This is why I really admire you for telling it like it is in all your books, and for following your own philosophy and moving to Mexico to engage in a less materialistic, more social, lifestyle…

Not sure, but apparently there’s a KenLayisAlive group that is part of OWS.

But related to Why American Failed – not only are these people able to keep/hide/augment their ill-gotten gains, but it keeps getting worse every year – Countrywide’s Mozilo bagged nearly $450 million over the fraudulent mortgage years, and in a settlement against them brought about by investors (not people, they don’t get these kinds of settlements), Bank of American paid $8.5 billion – I mean, even BofA didn’t go after Mozilo for some of it.

Morris, I know you believe we’re done and in final curtain time, but do you think the effect is actually accelerating?

Condoleezza Rice was on Fox recently promoting her new book – and I think she said something akin to, or equal to, American exceptionalism a dozen times…followed by – we need a President that understands this…

so basically, we’re talking supreme denial and any form of distraction possible to aid with that – like Kim Kardashian or the latest about Demi Moore’s divorce?

I think he’s saying that America is particularly good at existing in the Hustler capacity – in Europe – yes, things are falling apart, but it’s in large part because of the American banks that pushed their accelerated speculative practices onto European countries, not that their government were innocent, they weren’t, they’re not – but a large part of America believes the right when it says regulating is akin to socialism is akin to evil, so as a nation, we’re more quickly sealing our doom – is that more along the lines of your these, Morris?

Yeah, it’s my personal belief that Ken Lay never really died, but somehow worked out a deal for witness (criminal?) protection and is living somewhere in Turks and Caicos…..meanwhile, the rule of law has arrested over 4200 OWS protestors in the past month or so, and no CEOs or even their foot soldiers – another reason Why American Failed?

It’s so scary as you’ve discussed in Why America Failed, and elsewhere – I particularly like how it was covered in your book of essays, Question of Values – our need for an enemy. I got chills this week when I heard NBC news report on how Obama was building up a troop base in Australia to keep China in check, this after the commander-in-chief debate debacle where everyone except Ron Paul was China-bashing. Rather hypocritical too given so many Fortune 500 AMerican companies operating there, with no strings to keep more operations in the US.

Nomi

Morris,

In your chapter, The Reign of Wall Street – you contrast the sheer accumulation of money by the top Wall Street CEos and collusion with major appointed power-men like Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner with the ‘America – where we all live and to varying extents, who we all are’ as our disintegration continues daily. That money, for people like Lloyd Blankfein is an addiction, and thus satisfaction will never be attained by him – or any of his type .They are in effect sociopaths. Do you believe any of our destruction will blow up in their smug, sociopathic faces, ever?

Nomi

Morris,
In your excellent chapter, The Future of the Past – you refer to the particular American aspect of hustling – as a three-part combination of the pursuit of affluence, technology and ‘progress’ – a steamroller going off the edge of a cliff – made worse by our blind optimism that if we can just shift a few things here and there, we can keep from going over the cliff – yet, by definition once something goes over a cliff, it crashes – it doesn’t stop mid-way and re-trace, to me that’s the most visual explanation of Why America Failed. What keeps us holding so tightly to the notion we can really shift a colossally hustling mentality that stuffs the pockets of the 1% ever-faster, and screws everyone else even quicker?

Nomi

Hi Morris,

One of the things that I found most compelling about Why America Failed is that nearly every one of our major American institutions/entities, in some capacity, works against the American population as a whole, yet is somehow entitled to do so, because Americans steadfastly hold onto that dream of materialistic attainability. can you maybe go through a few of the institutional examples (the education system producing states where the majority of students don’t know who Washington is just a small dose)…?

Nomi

totally agree on all those fronts ..!

Thanks everyone!

Nomi

IN the end, in the times of Black Tuesday and today – it does bear upon the shoulder of ordinary people to band together and make their discontent and the rigged game heard – only then can we even hope to be able to make a dent in its armor.

I think the Move campaign needs to be MUCH bigger to make them care – but the bad publicity they got on things like the 5% debit fee / the youtube petitions etc / do scare them – because they fear it could lead to bigger withdraws…

HI Bev,,

Thanks so much for making the salon possible and Cynthia – you’ve been an amazing and brilliant host!

I really think you guys here at the Lake will enjoy Black Tuesday – and really, not just cause I wrote it – I took the advice of another author, Anne Rice that I saw speak in LA last year – write the book you’d want to read – and I did – and I really hope you will, too!

Sadly, there are only a few people in DC who actively understand the subsidizing, fewer that see its dangerous. most DC’ites believe it’s necessary – including Obama – who said we need a strong financial system – again – recently. OWS has the ability to draw attention to this w/the simple slogan – they got bailed out – we got sold out – though I’d change the tense to present, not past. -

One of the reasons I had Leila Kahn come to the realization that bankers suck slowly,is that she very much was a product of her day – immigrant coming for the american dream, believing the rich were somehow better – that it was attainable – kind of unaware. like cindy said in her intro – i wanted to smack Leila a lot too – but she’s given the opportunity and mortal imperative to discover what really makes the bankers tick and that sets her on a whole other, often difficult set of moral choices… i think a lot of youth face those today in different manners.

excellent question about teach=in and yes, I do think that’s a part – I’ve been asked to participate in several teach=ins already and I think that trend generally is growing – which is good – cause this isn’t the story told in school – or on the E! channel

It’s not coming again – it’s here – every day – that why bank stocks are down – that’s why Europe keeps bailing out countries – ie. their banks = i.e. our banks – under the guise of needing austerity and spending cuts -

Much of Europe is in decay, save Germany and I question their banks’ marks – but the media only does one country at a time usually story-wise….because our global financial system is so inter-related – the negative effects today are greater than they were during the Great Depression -