Shameless AlterNet self promotion
Hey dudes, please check out my latest AlterNet piece on how to win the long-term battle for financial reform.
Basically, it boils down to this: The Democrats are very unlikely to do anything significant to rein in the banksters and it will likely take another financial crash before we actually get around to doing anything about it. Cheery, I know.
But the good news is that we now have an opportunity to engage in more long-term messaging strategy so that when the next crash comes we can say, “We tried to warn you, dumbasses.” Excerpt:
Happily for us, Wall Street is the best ready-made villain this side of Skeletor. Think about it: Most of these guys have spent decades telling the federal government to butt out of their business and have successfully lobbied Washington to deregulate their industry through such odious legislation as the Commodity Futures Modernization Act that helped blur the lines between commercial and investment banking. And yet, when these clowns got themselves into trouble and wrecked our economy in the process, what was the first thing they did? That’s right, they went running to the government to bail them out.
Admittedly, Skeletor-izing the bankers will get some pushback from the mainstream press, which never misses an opportunity to suck up to the rich and powerful. David Gregory’s interview with Tim Geithner was a classic example of this phenomenon, with Gregory practically begging Geithner to denounce executive compensation limits for bailed-out banks. Don’t believe me? Take a look at some of the questions Gregory asked:
– “By capping the pay that executives get at those largest firms that got bailout money, how does that further the goal of paying the taxpayer back?”
– “But what if the people who are capable of stabilizing these companies and becoming profitable again leave, undermining the effort for these firms to pay the government back?”
-“You don’t see an exodus at these seven firms?”
-“Do you think a company like AIG, would you like to see it prosper, make a lot of money again and be successful?”
Punchy progressive messaging can easily shut this line of questioning down. A halfway competent progressive advocate would have simply responded to David Gregory’s questions by giving him a funny look and saying, “Uh, dude? Why do you care if we hurt Skeletor’s feelings?”
Please do check it out, especially since I’m suffering from a particularly nasty case of food poisoning. Getting some extra pageviews from you guys would totally make my day!
Well…because you asked nicely before you threw up all over my keyboard…
But you know…a linky dinky doo would help.
Link added. Thanks for letting me know 🙂
I like the Skeltor comparison. Now how do we get Prince Adam and Cringer to fucking say the god damn words, turn into He-Man and BattleCat and kick some ass?
But S,N! has trained me not to click on links. With the boats and the mangoes and such.
I read the whole thing and there was even one reference to either PENIS or POOP. WTF?
Seriously, though, nice piece.
The only thing I’d add is that points 2 and 3 address a common tic in the current incarnation of Liberal/Progressive/Dem politics that consistently makes me want to punch a nun: thinking that having a rational, reality-based policy is (or should be) enough to win the argument. Yep, it’s true, demagogues use emotional appeals and truthiness to perpetrate all kinds of horseshit, but that does not mean that emotional, folk-wisdomy messages shouldn’t be used to sell rational factually-grounded policies.
Frank Luntz is in unalloyed cobag but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use his weapons against him and pretending to be “above all that” greatly diminishes out ability to persuade.
Frank Luntz is in unalloyed cobag but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use his weapons against him and pretending to be “above all that” greatly diminishes out ability to persuade.
Actually, Frank Luntz is OK with that
With the boats and the mangoes and such.
This is the director’s cut, and we’re not at the mango grove with the tigers, this is the playboy bunny camp. Coked up lonely playmates await those who leave the boat at this stop.
I’m suffering from a particularly nasty case of food poisoning.
Rotten mangoes, most likely.
Coked up lonely playmates await those who leave the boat at this stop.
I had to read that twice. I thought it said “primates”.
I’ve got Arnold on my mind, it seems.
By the way, if you haven’t been keeping up, Arnold had Amazon.com take down all the negative reviews of her book, save one.
So I reposted.
Coked up lonely playmates await those who leave the boat at this stop.
I had to read that twice. I thought it said “primates”.
Coked-up lonely primates would be entertaining, I suppose, just not in the same way. Hopefully.
Coked-up lonely primates would be entertaining, I suppose, just not in the same way.
It depends on whether or not they are wearing the proto-Village-People costumes from the movie.
I dunno. I prefer my playmates doped with Roofies. Not sure about the “coked up” part.
Maybe I misunderstood that part of the movie. Only saw the director’s cut once. The girls were all fucked up on something. Was it supposed to be acid maybe?
Coked-up lonely primate
Isn’t the word “bankster” traditionally used by those who think the world is run by a cabal of evil Jewish bankers? If so it’s an unfortunate choice of word.
I prefer my playmates doped with Roofies.
Coked up implies more action on their part, instead of being (ooh, I’m gonna get IN TROUBLE…) mere zombies.
I’ve never heard it that way, but I’ll be god-damned if a bunch of anti-Jewish weirdos get to own any word which relates bankers to gangsters.
Although at least most gangsters are honest enough to admit they’re criminals.
The current usage should be “banksta”, you’re correct.
@Dragon-King Wangchuck
I was expecting a Chimpy picture!
The word “bankster” applies to anyone regardless of race, color or creed who is systematically expropriating as much money as he can as fast as he can from the Ponzi scheme they are all colluding in running.
This:
fagh! blockquote fale.
I was expecting a Chimpy picture!
Chimps on drugs? Your wish is my command.
fagh! blockquote fale.
They open a
They format tag
randomly, you leave those tags openChimps on drugs? Your wish is my command.
All I can get to right now is the web address, but the words “chimp-attack-xanax” summon up images that are probably ‘way better than the reality.
Well said. It saddens me deeply that we learned that lesson in the 30’s and then promptly un-learned it. How many financial lives were shattered by this? Thank you Bill Clinton and Phil Gramm.
bankster, bankster
Do I look like a motherfucking role model?
“chimp-attack-xanax”
It was an article about that woman in Connecticut whose face was ripped off by a doped up ape.
It was an article about that woman in Connecticut whose face was ripped off by a doped up ape.
See? Nowhere near as good as, say, a horde of chimps whacked out on goofballs roaming the streets flinging poo at passersby and stealing cars.
All I can get to right now is the web address…
They filter out National Geographic at your connection to the tubes?!? Is your sysadmin someone who still thinks National Geographic is a great source for pr0n?
The article is god as far as it goes, but it leaves me in a tough spot. It doesn’t tell me what the next bubble is going to be. How can I get in on the ground floor, make tons of money, and leave someone else holding the bag? If we are doomed for another bubble, can’t I at least make a ton of cash on it?
Your leftwing politics are making you fellas delusional I think. The Democrats socialist policies are not good for the economy and are mainly responsible for the current mess our nation is in.
Face the facts libs, the American people do not like socialism. Everytime your side preaches socialism you will lose. Period. Even in left of center Massachussets the people elected a Conservative Republican to take the seat left vacant by the deceased communist ideologue Ted Kennedy.
Face it libs, Obama’s radical leftwing agenda is gonna cause the socialist party to lose control of Congress in 2010. And I hate to break it to you looney libs, but when a Conservative Republican wins a federal election in Massachussets, that is pretty much a referendum of what the American people think of your comrade in chief.
Expect a Republican landslide in 2010 followed by a Republican victory in 2012.
It doesn’t tell me what the next bubble is going to be.
::whispers::
Two words: Tea Bags.
They filter out National Geographic at your connection to the tubes?!?
Websense filters “News & Media” (among other things) with a 15 minute timer – which runs constantly once it’s started, usually just before something needs to be attended to for at least 16 minutes.
For some reason though, Wikipedia is not blocked, neither the front page at MSN.com, which is why you’ll notice I use those a lot for links.
And they occasionally forget to put Sadly, No! on the timed blockage for days on end… THE FOOLS! nyayyayayyhayhayhaya!
Two words: Tea Bags.
What?!?! But what am I gonna do with all these POGs?
It’s Glass-Steagall, by the way. And I’m not sure it did more damage than Phil Gramm’s Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which was forced into the last Clinton budget bill at the very last minute, two weeks or whatever after the Supreme Court gifted the Presidency to G. W. Bush Jr., and had Democrats attempted to fight it or Clinton not signed it, there would once again have been a defunded Federal government. That act didn’t just “de-regulate” derivatives, it un-regulated them. In addition to having had his wife installed as the head of the same commodity futures regulating board earlier so she could help everyone protect Enron’s energy casino theft.
The Democrats socialist policies are not good for the economy and are mainly responsible for the current mess our nation is in.
Oh, yeah, the asswipe uber-capitalism of the last eight years combined with a blank check for illegal wars has NOTHING to do with it.
They filter out National Geographic at your connection to the tubes?!? Is your sysadmin someone who still thinks National Geographic is a great source for pr0n?
No, they think it’s “News & Media”, which gets limited to a 15 minute unblockage at a time, with a limit of 60 minutes total a day – which means when it’s clicked on there’s inevitably something needing to be attended to for the next 16 minutes, and the clock doesn’t stop if you navigate away from the page or close the browser.
Is your sysadmin someone who still thinks National Geographic is a great source for pr0n?
He must be like 90, because my dad used to tell stories about NatGeo and the bathroom, pre-Playboy
The Democrats socialist policies are not good for the economy and are mainly responsible for the current mess our nation is in.
Right, because we were in charge of all three branches of the government since…um, last year? After the Bush Depression started?
You liberals are screwed. Obama is losing approval ratings from independents rapidly. More independents now favor Republicans than they do Democrats. And that happened less than one year after Obama was elected.
The Democrats will never see absolute power again. Despite momentary set backs in 2006 and 2008, America is a right of center Nation and is trending Republican.
The problem in the past two election cycles was that the Republicans forgot their Conservative principles and were governing as spineless moderates. That turns the American people off. They want solid Conservatism of the Ronald Reagan delivered them.
This time around they will receive it.
Oooh, somebody went to CPAC and believed everything they heard.
Isn’t the word “bankster” traditionally used by those who think the world is run by a cabal of evil Jewish bankers?
I couldn’t find any evidence of this; it appears to come from Time magazine’s coverage of the 1933 Pecora hearings, in which some top bankers were compared to Al Capone.
Shorter Arthur:
I got a cookie for memorizing the most ‘pig
Talking Pointslies.I can never remember: did Reagan raise taxes only three times, or was it more times than that?
This time around they will receive it.
Hahahaha. Good one.
You realize the minute the GOP returns to power they’ll waste no time reestablishing the K Street/corporate welfare gravy train, right? Or are you really that much of a stupid chump to believe otherwise?
You liberals are screwed.
Your wife puts out. What can I say?
are you really that much of a stupid chump to believe otherwise?
Yes.
This has been another episode of SASQ
Good stuff yet again, Brad. Thanks.
The problem in the past two election cycles was that the Republicans forgot their Conservative principles and were governing as spineless moderates.
Uh… apparently someone hasn’t read Angler, The Dark Side, or a newspaper during the Bush years. “Spineless” was not their problem. “Ruthless, reckless, arrogant, and stupid” was the problem. Lying to the American people, Congress, and members of your own administration – and torturing people – is the work of sociopaths, not the spineless. The only place they’ve been spineless is in accepting responsibility for the catastrophes they unleashed on their country and the world.
Welp, it feels kind of dirty to be going along with something recently advocated by Lady Arianna Of Huffingtonshire, & not in that good tumescent kind of way either, buuuuuuuut – forget trying to persuade pols to close their legs, put away the KY-jelly & cross their Wall Street pimps, or turning neutered TeeVee lapdogs into brutal mastiffs with the magic of schnazzy sound-bites: the best “messaging” progs can do is to get their freakin’ money away from these ghouls & into credit unions & reputable small local banks … & to get their employers & peers to do the same. The appeal to craven self-interest works wonders, or so I’m told. You might want to let it slip to Joe Blow at your next company picnic/church social/beer-pong tournament/orgy/Black Mass that your money is probably a hell of a lot safer than Joe’s is because he’s still batshit-insane enough to keep his life-savings trapped in the oleaginous tentacles of the First Bank of North Weaselstan Inc. (a fully owned subsidiary of GloboGlutCorp) – even though FBofNW already has a rap-sheet that would make Lucky Luciano blush & shows no symptoms of recovering from its recidivism, now or ever.
My only gripe with her idea is that she’s thinking way too small – in today’s market, this movement has to be global to get any real results. It’s the obvious rational response to the “Big Banks = Ticking Time-Bomb” thing, & if enough people get on the bandwagon, you can bet those jackals in pinstripes playing Three-Card-Monte with pension funds will promptly pay very close attention to the reasons behind this growing wave of fiscal sanity. Their bought-&-paid-for whores in Congress will then have no choice but to do likewise if they wish to avoid a sudden case of “tragic airplane accident.”
“Can you hear us NOW, motherfuckers?”
Well, here’s a shorter-term and very directed message: Credit card strike.