Sunday, January 22, 2012

Hooray!

I have been a huge fan of Bill Moyers for many years now.

That he has returned to public television after retiring, with his quiet, gracious, and informative interviews is the new thing I am most appreciative of, second only to my joy and continuing delight in the intellect of the person I love.

I am nerdy enough to be a huge fan of one of Moyers' recurring guests over the years, Professor Bill Black, UMKC (from his university bio).
"Professor Black was litigation director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, deputy director of the FSLIC, SVP and general counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, and senior deputy chief counsel, Office of Thrift Supervision. He was deputy director of the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery and Enforcement."
 Other people have sports heroes, or embrace figures in the entertainment industry.  I find people like Bill Black far more heroic, far more worthy of applause. (No surprise I suppose with this being my idea of someone to admire rather than overpaid airheads that I hit it off with Laci here.)

Moyers first interview is worth sharing here:


Jacob Hacker & Paul Pierson on Winner Take All Politics from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

And the teaching session at occupy wall street led by the inestimable Prof. Bill Black:


Bill Moyers on Occupy Wall Street from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

The all too brief transcript section from Bill Black's teach in:
WILLIAM K. BLACK: (During a teach-in) The one percent have dominant political power over both parties.
BILL MOYERS: Organizers invited Bill Black to lead a teach-in at “the people’s microphone.”
WILLIAM K. BLACK: (During a teach-in) How many think they stole from all of us?
BILL MOYERS: A senior federal regulator in the 1980s, Black cracked down on banks during the savings and loan crisis. He now teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.
WILLIAM K. BLACK: What we have is recurrent, intensifying financial crises driven by elite fraud and now it's done with almost absolute impunity. So the whole idea of noblesse oblige and such and that the rich were supposed to have special responsibilities, that's all gone, right? They have a God-given right to the lowest conceivable taxes.
When you put anti-regulators in charge of the agencies who believe that regulation is bad and completely unnecessary and they destroy it, creates a self-fulfilling prophecy that produces massive fraud at the most elite levels.
But, worse, it all feeds into politics. So, once you get a group that completely dominates the economy, they're going to completely dominate politics, as well.
WILLIAM K. BLACK: (During a teach-in) There is no excuse for not prosecuting. It is an obscenity. It’s surrender to crony capitalism.
WILLIAM K. BLACK: What's distressed me, and I think is one of the major reasons we get recurrent intensifying crises, is we seem to have lost our capacity for outrage. And it's only people getting outraged that produces really positive social change.

The gun nuts natter on and on about how their freedom is dependent on their having their fetish objects, their guns.  They foolishly define freedom around having lethal weapons and a culture where they themselves are choosing to emphasize and exalt violence, rather than break the vicious circle of it.

Real issues of freedom and slavery are far more genuinely being decided over these rights, and with economic equality and freedom of opportunity.  Those of you who believe the tea party crap about the wealthy few individuals and corporations needing more tax breaks and less regulation to be 'job creators', or the rest of the right wing bullshit, while fondling your fetish objects are misdirected.

Guns don't make you free.  Guns don't make you safe.  Guns don't make you powerful or smart or good looking or good in bed or financially secure or politically significant.  They are a misdirection by people who don't want you looking at the man behind the curtain, the power behind the smoke and mirrors.

When you rely on guns to be free, for your definition of free, you've already lost.  You've lost by failing to correctly define the concept, the conflict, the reality.  You are fighting the wrong battle, with the wrong weapon.  You are babies handed candy, a jingling rattle, nothing more.

You are fools.

These are the grown ups, people like Black, Hacker and Pierson, etc.  These are the real issues of freedom and slavery.

13 comments:

  1. Yea, in the same way set up gun lawes that won't work and then say that gun control doesn't work.

    I don't understand what is going on, but it is the exact opposite of a society. Such a country cannot exist for long.

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  2. "Yea, in the same way set up gun lawes that won't work and then say that gun control doesn't work."

    We don't write the gun control laws. People like that hag Carolyn "Shoulder-Thing-That-Goes-Up" McCarthy write them.

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  3. The case presented is that the government, as run by both parties, and Wall St. are in cahoots to screw Main St. Yet, somehow, you feel the need to present a false premise that gun owners and the Tea Party don't get it. That their top priority are guns and tax beaks for the wealthy and that, to them, represents freedom. That is just silliness.

    If you want to editorialize, why not focus on the real culprits responsible for these economic inequalities? It isn't like everyone doesn't know that Congress, the president, the SCOTUS and Wall St are fucking crooked and robbing the country blind.
    Let's look at just a few specifics.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vue8Gs0JWps

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  4. Dog Gone,

    You say that we're obsessed with guns, but you can't stop thinking about them. You can't write an article without mentioning them. You see everything as tied to the question of guns. Who has the problem here?

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  5. BD writes: Dog Gone,

    You say that we're obsessed with guns, but you can't stop thinking about them. You can't write an article without mentioning them. You see everything as tied to the question of guns. Who has the problem here?


    I don't have a problem, I write about a lot of things in a lot of places. This is a blog which is primarily about gun issues, so that is what I write about here.

    I write for six blogs, and I rarely write about anything related to guns on the others. I have a wide range of interests.

    Most recently, in addition to economic topics, I was sharing with Laci the history of carrots along with recipes. They originate in Asia, primarily Afghanistan, and they were not originally orange at all. In the era of your literature interest, they came in black, yellow, deep red, purple and white, most of which appear to be mutations on the original black. I'm getting ready to start plants indoors for transplantation in a few months to outdoors. It is still possible to get seeds for black carrots - like these

    http://www.amazon.com/Black-Knight-Carrot-100-Seeds/dp/B001OK619Y

    which are interesting no only for their novelty in having unusual color, or their history and geographical appeal, but because of the nutritional potential of anthocyanins as antioxidants.

    Laci was kind enough to share a really intriguing recipe with me for Qorma-e-Zardak as a recipe to try after making ginger curry carrot soup.

    But that is a casual interest, one of many other interests, that doesn't really work on a gun-issue blog.

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  6. Maybe this would be something you're interested in:
    http://www.goupstate.com/article/20120121/ARTICLES/120129934/1083/ARTICLES?p=1&tc=pg

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  7. Dog Gone,

    Now that is interesting. I've never been fond of carrots, myself, but the idea of carrots of a different color does strike my fancy, so long as they're not cooked. Give 'em to me raw and wriggling, as Gollum would say.

    By the way, who's BD?

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  8. Dog Gone,

    Regarding your assertion that we're fools for caring about gun rights, what about you? I suspect that you and I have many areas of agreement on the subjects that Moyers, et al. are addressing here. Owning and carrying guns is irrelevant to the fantastically wealthy. They buy security, just as they buy everything else that they want.

    I'm not opposed to anyone having wealth, but I do think that wealth buys too much influence in this country. That is one of the most important problems that threatens our democracy.

    I would appreciate it if you'd notice the times that we agree.

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  9. Greg, I totally agree with Dog Gone on the question of who's obsession is worse. We're all obsessed with guns in one way or another. But you obsession is causing more harm that good, ours is trying to minimize the harm.

    You know it's not true when you make the outlandish claim that guns do more good than harm, but I understand why you must.

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  10. Mikeb wrote: Greg, I totally agree with Dog Gone on the question of who's obsession is worse

    I won't even stipulate to an obsession.

    Guns and gun laws are only one of many topics on which I write. Greg once compared me to the fictional Harry Potter character Hermione. Whatever I do, I try to do fully, to focus effectively.

    In this era of multitasking, which is really just sequentially fragmenting our attention, there is a greater contrast with focused attention.

    As to the carrots - black is the original color. Orange is a mutation developed by the Dutch relatively recently. If you come across references to carrots in any of those manuscripts from your era of interest - they weren't orange. More probably black, or white or purple.

    Cooked carrots don't have to be what you're used to either Greg. They were used as a sweetener in the era pre-cane sugar. Carrot cake is very old, also dating back to your era of interest, where carrots that had ripened and sweetened in storage, in sand, replaced the sugar we use in modern baking.

    If you want to fully appreciate your period of focus, you should understand the full aesthetic - including the food aesthetic.

    Maybe you can use carrot cake to focus the attention of your students on lit. There is a surprising number of ancient, medieval and renaissance cookbooks around. Whatever 'hook' works.... for their attention.

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  11. "We don't write the gun control laws. People like that hag Carolyn "Shoulder-Thing-That-Goes-Up" McCarthy write them."

    Citation required.

    Did she write the bill and see it become law with no alteration? I'm guessing WAY "No.".

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  12. Googled a bit about McCarthy-Lautenberg. It appers that it's not a law, yet (and probably never will be).

    In other news, Gabrielle Giffords announced today that she would be resigning from her congressional job. So, big thanks and HUGS to St. Sarah, the Impalinator of Wasilla--the "crosshairs" thing? it really, Really, REALLY worked out for the Aryanzonans who will now get to appoint a reliably pro-gun reptilican for her unfinished term.

    And let's not forget poor Jared Loughner who languishes in a prison hospital cage (GOD, that must drive poor Greg Camp out of his mind!!) for doing something that a more enlightened country would have applauded.

    When the ballot box failed (or prolly, got ACORN'ed) allowing a GODLESS (if very bluedog) democrat to seize control of the the Tuscon congressional seat, Jared Loughner acted on the advice of Sharon Angle:

    '"You know, our Founding Fathers, they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. And in fact Thomas Jefferson said it's good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years.

    I hope that's not where we're going, but, you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I'll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out."*

    Like the Jeffersonian quote (deliberately used sans context by most gunzloonz) says:

    "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants."

    I know that Giffords was a tyrant (I mean, she IS a democrat) but I'm not so sure about Christina Green. Was she a tyrant or a patriot?



    * Although he took out a nice lady instead of that douchebag, Reid.

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  13. Democommie,

    I realize that you're incapable of avoiding being offensive, but that last comment was particularly bad. Giffords supposedly was a gun rights supporter, but regardless of any of her positions, she wasn't a tyrant. She was one member of a large body of legislators. I don't live in Arizona, so I'm not well-versed in the politics of that state's representatives and can't speak to her position on the left-right spectrum, but it doesn't matter to me in this context.

    With regard to Loughner, may he rot in whatever cell he is put.

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