"It's not opportunity who knocks, but you who's got to knock on opportunity's door, leave a flaming bag of shit on the stoop, and hit him with a black jack while he's trying to put out the fire." - whoever the hell planned the Benghazi attack
"Well, at least some one still believes in nothing." - Jimmy Carter, falling asleep to the nightly news
"We are the mob we are looking for." - Chicago students
"Problems do not have solutions, but consummations." - the Prophet
"I'm not opposed to violence. I'm opposed to poor targets." - Larry Summers, to his belly button
"Do you want to go through your life regretting all the skulls you didn't smash?" - Ray Kelly
"Occupy is so last year." - the Wall Street Journal
"I suppose you could call Occupy a 'fad,' yes, in the sense that the Beanie Babies craze was suppressed by state violence." - Jean Quan on the Today Show
"Among the reasons given by the press on the anniversary of Occupy for the latter's 'failure' are that it was too inclusive, that it wasn't inclusive enough, that it didn't have demands, that its demands were too broad, that it didn't have a message, that it's message was mixed, that it's message was too extreme, that it didn't have leaders, that its leadership was ineffective, that it was just a bunch of feckless middle-class kids upset that their liberal arts degrees were useless, that what began as a protest by respectable middle-class people was hijacked by poor people and freaks and anarchists, that it was not mainstream enough, that it became too popular too fast, and more. The message is: Occupy had only itself to blame, by whatever rationalizations necessary. Conspicuously absent from these discussions have been the simple facts, available to anyone with a memory, that Occupy encampments throughout the country were raided in the middle of the night and forcibly evacuated by militarized police forces; that this wave of evacuations was the result of a coordinated effort by municipal governments around the country, facilitated by federal authorities, to end Occupy once and for all; that activists were subject to beatings, harassment, surveillance, and false arrests, sometimes in their own homes; that journalists who attempted to cover protests were regularly arrested; and that since the end of the encampments, the authorities have done their best to actively suppress any form of vigorous political expression before it even starts. I suppose it's possible that the failure of the press to mention any of these facts might reflect a kind of casual Nietzscheanism on their part--like, whoever allows himself to be whipped, deserves to be whipped. Yet, though I would welcome such a perspective, I doubt it." - Lloyd Blankfein
"My child asked me where Kabul was today. I told her it was in Afghanistan and asked her why she wanted to know. She said that another bus blew up there today. It really seemed to affect her."
"Children have such active imaginations."
"They certainly do. Anyways, she asked me why buses blew up in Kabul, and I told her it was because we had created a power vacuum. A power vacuum?, she said. You mean like the Roomba?"
"Oh, isn't that adorable!"
"I told her a power vacuum is when no one's in charge. We kicked out the government of Afghanistan, but we didn't take the measures necessary to ensure that the new government could really control the whole country. That's a power vacuum. Why did we leave a power vacuum?, she asked. Why, aren't you a Curious Kate!, I said. We left a power vacuum because our liberal principles got in the way of thorough and total conquest. And then--can you believe this?--she asked me why our liberal principles had gotten in the way in Afghanistan but not at home. What do you mean?, I asked. And she told me that liberal principles had not seemed to have gotten in the way of stopping Occupy Wall Street."
"Oh my. What did you do?"
"I told her to go to her room."
- Mike Bloomberg, Christine Quinn
"Once everything seemed possible. Look at me now." - Rick Parry, #S17
i love you.
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