Random Black Dog Bark Bark Barking

In These Times

(Winston Churchill -- world leader, champion of England's titled class; boozer, dilettante painter and cigar aficionado -- used to call the bouts of depression which seized him periodically as "The Black Dog". I'm not a black dog, but am feeling a bit 'dark' these days (indeed; no surprise there), so be warned.)

The current economic situation in the United States, also described as 'The New Normal', could be summed up in these points:

• Salaries and Wages = Nearly Flat For Over A Decade -- Luckily, we have had almost no inflation during the same period, but if you're not bringing home more money even a modest rise in prices can hurt;  
• It's Not That Jobs Are Created; It's What Kinds Of Jobs -- Employment numbers have gone up to a degree in construction and some manufacturing sectors, but the broadest gains in total jobs have been in the Service Economy -- maids and waiters and towel boys and gardeners and spa attendants and boat crew lackeys;
• Unemployment Figures Continue To Ignore The Lost Workforce -- A news item like "US Jobless Claims Hover At Pre-Recession Levels... [which offers] further evidence of the economy's underlying strength" might make you believe everything is 'finally getting back to normal' after the Go-Go, 'Lil' Boots' Bush years and the Crash.  
• >>> The numbers receiving unemployment payments, as reported, is shrinking -- but the number of people who have been unable to find work since the fall of 2008 (no pun intended) is ignored. No one really knows how many people are in this category -- and even the new Fed Chairman, Janet Yellen, questions whether there is more unreported 'slack' in the labor market than unemployment figures suggest.
• The Gap Between The Top One-Tenth Of One PerCenters And Everyone Else Has Grown in the past decade. Period. We are a more stratified and less socially-mobile culture than at any time since the end of the Second World War. 
• >>> The proof is in two points:  The average annual income of the bottom 90% of Americans is approximately $30,000 -- the annual income of the .01% is $24,000,000 ; and, the distribution of all wealth (not just annual income, but 'who owns what') in America is lopsided:  42 percent of everything is owned by the top One Per Cent, while the bottom 80% of the population owns just 5%.  That's of everything -- real property (homes, office buildings, land), stock, bonds, cash, cars, et al.

The current definition of The New Normal is "Secular Stagnation", where job growth is modest (we still haven't reached the percentage of full-time employed in the overall U.S. workforce as existed before 2008).  Large corporate employers have continued to keep wages low, while executive and managerial bonuses have gone up. The pension and health coverage benefits of their retirees is shrinking, and those just entering the workforce understand their employers will only provide the minimum, band-aid-for-their-conscience safety net of benefits. It ain't your grandfather's work-world any more.

Obligatory Image Of Happy Children, Enjoying Life In Modern America ©

In Middle Of Nihilist Blog Rant

 It's just one Dog's opinion, but you might have the feeling, looking around, that we're becoming a society where a layer of the truly wealthy, the Owners, live in security and privilege, nearly invisible to the rest of the world, while the rest of us... don't.

We buy the products and use services which they've significantly invested in -- or, they own the raw materials, or the land, or the ships. It's like the difference in San Francisco between those who "ride the bus", and everyone else (though employees of Google and Facebook and eBay and Yahoo are just as much Tools and servants of the .01% as the rest of us). We're fleeced by corporations, finance companies and banks, manufacturers, and employers from our first day to our last, and in the end a company the wealthy own will rent our children pennies to put on our eyes.

But, take heart. Paul Kingsnorth, former environmental activist, is fairly certain that we are moving swiftly into a period of climatic upheaval and that the chance of an apocalyptic die-off in the human population, a Mad Max coming to a street near you, is a certainty as ecosystems fail and power systems can't be sustained. Meaning that (according to Kingsnorth, and other environmental researchers) no matter what we do, we're doomed.

The good part, I suppose, is that the Uberwealthy will suffer, die, and slide into extinction along with the 99%. And there won't be any pennies left for the Boatman, let alone our eyes.

Well. I recall a comment made by Martin Luther -- devout christian; constipation sufferer, author of the 95 Theses whose efforts created the Reformation and centuries of civil war in the christian world; religious and political radical, misogynist and anti-Semite.  He said: If I were told that the world would end tomorrow, I would still go into the garden and plant an Apfelbaumchen (little apple tree).

And so must we all.

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MEHR: BITTE SCHIESSEN SIE MIR SOFORT:  As another sign that civilization has passed its peak and is now in irreversible decline, if you were a shareholder of Warren Buffet's Berkshire-Hathaway corporation, you would be attending the company's annual meeting in Kansas City -- and like any gathering In These End Times, you get the chance to take home a Tschochki or two, you lucky, far-sighted investor, you.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. will sell rubber ducks of Chairman Warren Buffett and Vice Chairman Charles Munger wearing Mexican-themed outfits at the company’s annual meeting, which falls two days before Cinco de Mayo. The “fiesta ducks” sport sombreros, multicolored ponchos and — in Buffett’s case — a maraca, according to an advertisement in the visitor’s guide to the May 3 event, which will be held at the CenturyLink Center in Omaha, Nebraska. The souvenirs will be sold by Berkshire’s Oriental Trading party-supply business for $5 a pair.

 View The Terror And Shame: Click On Image To Enlarge! Easy! Fun!

(Picture courtesy of the Berkshire-Hathaway Annual Meeting Brochure,

Which You Can See In Its Entirety Here)

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Your Money's No Good Here, Mr. Putin

Sad Vlad Doubles Down




There's something about the tragedy playing out in Ukraine since the Fall of last year -- and in particular the attitude of Sad Vlad, The Putin (who always, to me, seems sad; he is Sad Vlad) which reminds me of Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's The Shining.

A man finds a sense of belonging and place, self-justification and a measure of success, but only within a terrible illusion of evil and death -- one that ultimately consumes him: The image of Jack Torrance at the bar in the Gold Room at the Overlook Hotel, believing he's in the middle of a party and not realizing where he actually is -- or is not -- and what's coming. 
 

LLOYD:  Good evening, Mr. Putin.  (Leans forward) What'll it be?  

 PUTIN:  Hair of the bear what bit me, Lloyd!

 LLOYD:  Crimean Surprise; certainly.  How's everything going, Mr. Putin?

 

PUTIN:  Y'know, I don't understand it, Lloyd. I never laid a hand on their goddamned heads, those Ukrainian-whatevers. I love the little sons of bitches! There's not a goddamned thing I wouldn't do for 'em. And look how they treat me. 

LLOYD:  Ukrainians. You can't live with them, but you can't live without them. 

PUTIN:  Words of wisdom, Lloyd; words of wisdom.

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It Came From Outer Space

And Did Not Want Our Women

One year after a meteor sliced through our atmosphere over Chelyabinsk, Russia and exploded, we escaped being hit by yet another really big piece of primordial space rock. This asteroid measured roughly 885 feet wide (nearly the length of three football fields) and raced past us at about 27,000 mph.

The good people at SpaceWeather.com reported on it, and other Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (or, PHA's), giving us all food for thought.

 Click On Scary Graphic To Appreciate It More Fully -- Easy & Fun! (SpaceWeather.com)

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Reprint Heaven: Hope? What Was That About?

(Hopey-Changey, Sorta: I keep watching the antics of our current President [his defense of the excesses of the NSA, and his sudden about-turn-support for completion of the Keystone Pipeline, just to name two recent examples]. I continue to be disappointed and wonder why I am at all surprised.

(The financial structure which helped create the 2008 Crash is still largely unregulated -- it's true that some financial institutions have been slapped with fines and exposed for price-fixing LIBOR, insider trading, and malfeasance in using investor funds to shore up losses and cooking the books. But the shadow market in derivatives, for example, is opaque to all but the people who benefit from it, and chugs on unabated and largely unfettered by oversight or common sense.

(I recently saw an estimate [sorry, folks; do your own research] that the amount of derivatives globally is now in excess of $100 Trillion. Should we ever have another Bad Day At The Race Track as we did in September, 2008 (Or October 29, 1929), that part of the iceberg of international finance we can't see will make things very interesting.

(And, I keep watching the antics of the wealthy and privileged -- a bit like running down a two-lane blacktop towards a pickup truck that's driving on, slowly picking up speed. Our Lords and Masters Of The Universe are in the back of the pickup, watching all of us try and catch up to the truck as it pulls away... and the truck just keeps getting father and farther out of reach, no matter how hard any of us run.  From October, 2009.)

(Margaret Bourke-White, Soup Line, From The 1937 Book

[With Erskine Caldwell] 'Have You Seen Their Faces?' )

All right; move along. Nothing to see here. Go on, or I'll run ya in.

According to Glen Greenwald this morning, Adam Storch, VP of Goldman-Sachs' Business Intelligence Group, has been appointed the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the United States' Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement division.

Let me repeat: A Vice-President of Goldman-Sachs, the investment firm which participated in ruining the nation's economy, benefited hugely from the Bush TARP program and the Obama continuing bailout; and has current former employees in key positions in the current administration; will be in charge of enforcing securities and trading regulations for the financial industry in the United States.

( MEHR, u. SPATER: And the 29-year-old Storch is only one of quite a long list of former Goldman employees in the administration.  That people in finance take positions in government isn't unusual --  but past a certain point the numbers alone are surprising.)

Uh-huh. I've broken up a larger paragraph of Greenwald's post below to make a point:

In October of last year [Greenwald writes], a Goldman-Sachs Vice President, Neel Kashkari, was named by former Goldman CEO and then-Treasury Secretary Hank Pauslon to oversee the $700 billion TARP bailout.

Bernanke; Ex-Goldman CEO Paulson; Lil' Boots (Photo: MSNBC)

>> In January of this year, Tim Geithner hired a former Goldman-Sachs lobbyist, Mark Patterson, to be his top aide and Chief of Staff.

>> In March, President Obama nominated Goldman-Sachs executive Gary Gensler to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates futures markets, even though (or "because") Gensler confessed to lax regulation during the Clinton administration over the very derivative instruments that caused the financial crisis.

The National Debt As Percentage Of GDP (Matt Yglesias, 10/3/08)

>> In April, Goldman hired as its top lobbyist Michael Paese, the chief aide to Rep. Barney Frank on the House Financial Services Committee, which Frank chairs.

Of course, only an irrational, raving conspiracy theorist would believe that any of those events have any connection at all to this, from today's Washington Post:

"The nation's largest banks, preserved from failure by federal aid and romping in markets revived by federal aid, are racking up vast profits even as the broader economy struggles to emerge from recession . . ."

"Goldman said it earned $3.19 billion between July and September, nearly the most it has ever made in three months, a record it set earlier this year."

(Billboard, Connecticut Ave. and Morrison St. NW, Washington D.C., 2009)

Worldwide economic collapse was avoided after the Fall of 2008. It should surprise no one that after the U.S. Government transferred trillions of dollars to the banking and investment sector, then that sector's performance improved.

But if the surviving banks are bigger and more powerful than before the crisis and crash (which is not over), if they are not subject to greater, independent scrutiny and regulation... then one of the primary stated goals of the government -- to eliminate the risk and ensure that circumstances which caused the economic meltdown would not happen again -- well, that's just a complete failure.

This was one result of the Crash of 1929, through New Deal legislation -- creation of the SEC, a regulatory agency which had never existed before. It was part of a sweeping reform of both the securities and banking system, which we need now, badly -- and won't get. Because the fix is in.

(Source: Contexts.org; Data through mid-2005)

What's occuring isn't free-market Capitalism. It's gaming the system for a narrow group of players which benefits them, enormously, while the remainder of the population suffers and struggles.

It's trickle-down, Supply-Side, We-got-ours-and-fuck-the-rest-of-you Darwinism that favors the top one-tenth-of-one per cent of the population. I'm sorry to disappoint the Teabaggers, but this isn't 'Socialism' at all. It's theft.

Why is the President allowing this to occur? Like any crime, you ask Who has motive? Who benefits? and, Who can get away with it?
...

The Financial Services Committee in the House -- Representative Barney Frank's committee (remember Michael Paese? Frank's former top aide; who now works for Goldman?) -- yesterday passed a bill to regulate derivatives which Greenwald says "is so filled with loopholes it may end up exempting most industry players" -- an absolute benefit for Goldman-Sachs.

Greenwald concludes, That the administration continues, so brazenly, to place Goldman-Sachs executives in the very government positions with the greatest power over the financial industry illustrates how little effort is devoted to hiding what is really taking place.

Our political circus -- the 'Birthers', 'Teabaggers'; Limbaugh, Beck and Bachmann -- only keeps our eyes off the People Behind The Curtain. Those sparkly, shiny, noisy advertisements on teevee beckon us on, to a future filled with consumer goods and elite access that can never be ours. 99% will live in prefabricated dwellings, while the %0.10 live in the sort of safety and comfort, for themselves and their children, that we will never even see a photograph of in one of Rupert Murdoch's Fox Tabloids.

Better Than The Goddamn Reds! -- ad campaign of the American Industry Council, 1935,
showing all three major billboards in a series (The central one appeared in Bourke-White's photo,
Soup Line) Life, however, was much harder for most people than these ads portrayed.
For those running the show, it always pays to promote cognitive dissonance.

Meanwhile, the same groups of players, more or less, manage to benefit year after year and generation after generation. Does anyone believe that 'former' employees of Goldman-Sachs, now in government, won't make decisions which protect their friends? And after four or more years on small government salaries, where will they go? Back to work at Goldman, of course.

In 2001, it was a huge tax cut for the upper 2% of America's population. This time, in 2008 and 2009, banks and investment houses are being handed our money directly, and with little oversight as to how they use it. They certainly aren't lemnding more money -- which was the point of the bailout, to free up capital to lend, stimulate the economy and create jobs for the millions out of work.

But, no. Instead, they're holding on to the Bush-TARP and Obama-bailout funds. They're paying out huge bonuses to their executives. They're continuing to squeal that things are hard, and that they may need more money.

Didn't we just have an election, which in part was about a corrupt, incompetent, Rich, Frat-Boy leader who dragged the country into debt and an utterly mismanaged war, while he and his "Have and Have Mores" friends did so very well?

Who was all the Hope you spoke about for, Mr. President?

Everybody knows the dice are loaded,
everybody rolls with their fingers crossed;
everybody knows the war is over;
everybody knows the good guys lost
-- Leonard Cohen

Speak, America -- Speak! Good Boy.

Mongo Is Listening

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Turning

Pete Seeger (1919 - 2014)

©Andrew Sullivan / New York Times

I think he would want us to sing. And to resist -- not fight -- but to sit down in a place not far from Wall Street and decline to be moved; to stand in front of the tank; to call things that are happening by their right names -- and remember a lesson that The Few would like The Many to forget: That we are all family, trying to do the best we can, and that the highest thing we can do is make the journey easier for each other.

Now he knows what we do not. Stand up, and sing.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Reprint Heaven: This Is Your Universe

Try Not To Screw It Up
(From August, 2012)


(All photos © NASA/ESA)

NASA and the European Space Agency recently released some of the all-time greatest hits of the Hubble Space Telescope. TPM has posted a slideshow of many of these images (see it here). They're breathtaking; amazing. Stunning.





We live inside of all this -- but our perspectives aren't normally wide enough to take it all in. And the universe is, you know -- a lot to take in. As we stumble on into what I fear will be a Little Mitt presidency, and as the majority of Americans are forced to "feel the pain" of Little Paul Ryan's Austerity plans so that Our Lords and Masters can have a wonderful, comfortable life with vacations, servants and treats. They are, as they believe, 'Masters Of The Universe'.

But, not. So we should try for the larger perspective, and keep images like these in mind -- because I'm greatly afraid that the fix is in, Boyz 'n Girls. Herr Obama had his opportunity -- and in his desire to play fair and become the Great Conciliator, was knocked down and curb-stomped by the Rethugs because that's all they understand or know how to do -- that, and buying or fixing elections. And my sense is they're about to do just that.

But even if that's not what comes to pass, and Obama manages to hold on by his fingerprints -- the perspective is the same. The Universe doesn't recognize election cycles or nationalism or religious bigotry and violence. It simply exists, and it's very beautiful.





All the swirls and blobs of light in the exposure above are individual galaxies. Whole galaxies. Hopefully on at least one of them, there are life forms who have determined how to live without doing as relatively poor a job as we've done in the past 50,000 years, and particularly in the past 5,000.

---

MEHR: Saturday, August 25th; It was just announced on The New York Times online edition half an hour ago that Neil Armstrong, first human being to set foot on the surface of Earth's moon, passed away at age 92.

As The Great Curmudgeon says, I'm so old that I can remember watching Armstrong do it, on a black-and-white television in the long-ago, Tricky-Dick, Vietnam war, rock-and-roll summer of 1969.

Now he knows what we do not. Sail on, Neil.

---

Even More Annual Reprint Heaven: Is The Wonderful Is This Life

By I. Rabschinsky

[Hoo boy; you are being lucky today. From two years before, we have The Good film history for you, now being the annual every year repeat. And as Great-Uncle Yehudi to be saying, "Don't Stand In Way Of The History!"]

George Bailey Guy Making The Panik

So always in the America there is at this time the fooding, and also the Sports Produkt on the television. Many people filling themselves with Holiday as if they about to be told, "Next year, you cannot eat!". I am thinking they are the hostage of their Hindbrain, which is still Neanderthal and wishes to fight with Mastodon. But, still.

And, I am noticing specific films which is only appearing on Amerikanyets television at these months between like maybe September and the time of your New Year.

My examples: At Passover, some of the television is showing The Ten Super Big Mitzvah Rules, with Charlton Heston Guy -- you know, movie where Moses stop making fooling around to pretend he is Big Guy of the Egypt, and decides to get real job saving People Of Israel.

This requires lots of people walking around, always saying "Oh, Moses, Moses, Moses" -- like, if they say this three times, they will be teleported by magik into better movie. Navarone Kind Of Big Guns, maybe, or Socialist-Colored Panther.


Place Which Is Gone Forever: Amerikanyets Driving To Movies:
"Moses, Moses, Moses -- What is happening with our Drive-Ins?"

At another time in year, they are showing same Heston Guy what is Moses in Big Mitzvah Rules in another movie, Ben Of Her. However this is basically film of Jewish guy who becomes like early Jesus guy, but by accident.

Movie is good; he is Number Forty-One guy in slave ship, rowing like animator for the Disney; there are becoming big boat battle, and he gets to be some kind of honorary Goyim, with big ring and parties with the Girls, and other Guys clasping him on the arms frequently.

Later, there is an exciting thing with horses and carts -- but it is not the porn film, so too bad for you. Go to web sites where they have not blocked you.


Charlton Ben Heston Making The Ramming Speed, 1959

At finally, with the Christmas, every year since somebody discover the Secret Of Fire there is this broadcasting this movie, It Is Wonderful This Life, made by Frank Capra Guy in 1947, showing the kind of place which everybody wanted to believe was the Amerika. Small town, everybody knows everybody; values is good and everybody work hard and knows their places.

Just like village in the Moldova, except animals do not leave defecation in the street, everyone is speaking English, and most people have job. Plus concrete used in apartment buildings is better quality.

Every single year they are showing this film. It is now a classic also, like Wizard Of Odd and Potemkin Kind Of Battleship and Mister Hulot Goes To Beach Place. It is as big movie as The Tanks Know The Truth (Very popular Great Patriotic War movie made in the Russia. My Great-Uncle Yehudi claims he is in this film as Extra, but still we love him).


Big Scene From Tanks Knowing The Truth: Are They Knowing?
Well, They Are Tank; You Are Person. You Want To Be That Sure?

It Is Wonderful This Life story is maybe simple: Guy, George Bailey Guy, living in small town wants to die, because he thinks his life is shit. And there are the angels, who show us life of this Guy in the little town, and how he is The Good, and there is the Rich Guy who is The Bad. And George Bailey Guy never gets to do things in the Life because the Fate is not for him.

Then there is mistake with money (a problem made from the Rich Bad Guy), for which he is blamed, and he runs from family and goes to place of Publik Alkohol; finally he goes to bridge to jump in freezing water so his family will get small piece of Insurance money. Very Sad (There is also squirrel in another scene which is sad, but never mind). Also very Petit-Bourgeois.

So, Angel Guy comes to the Earth and shows this George Bailey Guy his life is maybe kind of okay, not so much the shit; and boom boom boom, problem with the money goes away in big scene at end when everyone gives him their money, and everyone sings. So happy, little bells on tree and big bells of church ring; America wins the World War Two and future is filled with television and freeway. The End.

But this is too simple, my friend. No way is actual life like this. So, maybe some of me thinks this is kind of the Propaganda about America, to keep us from seeing the Truth of the Things.

And, there is forbidden version of this film, which is other kind of the Propaganda. Please -- allow me to introduce.

---

борьбе за построение социализма во время Угнетение
(также называется "Любовь и революция" после 1991)
("Love And Revolution", Directed By Frank Kapronovich [1949]; Starring Pytor Chost, Gravnik Bolodorin, Irina Valutin. Special appearances by the Spirit Of Revolution, also Che Guevara, Samuel Beckett, and entire 12th Guards Motorized Infantry Regiment)

SO, movie opens with Guy, Georgi Edwardovich Bailey Guy, at the Bridge. He is unhappy, this Guy; boy oh boy he is like making the panic. He goes to public alkohol place and tries to think, but he only finds himself between the forces of dissent and confusion!


TROTSKYITE GUY: River not so bad, after five minutes.
EXISTENTIAL GUY: Wait, but no one comes. No one cares.

Hoo boy; Georgi is in big fix. This guy has family with SmallChilds, and tiny Policy Insuring The Life -- and he is believing everybody would be better off if he would jump and get it over with, already.


GEORGI: My life is steaming pile of animal things,
because the Rich Guy will always win. Now I am jumping.

But, Georgi is being watched at Bridge. Not by some angel Guy (none of this reliance on things which cannot be proven by good Socialist science!) -- but even better -- is Spirit Of Revolutsya!


(Spirit Of The Revolution Watches Georgi)

And, The Spirit saves Georgi! He takes him to place where they can speak of things, of the Truth -- and slowly, Georgi's eyes are opened to not only the forces of historical determinism, but the inevitability of struggle against the oppressor classes!


GEORGI: So you are saying that when the consciousness
of the People is raised sufficiently, that armed struggle
is not only necessary but inevitable?
SPIRIT: You got it, Comrade.

So, Georgi, now with eyes opened thanks to the words of the kindly Spirit, is seeing that the world is filled with inequality and criminal things so big your head feels like kicked soccer ball. It is like understanding that, not only are you living as Dog, lapping up the vomit of the Rich Guy, but you work in factory to make guns to force others to live like this (Also, the Rich Guy pays you in fake dog vomit and those X-Ray glasses which do not work).

For Georgi, this is whole bunch of dried fish to eat in one night (Like story by that Guy, Dickens Guy, Carol Burnett Christmas, or something). This is the Life? He is asking himself.


A World Of Things For Them, But Not Food For Children


Economy And Bad Fate For Peoples Means Nothing To Them


For Them, The World Is Something To Carve Up, Like Beef


While The Many People Lose Everything To The Illegal Foreclosure

So now Georgi is filled with indignant and bad feeling for The State Of These Things. He feels the pain of the oppressed, working masses, and is being filled with Revolutionary Fervor -- and he goes to talk with the People in his little village, to tell them what the Spirit had revealed to him -- and the Spirit sends along friend, Che Guevara Guy, to help.



GEORGI: We don't have to live under the heel of Potter's boot!
He's just some, bloodsucking animal! Feeding on all of us -- and I'm
tired of living on fake dog vomit! We have to run things!
CHE GUEVARA SPIRIT GUY: Ay, Yi Yi! You listen to this guy.

The People, moved by Georgi's words, march with him to the place of the Bad Rich Guy, to demand Justice, the chance to make something other than guns, and to be paid in actual money instead of rubber dog vomit and X-Ray glasses which do not work.



BAD RICH GUY: You realize that the manufacture and sale of
weapons around the globe is the backbone of our nation's industry?
GEORGI: You don't understand -- the days of taking your rubber
dog barf are over, Potter! We're going to run things!
MOB: No fake dog barf!! No fake dog barf!!


BAD RICH GUY: My family has run this town for fifty generations.
All I have to do is close the factories. How long will it be before
your little rag-tag mob starts to starve? They'll come crawling back
to work -- and for half the rubber dog barf I gave you before!

Then, Georgi takes the Big Step -- the one which all oppressed people are taking in these movies when faced with Oppressors who pay them with rubber dog vomit: He crosses line from intellectualizing his oppression to active revolutionary.

Otherwise, we would have no resolution of all this rising action; and only ending for this film possible is that everyone would go for Pizza. This is unsatisfying from view of the Socialist imperative.


GEORGI: You're wrong, Potter -- you, and people of your
class are finished. Now you're going to face Justice for your
crimes -- because the People own the means of production!

And so The Bad Rich Guy is taken away by the People; his house later becomes hospital, day-care center, and place where revolutionary theater troupes practice before going into the streets.



And, of course, there is a proper celebration at the Georgi Bailey house, with the Revolutsia Spirit and the SmallChilds.


GEORGI: Gosh, Spirit, I don't know how we can thank you.
SMALLCHILD 01: Spirit, can't you stay and have some Fair
Trade™ coffee with homemade whiskey with us?
SPIRIT: No, SmallChild; I must go. There are so many oppressed
peoples in a world beset by unspeakable monsters of Capital.
But I will take a shot of that whiskey -- neat, please.

Finally, after long discussion between Rich Bad Guy and the Organs Of State Security, he faces Revolutionary Justice and the verdict of The People.


RICH BAD GUY: Long live International Capitalism!
PEOPLE'S MILITIA LEADER: Fire!

And, of course, Georgi and his lovely wife are pausing in their labor to build a New Socialist Future to share a moment's reflection on the plight of The Peoples, and also to suggest some hygienic sexual activity between them which may occur later.



...and in the background, The Internationale swells on the soundtrack, sung by the Sad Vlad Orphans Choir Of Greater Moscow! Please to show the credits!

This film has not been shown since its original release; big shame, also, because it is at least as good as movie with Bert Landcaster in it but of the name, just now, is escaping me.

Great-Uncle Yehudi likes Revolutionary Love. He thinks it is wonderful comedy, but still we love him. If you can find this film on DVD, then okay. If not, well then it is big world out there! Be That Guy -- go find!

I, Rabschinsky, say this -- to Moldavish Guy; you also.

Seth MacFarlane -- A Reasonably Flatulent, Reasonable Human

Family Guy's Stewie Saves Brian -- Free World Rejoices, The Taliban
Mutters Threats; China Goes To Defcon-Bozo

The UK Guardian reports that

After the [episode where Brian is run over by a car and killed] aired, Family Guy ... creator Seth MacFarlane told his followers on Twitter that they would have to be "f***ing high" to think they had killed off Brian for good. He tweeted:

"Oh and hey… thanks for caring so much about the canine Griffin.  He is overcome with gratitude...  I mean, you didn’t really think we’d kill off Brian, did you? Jesus, we’d have to be f***ing high...  And thus endeth our warm, fuzzy holiday lesson:  Never take those you love for granted, for they can be gone in a flash."

“You’ve given me a beautiful life,” He told them before flatlining. “I love you all.” 

"Brian has been reunited with the Griffins in time for Christmas... after Stewie staged a daring rescue. Fans of the... show were up in arms after the beloved canine was killed off in a car accident last month. But Brian was brought back from the dead in last night’s episode, entitled 'Christmas Guy'.

"The miserable one year-old goes on a trip to the mall with the Griffin family’s new dog, Vinnie and tries to bring Brian back by asking Santa for his return. He sobs:  'I want my friend back. My best friend, my dog, Brian; he’s dead. It’s our first Christmas without him and no one has even mentioned his name! I don’t care about this stupid carnival, or Christmas; I don’t care about anything but Brian ! '
 
"Stewie spots himself from the past in the mall and remembers that there is a time machine in his backpack ... steals it as Vinnie distracts past-Stewie, and goes back in time to the moment just before Brian gets hit by a car.

 "He tells him: 'You’re alive, my friend! I couldn’t live without you, so I came back from the future to save your life! '  Brian replies: 'Thank you for saving my life. A lot of other families would have just gotten another dog and moved on.' "

(In completely unrelated news, Nelson Mandela, Joan Fontaine and Peter O'Toole have actually died, and unfortunately are not anticipated to be rescued by a time machine.)

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Reprint Heaven: Seth McFarlane Is A Flatulent Sociopath

Or, You Know, Not.  Thanks for ending one of animated America's better creations:
Brian Griffin, 2002 - 2013
(Below, from 2009)

Family Guy - Episode 85, "Barely Legal": (12/17/2006) The Outrage Thus Far: Brian has been given a pie and a container of Cool Whip by Meg -- whose infatuation with him following a brief, drunken moment necking after a High School dance quickly turns to obsession, much to Brian's discomfort ("You know, Brian; I had no idea how flat and wide your tongue was").

Meg has baked some of her own hair into the pie ("That means some of me is in that pie, Brian -- that means some of me is inside you. Can you feel me? Can you feel me inside you, Brian?").

... but for now, The Set-Up For the Humorous Bit: Meg leaves; Stewie enters the living room, spots the tray with the pie, and the Cool Whip, and sits on the couch next to Brian.

Stewie: Ooh, some pie! Can I have a piece?

Brian: Uh -- okay.

Stewie: Ummm. Let me have some of that Coo Hwhip.

Brian: What'd you say?

Stewie: You can't have a pie without Coo Hwhip.

Brian: 'Coo Hwhip'?

Stewie: Coo Hwhip, yeah.

Brian: You mean, 'Cool Whip'.

Stewie: Yeah, Coo Hwhip.

Brian: Cool Whip.

Stewie: Coo Hwhip.

Brian: Cool Whip.

Stewie: Coo Hwhip.

Brian: You're saying it weird.Why are you putting so much emphasis on the’H’ ?
Stewie: What are you talking about? I'm just saying it. Coo Hwhip. You put Coo Hwhip on pie. Pie tastes better with Coo Hwhip.
Brian: Say ‘Whip’.
Stewie: Whip.
Brian: Now say, ‘Cool Whip’.
Stewie: ‘Coo Hwhip’.
Brian: Cool Whip.
Stewie: Coo Hwhip.
Brian: Cool Whip.
Stewie: Coo Hwhip.
Brian: Cool -- You're eating hair !!

Much as I like the antics of Family Guy, I suddenly remembered this broadcast episode (and so many others; this bit was nothing) is now part of the rich electronic heritage of our species -- a cloud of signals, expanding into the Cosmos at hundreds of thousands of miles an hour.

If alien civilizations are able to pick these broadcasts up, in deciphering our culture they will not know whether to give more weight to Brian's conversation with Stewie, or FDR's First Inauguration ("Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself") speech.

Any episode where Stewie tries to take over the Earth could mean the difference between aliens who decide to annihilate us just to end The threat of this tiny pink creature with the huge braincase, and aliens who think he's someone they could cut a deal with.

Problems could occur if they arrive and demand to speak with him. Alternatively, we could have problems if they appear and demand to speak with FDR:

"We wish to speak with the Franklin Roosevelt. Failure to allow us to do so will mean the elimination of your species. Oh, and several egg creams while we wait. And xeno-interspecies sex with Sandra Bullock. You know what they say -- 'Once you've had Zxgnarrgnnnn, you never go back' ."

So I was a little concerned -- but, how worried should we be? No aliens have contacted us (Yet. That we know about.); and, it's also true that when compared with the spewing of Michael Savage; Jim Lehrer's vegetative droning; anything having to do with Gossip Girl; or old episodes of Hee Haw, Brian and Stewie come off like a couple of Nobel laureates.

Plus, I like to laugh. I don't know about the aliens.