Is anyone interested in Mamet saying he's now not a brain dead liberal? If so where on ilx are you talking about it?

who did what now?

I'm having trouble getting through this. He doesn't seem like the world's most sophisiticated political thinker. People who start out as "braindead _______" and then undergo "change" usually just fill in the blank with something else.

DAVID MAMET, 61, DISCOVERS WORLD IS IMPERFECT

Whoa, wait a minute! Stop the presses!

Rich White Baby Boomer Becomes Protective of Fortune; Abandons 60s Ideology! Tells less fortunate: "You'll be fine, poor ppl! The government isn't effective anyway. Things have a way of working out! Plus: NPR sux lol".

I don't understand why his discovering the world is imperfect would make him a conservative though. I've never met a liberal who thought people were perfect. I have to admit I didn't read the whole thing, it was kinda rambling.

Same here. His uh.. politics seem really one dimensional.

I enjoyed The Spanish Prisoner when it came out.

This article is more irritating than the Mamet one.

It starts off with the false premise that Liberals are in a stew bout this, then goes onto suggest that he was a poster boy for liberals which I can't believe was ever true, and goes downhill from there.

Sorry, that should be 'liberals'.

In fact, there is one line that will make many of his former political allies jump clean out of their sandals. JFK, he daringly suggests, was just as worthy of our disdain many decades ago as George Bush is today.

Sandals!

"I am hard-pressed to see an instance where the intervention of the government led to much beyond sorrow."

Maybe not perfection, but not even 'much beyond sorrow'?

lol jfk in 'doing some shit his myth glosses over' shocker

I wasn't going to bother with this but I'll just note that my social democratic beliefs are rooted in cynicism and pragmatism. Free-market economics actually strike me as far more utopian and idealistic.

xpost (I probably do agree with him that Democratic presidents have done terrible things too. This doesn't lead me to a pro-Republican conclusion, however.)

yeah, exactly Sundar. Which is part of why I found his piece so confusing.

I guess part of what he's saying is just "Mellow out everyone, we're all just people at the end of the day." Which is fine, but it has nothing to do with being conservative or liberal.

(I'm a bit amazed that a belief in a compromise system involving high taxes and a strong regulatory government can be framed as more idealistic and naive than the idea that left to itself, the invisible hand of a privatized economy will allow 'us, as human being, to just work things out.')

*beings

Wait, when was Mamet not a conservative, again? I've thought of him as a sort of cranky-jerk conservative/libertarian for years now. If he thought that was liberal and has recently shifted rightward, I'll have to remember not to watch Charlie Rose next time he's on.

"I am hard-pressed to see an instance where the intervention of the government led to much beyond sorrow."

G.I. Bill to thread. Student loan program to thread. Public lending libraries to thread. National Park system to thread. FDA to thread.

And Mamet is claiming he isn't brain dead?! Sheesh.

Ronin is still a totally sweet movie tho

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/img012.jpg
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-mamet

I'm with nabisco -- he always seemed like that kind of crank.

Ronin is still a totally sweet movie tho

-- max, Friday, March 14, 2008 12:34 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

^^^

i totally rep for 'spartan' too.

any essay that includes the phrase "but I digress" = worthless forever

someone should tell him we were already in Vietnam when Kennedy was elected

I vote House of Games.

All his plays are about flawed individuals. If he was writing about them why didn't he realise the world contained them?

Most of the things he talks about would tend to push me more leftwards if I wasn't already.

i <3 david mamet the artist - as an essayist hes really not worth the trouble.

tedious cynical views often benefit from population w/character and plot.

see also: THE UNIT
<3

any essay that includes the phrase "but I digress" = worthless forever

-- J0hn D., Thursday, March 13, 2008 9:04 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

BAHAHAHAHAHA I had EXACTLY the same thought when I got to that line. The fact that it was the end of the page almost made me not want to continue.

which kinda always throws me for a loop b/c i like it so much
but really i guess also what sundar said my social democratic beliefs are rooted in cynicism and pragmatism. Free-market economics actually strike me as far more utopian and idealistic.

what i like about mamet is not necessarily him or his views but how his work makes me think/question/stay critical. i mean, isn't this the best kind of artist? fuck likeable and hey fuck personal politics b/c hell, and i certainly like to like people, it isn't what determines if one is a good, solid, thought-provoking artist

xpost

yeah he is not the greatest essayist/journalist that is for sure true

I'm not knocking him as an artist at all

see also HEIST

A lot of American political thought seems to revolve around the idea that you are either a conservative or a liberal and NOTHING ELSE. Very odd. If you're a libertarian or a socialist or anything else outside of that binary you are considered a total crank.

Its good that boomers are now reaching the age of wisdom and will be around for another 20 years or so to tell us what's what about politics.

he's going one way just as the conservatives are going in the opposite direction and suddenly love government..."please come bail us out"
'

Forget that actually...privatize profits socialize losses, no different from any other time

I began reading not only the economics of Thomas Sowell (our greatest contemporary philosopher)

When writers use superlatives like this I assume they are drunk.

When they mention Thomas Sowell approvingly I assume they are not merely drunk, but high.

I wonder if he believes he's being brave here? Like "George Clooney might not return my phone calls anymore" brave.

ad from vv:

http://oascentral.villagevoice.com/RealMedia/ads/click_lx.ads/www.villagevoice.com/news/features/L25/1722953262/Middle/TheVoice/vv_Potpartner.com_2008_300/300_250-villagevoice.gif/444e63672b456647346d6b4141483136?x

damn. that didn't work.

"A lot of American political thought seems to revolve around the idea that you are either a conservative or a liberal and NOTHING ELSE. Very odd. If you're a libertarian or a socialist or anything else outside of that binary you are considered a total crank."

funny how he mentions mailer at the beginning of his piece who ran for mayor of nyc as a 'left-conservative'!

Why can't he just say "I agree with a bit of this, a bit of that, this makes sense, this doesn't..." Rather than "USA #1 now, cuz hippies pissed me off."

I began reading not only the economics of Thomas Sowell (our greatest contemporary philosopher)

When writers use superlatives like this I assume they are drunk.

And he said the same thing about Paul Johnson which is totally wtf.

I wasn't going to bother with this but I'll just note that my social democratic beliefs are rooted in cynicism and pragmatism. Free-market economics actually strike me as far more utopian and idealistic.

otm.

can someone track down the origin of the idea that liberals think "people are good at heart", and when you find it, please kill it? it will probably be having a beer with "liberals love government."

i don't know why it's so hard to understand that basically liberals distrust power and see the balance of powers -- between government and business, individuals and the state, local governments and federal governments, judiciary and legislature, etc etc -- as the best option for keeping anyone from having too much of it.

and yeah, milt friedmanesque magic-marketplace thinking is way more utopian and detached from real-world experience than the idea that, say, left to their own devices chemical companies will dump waste in the river.

Are there any lefties under the age of 45 who idolize JFK? If he hadn't been assassinated wouldn't Mamet's generation have been chanting "Hey Hey JFK how many kids did you kill today" in 1967?

Interesting question. Not answerable. LBJ absolutely knew that Vietnam was a stupid, pointless, bloody, and expensive exercise in futility by 1966, but according to reports of what he said at the time, he chose to keep escalating instead of withdrawing because he refused be red-baited by John Birch types in the Congress for 'losing Vietnam'.

Given what he'd seen in the 1950s, this was a pretty deeply ingrained political fear, one he couldn't override by listening to his own reasonable doubts.

Whether JFK would have committed the same sort of ritual sacrifice of young men for crass political CYA purposes is an open question. Chances are good he was less deeply scarred by McCarthyism and would have pulled the plug much sooner. JFK's was counter-scarred by the Bay of Pigs, so I think this is a reasonable surmise.

thomas sowlol

Dave is just a big Likudite

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102048/

When they mention Thomas Sowell approvingly I assume they are not merely drunk, but high.

-- Ned Raggett, Saturday, 15 March 2008 15:57 (5 hours ago) Bookmark Link

Having just spent the last half hour reading Thomas Sowell I have to agree wholeheartedly with Ned. This is the best Mamet can come up with?

he sounds pretty illiterate about left/liberal thinking in general. he goes from being crabby at NPR and the (let's assume) rather dippy and emotional version of liberalism of the theater and hollywood, to reading some well educated right wingers, and suddenly he thinks 'wow these people are so much smarter.' like no duh dude. apples to oranges.

i love how he puts together "bush is an unscrupulous leader" with "kennedy was also an unscrupulous leader" and somehow arrives at "things appear to me to be unfolding pretty well."

of course, conflating "democrats now" with "democrats then" is problematic because for a good part of the century (and obv before) democrats were arguably worse than republicans on a LOT of stuff.

I was trying to find the speech Mamet wrote for Michael Dukakis in 1988. It's collected in Some Freaks but it isn't online.

Strange that he thinks of liberals as more dehumanizing and unempathetic than conservatives, but then again that's what happens in Oleanna.

Artists knowing shit about politics and history shockah.

It is nearly midnight and I can hardly keep my eyes open here. But I had to log here just to say -- that is one of the worst things I have ever read. My goodness. It is one of the most astoundingly dumb, shallow, feeble, sophomoric, embarrassing, abysmal things I have ever read.

And I know he's making a point more than speaking practically, but anyone who has seen Mamet's plays directed by Mamet versus the productions directed by Gregory Mosher knows that his adage about the director adding nothing of quality doesn't hold up.

what pinefox said. apart from the objectionable content, the form -- the prose -- was horrible. bor-ing.

I'm also tired of hearing about how liberals "think corporations are evil." I don't think they're evil, I think they have too much power.

Having just spent the last half hour reading Thomas Sowell I have to agree wholeheartedly with Ned. This is the best Mamet can come up with?

You've obviously never read his 1980s ideological trilogy (Knowledge and Decisions, A Conflict of Visions, and the Vision of the Anointed). Why the Sowell hatred? He engages in less talking-head cliché-dropping than 95% of the pundits out there and is at least respected, if not liked, across the political aisle.

some sweet thomas sowell quotes:

"People who claim that sentencing a murderer to "life without the possibility of parole" protects society just as well as the death penalty ignore three things: (1) life without the possibility of parole does not mean life without the possibility of escape or (2) life without the possibility of killing while in prison or (3) life without the possibility of a liberal governor being elected and issuing a pardon."

"Liberalism is totalitarianism with a human face."

"The big divide in this country is not between Democrats and Republicans, or women and men, but between talkers and doers."

“One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain”

"When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can’t help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup."

"One undeniable accomplishment of Bill Clinton's presidency was that it kept Jimmy Carter from being the worst U.S. president in history."

"When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can’t help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup."

Yeah, that was the quote I remember from him last year causing me to think "You'd be one of the first ones up against the wall, dude."

Freddie Mercury: "I'm actually gay. I know! I'm surprised myself!"

"People who think that they are being 'exploited' should ask themselves whether they would be missed if they left, or whether people would say: 'Good riddance'?"

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THOMAS SOWELL, OUR GREATEST CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHER

One undeniable accomplishment of W's presidency was that it's kept Bill Clinton from being the worst U.S. president of the last 30 years, you wife-dumping sixtyish fuck.

Did Mamet really think "National Palestinian Radio" was a funny thing to say??!

It's astundishing.

Outside of the military coup quote, which I don't think was as much a call to arms as a comment on current historical inevitabilities, I don't see how any of those quotes are that shocking or out-of-place for a right-leaning pundit. "He thinks Marxist exploitation is a joke!? Did Mr. Buckley know of this???"

And sneering dismissals from glancing at a mass syndicated column when the man is in his mid-70s, as opposed to reading any of his earlier landmark books, seems to me a bit cheap.

calling "liberalism" (whatever he means by that) "totalitarianism with a human face" seems a bit cheap to me

So what should we take as being more representative? The stuff he comes out with for syndicated columns or his earlier landmark books? I don't get the distinction at all. Who is going to read a 450 page economics book just so they can get some perspective on a one page article?

“One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain”

i actually kinda agree with this -- only it's been folks in places that fund the likes of sowell (e.g., investment bankers, real estate "tycoons") that have done the demonizing, been subsidized, and have gotten canonized (until the financial system started to melt down).

does anybody actually care about mamet any more?

Probably not. In fact this bit of bs has got him more publicity than he's had for a long time.

I had no idea who he was until this thread. Thanks a lot, guys.

So what should we take as being more representative? The stuff he comes out with for syndicated columns or his earlier landmark books? I don't get the distinction at all. Who is going to read a 450 page economics book just so they can get some perspective on a one page article?

Well, it's because he's written amazing books that he's gotten to the point in his career where he can, at nearly eighty-years old, phone-in weekly columns and have nobody really criticize him for it.

I'm saying that the columns are usually watered down versions of points he's articulated very well in his previous books, and to take such a casually condescending tone just by casually glancing at a few articles and seeing some outlandish remarks is a foolish mistake.

It's not his fault for writing them, it's our fault for reading them!

It really isn't fair to criticise some douche just for a catalogue of douchey comments in a douchey newspaper column.

Who are we talking about again?

I think that unlike Mamet, whose current political views do not really affect his status as a playwright, Thomas Sowell can not reasonably be called our greatest living philosopher if his think pieces are mostly
slabs of red meat for dittoheads. That said, there are likely quite a few liberal philosophers who have written equally thought-free anti-Bush articles.

STOP CRITICIZING THOMAS SOWELL FOR HIS PHONED-IN WATERED-DOWN COLUMNS, HES OUR GREATEST CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHER

It's not his fault for writing them, it's our fault for reading them!

It really isn't fair to criticise some douche just for a catalogue of douchey comments in a douchey newspaper column.

STOP CRITICIZING THOMAS SOWELL FOR HIS PHONED-IN WATERED-DOWN COLUMNS, HES OUR GREATEST CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHER

You're free to snicker and condescendingly dismiss all you want! It's in short supply in our political discourse. Keep up the good work! You never know when the Daily Show staff is watching!

Thomas Sowell can not reasonably be called our greatest living philosopher if his think pieces are mostly
slabs of red meat for dittoheads. That said, there are likely quite a few liberal philosophers who have written equally thought-free anti-Bush articles.

He one of the most prolific pundits around, so there's always a greater chance of something mindless or half-argued appearing. The reason Sowell has been called a great philosopher is for a book like Knowledge and Decisions, which is fantastic, not necessarily for columns in which it is to take out an excerpt and try to stir left-wing hysteria because he's right-wing. Though taken in full his columns can still be great occasionally, if a bit inconsistent. Again, if you've read the more celebrated books I can't imagine a level-headed person dismissing Sowell as being anything less than brilliant. But enough about that; is it not true he supported Bush for President???

Descartes had his Meditations, Sowell has his "Random Thoughts"

i luv u max

cunga's right we should save the snickering and condescending dismissals for katrina victims & guantanamo prisoners like he does

You'll even notice in this thread that the places in America with a thriving homosexual hip-hop scene are coincidentally places of affluence. San Fran prides itself on being the "Gayest city in America" and coincidentally had (still has?) the highest income per capita in the entire country. I distinctly remember New York City being the ten richest city according to the last census. Just how many poor and undereducated homosexuals have you met in your life?

-- Cunga (Cunga), Wednesday, May 24, 2006 6:53 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

HAHAHA I didn't notice the irony until now. He's wearing a polo t-shirt with the U.N. logo on it while criticizing an American president for not caring about black people because he didn't come to intervene during a tragedy. Ironically it was the U.N. that wouldn't intervene in Rwanda ten years ago and stop blacks from being exterminated by their own black government. It's like condemning Hitler for racism while wearing a t-shirt with Stalin's face on it.

-- Cunga (Cunga), Friday, September 2, 2005 11:51 PM

in case anyone is interested, here are some photographs by our greatest contemporary philosopher thomas sowell:

http://www.tsowell.com/photos.html

id like to see kant take photos that good!!!

you really cant judge his writing until you've seen those photos

btw sowell is a putz

"Blacks were not enslaved because they were black but because they were available. Slavery has existed in the world for thousands of years. Whites enslaved other whites in Europe for centuries before the first black was brought to the Western hemisphere. Asians enslaved Europeans. Asians enslaved other Asians. Africans enslaved other Africans, and indeed even today in North Africa, blacks continue to enslave blacks."

american slavery wasnt racist

now thats philosophizin'

it's funny, i took a course on the slave trade from a ghanian professor and he was pretty clear about how classical and islamic slavery worked, but by the end of it, he wasn't all about american blacks needing to stfu. i wonder what was wrong with him, looking back on it.

maybe he should read more of our greatest contemporary philosopher

i always wondered how many right wing douchebags and libertarian squirrel police types would be on ILE if it wasnt for ILM being right next to it, since most of them seem to find it because theyre really into like pulp or butthole surfers or the smiths or something

or duran duran, in the case of dee the lurker

dee the lurker, our second-greatest contemporary philosopher

if you've only read her random thoughts and ilx posts you really cant talk about her writing... check for her 450-page slash fiction novel where duran duran meet harry potter

"theyre really into like pulp or butthole surfers or the smiths or something"

alright youve crossed a line man 2/3 of those are awesome

just don't admit which one isn't.

"theyre really into like pulp or butthole surfers or the smiths or something"

alright youve crossed a line man 2/3 of those are awesome

-- deeznuts, Sunday, 16 March 2008 21:04 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Yeah, it's hard to see where anyone would find right-wing political views in The Smiths or Pulp's lyrics.

"William, Slavery Was Really Nothing"

no

the smiths, no, but im not sure where pulps right-wing viewpoints wouldnt come out of pretty drastic misreadings.

and yeah those are the two groups i was talking about; id love to see anyone try to play the smiths unequivocally in a red county in middle america

the smiths, no, but im not sure where pulps right-wing viewpoints wouldnt come out of pretty drastic misreadings.

and yeah those are the two groups i was talking about; id love to see anyone try to play the smiths unequivocally in a red county in middle america

-- deeznuts, Sunday, 16 March 2008 21:21 (41 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

"Misshapes", which, remember, Cocker now disowns entirely.

Isn't "Misshapes" practically a call to class war? Am I missing either a joke or a lyrical message?

I guess I'm also not sure where right-wing views would appear in Smiths (as opposed to solo Morrissey) lyrics.

(Hating disco doesn't count.)

i always wondered how many right wing douchebags and libertarian squirrel police types would be on ILE if it wasnt for ILM being right next to it, since most of them seem to find it because theyre really into like pulp or butthole surfers or the smiths or something

haha what would you do on ile if it weren't for douchebags?

Trying to shoehorn pop music into party political boxes, lol.

Reminds me of people claiming Acid House was Thatcherite 'cuz kids were making money putting on club nights.

besides come up with a zing to what I just said, that is? - xp

No douchebags = no zingfuel

best thread ever

srsly

no lie

TS: sowell vs d'sousa vs the entire cast of lewrockwell.com

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/ZachRScott/tom.gif

How dare you disrespectful that deep and meaningful philosopher.

Should just be 'disrespect' but maybe it sounds better that way.

Please explain how to play music "unequivocally" xp

ty hero Z S

hey dick its called being called gay xp

Isn't "Misshapes" practically a call to class war? Am I missing either a joke or a lyrical message?

-- Sundar, Sunday, 16 March 2008 22:08

OMG, Jarvis is wearing a BLACK SHIRT in the video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWiilrBq9vw

yeah sundar i dont get dom re misshapes either - i think he may be being sarcastic! and you bring up a good point re smiths vs moz solo lyrics.

(uh not being sarcastic)

Think it's something to do with middle class studenty types with a persecution complex moaning about working class "chavs" picking on them.

BTW, watching the video now, I'm having trouble making out who the misshapes and normal people are supposed to be. The guy in the skinny tie and leather jacket is a yuppie or something? Oh, 1995.

Just how many poor and undereducated homosexuals have you met in your life?

-- Cunga (Cunga), Wednesday, May 24, 2006 6:53 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

Haha, scores of them. I went to an arts high school in a poor city.

As have I !(Massachusetts FTW) The Kanye West threads were more playful than the comments suggest.

And boo to all of you who will never read A Conflict of Visions!

I've read a slew of Paul Johnson's books, I think I've suffered enough.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=DDwxhHwJ66M

i never understand what cunga is talking about

thats because youre not our greatest contemporary philosopher

& all the homosexuals i know are rich and wealthy

wait, whiskey fucked up my comeback

lol @ this thread!!!

we don't have a spartan thread so up this one comes, i'm afraid

hands up if you've listened to kilmer's commentary?! i'm not even 10 words in and it is already g.o.a.t.

[warner bros intro]

"i love warner brothers. they have a fine history of [intake of breath] radical films"

kilmer's commentary on kiss kiss bang bang is hilarious, is that what g.o.a.t. means?

Greatest Of All Time

he just quoted walter sobchak btw

I've had that film for a few years, and have never watched the commentary. I luv it tho.

So. This new play. :/