David Mamet became a liberal-bashing right-winger years ago, so it's no surprise he's voting for Romney, but he also apparently believes that a second Obama term could bring to Jews in America a slow-motion genocide by means of ... high unemployment rates:
To those Jews planning to vote for Obama:Vote Obama and you won't be able to marry or have kids! Ever! Be forewarned!
Are you prepared to explain to your children not the principles upon which your vote is cast, but its probable effects upon them?
Irrespective of your endorsement of liberal sentiments, of fairness and "more equal distribution," will you explain to your children that top-down economic policies will increasingly limit their ability to find challenging and well-paid work, and that the diminution in employment and income will decrease their opportunity to marry and raise children?
Mamet goes on:
Will you explain (as you have observed) that a large part of their incomes will be used to fund programs that they may find immoral, wasteful and/or indeed absurd? And that the bulk of their taxes go to no programs at all, but merely service the debt you entailed on them?I know math is hard, but even the worst nightmare scenarios of our indebted future predict debt service to rise to 22.4% of spending. That's not "the bulk." "The bulk" would start at 50.001%. Interest on the debt as a percentage of federal outlays is actually lower than it was in the latter days of Saint Reagan, and during the term of the first Bush and the Reagan/Bush overhang into the Clinton years. Right now it's well under 10%.
... Will you tell them that, in a state-run economy, hard work may still be applauded, but that it will no longer be rewarded?Actually, it appears to be capitalism, not socialism, that's not rewarding hard work in America. Ask anyone in America whose non-unionized "new economy" job actually involves breaking a sweat. (For all his street-smart talk, I don't imagine Mamet knows any such people anymore, apart from household staff.)
Will you explain that whatever their personal beliefs, tax-funded institutions will require them to imbibe and repeat the slogans of the left, and that, should they differ, they cannot have a career in education, medicine or television unless they keep their mouths shut?Wait, wait. People like Mamet have been complaining about "political correctness" for thirty years. They complained under Reagan, under Bush, and under Bush Junior. Now Mamet is saying the brutal jackbooted fascists who demand ideological loyalty or they won't let you (gasp!) work in television (worse than Hitler!) are going to go away if we elect Romney? Did they go away under Reagan or the Bushes? If so, why were the right-wingers whining about "PC" all through the Reagan and Bush years?
And medicine? Is Mamet seriously suggesting that there are no Republican doctors anywhere in America? Has he ever actually been to a non-blue state?
... Most importantly, will you teach them never to question the pronouncements of those in power, for to do so is to risk ostracism?Is that a general statement? And if so, won't Romney be in power? Or does power only corrupt absolutely if you're a Democrat?
...Please remember that we have the secret ballot and, should you, on reflection, vote in secret for a candidate you would not endorse in public, you will not be alone.But in Obama's America, voting machine scans you!
This is talk-radio know-nothingism with somewhat more interesting syntax. It makes me wish that Mamet would undergo a collapse of writing career -- a career he somehow manages to sustain despite the fascist fatwa against him and his fellow wingers in entertainment -- because he's missing his true AM radio calling.
(Via Mondoweiss.)
David Mamet's ouevre includes some wonderful satirical swipes at Hollywood stars who mouth political platitudes they clearly don't understand.
ReplyDeleteToo bad he's become one of them.
Me: It's all 'bout you.
ReplyDeleteDavid Mamet (DM): No!
Me: Yeah!
DM: NO!
Me: Yeah, it's your fuckin' taxes!
DM: Fuck no.
Me: Then what is it?
DM: Fuckin' freedom and liberty!
Me: Bullshit!
DM: Not bullshit. Truth!
Me: Truth? Ha! Truth is, you don't want your fuckin' taxes raised. Obama's done nothin' to your freedom and liberty. You can still talk, write, and shoot.
DM: Not true.
Me: Yeah, what's he taken?...
Got nothin' to say, huh? Truth is, you ain't written a fucking word worth fuckin' performing in almost 20 fuckin' years.
DM: Have fuckin' so!
Me: Not since Baldwin's monologue in the Glengary movie. You got nothin' to say anymore, so you spout political bullshit!
DM: Bullshit!
Me: Then how come what comes from you could come from Rush? You ghostin' for his show?
DM: NO!
'K, he's a fuckin' idiot, and never had an original idea. So I've been writin' his monologues for him for year. That fuckin' idiot makes a mint, and a guy needs a paycheck!
Me: Thought so. Now shut the fuck up on politics. Write another fuckin' stupid and useless play about how women and political correctness are ruining everyone's lives, and stop with helping Rush. Or maybe another 'heist' play. This shit's fucking embarrassing. 'K?
DM: 'K...
Of course, the debt is what it is only because the rich have refused to pay taxes for decades, preferring to force government to borrow and ensure that, when the bills are paid, they are paid by taxes taken out of the hides of people other than themselves.
ReplyDeleteAs for the purposes for which money is spent, under a regime of high taxes the government, itself subject to democratic control, decides how to spend the money.
Under a regime of low taxes the rich, under no control at all, decide how to spend that same money, always deciding (surprise!) to spend it mostly on extravagant luxuries for themselves or on smart or silly ways to further enrich themselves.
Do I think the government will spend what it takes from me in taxes in wiser, better ways than I would have?
Well, given all the wars the plutocracy wants us to endlessly fight and the piles of loot we are passing to the churches to buy the votes of Christians for the Republicans, it's a toss-up.
But do I think the government will spend what it takes from the rich in taxes better than they would?
Talk about a stupid question.
Nice one, Victor.
ReplyDeleteYeah but... why Jews? What, we're not special enough for its advice?
ReplyDeleteThanks!
ReplyDeleteI've acted in 3 of his plays in Upstate NY - the plays were from when he was still a great playwright, not a shitty brain-washed progandizing polemicist.
"Will you explain that whatever their personal beliefs, tax-funded institutions will require them to imbibe and repeat the slogans of the left, and that, should they differ, they cannot have a career in education, medicine or television unless they keep their mouths shut?"
ReplyDeleteHeh. Mamet's kid owes her career in television to a vocal Obama supporter.
Good point, Roger.
ReplyDeleteI thought "November" was kinda funny. But that probably had more to do with Nathan lane than David Mamet.
ReplyDeleteI invite Mr. Mamet to Texas, to engage in a safari seeking a doctor who is a Democrat. I advise him, should he accept that invitation, to arrange for at least 5 years' worth of provisions.
ReplyDeleteQuel provincial, Mamet.