Served up for your reading entertainment: Eat the Rich

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Sunday August 11, 2013 · 9:00 PM PDT

2013/08/11 · 21:00

“I won't say the 2004 elections had nothing to do with it. I won't say the hole in the ozone layer has nothing to do with it. I certainly won't claim that being raised by an economist had nothing to do with it. Some problems are so large, so overwhelming, that issues of culpability and responsibility can seem impossibly convoluted. But I always find myself left with one simple question—who profits?”

That was the introduction I had to come up with for this dystopian fantasy when it was first published in 2006, in issue nine of Aeon, a wonderful electronic magazine of speculative fiction put together by Bridget and Marti McKenna that appears, sadly, to now be defunct. (I hope it wasn't my story that did it!)

SpecialKinFlag posted a wonderful quote earlier this evening that got me thinking again about Eat The Rich. I think the reason it's stayed with me all these years is because it crystallized for me so much of my own thinking -- about politics, about dissent, about 'right' behavior in the face of atrocity -- and so, for the heck of it, and as a small thank-you to this community (where I've read and learned about a quadrillion times more than I've contributed), I'd like to offer it up for your reading entertainment:

Eat the Rich

(Trigger alert: one of the issues I wanted to explore was the experience of complicity, of sanding by while someone is tortured. So yeah, there's a scene about that,)

justsayjoe

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Saturday October 20, 2012 · 6:17 PM PDT

2012/10/20 · 18:17

Hi all! Don't know how else to go about this, so please forgive my informality. Is anyone in the Mansfield area going to Marion to see Vice President Biden on Wednesday?? I have no car, would absolutely LOOOOOVE to go! (See username :-) I'll happily kick in gas $$

(Free) ticket info is here -- please, please pm me if you're going and can grab me a ticket, too!

Poll

9 votes Show Results

Joe Biden is

9 votes Vote Now!

Joe Biden is

seriously awesome!

3 votes

waaaay too hunkalicious for a man of his years ;-)

1 vote

the best VP EVAH!

0 votes

the smackdown king (just ask Paul Ryan)

3 votes

singlehandedly restoring the use of the word "malarkey"

2 votes

Ack! MAJOR Obama weakness in debate

justsayjoe

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Wednesday October 03, 2012 · 6:33 PM PDT

2012/10/03 · 18:33

Sorry, it just struck me -- the POTUS is at a SUPREME disadvantage in this debate -- and it just gets clearer and clearer every time Romney smirks. Simply put, Obama won't lie. Moreover, he's pretty well forced into wasting time pointing out the ways in which Romney is lying -- while Romney stands there nyeah-nyeahing, "No, I didn't." (Imagine a snotty six year old girl saying this for the full effect.)

Watch. Because Romney's smirking every time he forces our POTUS to stop and correct Romney's words, or explicate the facts. He's smirking every time Obama responds to what Romney has said for months his position is, while Romney gets to stand there and say something completely different.

Damn it, it's the best possible play he could have made (given who he is) -- and for low-information voters, just starting to pay attention to this race, it may very well be effective. He's shoveling on so much shit it would take twenty times as long as he's spending talking to unearth the truth for those viewers.

It should have been totally foreseeable. We are in the world of Orwell now, in which being restricted to the truth by your own honorability is a potential weakness.

Watch the smirk. Every time. Obama swings at the place where Mittens was standing, and Flip-flop Romney has sleazed his way over to a completely different position.

How bad IS it for Romney? (hint: really, really, bad): the REAL enthusiasm gap, in numbers

justsayjoe

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Thursday September 06, 2012 · 5:46 PM PDT

2012/09/06 · 17:46

Earlier today, I wrote a diary about the fact that more that one out of every hundred Americans have contributed to Obama's re-election campaign. To me, that fact alone is staggering. Amazing. Incredible!

What's even more incredible is that it would be so easy to get that number to one in fifty, or even better. (You are phone-banking this election, right???)

But what's even better than that is the bleak, bleak picture for the Romney campaign in comparison. Follow me over the fold for fun with numbers!

justsayjoe

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Thursday September 06, 2012 · 10:42 AM PDT

2012/09/06 · 10:42

Hi all! As you (probably haven't) noticed, I write very few diaries. I'm not a policy wonk. I don't consider myself particulary well-informed about politics -- one of the many reasons I'm here. Between elections I read a lot, but usually don't even bother signing in because other than expressing appreciation of someone's humor, enthusiasm, outrage, or well-reasoned point, I don't generally have much to add to the conversation.

However, I had posted what I thought was a very self-evident (although startling) observation on Onomastic's Breaking: Obama hits donation milestone/Democratic Platform uses the term "climate change" 18 times diary. The diarist found it somewhat startling too, and had kindly suggested it should be made into a diary. Well, after that ass-kickin' speech last night by Bill Clinton, I had the perfect title, so I figured what the heck, since I had apparently managed to notice something no one else had mentioned yet.

To whit, that one out of every hundred Americans have contributed to President Obama's re-election campaign.

Enthusiasm gap? Where?

Follow me over the great orange squiggle for more.

justsayjoe

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Friday November 14, 2008 · 11:55 PM PST

2008/11/14 · 23:55

And it's not Richardson, Clinton, or Kerry. In fact, he seems such an obvious choice to me I'm sitting here going "OMG, why ISN'T this guy on the list?"

Not that my opinion means a damn thing, and not like I have even the vaguest hair of a chance of influencing the selection of our next Secretary of State, but there IS one man I believe stands so head and shoulders above even Kerry and Richardson as a logical contender for the role that I actually had to (gasp) write a diary.

And that man? George Mitchell. Follow me below the fold for why.

justsayjoe

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Tuesday November 04, 2008 · 11:31 AM PST

2008/11/04 · 11:31

Well, my son is suddenly in a whole new world. See, he grew up in Maine (and always went to the polls with me on vote day). Now, in Maine, I never once had to wait more than maybe 15 minutes to vote -- there were always at least ten booths per polling location, even in Columbia Falls, which is tiny. But this morning in Richmond, Josh got to the polls at 6:15 am to find it absolutely jammed.

RSS

Served up for your reading entertainment: Eat the Rich

Ticket info: Marion, OH this WED! VP Biden! Anyone in Mansfield going?

Ack! MAJOR Obama weakness in debate

How bad IS it for Romney? (hint: really, really, bad): the REAL enthusiasm gap, in numbers

It's the arithmetic, stupid: One out of every hundred Americans contributes to Obama

I've made my choice for SOS

Report from Richmond