I love how he completely shuts P.J. O’Rourke’s dumb fucking mouth-hole right the fuck up. My hero!
Let’s send this video to anyone who whines about how Occupy protesters don’t know what they’re protesting. It’s short, direct, and it makes P.J. O’Rourke look like a huge asshole. Win-win-win!
Uh, I didn’t really hear PJ say anything.
He’s right on most accounts, but I have to take issue a little bit with his initial statement that “Wall Street wrecked the economy three years ago.” Not exactly untrue, but what ultimately wrecked the economy in late 2008 was a pair of bills, passed by a Republican congress and signed into law by a Democratic president, in 1999 and 2000: Gramm-Leach-Bliley and Commodity Futures Modernization, which together effectively repealed the Glass-Steagal legislation of the early 1930s, which prevented the overlap of commercial banking, investment banking and insurance, as well as the development of dodgy investment mechanisms like collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps. This is almost never brought up in discussions of the Wall Street problem (The only two people I can recall even mentioning Glass-Steagal in recent memory are Elizabeth Warren and Robert Reich). And yeah, he did do a pretty good job of handing O’Rourke his own ass.
Indeed P.J. didn’t really say anything: he was too busy being the twenty-thousandth asshole to make some stupid joke about bongo drums. His loss!
I couldn’t hear Grayson over his tie.
I’m one of the whiners you mentioned, so I watched it!
He gave a pretty broad list of loosely-connected complaints. And I think a survey of the Occupy Portland camp would turn up a much longer, more disconnected list.
But even from this guy, who is very well spoken: What IS it that you want me to DO?
They don’t KNOW, and so there’s no point to the protests. They’re just complaining, with no solutions or plans to offer. It’s a circle-jerk.
Oh, and yeah – the old fart really did look like an asshole.
BONGO BONGO
@Reymont, I think the goal at this point is to force the media to admit that Wall Street is in charge. Every network’s financial reporters said the same thing O’Rourke said here. They can’t even conceive of a world where poor decisions made by investment bankers caused a financial catastrophe and maybe they should lose their jobs for fucking up so badly. If I did my job that badly, I’d definitely get fired.
@frankieb – if you dig up a longer segment, PJ is a snarky dick leading up to grayson’s response.
and regarding whining without solutions: we’re noting that the current state of affairs is unacceptable. i don’t make policy, but can voice what i think is wrong with the system. lack of meaningful financial regulation change after a wall street induced recession is unacceptable. lack of access to affordable health care or education (even more so with most people’s incomes reduced or frozen) is unacceptable. i’m open to solutions and suggestions about how to solve this, but i won’t pretend to be capable of crafting policy.
They want you to listen to them telling you what to do. Sheesh, people make up all sorts of ridiculous complaints. “That protester just walked in to a Starbucks and paid with a credit card! OMG that protester is wearing white after Labor Day! Well I just can’t take them seriously!” Stop being part of the problem and be part of the solution. Those guys are at least trying to solve something, while you want to remain in the peanut gallery?
I thought Grayson sounded like a dangerous phony. At least O’Rourke was honest enough to say there is no magic solution and the best thing most of us can do is live with it and not fall for types like Grayson who claim to care about us and they can solve it all if only we put them in charge.
archie, while I’m already tired of listening to people who are doing nothing other than standing in the rain chanting things accuse the rest of us of “doing nothing,” I’m still more with them than the idea that “liv(ing) with it” is gonna work out.
This is what you do when government, media and the financial sector have made it clear that they have no interest in the general welfare of the United States: this is people’s way of saying that they recognize they no longer have choices.
@Fivealive – That’s well written, and I understand your point. But I might suggest that learning how to effect new policies and then doing so might be a better use of your time than camping. Imagine the conversation you’ll have to have in five years: “I just don’t know, man! I sat in a park for, like, a week! And SOMEHOW Wall Street is still in charge. I mean, what else could I have done?”
the notion that it’s the people in the street who have to develop and propose solutions to the economic and political problems of the nation is patently absurd when there are hundreds of people we elected to go to washington as representatives of our interests on the basis of their claims to be able to develop and propose solutions to the economic and political problems we face. the protests are basically telling congress and the president “maybe you’re a little confused about who you’re supposed to be working for. here are the most pressing problems of our day. now go do your job.”
you want someone to tell you what to do? write a letter, call or email your senators and congresspeople insisting on the reinstatement of glass-steagall act. then tell all your friends to do the same.
@Hettie – Writing those letters is probably a great idea! That sounds like something people should do, if they are upset about the things you’re upset about. My point above is that I don’t hear that kind of action request coming from the OWS camps. Or at least, not in any concerted fashion! All I see are signs that say “The sky is falling!” and drum circles and chants.
And suggesting that “the people on the street” propose solutions will never be an absurd idea. That’s….that’s the whole friggin POINT of our form of government! And I think the OWS participants would agree with me.
@ Reymont Solutions are being offered. These working Groups we form are building Ideas of what to do. People are slowly and surely being reminded to get active in their City Counsel Meetings as well. This isn’t just protest, its action. Isn’t it interesting that we have so many problems in one of the most powerful countries in the world. Gives a bad view on the world. Oh wait and some people do big control the root problems here. Oh yeah, I think we’re addressing them in Wall Street and @ the London Stock Exchange; where their corruption has stripped the lively hoods away from good people.