the SOP's for the lab and I was supervising and responsible for keeping people on track with those... finally one day he told me that "if there weren't any rules then people would be good".. he really believed that the rules are what makes people bad in all areas of life!! He hated everything I said because I enforced the rules. I could look out the window and say the sky was blue and he would argue with me... I've had to deal with a lot of irrational people in my 7 decades, I've learned that if they won't/can't cooperate and be reasonable then I have to treat them like dogs being trained, good reward for good behavior, bad reward for bad bahavior... etc... or they have to be ignored to the extent possible... People should really delve into the Myers' Briggs personality typing stuff, lots of people are hardwired to not think, they are legitimate personality types but they don't use the thinking part of the brain. Some of them CAN learn to think but they are "fine" without it... I'm learning to tiptoe around people a little more now that I see how so many of them actually are hardwired the way the are...
"David Mametâs Right-Wing Conversion By CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS Published: June 17, 2011 This is an extraordinarily irritating book, written by one of those people who smugly believe that, having lost their faith, they must ipso facto have found their reason. In order to be persuaded by it, you would have to be open to propositions like this:" http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/b...the-secret-knowledge-by-david-mamet.html?_r=1
Ricter, I love ya man. Rather then read the op ed piece and giving me YOUR opinion, you let me know what Christopher Hitchens thinks. I didn't ask Hitchens! I asked ET to discuss. Another lazy American who doesn't want to do the work. Yeah, look I get Hitchens. He hates religion. I know his work well. So obviously he is not going to speak kindly of a Jew who speaks about Judeo-Christian values. Shocking!
Hey, I've been working for a week, haven't you missed me? I had to travel to exotic, distant lands, meet exciting, unusual people, and <s>kill</s> profit from them. Anyway, your point is fair. But you first, what's your opinion of the op ed piece? After all, you didn't write it either...
Here is an excerpt from the piece I found interesting that kind of ties in what his overall theme was that at the end of the day, the two parties are really the same. His entire life he believed he should hate all that the right stood for except he would find that he stood for the very same things, including most liberals. The difference between the two parties was really more semantics then anything real. Anyway, here is his comparison of Bush and JFK. "Bush got us into Iraq, JFK into Vietnam. Bush stole the election in Florida; Kennedy stole his in Chicago. Bush outed a CIA agent; Kennedy left hundreds of them to die in the surf at the Bay of Pigs. Bush lied about his military service; Kennedy accepted a Pulitzer Prize for a book written by Ted Sorenson. Bush was in bed with the Saudis, Kennedy with the Mafia." I think Mamet realized he needed to stop listening to the government, his liberal friends, NPR and realize that actually both sides have about the same amount of good and bad. But at the end of the day, we seem to survive. We seem to get through another day. Not because of the government, but because we persevere as a people. And at this stage in his life, he found that message resonated more on the right then the left.
Let me comment on another peice from the article. "Do I speak as a member of the "privileged class"? If you willâbut classes in the United States are mobile, not static, which is the Marxist view. That is: Immigrants came and continue to come here penniless and can (and do) become rich; the nerd makes a trillion dollars; the single mother, penniless and ignorant of English, sends her two sons to college (my grandmother). On the other hand, the rich and the children of the rich can go belly-up; the hegemony of the railroads is appropriated by the airlines, that of the networks by the Internet; and the individual may and probably will change status more than once within his lifetime." I completely agree with this as Nassim Taleb, ET's favorite market philosopher, commented in his book "The Black Swan" that what makes capitalism work is luck! Both good and bad luck. Not only can someone come to this country or be born with nothing end up hugely successful, but capitalism also allows those at the top to fall, naturally. Only in the US can this happen. With government intervention, they actually prevent luck from happening, both good and bad. They tax, regulate and pick winners to keep people down and then subsidize and bailout the bad to keep them at the top. I found this particular passage to resonate very well with Taleb's view of American capitalism.
+1 And as far as the political parties go <iframe width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/xIraCchPDhk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Pretty much sums up my take on it (Also should note that George Carlin's bit was as profound as it was amusing. I've loved that bit for years now and he was a true thinking man's comic). Anyhow, it seems to me that Maverick is sort of a recent convert to the "both parties are just opposite sides of the same coin". Or am I misreading this interpretation. Sort of a converted Neo-Con? If I scroll back far enough I can find ALOT of Republican (circa Bush era) talking points and still hear alot of "you liberals" type of schtick. Once you truly realize that both parties basically function as a single unit ("good cop"/"bad cop") routine, I believe you will find the whole scenario akin to a tragic comedy.
Moving from Port to Starboard on the Titanic may change the view, but not the outcome. That really isn't the point though as you state in your post. Government is corrupt top to bottom with both parties equally inept. No news to any thinking person. However, I would take issue with your premise that we persevere as a people regardless of our government. While there are certain individuals, some groups of people who are persevering, even prospering in this chaos, I would argue that collectively, our nation is falling apart, slowly but surely. The general standard of living is going down, not up. Income is flat-lined at best for most of the general population. Opportunity in general is being suffocated by those who have already advanced to the top rung of the ladder. Changing one's view is one thing. Changing a system this corrupt, this broken, is another thing entirely, and there are no easy, painless answers at this stage of the game.