For Never was a Story of More Woe
“Mr. Bailey, your assault with a rancorous tone upon my person will not stand!”
Leon Cooperman:
Open Letter to the President of the United States of America
From the comment threads to the front page, it’s me Cerberus. See now what your unnatural appetites for more content have wrought? Repent Sadlies, repent!
(Warning, I don’t do shorters, so this will be meaty.)
Now, we here in the liberal community have thought hard about a number of suffering communities in this time of Great Depression II: Electric Boogaloo.
But in our zeal to be inclusive we have forgotten the most hard-done group of all.
That being 1% hedge fund managers who after sleeping on their piles of money and finishing the day’s tasks of paying the police to evict the OWS protestors, have found their lives ruined by the most painful bigotry of all.
That’s right, mild comments of disparagement that maybe collapsing the global community and preventing any positive action to fix it wasn’t the best response after having the government save your rigged Casino from itself.
How could we be so cruel? Let us truly sympathize with the raw pain of this man.
It is with a great sense of disappointment that I write this. Like many others, I hoped that your election would bring a salutary change of direction to the country, despite what more than a few feared was an overly aggressive social agenda.
I expected you to fix our mess and do absolute nothing else socially to distinguish yourself from a right-wing paid shill. How dare you not live up to those standards and occasionally remember that you are the nominally liberal choice?
And I cannot credibly blame you for the economic mess that you inherited,
Well, that’s big of you, seeing as how you and your right-wing stooges in government got us into this mess by-
even if the policy response on your watch has been profligate and largely ineffectual. (You did not, after all, invent TARP.) I understand that when surrounded by cries of “the end of the world as we know it is nigh”, even the strongest of minds may have a tendency to shoot first and aim later in a well-intended effort to stave off the predicted apocalypse.
Ah, not even going to retain that pretense of not being a wingnut for longer than a second.
Also, 1%ers of the world. We’re trying to work our asses off to prevent “shoot first and ask questions later”, but you’re going to have to start recognizing that OWS and Keynesian economics is there to prevent the poor from having no other recourse than breaking into your homes and harvesting your organs for the black market.
But what I can justifiably hold you accountable for is your and your minions’ role in setting the tenor of the rancorous debate now roiling us that smacks of what so many have characterized as “class warfare”.
Well our paid shills characterize it as that. But we paid a lot of shills, so that counts for something, right?
And yeah, if he thinks the current political climate on the left is “rancorous” and unfairly targeting him then he might just want to stop dropping leaflets from the skyscrapers and actually listen for once to what is being said. (Hint: Barack Obama isn’t actually a black panther).
This is a person who thinks a subpar blowjob is a “vile attack to separate his scrotum from his body in what he can only describe as anti-male warfare”.
Whether this reflects your principled belief that the eternal divide between the haves and have-nots is at the root of all the evils that afflict our society or just a cynical, populist appeal to his base by a president struggling in the polls is of little importance. What does matter is that the divisive, polarizing tone of your rhetoric is cleaving a widening gulf, at this point as much visceral as philosophical, between the downtrodden and those best positioned to help them.
LEAVE MR. POTTER ALONE!!! Just because the rich want all the money and have directly blocked attempts to directly aid the poor or otherwise keep them from dying in the Depression the rich caused is no reason for the reaction to them to be anything other than fawningly begging them to “Please Mr. Sky God, make the money and jobs come back”.
Anything less is the real bigotry.
People of differing political persuasions can (and do) reasonably argue about whether, and how high, tax rates should be hiked for upper-income earners
Oh can we? Pretty please can we? With sprinkles on top? We’ve been oh so good Mr. Cooperman.
whether the burdens of paying for the nation’s bloated entitlement programs are being fairly spread around, and whether those programs themselves should be reconfigured in light of current and projected budgetary constraints
Just can’t resist, can you? It’s like some pus-filled zit you just need to pop. There’s still some money in the economy that’s not in your rigged casino and that just offends you to the core.
Anyone who could survey today’s challenging fiscal landscape, with an un- and underemployment rate of nearly 20 percent and roughly 40 percent of the country on public assistance, and not acknowledge an imperative for change is either heartless, brainless, or running for office on a very parochial agenda. And if I end up paying more taxes as a result, so be it. The alternatives are all worse.
Okay, fine, I guess I’m forced to acknowledge that maybe giving us all the money in the world isn’t sustainable, but but, wah BUTTHURT!
But what I do find objectionable is the highly politicized idiom in which this debate is being conducted.
Wah, recognizing our role in the financial crisis is the real hate crime!
Capitalism is not the source of our problems, as an economy or as a society, and capitalists are not the scourge that they are too often made out to be. As a group, we employ many millions of taxpaying people, pay their salaries, provide them with healthcare coverage, start new companies, found new industries, create new products, fill store shelves at Christmas, and keep the wheels of commerce and progress (and indeed of government, by generating the income whose taxation funds it) moving.
Worship us as Gods! Oh, where are those jobs, you say? If we are the guardians of all that is good and pure and no jobs will arise but through us?
Uh, look over there! (click, vroom, squeal)
You might do well at this point to eschew the polarizing vernacular of political militancy and become the transcendent leader you were elected to be. You are likely to be far more effective, and history is likely to treat you far more kindly for it.
Your meek and belated acknowledgement of our role in the financial collapse is the worst thing to ever happen.
Also, why are you so BLACK? I just can’t help but see the ghost of Malcolm X whenever you speak and that’s also your fault.
But yeah, if I had to pick out one flaw Mean Green Leon, it was being so out-of-touch with the outside world that you think Barack Obama (a man so mild-mannered and overly forgiving to his enemies that he’s turned pre-emptive over-compromise into an art form) is the symbol of the angry faces you see outside your window.
I know. In wingnut world, the protests on the streets are bought and paid for astroturfs on behalf of big donors and high-level party members, but here in the real world, Obama is the good cop to OWS’s patient cop.
You don’t want to see bad cop.
FIRST! OMG! GO CERB!
Congrats on your first front-pager, Cerberus. And…ditto, too. How’s that for insightful commentary?
Oh, I left a few mangos on shore if anyone’s feeling intrepid enough to go grab them.
re: tone.
FUCK YOU COOPERMAN! You wanna know who set teh rancourous uncivil tone? Here’s a hint, it’s teh side screaming CLASS WARFARE!
You say you agree with what he’s doing, about raising taxes on the wealthy and cutting loopholes – but your problem is that he hurt your fee fees? FUCK YOU! You acknowledge that it’s teh fucking wealthy shit bags that caused teh mess in teh first place. You fucking acknowledge that the words Obama used to describe you and your blood-sucking ilk are FACTUALLY CORRECT.
You want a more congenial conversation all the while complaining of CLASS WARFARE – which in this case is defined as doing TEH FUCKING THINGS YOU THINK ARE TEH RIGHT THINGS TO DO.
FUCK YOU LEON COOPERMAN.
And holy fucking shit – how can one man be both so un-self-aware and so self-absorbed at teh same fucking time? You’re fucking warning about how history is going to judge? Guess what Mr. Cooperman, you’ve just enshrined your place in teh history books too.
SadlyNo uses CERBERUS! It’s SUPER EFFECTIVE!
I for one welcome our new prolix overlord.
Have to get ready for work in -5 minutes (RUH roh, Pime Taradox) so I’ll digest this later.
YES!!!
EXTREMELY pleased to find Cerberus as one of our new overlords.
Scrolling back up to read the actual text…
As a group, we employ many millions of taxpaying people, pay their salaries, provide them with healthcare coverage, start new companies, found new industries, create new products, fill store shelves at Christmas, and keep the wheels of commerce and progress (and indeed of government, by generating the income whose taxation funds it) moving.
“As a group,” you also cause recessions and depressions with an alarming regularity, in direct contrast to the 1932-1980 Keynesian model, in which the only economic crises were 1) the one caused by your policies prior to that era and eventually overcome through massive Keynesian spending, and 2) the one caused by an Arab oil embargo.
Huh, lookit that, an economic model that doesn’t fly itself right off a cliff every couple decades. Puts an interesting twist on your claim to be the best at “keeping the wheels of commerce and progress going…”
Delurking to say congrats to Cerberus….but it was always evident in your comments that you have a pretty formidable thought process. Good on ya!
You might do well at this point to eschew the polarizing vernacular of political militancy and become the transcendent leader you were elected to be. You are likely to be far more effective, and history is likely to treat you far more kindly for it.
I’m reminded of the fate of the Muslim American community, which “as a group” spent the entire decade after 9/11 screaming themselves hoarse denouncing al-Qaeda, only to be told again and again “you need to denounce al-Qaeda or we won’t know that you’re not just like them” by the freaks and mouth-breathers in the conservative base. Same principle here.
I suspect Obama will continue to “eschew the polarizing vernacular of political militancy” (JESUS… who TALKS like that?) and go for the “transcendent leader” prize, and I suspect that gasbags like this dude will continue to tsk tsk him for not doing what he is in fact doing right now.
Upward mobility is alive and well at Sadly, No!! Bravo!!
The sadliest thing of all?
Obama and company are licking the 1%’s asscracks as vigorously as they can. It’s not like Holder and company have brought anyone to justice…on the contrary, they’re doing everything they can to prevent state A.G.’s from trying to do something.
~
Also, Prolix Overlords= great name for a supergroup.
Dylan, Springsteen, let’s see, who else…………………
NOICE.
[polite applause]
.
“eschew the polarizing vernacular of political militancy” (JESUS… who TALKS like that?)
“I am the spirit of Buckleys Past!!”
About flippin’ time Cerb got to shine (congrats!).
But yeah, the great urban philosopher Chris Rock summed this up well: people with the least shit get to talk the most shit; if you have all the shit you can’t talk shit. But if you want to talk some shit, get rid of some of your shit!*
* “shit,” of course, being a substitute for “money, stock and/or material possessions.” But using the actual word “shit” seems to resonate more, no?
Good to see Cerberus in front of house, now. Well done, that three headed dog!
Cleaving the widening gap
Let me add a hearty welcome to Cerberus as well. With an extra hand on board, that gives me more time to hose out the troll poop, write some longer posts and keep the
PhotoshopT-shop machine running.A guy with a net worth of over $1 billion is opposed to class warfare. Who could’ve imagined…
Cerberus gets to sit at the grown-up’s table!
Congrats on the promotion, Cerb. This is what meritocracy looks like.
Now, onto the POOP: The phrase “dripping with self-entitlement” has never been more appropriate. This is the essay of a man who was express-laned into the most exclusive kindergarten in Manhattan and has never had to struggle or scrimp since then. It’s like he thinks he’s the boss calling in the middle manager for a performance review, and I’m sure that’s exactly what he thinks he is.
Open Letter to Leon Cooperman: Scared? You should be. No one’s made a billion dollars on Wall Street without committing all manner of crimes, and now that there’s the vaguest hint of a reckoning, you’re shitting yourself over it. I notice that in your letter, you’ve provided no documentation of Obama or his “minions” stoking the flames of the protests, or even offering any statements whatsoever, really. That should clue you in that the anger is genuine and populist. If you were a bit smarter, you’d be going to the White House and asking how they can get you out of this mess. If I were the president and you approached, I’d wring you dry and see if I could get you into prison, so you should be thankful that we’ve got a nice guy like Obama in there. Of course, you’re too much of an entitled git to do that, seeing as how you think the president’s job is to give you the warm fuzzies about being a crooked billionaire. So I imagine you’ll continue on with haughty, tone-deaf crap like this. I’d say I wish you luck, but I don’t. I really don’t.
Cerberus, congrats on a well-deserved place on the front page. Nice to see a local girl do well.
This sums it up. The 1%ers, the Republicans in congress, the NYTimes douchebags. They want to buttfuck Obama and not in the nice way and they want him to like them, and their feelings get all hurt if he lays some mild criticism on them.
It’s unbelievable.
Awesome Cerberus! I’m glad Tintin gave you a set of keys.
BRAVO!!!BRAVO!!!Epic rant
As a group, we employ many millions of taxpaying people, pay their salaries, provide them with healthcare coverage, start new companies, found new industries, create new products, fill store shelves at Christmas, and keep the wheels of commerce and progress (and indeed of government, by generating the income whose taxation funds it) moving.
Of course, they don’t do any of these things out of the goodness of their hearts, they do them because they have to do them to make more money. Shit, Leon, we don’t owe you a goddamn thing.
*Sniffl*
They grow up so fast.
Congrats on teh executive washroom key, Cerbs.
Oh,
And fuck Leon Cooperman with a red hot, barbed Garden Weasel. Sideways.
Well done, that three headed dog!
50 heads according to Hesiod, which means even MOAR productivity.
As a group, we employ many millions of taxpaying people, pay their salaries, provide them with healthcare coverage, start new companies, found new industries, create new products, fill store shelves at Christmas, and keep the wheels of commerce and progress (and indeed of government, by generating the income whose taxation funds it) moving.
Makes one wonder how the world survived so long, accomplishing all these activities, without a caste of super-rich.
How’s the Going Galt?
Delurking to say Congrats to Cerberus. Your assiduous plucking of the mangoes has borne fruit and front page stardom. Way to go, grrl.
As usual, a fine evisceration of this slime- and dollar-stuffed fool.
50 heads according to Hesiod, which means even MOAR productivity.
Only 5 heads, according to some guy named Wolfe.
And those stock brokers and hedge fundies DESERVE to keep what they KIILLL!!!
Cerebus,
fantastic, about time you promoted to the champagne room at Sadly No!
(and previous apologies for identifying you as a bloke, no sexism intended!!)
In my experience, the cries of “class warfare” die down as you barbecue a haunch from one of them.
Congrats, Cerb.
I’ve never barbecued a haunch of class warfare.
Then you’ve got a treat waiting for you.
You can really taste the misplaced indignance!
You might do well at this point to eschew the polarizing vernacular of political militancy and become the transcendent leader you were elected to be.
What we’re really trying to say is that we’d be much happier with you being a one-term president.
This guy sounds like exactly the flavor of butthurt that caused Gil Amelio to suddenly wonder why he was out of a job at apple.
My in-laws have owned several Labs, and I find that bred of dog fascinating. They’re friendly and reasonably intelligent, but they are never sated. They will eat themselves sick unless their humans stop them. The banksters are not dissimilar.
What? But I was just about to turn it around! Why y’all so upset?
The banksters are not dissimilar.
Nah, they’re not friendly and reasonably intelligent!
They sometimes try to appear friendly and reasonably intelligent.
This sums it up. The 1%ers, the Republicans in congress, the NYTimes douchebags. They want to buttfuck Obama and not in the nice way and they want him to like them, and their feelings get all hurt if he lays some mild criticism on them. It’s unbelievable.
No, not if you watched the aftermath of the Iraq War, where they actually, honestly and sincerely expected all their victims to get right up and thank them, and were actually, honestly and sincerely insulted and indignant when they didn’t (see all the stuff that’s been written about Iraqi “ingratitude” or how, as one of the PJM guys put it, “we fight for the freedom of a people who have not yet earned it.”) Which was even more surreal by light-years than what they’re doing with Obama now.
They want to be assholes, and they want to be loved and revered for being assholes.
They want to be assholes, and they want to be loved and revered for being assholes.
They’re really, really tough guys!!
Cerberus writing at Sadlyno!! Cerberus writing at Sadlyno!! Making fun of wingnuts is getting to be pretty serious business, because it needs to be.
For a guy who talks about class warfare he sure uses a lot of high falutin words.
Congratulations, Cerb!
I understand that when surrounded by cries of “the end of the world as we know it is nigh”, even the strongest of minds may have a tendency to shoot first and aim later in a well-intended effort to stave off the predicted apocalypse.
These were the guys crying about the end of the world(remember?), purposefully pushing that panicky feeling specifically to guarantee there would be no oversight or regulation in the bailout, as there would have been if Congress had actually considered the issues. I know this because it was covered at the time, but also because I wrote my congressman and senators to go slow and do it right and they actually wrote me back and told me why they were rushing.
As a group, we employ many millions of taxpaying people, pay their salaries, provide them with healthcare coverage, start new companies, found new industries, create new products, fill store shelves at Christmas, and keep the wheels of commerce and progress (and indeed of government, by generating the income whose taxation funds it) moving.
So none of these things existed before you, eh? BULLSHIT. And come on, paying salaries is not fucking charity, it is paying what you owe to people who fucking EARNED it, asshole. Or, be honest, paying somewhat less than the actual value of the labor so you can maximize your profit.
Job creator!
It’s not enough that these folks don’t know what it’s like to worry about paying rent or cleaning the house or taking out the trash or paying for medical bills or any of the 1000 little (and huge) things 99% percent of us have to worry about. It’s not enough they get to live lives that most people couldn’t even fathom living, lives unbelievable privilege and luxury…no, no. They demand that we love them too. While we spin our wheels. It just makes me hate them all the more. And I’m not even doing so poorly.
BTW, Americans are more productive than ever, profits for big business are larger than ever, yet wages for middle class Americans are stagnant. Where’s the money going?
“Don’t want to see the bad cop.” ??
Oh man, I don’t know. I try to live and think non-violence. But sometimes I would like to see bad cop. Pepper spray some dirivative traders as they come off the trading floor. Some of the banker bosses raking it in Casinoland. Dick Cheney.
Those toilets aren’t going to gild themselves.
Welcome, my new free content bitch! Now make me laugh!
🙂 But really–congrats.
Job creator!
…even the strongest of minds may have a tendency to shoot first and aim later in a well-intended effort to stave off the predicted apocalypse.
Gordon fucking Gekko lecturing the POTUS. Gods, my headache just got worse.
Listen, Scrooge McDuck, the only surprising thing is that people like me haven’t started stringing people like you up by your entrails… yet.
CERBERUS! Hosannah, hooray and huzzah! Tintin has done yeoman’s work keeping this humble blog alive, but we have sorely needed your rapier-like wit and verbosity at the front door, to breathe new life into the old girl, and maybe even bring in some new traffic. Welcome!. Now if only some of our other Sadlords could be coaxed back out of lurkerdom…
Totally off subject, but I drove to Verdun and toured the WWI battlefield today. I found it very moving so I felt the need to write about it.
I don’t think many Americans go there, as we don’t study WWI very much.
Verdun is “sacred” to the French the way Normandy is to us, and being a bit of a Francophile I wanted to see it.
I also wanted to see the height of human folly on display and I wasn’t disappointed.
By some estimates there were 1.2 million casualties in a battle of little strategic importance. By the time it was all over the lines had barely moved and both sides had bled themselves dry.
I expected to be saddened, and I was, but I also found it to be very peaceful and serene. Hardly anyone was there since it’s the off-season. They’ve left it mostly undisturbed since 1918.
I was the only person at the cemetery. I looked out on the rows upon rows of French graves lined up in front of the Ossuary at Douaumont. So many I couldn’t even estimate the number.
http://www.webmatters.net/france/ww1_verdun_ossuaire.htm
I turned and saluted.
CERB MADE THE FRONT PAGE!
Congratulations! Well done!
Holy shit:
Out the door in a sec, read some of common taters, not all.
But: Cerb, YAY!
Actually, I don’t think Verdun is off topic at all. It’s the logical result of an aristocracy that thinks it’s the only important group and that the 99% are there to serve as virtual cannon fodder to forward the aristocracy’s ends.
The only unusual thing about Verdun and in a larger sense, WWI, is the ruthless efficiency by which the masses were cut down. Outsourcing and denial of health care is only slow and inefficient by comparison.
Congrats to Cerberus on a well deserved promotion!
As for Monty Burns up there I would suggest he invest in better security and pay them well lest they join the mob who will come to roast him on a spit.
Congrat, Cerebus!
If the SOBs are sleeping on their money, I hope to hell it’s in coins.
Re: Verdun – 130,000 dead out of one fucking battle and the wingnuts have the fucking temerity to call these people “cheese-eating surrender monkeys”.
Yeah, the French surrendered in WWII.
They fucking surrendered in part because ALL THEIR SOLDIERS WERE FUCKING DEAD due to shit like Verdun and Chateau-Thierry and the Somme. An entire generation took a dirt nap for nothing.
If you’ve never seen it, I recommend highly the film “Oh! What A Lovely War!”, especially the song towards the beginning by the Belgian commander.
Mirable dictu, the magic of YouTube works again:
Fuck SOPA with a rusty billhook.
Bout fucking time Cerbs!
Perhaps vs would be kind enough to google the billionaire entrepreneur and venture capitalist who, in an oped at Bloomberg, said “I never created a single job.” it’s a wonderful tonic to counter the bile in your throat after readin Cooperman.
Given that we can’t get a lot of people in the US to learn the lessons of our civil war on its 150th anniversary, what are the odds we could get them to pay attention to a battle they don’t know in a country they don’t respect?
Awesome! Congrats on the new gig!
Yay Cerb! Here’s to no more (or at least a lot fewer) “shorters”.
Whenever someone claims to speak for “small business job creators” bet the rent they represent big business. Funny how the Republicans haven’t been able to locate ANY small business owners who back up their claims.
And Cooperman? FUCK YOU. I grew up in England, learning about the history of what my country’s aristocrats have done throughout the ages, and the only conclusion I can reach is that for the 1%, it’s all class warfare, all the time. And the 1% are the aggressors. Take everything, laugh at the peasants starving in the street, and act surprised and butthurt when they rise up and complain? Oh, you naive, naive US one-percenters. Take a lesson from history and stop before the fishwives storm Versailles.
oooh, reading Cerberus mango-hunts as top-page. Christmas comes early (which is why New Years is always unsatisfied).
Inspired by Mr. Cooperman, I can see I need to dust off the unfinished plans for the Wingnut Processor. Modify it to be a combo wingnut/bankster processor.
Perhaps over the entry I can have a nice sign “Galt’s Gulch this way” with audio of cheers and applause so their fee-fees are properly massaged as they enter.
Also:
a vile attack to separate his scrotum from his body
…will be incorporated into the Processor post-haste. I just can’t decide whether it should be done by pulling, twisting, or shearing.
They seem bound and determined to replace the system that beat Communism with the one that spawned it.
The weirdest thing about the Cooperman letter is just as he’s complaining Obama’s not all bad, it’s just O’s tone that irks, not all of Cooperman’s ideas are bad, it’s the whiny-ass “boohoo poor little us” tone dripping from every word that makes one want to introduce him to the cockpunch. It’s like the guy can’t even project without holding up a big “LOOKIT ME PROJECTING HERE!” sign.
Major Kong said,
December 10, 2011 at 20:14
They seem bound and determined to replace the system that beat Communism with the one that spawned it.
It’s the Marxian Human Oroborouspede!
Oh, you naive, naive US one-percenters. Take a lesson from history and stop before the fishwives storm Versailles.
OMFG VIOLENT LEFTIES! *clutches pearls, swoons*
Look, I really don’t mind if some people get dirty filthy stinking rich, but at some point you’ve got to say “Enough’s enough. Spread some of that around already.”
What can you buy with $40 billion that you can’t buy with $20 billion?
What can you buy with $40 billion that you can’t buy with $20 billion?
A pro-business majority in the Congress?
No no no:
What would those six do without that money? Why they might have to work at Wal-Mart.
What can you buy with $40 billion that you can’t buy with $20 billion?
The ability to RUB IT IN THE NOSE of those upstart $30 billion nouveaux riche.
Splitters.
Verdun? Totally on-toopic, as is WWI. Because of the glory-seeking of the aristocratic generals, men died in huge numbers after the armistice was agreed on. Up until 11am November 11th, 1918, even though everyone knew the war was over, the assholes were sending their men to die because they thought it “looked good”.
Congress launched an investigation into the American generals, but covered it up, because they decided it would be a “blot” on their resumes.
Fucking assholes.
I just can’t decide whether it should be done by pulling, twisting, or shearing.
Why choose?
What can you buy with $40 billion that you can’t buy with $20 billion?
TWO countries!
What does matter is that the divisive, polarizing tone of your rhetoric is cleaving a widening gulf, at this point as much visceral as philosophical, between the downtrodden and those best positioned to help them.
Allow me to provide the shorter:
“We caused this fiasco. We haven’t done dick-all to make things better. Now I shall make a veiled threat to continue doing nothing unless you change your attitude.”
Recognizing, of course, that he intends to keep doing nothing regardless. You, Mr. Cooperman, are a slime bucket.
Found it. Must read.
What would those six do without that money? Why they might have to work at Wal-Mart.
It would serve ’em right.
Like those slumlords sentenced to live in their own shitty condemned properties.
As a group, we employ many millions of taxpaying people, pay
their salariesthem as little as we can legally get away with paying them, provide them with healthcare coverage when we can’t find a way to get out of it, start new companies overseas, where wages are minimal and environmental regulations are non-existent, found new industries designed to hoover even more money out of your pockets and into our own,createsteal, whenever possible, the intellectual property from which new products arise, fill store shelves at Christmas with shoddily-constructed imported crap made by slave labor overseas, and keep the wheels of commerce and progress (and indeed of government, bygenerating the income whose taxation funds itbuying elected officials) moving.Whew. That required a lot of fixxoring.
This is what gets me about the “we provide JOBS!” bullshit. It’s like they expect us to THANK them for making them rich through our labor.
tigris @16:49
So none of these things existed before you, eh? BULLSHIT. And come on, paying salaries is not fucking charity, it is paying what you owe to people who fucking EARNED it, asshole. Or, be honest, paying somewhat less than the actual value of the labor so you can maximize your profit.
Yeah, I didn’t get into that on the main post, but it is amazing that these fuckers really truly desperately believe that underpaying people for their hard labor keeping the fucking rich bastich employed and rolling in cash is somehow a gift to the American people.
Especially when you combine it with the understaffing, deliberate killing of competition and killing of potential new industries because “it’s too risky to profit this quarter”.
So yeah, they want to be thanked as if they were the only thing keeping the economy going when they are stealing from the labor, overworking the labor without fairly compensating the increase in effort, refusing to hire additional labor to ensure quality of product, and so on, activities that are the exact opposite of “charitable”.
And it’s even worse when it’s a hedge fund manager trying to talk about how central they are to the economy. Yeah, you spend all day trying to find ways to short other less savvy investors to maximize the profit you suck from other companies, the economy, and so on.
And you’ve been fighting to get more and more actual hard-working middle class types to have their pensions and benefits thrown into the casino just to have a strong pool of people with no control over their investments and no means of competing against the people who make it their job.
So yeah, stealing the money from people who earned it, from other people who stole their money from them and “producing” a means to enrich yourself with all the “hard work” it takes to outwit the market equivalent of baby seals.
I’m reminded of puffer fish who temporarily make themselves look big and powerful to try and scare off the fish thinking of eating them.
No, no, I’m central to the economy, you don’t want to go after me, I’ll make all the jobs disappear, oh god, one of them touched me!
Here’s a painting of Verdun at night, made by an eyewitness. They’re easy to miss since they’re covered in mud and blend in with the background, but there is a small group of French soldiers wearing gasmasks crouching in the flooded shellhole in the foreground.
It’s like they expect us to THANK them for making them rich through our labor.
Sadly, yes.
Pere Ubu @19:29
Yeah, the French surrendered in WWII.
They fucking surrendered in part because ALL THEIR SOLDIERS WERE FUCKING DEAD due to shit like Verdun and Chateau-Thierry and the Somme. An entire generation took a dirt nap for nothing.
Also lost to history, that the French didn’t surrender, but rather the conservatives in French surrendered and worked strongly with the German government, and all those “liberal pansies” in France creating possibly the most effective Resistance forces on the European continent (not that countries like Denmark were slouching), essentially opening up the Western Front when the British and the US felt like finally trying out the mainland.
And Resistance members like most “non-combatant combatants” didn’t get a trip to the prisoner of war camps. They got bullets in the head if they were lucky and a burned home village if they weren’t.
Fuck, if every nation was as “cowardly” as the French, then maybe we would actually think twice before starting wars.
Long time (mostly) lurker. Grats on FP status Cerb. I love me your epic rants.
Because of the glory-seeking of the aristocratic generals, men died in huge numbers after the armistice was agreed on.
Obligatory.
Oh, if anyone ever encounters some egregious Mitt Romney headpalmery, please link it in the comments when it arises. I’ve got an idea for an illustrating picture that I’d hate to go to waste.
No disrespect to the French, but partisans in Yugoslavia, Greece, and the Soviet Union would have begged to differ.
But that brings up another point that modern mainstream histories find awkward – most of the really effective resistance groups in WWII were communist.
It’s like they expect us to THANK them for making them rich through our labor.
They also see A Christmas Carol as a tale of tragedy.
Why choose?
You’re right. It will be a more complex piece of machinery, but sometimes you just gotta do it right.
All that time I spend mentoring a FIRST team is going to pay off now!
What would those six do without that money? Why they might have to work at Wal-Mart.
I wonder if there’s enough stuff in a Wal-Mart to build a guillotine with.
A Walmart guillotine is only complete when it has a smiley face on the blade.
If you find a guillotine for a lower price at a competitor, Wal-Mart will refund the difference.
I wonder if there’s enough stuff in a Wal-Mart to build a guillotine with.
“Watch Out for Falling Faces!”
LOL!
I wonder if there’s enough stuff in a Wal-Mart to build a guillotine with.
Best reality-TV show EVAH.
The 1%ers like to complain that the poor just don’t know the value of hard work. While the 1% know exactly the value of hard work, and for poor poeple they figure it to be about $0.50 an hour.
Cooperman may be a plutocratic knucklehead, but I do like that neo-Victorian prose style: “polarizing vernacular” – “the tenor of the rancorous debate now roiling us” – “as deplorable as it is seemingly ineluctable.” Whoo-doggy, those are some damn fine ten-dollar phrases.
He is a 1%er ergo he is BEE RILL YANT ergo he deserves his billions.
Inuit speak a polarizing vernacular. I hear they have twenty words for snow and thirty for rich asshole.
Your whole blog is written in a polarizing vernacular.
pulling, twisting, or shearing.
Why not all three? In sequence!
I don’t think many Americans go there, as we don’t study WWI very much.
Srsly. I watched “All is Quiet on the Western Front” for the first time, and was shocked by how amazing the battle scenes were. They were just as grueling as any you see in contemporary films. The horror of trench warfare in particular was so vivid that it made me think that a lot of the horrible weapons we used in WW II were attempts to not put anyone through that again.
Also, every anti-war message you ever heard is in that film.
Sad. Greek tragedy sad.
…even though the film was made in 1930. thought it, didn’t type it…
vacuumslayertse said,
December 10, 2011 at 22:46
Your whole blog is written in a polarizing vernacular.
It’s not my fault you don’t wear polarized safety goggles when reading.
Whoo-doggy, those are some damn fine ten-dollar phrases.
When you are worth over a billion dollars you can afford those kind of phrases. The rest of us have to make do with whatever phrases we can scrape from the gutters and garbage dumps. Unfortunately that leaves us mostly with polorizing, rancorous, deplorable and seemingly ineluctable phrases like, “FUCK YOU Cooperman!”
I don’t think many Americans go there, as we don’t study WWI very much.
I can’t speak for others, but one reason I don’t pay much attention to WWI is that it was such a pointless, tragic horror that thinking about it is painful. It was fought for the stupidest of reasons and accomplished nothing but the most horrific slaughter. It had to be refought two decades later.
The appeal of WWII is that of a movie-clear morality tale. The bad guys were so evil, and they were defeated so decisively, that it leads at least to a sense of satisfaction. The danger is when our leaders start thinking that WWII is the only historical model worth paying attention to.
Oh, and Cerb…late to the party, but kudos on your debut.
In the UK there is a saying that patriotism died on The Somme. On the first day we had 60,000 casualties. I still find it hard to get my head around that number.
“FUCK YOU Cooperman
Sometimes when you find a bargain, it feels so satisfying.
speaking of WWI – I really like this scene from Blackadder
I like the slow motion and the transition at the end.
Oh, they were just exactly that. Everything about the development of weapons and military strategy in the interwar years has to be viewed through that lens—the absolute determination to find a way around that kind of quagmire.
Also, I’ve been wondering since this morning, but I’m stumped, so I’m just going to ask: What’s the significance of replacing Lionel Barrymore with Shelley Berman?
Pepper spray some dirivative traders as they come off the trading floor.
I’m thinking armor-piercing RPG on a parked car with no one in it in an executive parking space.
That would make a statement.
My grandfather was a doughboy in WWI and was gassed. He can be seen in pics in a Collier’s magazine article about wounded recuperating in Paris. His b’day was also 11/11 which I found interesting. He had quite a few pictures from the war that I think one of my brother’s has. I am going to try to get a hold of them because I remember them being interesting. He never talked about his experiences so I’m not sure where he served other than somewhere in France.
Great movie. The patriotic high school teacher who gleefully manipulates his students into volunteering to go off to war is one of the slimiest shits in movie history.
Same with my grandfather’s brother. Mustard gas. Fatal in his case.
My mother can’t even watch specials on WWI. A few years ago, when they were “memorializing” the 100th anniversary of the Somme, she refused to turn on the TV at all. She was born in 1923, and knew of a lot of relatives who went to war and never came back. What with that and living through WWII, it turned her into a liberal bleeding heart socialist feminist (she’s awesome, what can I say?). The US chickenhawks (and, I assume, the UK ones, but I live in the US now, so…) all seem to have taken the opposite message; war is all about glory and honour and the little guys dying while they pile on the medals.
Yuck.
Oh, if any of y’all are ever in London, do take in the Imperial War Museum; they’ve got an awesome permanent exhibit called “The Trench Experience”, where you walk through a reconstructed trench, then through a gallery of propaganda materials (mostly British). It’s full sensurround, too – smells terrible!
(Uh, also, personal exhibit whoring: While you’re there, check out the exhibit on WWII Merchant Marines. My father got interested in the MM, and a particular story about MMs adrift in a lifeboat, and got the boat back from the US and into the museum, and was instrumental in getting that little part of the exhibit off the ground. It also inspired his raft trip across the Atlantic last year. Really cool.) And I’m done whoring my relatives.
My great uncle told us of marching along, hungry as hell and spotting a potato in the mud, half covered in horse shit. Yep, he ate it after brushing off as much muck as he could.
Tee-hee: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/12/09/385989/republicans-job-creators-taxes/
That’s pretty funny. But Repubs never let things like “facts” get in the way of their message.
OT: Teh War on Christmas continues
Oh…and a belated gratz to Cerberus. It’s nice having new blood up top.
VS –
The comments at your link are doubleplusungood.
I LOLded when I heard that segment on NPR.
Youre a goddamn dirty liar. I read at Pharyngula that they are suicide-inducing. I’m afeart. Can you bring one back?
What was Jesus’ stance on protected sex anyway?
Bold new tactics in defense of Christmas:
Wow, coming together! Ya gotta give these wingnuts credit – orchestrating mass synchronized ejaculations is a truly innovative form of public protest.
She was born in 1923 – my dad was also born in ’23 and my mom in ’24. My mom/dad/grandparent generation’s were all about not saying anything. My dad’s mother was in a wheelchair and no one in my generation knows why (my brother thinks polio). When my mother was diagnosed with cancer, they didn’t bother to tell the kids that she was given two years. I think I would have more emotionally prepared if I had known (I was 20 when she died). I don’t know if it was an effect of the war, of living through the depression or cultural heritage (dad’s side – 2nd generation german or mom’s side – 2nd generation italian)
Yes, clearly a direct attack on Christianity.
“Do not learn the ways of the nations . . . For the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut a tree out of the forest, and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel. 4 They adorn it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so it will not totter.” – Jeremiah 10:2-4
Well, now, there’s a surprise…
You gotta love Christians getting all upset over the defilement of a holy pagan symbol.
But, but…JESUS!!!!
Hooray for Cerb! Of course we don’t study WW I in the US. It is a shining example of what unchecked imperialism and nationalism results in. It is an object lesson that the one percent are desperate for the rest of us not to learn.
I don’t know if it was an effect of the war, of living through the depression or cultural heritage (dad’s side – 2nd generation german or mom’s side – 2nd generation italian)
Bit of everything, I would think. My mother’s parents were teetering on the edge of the aristocracy in England, British through and through*, and the whole family is also taciturn to the point of madness. It’s taken years for me to slowly chisel pieces of information about the past out of them.
*Racist, imperialist, etc. Charming bunch of fuckers. No wonder my mother went socialist.
June, 1957, Ichawaynochaway Creek
Three boys are holding cane poles over a fallen tulip poplar still covered in summer leaves. Beside them is a #10 can of doughballs and two stiff carp.
-County, your paw said we could stay till dark.
-Yeah, but he ain’t heard ’bout that ‘scaped convict from over in Terrell county.
-Ain’t no convict gonna make it this far, ‘sides, they’s three of us and he’s just one scared as shit convict.
-Scared is worse Doody. Scared means he’ll do anythang.
-I ain’t staying till night time. Y’alls crazy for even arguing ’bout it. My cousin Big Walt’s over in Albany and mama says it’s real bad.
-You been over there Walter?
-Naw. Mama went with Sharon once and she said it upset her too much and she weren’t going back no matter if they’s kin or not.
-Shit, Half, y’all got some real mean blood in y’alls family.
-It ain’t that County, it’s just that whenever we leave the house trouble’s just waiting for us. That’s what mama says.
-Well, that shore as shit means we’re getting out of here afore dark.
-Chicken.
-Chicken.
_Y’all can kiss my chicken ass. And y’all can keep them doughballs too. They ain’t no good noway. Two stinky carp ain’t shit.
-Shush Walt. Listen. Y’all hear that? Hear that?
-You just trying to scare us Doody. It’s just the water.
-Like hell. I heard something. It sounded like someone moving in that thicket over yonder way.
-Shut up Doody. Let’s get the hell out of here now.
-Goddamn y’all! I seen him! It’s the convict!
-Oh god, he’s done seen us. We got to run now!
At this point all three boys try to climb the slippery bank but only manage to slide down knee deep into the current, grabbing at each other for a foot hold and tangling themselves in fish line.
-Whoa there boys! What the fuck y’all doing? Fishing or swimming? You there, the big ‘un, come over here.
-You mean me?
-You the big ‘un ain’t you?
-Yessir, I guess so.
-What’s your name boy?
-Walter, Half Walter.
-Half? Half of goddamn what?
-It were a mistake when they give me my name.
-No shit. Hey, you little tadpoles sit y’alls asses down in that creek and shutup. Now, Half-ass, what you got in your pockets?
-Not much sir, just two nickles and this here candy.
-Give ’em here. How ’bout you two, what y’all got?
-I got a dollar mister and a piece of ham I ain’t ate.
-Hand ’em over. How ’bout you boy, what you got?
-I just got this here barlow knife and some hooks.
-Give me the knife boy. You can keep them goddamn hooks.
-Can we go now mister?
-Naw you can’t go now. I’ll tell you what you can do. Shit. I’m a good mind to drown y’alls asses right now.
-Oh god, please don’t drown us mister. We ain’t gonna say nothing. Half’s cousin’s a convict too.
-No shit. That right Half-ass, your cousin’s a convict?
-Yessir. Over at Albany.
-Goddamn. I did some time over at Albany. What’s his name?
-Big Walter.
-Shit boy, what the hell is it with the Walter naming in y’alls family? Your mama name Walter too? Wait a sec. He’s a big ‘un like you?
-Yessir. All us Simpsons is big. My sister Gladys is the biggest.
-I’ll be goddamned. Look what praying done for me. Goddamn. Big Walter is the dumbest sombitch I know, but he helped me plenty.
-That mean we can go mister?
-Yeah, what the hell. I ain’t gonna drown y’all. Say, where’s this creek go?
-If you stay with it, it’ll carry you all the way to the Flint.
-Y’all be some good boys and don’t say nothin ’bout seeing me, okay? At least not till tomorrow.
-That’s fine mister. We ain’t gonna tell nobody. We appreciate you not drowning us and all.
Two hours later, under a full summer moon, three laughing boys climbed the steps into the kitchen of the Simpson home on State Rd 216.
It’s time to spoil you bastiches rotten, new post!
You gotta love Christians getting all upset over the defilement of a holy pagan symbol.
You’ll like this slacktivist piece, then.
Mango from VS thread:
The United States of America has been set aside by GOD for the WHITE Christians of this world who wish to be FREE to OBEY God’s LAWS! Do you think that he is going to let you put a CONDOM TREE in your town square with impunity? Shouldn’t you KNOW BETTER by now? Shouldn’t you be able sto see the TRUTH with YOUR own EYES by now? WAKE UP!
Pigpen
At least this one’s honest.
This the part they never understand: they are free to do this. They can adorn each room they have with tasteful paintings of blonde Jesus on black velvet. They can pray loudly each hour. They can go to church 8 days a week. THEY ARE FREE TO DO ALL THESE THINGS.
It’s the fact that I won’t also do these things that somehow makes them less free. *sigh*