ENTERTAINMENT VALUE: HIGH IQ LOW IQ & FUKQ

Sometimes, unlike Banks, ideas are too small to fail and too big to succeed. Religiously, law makers have practiced anti-eugenics in keeping the big banks and global economy in a recurring coma, various unspecified ”upper body injuries” of the financial institutions and preventing other near death experiences at all costs.

The Big Bang Theory

“In the wake of Lehman’s failure, I shared this widely held sense of frustration, this sense that something had to be done, quickly,… “My concern now is that we are moving too quickly, as we still don’t fully understand the underlying causes of the financial crisis….”While there are calls for radical reform of Wall Street, including revisiting Depression-era laws that prohibited banks from owning investment dealers, the award-wining journalist sees corporate America opting to stick to the status quo. “There is a disconnect between the public distrust of Wall Street and the muted reaction of the business community,” said Mr. Sorkin. “The U.S. public remains very angry with bankers. But the banks’ corporate clients – CEOs and money managers – don’t share that sense of outrage. They still seem content with business as usual.” ( Andrew Ross Sorkin, Andrew Willis interview )

''Although set in contemporary Vienna and based on the novel by Elfriede Jelinek, this movie's disturbing yet provocative subject matter examines the kind of conflicted pathology that fueled Freud's postulations about the inner workings of the human mind.''

Its nasty. Its a new form of reality entertainment brought into the home of its citizens. Its a new version of the Civil War and is extremely mean spirited.If the supposed ”funny and comical” such as Bill Maher; a just too plain, small minded, miserly conservative in their liberalism to be of any relevance; The Bill Maher’s are completely discredited due to being the poster children of radical mischaracterizations that one would expect in Iran or other ”rogue” entities. In fact, the entire polarized debate within America is an affront to any type of emotional or intellectual intelligence. What we are seeing is a very public display of Ingemar Bergman’s ”Scenes from a Marriage” film series, adapted for a prime time American audience; the same sensitivity and vulnerability matched with bouts of irrational and brutal dysfunctionality.  Like the child in Kramer versus Kramer, the public are the real losers; the debate itself is a distraction from, and in some ways, a reaction to, deep structural changes society is undergoing. Both left and right attempt to homogenize the fragmentation underway, with various policies and reforms to save the existing structure in their manner, but in the end , both approaches risk failure in spite of their best efforts to provoke and antagonize and form of consensus.

''Scenes shows, unlike any other film in his canon, the doubts, fears and insecurities of relationships, the hurt, despair and anguish, coupled with the odd moment of joy. Sex plays its part, and yet Bergman also looks at the desire just to be held; “I wish we could spend all week in bed, just cuddling” Marianne says at one point.''

From Bill Maher: ”New Rule: The Republican leadership in America must produce their birth certificates! Not because I doubt they’re Americans, I just want to make sure they’re not eight-years-old. I mention this because a major talking point on Fox News and hate radio these days is that, after a year and a half of Obama, it’s time to bring the “adults” back into power, so they can rein in our deficit, defeat terrorism, and focus on America’s real enemy: cleaning ladies in Arizona. But I must protest the premise, because conservatives are the ones who tend to believe in magical ideas, like: America is never wrong; you can defeat terrorism militarily; and lower taxes will somehow fix the deficit. And I’m not even mentioning the stuff about how Jesus used to fly around on a pterodactyl and just hated it when homos ate wedding cake.” ( Bill Maher, Huffington Post )

”The conservative who won in England, David Cameron, was asked if he’s religious, and he said, “I don’t feel I have a direct line.” That’s right, he distanced himself from God. If Obama did that we wouldn’t see him again until neighbors called the cops about the smell. Conservatives in England don’t care about the 3 Gs — God, guns and gays — that tilt so many elections in America. And they don’t get their policy ideas from TV shows, like 24. You never hear a Brit say, “I’m for torture because it worked on The Avengers.” ( Bill Maher )

Michael Haneke. The White Ribbon. 2009

Rand Paul embodies all the contradictions and more of these two large groups who inhabit different memic worlds. Conservative; yet the Libertarian dynamic was designed to allow for a synthesis and integration of ideas as its raisin d’etre, which for the press is the volatile and combustible component that is most alarming since it is unpredictable and could either be a great leap forward or a slip on a banana peel and a broken back, though certainly not of Broke(n) back mountain nature.However, Paul does seem personally inclined to take a giant leap backwards; his campaign manager resigned after posting a picture of a black being hanged on his My Space profile, and is but one incident among hundreds of other ”tipping points” :

”Chris Hightower who, until mid-December 2009, was Rand Paul’s close friend and spokesman, was forced to resign when someone exposed Hightower’s revoltingly anti-Christian blasphemy writings and his appalling racist writings that he had posted on his MySpace site. At first Hightower denied he even had a MySpace page, but the persons who had discovered it had the indisputable evidence against Hightower. Rand Paul said he had no idea Hightowe

"I want to be in Kentucky when the end of the world comes, because it's always 20 years behind" -Mark Twain

Of particular concern is the slash and burn approach to the central institution of the Federal Reserve as well as an equal antipathy to the International  Monetary Fund. He draws inspiration from Jefferson’s 1801 inaugural address and its call for ”peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations- entangling alliances with none”.From a man who professes fear of ”creeping fascism” he appears to be a catalyst for it on a more quantum level.  Its an inverted form of populism, an asymmetrical line of thinking, that appears simple on the surface, easily ridiculed, yet can go to a profound and deep level,but not a pleasant journey into Dante’s Inferno.  Although advocating isolationism, the Paul’s view is strongly influenced by the Austrian School of economics and its latter day sages such as Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard, though the movement was began based  originallyon the teachings of Thomas Aquinas.

It is anti-socialist in nature and runs counter to the dominant British tradition and its truculent offspring; the Keynes doctrines, Fabians, and the London School of Economics. Its social ideology as well is rooted in the world of Aquinas, and the same fascinating intellectual terrain of the Munich-Vienna-Budapest triangle explored by Freud and Stanley Milgram; the urban and rural dynamic and fundamentals of social class theories developing on very fluid and mutable lines. Like the work of Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke, the American narrative is representative of his signature; a style that is bleak and disturbing dealing with the problems and failures in modern society. The result , predictably, are strands like Paul who meet the challenges ass-backwards by spitting into a gale ; opportunistically manipulating a painful but necessary  transition of employment displacement by falling back on a sentimental journey of an idyllic simplistic tribalism. An idea that culture is not confined geographically or by ethnic or racial group meets a gaze of utter disbelief. The status-quo they wish to reestablish bears echoes of the Jacobin Terror,Brownshirts, and  is more dangerous than the mainstream parties desire to keep the existing economic structure breathing; albeit at a feint heart-beat.

The Big Bang Theory

”My films are intended as polemical statements against the American ‘barrel down’ cinema and its dis-empowerment of the spectator. They are an appeal for a cinema of insistent questions instead of false (because too quick) answers, for clarifying distance in place of violating closeness, for provocation and dialogue instead of consumption and consensus.” ( Haneke )

”If we are to learn anything from the prior transformations, it is that they are messy, often violent, affairs that really are not under anyone’s control. As we have stated on a number of occasions, the recent string of crises, of which the financial crisis was one and the current nation state credit crises are the latest, are directly related to The Transformation. Here in the U.S. we have Herculean efforts of sweeping reform which are exactly ‘the status quo’ attempting to reassert itself.’ These efforts, like those of the European Royal families in the previous Transformation, will ultimately fail.” ( Michael Ferguson )

''“Damn, they must have really been studying” Hightower responds: “They must have, cause the first incident happened within me being at the mall for like 3 to 5 minutes. They must have KKK “radar”‘ Barefoot and Progressive also uncovered a YouTube video of Hightower denouncing Southern Baptists and supporting polygamy. He also ranted against “Christian lies.” No doubt, the very conservative state of Kentucky would not take kindly to such talk.''

Into this cauldron of polarized media, no subtlety of thought, or elaboration of ideas is permitted. He was immediately tried and roasted at the stake for comments on the  Lyndon Johnson de-segregation measures, and in particular, the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act. Though technically plausible, the intent was antagonistic; a volley across the bough representing a desire to shake the dust off some old skeletons and expand the parameters of what could be considered a tolerable range of opinion. This nascent threat of a wild-card movement is about the only thing both Liberals and Conservatives can agree on, and can be counted on to be truly non-partisan in taking the message of the Rand Paul’s out of context in order to marginalize the threat, with varying degrees of politeness and respect mixed with a strong dose of condescension. And thats not necessarily a bad thing.

Rand Paul Supporter Kentucky

”The Liberal media distorts the message of the conservatives more than vice versa. The Liberal media is just plain mean. It attempts to portray mainstream conservative ideology as racists, homophobic and ‘in the pocket of big business’. The first two are patently false. The last is irrelevant. The whole system is beholden to one fat wallet or another. None of those fat wallets are doling out money philanthropically. They are all involved in what we used to call ‘strategic giving.’ They ( conservative media ) attempt to portray the Liberals as big spenders who think the solution to every problem is another government program. While they exaggerate it, they are basically portraying mainstream Liberal ideology correctly.

In the final analysis, both Liberal and Conservative ideology underpins a valid way to construct a society. The only problem is that they are mutually exclusive. As I have stated often, we are headed for a ‘divorce.’ There is no other solution. And as happens in many couples that get divorced, the arguments get progressively more shrill and the accusations become progressively less fair. ( Michael Ferguson, thepolymathicablog.blogspot.com )

The Big Bang Theory. CBS

There is a t.v show called, ”The Big Bang Theory” where principals with IQ’s of 187 and 173 respectively interact with the masses, the lower common denominators of American society. The comedy derives its tension from the incongruity, within a greater incongruity of average intelligence actors portraying rare IQ’s and perhaps an elite IQ actrice portraying  the marginally bright. A play on dumb and dumber building on the burgeoning ”nerd” and pseudo-nerd identity. It highlights, the present tussle between competing visions, in that most people have no clue what is going on, and others have plenty of brains, but somehow there is a blockage at a critical junction. It may be an apt reflection of the times we live in.