Alternative Universe Mark Levin is equally unhappy!

[elfs]

Last night, I had a brief window driving Kouryou-chan between dance class and home, and I turned on the ever-hyperbolic Mark Levin. I've been trying to listen to less talk radio-- and mostly succeeding-- but in this brief window I got all the noise I needed.

Levin ranted that the Obama administration had all the legal authority it needed to handle the Gulf Coast oil disaster, but hadn't done enough in the first ten days. He read aloud from the Oil Pollution Act of 1989 to emphasize his point. He worked hard to blame the Obama administration for any damage done to the reputations of Bobby Jindal, Haley Barbour, and Charlie Crist (the governors of Gulf Coast states Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida respectively, and all Republicans).

And I could hear the Alternative Universe Mark Levin in my head. In the Alternative Universe, the Obama administration had taken all of the steps Levin claimed were within its powers and necessity, but the blowout had turned out to be much smaller and essentially innocuous. BP had spent a lot of money coming up to European drilling standards. And the Alternative Universe Mark Levin ranted: "Those Commie BASTARDS in the WHITE House are trying to UNDERMINE and DESTROY corporate success by TAXING BP out of EXISTENCE. Contigency planning, pfaugh. They KNEW this wasn't a big deal but they HAD to RUIN a great company that's producing AMERICAN oil rather than buying it from COMMIES and ISLAMOFACISTS!" Suddenly his voice gets low and earnest: "Mark my words, America, this administration will stop at nothing to turn this country into a European socialist HELLHOLE!"

There's no pleasing either version of Mark Levin.

Comments

[maellenkleth]

Probably true, at that. No pleasing them at all.

Food for thought: there must be enough people tuned in to listen to him, that his programming supports lucrative advertising rates. People get what they pay for, in the end -- no more than that.

I have no idea what it would take to fix America by this point in time. General economic collapse, forcing people to hunker down and abandon the Consumer Dream? Whatever it would be, I hope it gets figured out soon, though I'm not holding my breath.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

But, see, a pleased, placid Mark Levin would be BORING. No RATINGS. no BUCKS.

You can make some bucks by simply being pleasant, but to make the MOST bucks you have to have a mandate to do things that aren't polite. That means you have to have a war... and that means you have to be upset with somebody.

And, see, publicly owned corporations are BOUND BY LAW to make as much money as possible. Which means war on everything else. (This of course also means they meet the definition of "sociopath"...)

And of course, war on "everything else" includes us, the consumer.

Personally? I'm for return fire.

So done with chicken-hawks, I am.

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe that reaches to the heart of it. I find the warlike posturing and bombastic talk to be singularly unpleasant. If I chance to find my radio locking on to one of those shock-jock call-in shows, I bail pretty darned quickly.

'Warlike' language in general is a switch-off to me, given that I've seen modern warfare at the sharp end, have the scars to show for it, and get the nightmares for free. In my nastiest moments, I'd like to see how Messrs. Levin & Company actually would handle being on the battlefield with unpleasant things going on.

No, scratch that. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. I suspect that most other vets would agree with me on that point. :(

Re: So done with chicken-hawks, I am.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Now, granted, never having been on the pointy end, I don't have the benefit of your experience. But. Chicken-hawks generally try to tell other people how they can and cannot live. Such conduct is, frankly, an assault on my freedom, and it is very difficult - though thankfully not impossible - for me to resist treating such assaults as I would any other violent attack.

And, as you've noted obliquely, they try to tell the generals what to do with you fine folks on the pointy end of the stick.

I think perhaps that these people should *grok* what they're asking for. Just once. These people have blood on their hands, figuratively... and I think that letting them see the waste they're causing up close and personal is a far, far better punishment for their sins than anything we could do this side of the ocean.

If anything, there's a fair chance that they might raise their voices in your defense... or at least STFU about sending more of your bretheren over there. Far better to give one chicken-hawk nightmares and save a few thousand lives. It's a fair trade, I think. It's not *pretty*... but neither is anything you've seen.

[maellenkleth]

Apologies for the above -- have no idea how/why LJ decided to make me anonymous. I am certainly capable of owning my words.

On my own name,

Elane

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Mmmm. Might've come at it a *little* different if I had known that was you, but still... I too stand by my words above. Let'em see what they've done.

[(Anonymous)]

Really, no worries, kerasi. My moderate crankiness comes from having spent a goodly part of yesterday afternoon in the Royal Canadian Legion, reflecting upon absent friends who didn't come home under their own steam. A classmate, last week, blown to bits by the same sort of attack that almost got me on my last tour over there. If we hadn't had both truck windows rolled down, well, I wouldn't be writing these words.

Yes, the chicken-hawks do get a piece of my sharp tongue from time to time. It's trivially easy to trash-talk people who actually **are** making efforts, however manifestly flawed to fix what's gone wrong with the System.

All of which is **very** peripheral to what Mr Sternberg is trying to say; I'll leave off threadjacking at this point, in favour of more appropriate venues. //^_^\\

[blaisepascal]

Y'know, I've heard it repeated several times that publicly owned corporations are bound by law to make as much money as possible. But I've never seen the law in question cited.

[kengr]

I think it's a court decision, actually. Seems that some stockholders sued because the board of a company opted for sustainable long term profits over higher profits that'd end in a few years.

The courts sided with the greedy stockholders. :-(

So in essence, any company with stockholders must go for higher profits *now* or get sued and have to go for them anyway. :-(