Casino Writ Large
I just watched part of Martin Scorsese’s Casino. There is a very famous scene in the movie where two card cheats are discovered. The casino management break one of the guys’ hand with a hammer and tell the other that he can leave with the hammer and the money or with neither. He picks neither. Ace—the casino owner—sees guys like this as the real problem he faces. But the fact of the matter is that these thieves are the little guys. This is also true of Lester Diamond, who Ace hates so much. As Jules says in Pulp Fiction, “You’re the weak.”
The main characters in Casino are horrible thieves and worse. But they are high up the food chain, so they’re okay. Steal fifty grand, get every bone in your hand broke with a hammer. Steal fifty million dollars, get a school named after you. It really comes down to Hitler’s idea (which he deals with in more depth in Mein Kampf) that people will “readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie.” And so it is in our society as a whole. Other than the occasional Bernie Madoff (funny name), big thieves make out just fine in America. So if you are going to be a thief, think big; don’t rob a bank; rob the Public Employees Pension Fund. You not only won’t be arrested, you’ll be a fucking hero!
More False Equivalence from Jon Stewart
On last night’s The Daily Show, Jon Stewart correctly pointed out the hypocrisy of Republicans claiming that Clinton was a compromiser and that Obama just won’t budge on any policy. But then he mocked Democrats who rightly point out that Reagan wasn’t so bad. Guess what, Mr. Stewart? Obama is more conservative than Clinton and Reagan is less conservative than the current Republican Party. So Democrats looking back fondly on Reagan makes sense: those were the good old days when even the most extreme Republicans were reasonable. Republicans looking back fondly on Clinton are doing it purely to score political points against Obama. It’s as simple as that.