However, I’m also terrified of well-intentioned-yet-ignorant.  Here’s a statement released by Occupy Atlanta regarding Black Friday protests:

Black Friday gets its name because it is traditionally the day that retailers, big banks, and major corporations move from “in the red” to “in the black” where they start to turn a profit. While the 1% are doing better than ever, every day ordinary people are struggling to make ends meet. In a world of foreclosures, unemployment, and high cost of living,
Americans are seemingly always “in the red.”

Big corporations and the media try to use this day to tell us that the economy is doing fine. We know that is a lie. More and more people are falling into poverty. 50 million Americans now have to rely on food stamps. Homes are being foreclosed on at an astonishing rate every day. In Atlanta alone, 1% of the population controls almost 70% of our resources. We say the economy is not doing fine.

Occupy Atlanta is using the massive crowds of everyday people gathering on Black Friday as an opportunity to raise awareness of immoral corporate practices and income inequality. We will be reaching out to the community through symbolic actions of civil disobedience. This field guide was created not just for people from Occupy Atlanta or the rest of the city to take action, but to encourage those in the rest of the state and country to have a little fun, and raise some awareness this holiday season.

In addition we will also be holding a really, really free market at 3pm at Troy Davis Park(formerly Woodruff Park) featuring free food, clothing, and other items.

First off, not all corporations are evil.  Some absolutely are, but you can’t paint all of them with the same brush.  But more importantly, shopping is good for the economy.  Yes, small businesses deserve love too, but take a company like Best Buy:

Best Buy is not a perfect company because no perfect company exists.  Their return policies can be nightmarish and their “Geek Squad” should be avoided at all costs.  However, Best Buy employs thousands of workers.  The company is not only staffed by the blue-shirts you see on the floor.  There’s a corporate infrastructure at work and all those people need jobs.  If you cut off Best Buy, then there will be layoffs.  Furthermore, there’s a ripple effect.  The company can’t afford as much merchandise so that hurts everyone behind those products.  Most importantly, spending is how money goes back into the economy.

That’s why stimulus is so important.  It’s not just for repairing roads and bridges (although that’s also important).  It’s to put money in the pockets of Americans so they can go spend it.  Occupy Atlanta doesn’t understand this.  I appreciate that they took the day to try and raise awareness of the movement, but it’s a muddled message and people don’t like being chastised for shopping.

One final note: Woodruff Park is not “Troy Davis Park”.  You can’t rename places just because you want to.  Furthermore, the wrongful execution of a man has nothing to do with the economy unless everything falls under the umbrella of “injustice”.  Finally, this renaming damages the use of Twitter to spread the word and gather people.  If you tweet “Meet up at Troy Davis Park”, some people may not know what you’re talking about unless they’re already involved in the movement and were probably going to show up anyway.  If you tweet “Meet up at Troy Davis Park (formerly Woodruff Park)” you’ve burned off a lot of characters.  And if you just do the sensible thing and tweet “Meet up at Woodruff Park”, then there was really no point in renaming anyway.

I don’t know how Occupy is working in other cities, but here in Atlanta it needs to be smarter and better understand what it’s protesting.  No one cares if Occupy Atlanta is standing in solidarity with the Egyptian people.  The movement can’t be a catch-all, especially if it doesn’t understand what it’s catching.

*As a side note, I don’t recall this kind of force being brought against Tea Party protestors.

Example:  Here’s the trailer for the upcoming video game X-Men: Destiny:

Set aside for the moment that even after viewing this trailer I have no idea what kind of game X-Men Destiny is.  Is it an Action-RPG?  An arcade brawler like Marvel: Ultimate Alliance?  A mixture of both?  But that’s not what I find maddening.

It’s the stupid tagline at the end:

“Some Destinies are Chosen.”

No.  No, they’re not.  Destiny cannot be chosen.  That’s what makes it “destiny”.  It is the unavoidable endpoint and you have no say in how you get there.  That’s why “Destiny” and “Destination” share the same root.  Destiny negates choice.  It happens no matter what you do.  The game should be called X-Men: Choice or X-Men: Determination or X-Men: Experience-Based Leveling System for Character Customization.  Not X-Men: Destiny.

I just spent fifteen minutes of my life ranting about this.  That’s what sadness looks like.  NEVER FORGET.

Meanwhile, in Texas, a man named  Lawrence Brewer is being executed for the murder of James Byrd Jr.*

There is no outcry for Mr. Brewer because he is most likely guilty whereas Davis’ case hits to the heart of our deepest fears about the death penalty: what if we killed an innocent person?

We already have.  In 1976, the death penalty was reinstated.  1,276 men and women have been executed as of September 13, 2011.  The odds are slim that every single person executed was guilty of their crime.

But that’s beside the point.  Mr. Brewer should not have been executed just as Mr. Davis should not be executed.  However, we rally around Mr. Davis because it makes the case that if even one innocent person is executed, then the death penalty should be abolished.  But really it just makes the argument, “Please be really, really, really sure someone is guilty before you kill him.”

The death penalty is wrong.  Period.  The innocence or guilt of the condemned is irrelevant.  The death penalty is not a deterrent and it is not how a modern society should behave.  A murderer is either too enraged to think about the death penalty or he/she doesn’t care.  And if it doesn’t reduce homicides, then it is simply the implementation of an antiquated system of moral  justice.  The Code of Hammurabi was over 3,700 years ago.  Surely, we must have made some progress since then.  But clearly, at least in America and any other place that still executes its citizens, we haven’t.

The case of Troy Davis isn’t special unless you believe that some people deserve to die and others don’t and it is up to us to make that call.  But if you believe, as I do, that the death penalty is always wrong no matter the guilt or innocence of the condemned, then the case of Troy Davis isn’t horrifying because an innocent man may be put to death.  It’s horrifying because whether Troy Davis is executed tonight or not, Lawrence Brewer was and he won’t be the last.

*I feel it’s important to note that Brewer was a white supremacist convicted of dragging Mr. Byrd to death from the back of his pick-up truck.  Despite the ugliness of the crime, I feel that Mr. Brewer should have been left to rot in prison for the rest of his days.  Executing Brewer doesn’t bring back Mr. Byrd, it won’t stop future hate crimes, and if the only benefit is that we as a society feel justified by Mr. Brewer’s execution, let me remind you that Mr. Brewer felt justified in his slaying of Mr. Byrd.  Brewer’s execution may bring comfort to the friends and family of Mr. Byrd but if the purpose of “justice” is only to bring comfort, then our definition of justice is on par with a tub of Häagen-Dazs and a warm bath.  The purpose of justice isn’t to serve individuals but to serve society as a whole.

1.) How far Obama has fallen in the public’s eyes.  The President’s approval rating has reached a new low and it’s not tough to see why.  The economy isn’t growing new jobs, unemployment remains stuck at over 9%, and people see banks returning to normal while their own lives have fallen apart.  Beyond that, it says something that a gifted orator like Obama can no longer command an audience.  Part of that speaks to the public’s weariness with politicians in general and the continued disenchantment with Obama and his pro-big business policies with only lip service to small businesses.

2.) We care more about entertainment than we do about our country.  Will Obama’s speech be full of big ideas, empty promises, and a vague road map sure to be thwarted at every turn by Republicans?  Probably.  But this is a Presidential Address.  Our country’s leader is speaking.  You may not agree with what he has to say but this isn’t Sunday’s weekly, “Hey, how ya doin’ America?  Really wish the Republicans would shape up.  Oh well.”  He wants prime time and the country says, “Sorry, but we’re ready for some football.”  So Obama has to move his speech up to 7pm (4pm PST when most people will be in front of a TV), and it sends the message that the speech is less important than a sporting event.  The speech is about jobs, it’s about the economy, it’s about putting our country back to work, but unfortunately there are two championship teams squaring off and we don’t want people to miss the first quarter.

And that speaks to the greater character of our country: our entertainment is more important than our nation’s welfare.  We are amusing ourselves to death.  Even how we perceive our politics is cast in the mold of entertainment.  We don’t want to hear policy.  We want to hear who’s up, who’s down, who looks good, who looks bad, the latest flub, the soaring rhetoric, and enjoy the horserace.

Even outside this “Football Beats the President” story, we can’t afford to not be plugged into something.  I went to the pharmacy today and people waiting for their prescription to be filled were immersed in their mobile device, myself included.  I was handling e-mail but there was nothing urgent in my inbox.  Our phones are filled with games, music, movies, the Internet and everything to help us dodge the awkward silence and interactions with the people sitting next to us.  A guy who looks down and doesn’t talk to anyone at a party is awkward and shy.  A guy who looks down and doesn’t talk to anyone but is typing into his iPhone might be awkward and shy, but he looks busy and perhaps even important as he can’t be bothered by the people around him due to his intense game of Angry Birds.

Entertainment is important.  It’s our cultural touchstone.  It’s how we’ve come to communicate with each other and define our identity through our interests.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with that.  But when entertainment is deemed more important than a Presidential Address, then our citizenship no longer really matters.  We don’t belong to America because we’re now part of the Packers nation or Team Edward or the Browncoats.  I was never a big believer in pledging allegiance to the flag, but now we pledge our allegiance to our entertainment.  We pledge allegiance, to the entertainment, of the United States of Distraction, and to the Episode, Sequel, or Game for which it stands, one Nation, under fandom, with liberty and justice for all who are on my side.

**Please note that when I say “we”, I’m not using it in the accusatory sense that really means “Everybody but me.”  I’m as guilty of these distractions as anyone if not more so since my job is to cover movies, TV, and video games plus I’m a big football fan.**

But there is no reason he should resign.  You can argue that he’ll be less effective now that he has a scandal hanging over his head, but people forget scandals unless you run for higher office.  He’ll probably be stuck as a congressman for the rest of his political career, but people will forget and move on to the next scandal.  And when the next inevitible scandal comes along, if it’s more salacious, Weiner’s sexual improperity will seem small by comparison.  And liberals should not forget that he’s been a loud voice for their causes and that matters in a congress that keeps moving to the right because the extreme right is pulling all of congress to radical conservative values to the point where Obama thinks he’s a centrist when actually his values coincide with 1980s Republicans.

So naturally, Democrats, in their infinite stupidity, are throwing Weiner under the bus.  Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chair of the Democratic National Committee  has joined House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in the call for Weiner to resign.  Keep in mind, Democrats aren’t the party that tries to legislate morality.  There is no “moral majority” for Democrats, they don’t align with the religious right, and they don’t argue that the founders made intended America as  Christian nation.

Republicans do that, and when they have a sexual scandal, they aren’t in a rush to kick out the adulterers (except for Larry Craig, whose adultery wasn’t a problem but his homosexuality was).  Louisiana senator David Vitter fucked prostitutes, and he not only kept his job, but was re-elected last year.  South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford disappeared to Argentina so he could fuck his mistress, and all he got was censure, the equivalent to a slap on the wrist.

But Democrats, a party without values beyond what the latest focus group thinks, is willing to throw out a liberal voice because he sexted.  They want to throw him out because it tells voters “Hey!  Look!  We’re moral!  We share your values!”  It’s a short-term gain at the expense of an accomplished legislator who fights for worthwhile policy matters.  The same thing happened with Eliot Spitzer.  Yes, his sexual deviance was more extreme, but personal actions should have personal consequences, not professional retribution.  Spitzer was one of the toughest regulators modern Wall Street has ever seen and our country once again showed that it was happier to engage in moral superiority and schadenfreude than to defend someone who was trying to protect their interests.

Democrats aren’t saying “Let’s focus on more important matters.”  They’re saying, “Yes, let’s engage in this distraction.  Let’s acknowledge it as a real thing that’s worthy of the American people’s attention instead of why the price of gas is so damn high.”  But none of it surprises me anymore.  The media goes for the sensational instead of the substantive, Democrats suck at politics, and Republicans laugh all the way to the hotel where they cheat on their spouses.

I don’t feel bad for Anthony Weiner, but I feel bad for the political and cultural system he and I have to inhabit.

But that’s simply not the case.  It’s oil speculation now and it was oil speculation in 2008.  As Matt Taibbi explains in his must-read (albeit wholly depressing) book Griftopia, the price of oil is being driven up by greedy speculators (e.g. Goldman Sachs, Barack Obama’s single largest campaign contributor in 2008).  How does this work?  By screwing with the commodities market.  Here’s a helpful analogy of how it’s gone horribly wrong:

To use an example frequently offered by [Mike Masters of Masters Capital Management], imagine if someone continually showed up at car dealerships and asked to buy $500,000 worth of cars.  This mystery person doesn’t care how many cars, mind you, he just wants a half million bucks’ worth.  Eventually, someone is going to sell that guy one car for $500,000. Put enough of those people out there visiting car dealerships, your car market is going to get very weird very quickly.  Soon enough, the people who are coming into the dealership looking to buy cars they actually plan on driving are going to find they’ve been priced out of the market. [p. 143]

Also keep in mind that the price of oil drives up the price of food.  If companies have to pay more to put fuel in their trucks, they’re going to pass the loss onto the consumer.

So what does our fearful leader do in the face of obvious and well-documented fraud?  He pulls a classic Obama and hedges with the appearance of doing something without actually doing anything.  The website Transport Topics reports:

The U.S. Justice Department is “putting together a team whose job it is to root out any cases of fraud or manipulation in the oil markets that might affect gas prices, and that includes the role of traders and speculators,” President Barack Obama said Thursday in Reno, Nevada.

Oh good.  Another commission to look into something that we already know.  Obama’s defenders will argue that this is the same “prudence” he’s always exercised, but it’s really a stalling tactic.  Obama didn’t say “We’re going to prosecute speculators” or anything that would give the hint that he’s an active rather than a re-active president.  Instead, they’ll “root out any cases of fraud or manipulation”, whatever the hell that means.  And while the Justice Department continues its stellar record of not prosecuting serious corporate criminals in any meaningful way, the administration will hope that the price of oil will decline and our collective amnesia will take over.

I write all this so that every time you go to fill up your car, you’ll look at the price and know that it’s not real.  That it has nothing to do with our lack of energy alternatives or worldwide demand or that we’re not drilling enough in our own backyard.  It’s a scam and it’s a scam we may as well get to used to because Obama has shown he has no real interest in holding anyone responsible for anything.

On a related note, we just passed the one-year anniversary of the BP oil spill that destroyed the Gulf of Mexico.  Here’s a visual reminder of that enduring catastrophe.  We have passed ZERO new laws to handle such a spill in the future (although deepwater drilling permits have been issued despite “not fabulous” safety standards).  Sad fact: Reuters reports that “During his time in the Senate and while running for president, Obama received a total of $77,051 from the oil giant and is the top recipient of BP PAC and individual money over the past 20 years, according to financial disclosure records.”

To the best I can deduce, it comes down to schadenfreude, and we can see that clearly in the public meltdown of Charlie Sheen.  Charlie Sheen is an unimportant man and none of us know him personally.  And yet I have been guilty at laughing at his non-stop public implosion as he chose to speak to anyone with a microphone, a camera, and the willingness not to tell him “You sound psychotic.”  I was okay laughing at his outburst because no one had invaded his privacy.  No one forced him to sit down with The Today Show, refuse make-up so he would look as strung-out as humanly possible, and say things like “Don’t pick a fight with a warlock,” and “I have tiger blood and Adonis DNA.”  To quote Sheen, he really thinks he’s “winning”, and as we all watch in fascination of this human train wreck hurtling towards organ failure, he actually is winning.

Sheen currently has almost 500,000 followers on Twitter on an account he started less than 6 hours ago.  His mad ramblings have been parodied with a random quote generator and Family Circus comics.  This man is crumbling before our eyes and we want to derive the maximum amount of comedy we can before…what?  How does this end for Charlie Sheen?  Does he just go away?  Do people tire of his antics?  What if madness becomes violent?

I don’t mean to be a spoil sport or pretend that I haven’t laughed at his antics.  We can all say that he brought this on himself.  He’s the son of a respected Hollywood actor, he’s gotten breaks that most people would kill for, his brother Emilio turned out fairly normal, so why should we pity this man?  We shouldn’t.  We shouldn’t pity him and we shouldn’t pay attention to him.  Like the most odious of celebrities, Charlie Sheen is using his fame to further his fame.  He’s not trying to call attention to a particular humanitarian cause and or even call attention to a particular entertainment project.  And every Twitter follower, every news item, every interview only furthers the perception that Sheen is a man who’s worth our attention.  Sure, he’s good for a cheap laugh, which is more than I can say for his sitcom.  But after what feels like an eternity of having one famous man’s madness shoved in my face at every turn, I’ve had enough.  There is so much more in this world that is worthy of our attention and our amusement.

Of course, Obama is a weak man who lacks confidence in actually changing the system.  So who is his new chief of staff?  William Daley, whose current job is a bank executive at JP Morgan Chase.  So why does Daley get the job?  Because he’s seen as a guy who can get Obama a second term.  Good luck with that.

And who is Obama’s new head of the White House Economic Council?  Gene Sperling, who previously worked as a consultant for Goldman Sachs.  But hey, he held this post during the Clinton years, and as we all know, it’s 1996.

It’s clear that Obama’s real agenda isn’t changing the way Washington works.  He’s hiring Clinton guys (also in the mix is Jacob Lew, who was the old director of the OMB and now is the new director of the OMB) who jerk off to the same idiotic philosophy that the free market is always right except when it’s wrong and then government has a responsibility to save it.  Did Clinton preside over an era of economic growth?  Kind of.  It was a bubble economy spurred by equity scams followed by the dot-com scams.  It was artificial growth and Clinton let Glass-Steagal, a law that prevented too-big-to-fail banks from existing, be repealed.  And all of these “new” councilors Obama has are the same kind of morally-corrupt nitwits who will ask the banks to pretty-please let the nation kind of survive.

Obama blathers on and on about needing to change the way Washington works.  Well, this is the way it currently works.  Change it.  He can’t succeed if the Senate stays the way it is.  And while lashing out at his progressive base might be a nice way to vent, it doesn’t change the fact that we’re not the ones setting up roadblocks in his agenda.  We’re not the ones who have sworn to defeat him and make him a one-term president.

Unfortunately, I’m sure he’ll fail this task just as he’s failed so many others.  John Boehner and the House of Representative will set the agenda for the next two years and Obama will make sure that their agenda passes with minor (if any) Democratic adjustments, because to this President it’s more important to do things rather than do good things.